General News

AvaStar 2.5 to Release 10/27

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It has been in the works awhile. Now there is a planned official release date, October 27, 2018.

The announcement is here: AVASTAR 2.5 RELEASE DATE 27-OCTOBER-2018.

Magicae House
Magicae House

The listed highlights are;

  • Improved support for Male characters
  • Improved Collada export of characters with custom Shapes
  • Improved User interface
  • Rig Converter stability
  • New Weight Copy Panel
  • Complete rework of the Help pages (text only)
  • Many dozens of smaller fixes

Coming behind this update is going to be the Blender update with its heavily reworked User Interface. Ugh… I have no idea how this Blender change will affect AvaStar. I do know I will suddenly be looking for common tools again and relearning Blender. So, I suppose that means AvaStar too.

If you have purchased support, this is a free update. I have and I plan to update my plan when it expires.

EEP Debut – Oct 2018

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The Enhanced Environment Project, EEP, has its semi-official announcement, Environmental Enhancement Project (aka EEP!) Feedback Thread. You find it in the SL Forum in Creation. I say ‘semi’ because the gold announcements of new features when released is made in the blog section Featured News.

EEP_001
EEP_001 – My landing point 128,128 EEPTesting, ADITI – Nice moon.

The feature is still only working in the preview grid, ADITI, and requires use of a project viewer: Second Life Project EEP Viewer version 5.1.10.520121. (release notes) You’ll find the download links in Alternate Viewers. This is a bump up from the initial confidential links released only to those participating in the Content Creators’ UG.

EEP_002
EEP_002 – Oh WOW.

This is a PROJECT viewer and thus is more likely to have bugs. So, it is not a viewer for daily use and is a bit risky.

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Big News for Slink Physique Original Peeps

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Have you seen? Erratic, a Maitreya exclusive merchant, is thinking about making clothes for other bodies!

Strawberry Singh has the story in an article titled I’m feeling so Erratic. Plus, she made a video.

In the $L50 Friday event an Erratic L$50 top (Fat Pack) is on sale for multiple body styles including Hourglass and Original. I am interested in Erratic clothes for the Slink bodies. So, I ran down and bought a copy for the Original body.

The sales of this top will be the deciding factor in which bodies Erratic Rain plans to make clothes for in the future. So… if you want more Slink, visit and buy… the free market voting with its dollars… http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LE%20LOOK/131/139/2001

Second Life ACI is SO Screwed…

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This week has seen discussion on the ARC/ACI values and how broken they are. See the SL Forum thread: Rigged mesh LoD bug. I knew ARC/ACI weren’t all that accurate. But, I thought they were reasonable comparisons. I still believe once up on a time they were. But, in light of this new information I can’t prove that.

ARC = Avatar Render Cost
ACI = Avatar Complexity Index

Comparing ACI in LL, FS, and BD viewers

The purpose of ACI is to influence users and designers to buy and create more efficient mesh content. Something along the lines of Consumer Reports, but free and in your face.

A couple of things have happened that has not only changed ACI’s usefulness but distorted it and pushed us away from its goal. Possibly even making it counterproductive

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Second Life News from Third-Party Dev UG 2018 w#34

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By meeting time, the Voice RC viewer had promoted to the main viewer, 5.1.8.518593. They have already found one new bug. Still, voice should be better on this version.

The RC version of the Animesh was waiting for a merge with voice, but, in the meeting, Kyle Linden told us it had passed Q&A and should be up on the Alternate Viewers page by the time you read this.

Let me tell you the story ♫♫
Let me tell you the story ♫♫

So, you may see some frozen characters scooting around the grid, which is what you see when you do not have an Animesh viewer and look at Animesh.

The Love Me Render RC viewer needs to update with voice. We’ll likely see that this week, 35.

Next week another Maintenance RC viewer w/bug fixes should pop up on the page.

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Second Life: Ebbe to Talk…

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About two hours ago the Lindens posted: Town Hall Event with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg – Sept 13.

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg will be appearing at a “Town Hall” chat session
Thursday, September 13th 2018 at 9:30 a.m. (SLT/Pacific)

There will be a Q&A and you can post questions for consideration in that part of the meeting here: “September 2018 – A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.”

The live in-world location has not yet been decided on. Closer to the event they will make a location announcement.