Category Archives: General News

Second Life Bits – 2019 w09

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This is stuff I found interesting as I poked around the Second Life™ blogosphere.

Fantasy Faire 2019 – Yes, it is coming. The theme is “Builders of Hope!” April 18 to May 5. The official, I guess official, website where you can get a taxi, as of 4/18, is Fantasy Faire 2019.

Word is this year’s far will be open 18 days. Previous events lasted 11 days. There will 16 regions. So, lots to explore and time to do it.

For more details and contact points see Caitlin’s blog article Fantasy Faire 2019: Builders of Hope.

Weeds

Weeds

Raglan Shire Talent Show – This was a 2018 event. The edited video of the show came out in December 2018. Second Life Newser just published a piece on it, Raglan Shire Talent Show 2018.

I bring it up because it is just the cutest SL thing I’ve seen in some time. So, jump over and watch the 15-minute video. As Newser points out, the video is NOT the whole show. It is, however, about all I can take without going diabetic.

Adult NSFW – Heaven & Hell’s Pleasure – This is a new adult region run by the infamous people of Caroline’s Mansion. The Mansion (NSFW) is merging with Pleasure… (really NSFW) yeah, that is a double what’s it…

You can read the details on Caroline’s website Second Life Adventures (NSFW).

The TL:DR is H&H is a school for those that want to sell their SL Booty. The region looks like a massive adult playground. But it is a part of a region. It seems big because it uses vertical space.

You apparently have to belong to a group to get some doors to open and stuff to work. Some doors have the lockpick thing… click and wait.

I assume this is a mostly German group of people as no one is there during the hours I tend to be on.

Second Life’s OTHER News 2019 w08

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Other News

The inventory problem of last Saturday (2/16) is under investigation. Once they understand what happened, they will decide what to do to prevent it from happening again.

Dog Days

Dog Days

Misplaced jelly-dolls… you may have seen this bug. Some over-dressed avatar hits your ACI limit and ends up stuck on your screen like a HUD. Eeew… The Lindens think they have it figured out. Seems the info for an attachment to the overdressed av arrives before the location to attach it to. So, the viewer sticks it on a HUD attachment point.

The problem is more likely to happen in a crowd.

The workaround seems to be to un-jelly and then re-jelly the problem av. But some Lindens think this an unlikely work-around. Continue reading →

Second Life – How to get better image quality…

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There is an ongoing quest, for those of us texturing clothes and things in Second Life™, to upload better quality images. So, here is some new information on making better textures or aka diffuse layers. See Compression Depression.

Beq Janus, is one of the people working with the Firestorm team and has tweaked the mesh uploader and other parts of the viewer, been involved in tracking down bugs, and figuring out workarounds for various problems. Now she is on about a discovery made with the help of Whirly Fizzle, all starting with one of Hamlet Au’s New World Notes posts about Frenchbloke Vanmoer…  who?

Beq’s Blog – February 2019

Whoever, down in the Debug Settings it is said there is some magic. Unfortunately, it isn’t there, often as is the case with magic. The magic appears surprising to some as they do not understand the trick and think the wand, hand waving, and abracadabras actually do something magical.

However, there is a lesson to be learned and another step in the quest for better SL image uploads.

Continue reading →

Bits and Bites of Second & Real Life 2019 w07

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Focus Magazine is for those of us that enjoy taking snapshots in-world. This issue their featured Second Life™ photographer is Sari. Some of her nice images are in the magazine.

Cover Focus Magazine – Feb 2019

The magazine covers things related to SL photographers’ interests. Some homes and stuff, clothes, poses, backdrops, photo locations, skins, places, and even an advice column.

You can join the group Too Sexy for This Group to get your monthly copy. This group is the complimentary part of the Flickr group Too Sexy for this Group! Second Life. These are sexy groups. Less lewd and more erotic than most.

The Linden event Special Valentine’s Day Hug and Dunk has been announced, Wednesday 2/6. See the announcement here. On Thursday, February 14th from 10am-12pm, drop by the Isle of View (SURL) for a chance to hug and/or dunk some Lindens.

