Community Tools – Page 4 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Second Life: MayaStar News – Week 15

2015/04/06 by Nalates Urriah

A week or two back I covered MayaStar®, the addon for Maya® users developing Second Life™ content. I suppose many are aware of the similar product AvaStar for Blender. These are different products made by different people. They are not competitors as they serve different audiences.

Even if you are a Blender/AvaStar user there is still a bit of information here that may help you in your design work. I’ve sot of added the work flow Cathy is building into MayaStar into my AvaStar work flow.

The video is 30 minutes long.

Second Life: Update on Metanomics Translator

2015/03/242015/03/16 by Nalates Urriah

Word gets around. Ravelli Ormstein learned of the article Second Life Free Language Translator I wrote and responded. You can see the comment here, scroll down. He gave me a link to a buried comment made by the author of the translator. That comment is enlightening. Read it below the fold.

"Pain" — “Pain” by Logan McMahn, on Flickr

Second Life Profile Cards/Badges

2015/03/03 by Nalates Urriah

Also know as: Second Life Community Badges

Four years ago to the day, 3/3/2011, I posted about how to make a Second Life Forum Community Badge. The badges are, of course, shown in the Second Life Forum. See the example image.

The alternative is to show just the avatar profile picture.

At the time there was a problem and four years later it is still here. We probably need to file a new JIRA. Whatever, the problem only appears of you select one of the default ‘profile cards’ to use. There is no way to unselect using a card after that. You are doomed for life.

Second Life Wiki Lockdown 2014-52

2015/01/092014/12/21 by Nalates Urriah

I have a bit of time to write today. RL is still busy with work and holiday related stuff. I can confirm that Adobe’s latest release of Dreamweaver is way buggy when one tries to use their new fluid ‘LIVE’ design features. It appears Adobe is moving away from Dreamweaver and toward their new Adobe Edge.

SL Wiki

I’m not sure how many of my readers use the SL Wiki. I suspect even fewer add to its content. Those of us that do contribute to the wiki content have been blocked for some time. The SL Wiki is no longer user editable. Few Lindens can edit it.

Months ago some socially dysfunctional people started vandalizing the wiki. The Lindens locked it down to stop the vandalism.

Second Life: DMCA Abuse – Fight Back

2014/11/212014/11/19 by Nalates Urriah

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA is pretty well known and abused in Second Life™. In RL it is also commonly known and abused. The law should be over turned and I expect it would be if it ever made it to the Supreme Court. The law makes people prove their innocence, which is upside down in America and most free market economies. The the reason the law continues to stand is the it favors politicians, big business, and the wealthy. Individuals and small business can’t afford to fight at the Supreme Court level.

The WordPress organization is fighting the censorship that can be imposed by abuse of DMCA. They wrote about it here: Striking Back Against Censorship. Others are in the fight too. One of those is a company named Automattic. They gained fame when fighting Janet Jackson’s take down demand. (Reference)

Education in Second Life

2014/07/09 by Nalates Urriah

Virtual reality/worlds have extensive possibilities for education and training, we all know that, I think we do… But, I suspect most are like me and think little on the problems educators have using virtual worlds as their classroom.

SLeducate - University of Western Australia (UWA) — SLeducate – University of Western Australia (UWA)

If I think about it even a little I realize the first problem is just getting a student into the world and to the right location. The University of Western Australia (UWA) has an article up about those challenges. See: Eliminating a headache faced by all SL virtual educators!

Experience has taught us over the years that existing Learning Islands in Second Life™ don’t really get people new to Second Life to a level of usability needed to take a class. Often people are still figuring out how to use the viewer rather than focusing on the lesson.