With the release of the VLC viewer (4.1.1.320331) we will see the video market in Second Life start changing. It as of today, it hasn’t changed much. As it has in most of the rest of the RL world. So, with 4.1.1 we will have a better experience with YouTube and other services.
VLC Viewer and Streaming Media – TV’s
NOTE: On starting the 4.1.1 viewer I started crashing. I changed regions and all seemed OK. Before I logged off I got a notice that a newer version was available: 4.1.2.320461. I’ve installed it and it seems to be OK.
RC Second Life VLC Viewer version 4.1.1.320331 – updated Thursday (10/6). This update fixes a problem setting volume. Moving the slider to MAX turned of sound. Oops. This version is in good shape and doing well in RC, meaning few crashes and complaints. This viewer version will probably to promote to the main/default SL viewer in week 41, likely Tuesday.
Love You Forever
The RC Second Life Bento Viewer updated to version 5.0.0.320160 Friday. It too is doing well. But, don’t expect it to release this month. The Lindens are letting us use it hopping to find any surprises. There is a crash problem that is fixed in this version. Plus it Improves mesh upload and I think has the bone position lock. There will be Bento meeting in week 41. We’ll likely hear more. Be sure to check: Second Life: Bento Hands – Vista Animations Beta Out.
RC Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 4.0.9.320231 is also doing well. Last week I provided some of the details.
On quality any version could be next main viewer. But the VLC version is a security fix for those using QT on Windows. If you have QT, you should remove it from your Windows machines.
Friday in the Third Party Developer’s Meeting OZ and Troy Linden announced a new feature coming to Second Life™. It is going to be a quick 360 snapshot thing. If you haven’t seen 360 images, click in the image below and drag.
The image was made by Inara Pey, She explains how she made it using the Illiastra Panoramic Camera. (Version 1.3 L$999). See her blog article The Illiastra. Strawberry Singh has also written about making 360 images with Illiastra. I’ve written about the tech here, 360 Image. This is a new tag and it doesn’t pull all my 360 articles, yet.
Facelights were a basic part of a well-dressed avatar, back in 2008. Especially for a dark skinned girl that wanted her eyes to show in her pictures. But, when Linden Lab added the Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) feature facelights often produced a good imitation of a solar flare. (Earth has been dealing with a solar flare since Friday, 9/30 – Phone giving you problems?)
The video shows one of my new facelights. The first part shows it attached to my ‘Center’ attachment point. The later part of the video shows it attached to my ‘Spine’ attachment point.
Facelights are now BAD and we see few people wearing them. A few merchants still supply facelights with their skin or clothes products. Photographers mostly use ALM and Windlight to handle their lighting needs. Some high-end photographers use PROJECTOR lights. But, old style facelights are pretty much a thing of the past. We seldom need facelights these days. But, there are still occasions when we need to add extra light.
People are reporting more occurrences of Beggar Bots hitting their groups. BUG-40546 – Group Chat Spam Bots. People are asking if they should be reported. The ToS is fuzzy on the topic. In general begging is not a violation of the ToS. Spamming is. So, we see varied opinions on whether to report or not.
Whirly Trapping a Beggar Bot
The apparent consensus among those in the know keeping up with such things is: REPORT ‘EM. The Lindens are working at closing and banning accounts of the spammers.
Group managers have the Eject and Ban tool. Some do not realize it has been upgraded. Originally it did not terminate the current chat session. So, E & B didn’t immediately shut them up. Now it does. (SVC-32)