General News

Second Life Bits 2018 w06

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I had to correct my article AvaStar – Infected Download about the AvaStar package being infected with malicious software. Seems others thought it had been not The Machinimatrix people, who seriously doubted it. I agree with them now that I think about it. Very unlikely AvaStar was compromised.

 

Tralala’s Diner (URL) is a region in Second Life™ that is getting some deserved coverage in the blogosphere. Hamlet at New World Notes is covering Strawberry’s coverage of Tralala’s Diner.

There is a Tralalas Diner Flickr group where you can see a ton of pictures. I have some there. They don’t stand out that much. (Mine: Cat, The Diner, The Lake, Darts, Sunset, Boom, Power, Urban Renewal, and Arriving. )

PineLake_029
PineLake – Tralala’s Diner

Strawberry is into streaming video. She made a Live Stream (33 min). We can see it here: Strawberry’s Tralala’s Diner. There is a problem with streaming live. One is limited to 720 and a single sound track at whatever volume you had set. You have to get everything right in production. It is much easier to tweak a video in post-production, which is why I like OBS. But, you get live chat and Strawberry is pretty good at tweaking things as she goes.

You may know the place as Pine Lake. If you haven’t been… it is a fun exploration.

 

SL Gacha Things I Didn’t Know

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There is a Gacha Garden event and two regions of Gacha Garden Shops. You peeps probably already know all this. But, it is new to me. I’m not a Gacha fan. But, I am curious about free market innovations. So, I am poking around and learning.

The Designer [ JUSTICE ] has boots I REALLY LIKE. I went looking to buy them and found they were an exclusive offering at the January Gacha Garden (LM) event (group). These are boots I would expect to go for L$300 or so per color or L$800-1200 or more for a fat pack. At the event, you can try your luck for L$75 a try.

Gacha Garden Event – Feb 2018

Of course, the gold color I want is a rare, rare. At L$75 I figure I can make 4 tries at getting the color I want. Or if I want them all, 10 to 16 tries. After the 10th or 16th try gacha-gambling is costing me more than just buying boots would.

I really wanted them. So, I made 4 tries. I got the Silver rare, 2 ok colors, and one duplicate color. The Silver rare is pretty neat and provides a range from white silver to near black silver. Five colors if I remember correctly. I am happy. The 2 colors are ok but not my colors. What do I do with the duplicate? I’ll get to that.

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Second Life News Bits 2018 w06

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Saturday was the annual Mole Day. Inara has an article on Mole Day with all the details.

SL Moles are the guys that build all the SL Governor’s public works things. We hear little about them, but they are a key part of Second Life™.

Mysterious girl.

The Machinimatrix Blog got hacked. It is fixed and all is well again. (Ref) The Machinimatrix people did not recommend changing passwords. But, it is probably a good idea.

NiranV the author of the Black Dragon Viewer has an article up on Projector Lights. Part of the information is about setting up Preferences in the BD Viewer. Then Niran gets into setting up the projector lights.

Projector lights are way neat and greatly improve the appearance of a scene. They make night and club scenes much more dramatic.

Catznip Viewer is releasing a beta, they describe it this way:

Catznip R12.1 (beta1) has been posted for patrons (64bit only). We’re testing dramatically faster texture rezzing (new, Catznip unique OpenJpeg). Prejump & landings animations optionally disabled and a slew of crash fixes.

Texture rendering speed was the obstacle to my use of this viewer.

Kitty Barnett, the author of Catznip, is looking for some financial support. So, this beta is only available to those that contribute through Patreon.

This is the 8th anniversary of Myst Online: Uru Live. Get details on the Myst Online website, Anniversary. Events through to February 7th.

Gacha Garden has a new event in progress. There are dozens of free gifts spread around the garden. There is a shopping guide here.

I’m not much of a gacha fan. I tend to only go when there is an exclusive item from a designer I like only available as a gacha. But, Gacha Garden is fun. Join the group. Lots of trading happens there. If you have an item you want to sell, this is a good place to start.

Second Life Bits 2018 w05

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The rent is too damn high… a popular exclamation in Second Life™. For relief check out Penny Patton’s article Reducing the Cost of Land by Scaling Down.

This is not her only article on reducing land cost or making more efficient use of Second Life. So, you may want to browse her blog.

I’ll point out here that Penny’s ideas on the ‘Default Camera Position’ are being adopted by the Lab. We will soon have “Preset Default Camera Positions” as a feature of the Linden Viewer.

Doors – Another thing with Penny and her building to scale. In another article, Smaller Doors Anyone Can Fit Through, she on about making doors into SL building to scale.

The handy knowledge in this article is for those that have bought homes/building other have made. How does one scale down a building and still fit through the door? Penny has the answer.

Animations – I came across this video from a post in a Plurk.

Notice the hand and face animations.

On Plurk Dutchie® has been promoting the ‘dance’ chair. There are some NSFW images from the dances. 

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Better Skies Are Here

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Skies – Hamlet has been following Stevie Davros’ development of improved sky textures for Second Life’s Windlight™. Today Hamlet is writing about their release. Seems they are now available in the SL Marketplace.

Below is the installation tutorial for Mac and the Linden viewer. I highly recommend using the package with Firestorm. But, while tedious they are usable with the Linden viewer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=ZykmGCpVG7c

This installation information for the viewers will be good until the release of EEP, Enhanced Environment Project, a Linden developed enhancement. There is no ETA for the release. I definitely expect it to release in the first half of 2018. But, I could be wrong.

You’ll find some free cartoon clouds. Other artistic clouds sell from L$99 to L$599. The Natural Clouds package sells for L$599 and has 8 cloud textures and comes with 60 Windlight settings files. You can see the effect of the package in a Flickr collection. Very awesome. A more organized collection showing the clouds in the various packages is here.

Warning: Changing the cloud textures requires some basic file handling. Also, clouds must be chosen before the viewer is launched. For the Linden viewer, this means going in and renaming a couple of files each time you change clouds. With Firestorm, it is a matter of a one time install and a menu selection before logging in. (Preferences->Firestorm->Windlight (tab)->Cloud Texture (drop))

Also, see my earlier article New Skies for Firestorm for a bit more information. There is a link to Juicy Bomb’s 2013 tutorial there too.

New Skies for Firestorm

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Hamlet has an article about Stevie Davros’ enhanced skies. In 2011 Firestorm added a feature that allows replacement of Second Life™ clouds. Thank you for the computer code, Cinder Roxley. Back then Vincent Nacon was creating new cloud images for this feature.

Stevie Davros Dramatic Skies

So, this feature is not new nor limited to Firestorm. JuicyBomb wrote a tutorial NEW CLOUDS FOR SECOND LIFE, May 2013, for those using the Linden Viewer. The instructions are good for any viewer.

Not much has changed since then. I just checked in the Linden Viewer 5.1.0 and there is still no provision for selecting a different cloud texture. So, it is still a manual change.

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