Second Life: How Fashion Reviews Can Reduce Lag

In Second Life we have way more standard size rigged mesh than fitted mesh. Every so often I find a standard size mesh something that fits me close enough I can tweak my shape and get a near perfect fit. The Iffyta  AliKat’s Groovy Bikini, shown here, is one of those things.

One of the things missing from promotional material is the Draw-Render Weight of items. Including it would help people reduce lag. Like demos help us decide if we want to purchase. Anything over L$99 without a demo is a no purchase item, as far as I am concerned.

Iffyta Swimsuit Draw Weight
Iffyta Swimsuit Draw Weight

My avatar as shown has a Draw Weight in the SL Viewer of 85,478 (red) with the suit and 82,616 without. That means the suit adds 2,862. I think that is pretty good. You can also see the polygon count in the top is pretty good. In the bottoms it looks a bit high to me. But, for less than 3,000 points I won’t complain. My prim-flexi hair has a Draw Weight of 47,000±. 

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Pete and Xiola Linden Interview

Canary Beck has an article: Pete Linden Shares Linden Lab’s Sophisticated Approach To Marketing Second Life At SL12B. It is based on a video of Pete and Xiola at SL12B’s Meet the Lindens. She is making the point that the communities idea of the Lab not marketing Second Life is simply wrong. But, she makes no comment on how well, or not, they are marketing SL.

Cozey Contemporary in monotone
Cozey Contemporary in monotone by Wendz Tempest, on Flickr

I suggest reading Canary’s article. I think it gives a good idea of what the Lab says it is doing. But, like many things what we think we are accomplishing and what we are accomplishing are often different. Looking in the search engines on ‘fashion’… it just ain’t happening. 

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Indie Teepee – How Designers Do It

Indie Teepee is new to me. I find it is an annual music, arts and shopping festival, held from the 10th to the 24th of July. The event will feature music, live performances, a drive-in machinima screening, original mesh designers and art installations. Sounds interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okog1BQ65KM

But, in, I guess, a spin off there is a podcaster covering Second Life™ in a series named Indie Teepee. Oddly enough I ran into all this on Facebook while following up on the SLUniverse article asking designers to stop using Firestorm, which I still think is an odd way to go about fixing a lag issue in SL.

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Second Life: Firestorm a Designer’s Problem?

We still have a debate ongoing in Second Life™ over on SLUniverse in the discussion started by Adeon Writer, Dear Mesh Content Creators: Please stop making your content on Firestorm, continues. I provided my thoughts in Second Life LoD Problems – Is Firestorm to Blame. In that article you’ll see I think designer and consumer ignorance are to blame. I also see plenty of fascist rule makers out proposing their solutions.

I prefer freedom and free market solutions over rules.

SlackGirl - Sue
SlackGirl – Sue by Rehana Seljan, on Flickr

One of the solutions proposed in:

BUG-6243Provide an informative warning when creating sculpts or mesh that may render improperly for others.

That places everything on the designer and provides no incentive for the designer to comply. I prefer something to provide information to everyone about what everything is doing to our render efficiency. That is why I filed: 

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Hair Fair 2015 Coming

This is one of my favorite events in Second Life™. With mesh hair it is possible to have a much lower Avatar Render Cost (ARC) or Draw Weight, which it is called depends on which viewer you are using. Whatever it is labeled in your viewer it costs you performance. So, I am replacing my high ARC sculpty do’s with new mesh do’s for that reason.

Luna Jubilee
Luna Jubilee by Kaelyn Alecto, on Flickr

The fair opens July 11 and runs to July 18. This is the 10th university of this event, or so I am told.

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