Russia – By April 1 of this year the Russian government plans to have taken full control of the Internet within Russia and to test that control by disconnecting the Russian Internet from the rest of the world. There is no announced date for the disconnect. It is a test and the connection will be restored. But, for a time Russians will be isolated. (Ref BBC)

Continue reading →

Tiny Protest in Second Life

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Well, it is the Tinies that are protesting… 

Seems a server update in November 2018 distorted how Avatar Hover works for Tiny avatars. (BUG-225893) They now float about a foot (0.3m) above the ground.

Tinies Protest the Continuing Second Life Hover Bug!

Tinies Protest the Continuing Second Life Hover Bug!

The Lindens have found the problem in the change to the Bake Service made in preparation for Bakes On Mesh. The fix is in QA and should roll out ‘soon’.

The Tinies pulled off a cute, humorous, and hopefully effective protest. You can read more here, Tinies Protest at Governor Linden’s Mansion. Whether or not the protest was needed… I doubt it. I suspect it bumped the priority for this fix.

Second Life News Bits and Bytes 2018 w52

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We are in the holiday season which is synonymous with ‘no-change-window’. There are no user group meetings this week. So, news is limited and mostly non-existent. No Deploys post. Last main channel restart appears to be 12/4. But, one was reported to have happened 12/11… my detector didn’t notice it. And none since.

Server and viewer versions are also unchanged this week.

Mesh Bodies – Kitsune Shan (URL FB) has a mesh body coming out that is designed to do a good job of portraying thin to chubby with good proportions.

Kitsune also makes tutorials. See Skinning Session (URL FB). While the clicks and keys in this video are not universal, the weighting process is. Kitsume also has 2 YouTube channels; Big Channel and Small Channel.

Scandalize – If you are into fashion you likely know the brand name. Seems they tried to do a gift card thing for Christmas. It went sideways and didn’t work as planned. They published an apology and a sort of workaround.

You can join the |Scandalize| (SLURL) group and get the details from their notices. And you have to be part of the group to get/use the gift cards so… Get it done. Limited time to use the fix.

Windows 7 Freezing – Seems Win7 systems with Malwarebytes are freezing up. Reportedly from Malwarebytes support 12/27±, “This is an issue we are aware of. For some reason, our latest update (Malwarebytes v2.6.1.2711) is causing Windows 7 64bit machines to freeze. Please toggle off the Real-Time Web Protection module for now.”

 

Second Life and Mesh Body Lag

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Revised 1/3/2019 – Hamlet has an interesting article Well-Optimized Alternatives To Resource-Heavy Mesh Bodies For SL touching on the contentious debate going in Second Life as to how much lag mesh bodies are causing. The high polygon count in mesh bodies is the suggested cause of the lag.

Tachinni - Bonnie Dress - @ACCESS Exclusive

Tachinni – Bonnie Dress – @ACCESS Exclusive

We don’t have an obvious resolution to the argument. Nothing the non-techies can grasp. The techies stay out of the argument having learned one cannot argue with the ignorant as it is all opinion for the uneducated.

Recent technology changes have complicated the information on polygon counts and how they may affect your viewer’s performance. One complication is the shift from video card manufacturers bragging about polygons-per-second rendered to frames-per-second and now giga-rays-per-second… Part of the reason for changing metrics is the marketing hype card makers introduce to sell more cards.

Continue reading →

Second Life: Pfaffenthal

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Pfaffenthal 1867 is a historically accurate Second Life build of a section of the city of Luxembourg in 1867±. Several in the blogosphere are writing about it being moved to Sansar. (Closing 11/26/2018) Jo Yardley’s article is here: Pfaffenthal 1867 closes its doors in Second Life and moves to Sansar

Pfaffenthal - 01

Pfaffenthal – Second Life June 2015

The reason for the move given in a letter to Pfaffenthal residents is land-cost, the free 4×4 km land in SL would require about 225 regions in Second Life… at US$300± per region… that is $67,000/mo… Free vs $67k…

But space in a virtual world is not just about cost and the amount of building space. SL has value because of people. People will be a bit tougher to find in and attract to a build in Sansar. Continue reading →