Second Life: Updating AvaStar with Slink Dev Kit

I happen to like Slink, so I build what I can wear. For me that means using the Slink Developer Kit. Finishing some stuff up I decided it is time to update my AvaStar, Blender, and Slink Kit before moving on to new things. Also, I wanted to try out the AvaStar feature that adds Dev Kits.

AvaStar 2.4-1 and Slink v9

My previous updates I have written about here; AvaStar – Add the Slink 2017 Model – (5/2017) and AvaStar Tutorial: Adding the Slink Model to AvaStar – (3/2017).

Blender Update

The highest Blender I have is version 2.79c. This can get a bit confusing. The official release is 2.79b according to the Blender.org site. The main download provides an MSI file for use with Windows. This is a basic Windows install file. Not what I suspect most developers want. We want the ‘Archive’ file, the one that allows us to have multiple versions installed. You get that from the same download page just look in ‘other versions’ and grab the ZIP file. Continue reading

SL Third-Party Dev Meeting 2018 w32

Not many attending last Friday… Some news mostly updates.

The Bugsplat RC Viewer should be identical to default viewer. The only difference is it uploads crash reports to the Bugsplat system. The Lindens are wrapping up their evaluation. There is no information pre-evaluation on where this is going. Oz Linden through it was going well. But, until the numbers and Linden-users’ evals are in no can know.

illusion

illusion

There is a Voice RC Viewer out and another in QA that uses a newer Vivox SDK. In the newer one voice crashes recover automatically.

Oz tells us there are 3 other viewer candidates likely to appear this week (#33).

The Animesh RC will get an update. Another Rendering changes version is coming. A new Maintenance version is in the wings waiting for a simulator change – the offline communication thing. The point here is to be more reliable in delivering messages at login, which were sent to you while you are offline.

Also, there are 3 Project viewers; the Estate Management Tools’ new features for the ban list, for which they are looking for feedback. There is the Snapshot Viewer which has no change, but they hope to get back to soon. For now, they are likely working on the Facebook problem with snapshots not uploading. The whole world seems to be on FB’s case. Continue reading

Second Life: Animesh RC Nearing – CC UG Meeting 2018 w24

Last week there was no Content Creators’ UG Meeting. This week there was. The meeting is held in the region Animesh4, ADITI. We have some hot news on Animesh. See 03:00 TM.

The word is we might, possibly, could, maybe see Animesh roll to the RC channels of Agni next week (#25). The word from the Beta Server UG is it is on the schedule for next week… Be excited, but don’t hold your breath.

The video…

I have time compressed parts of the video where there is no voice. So, you may have to pause the video to keep up the local chat.

Index

00:00 Video start… pre-meeting

03:00 – Vir announcing Animesh possibly to AGNI next week, week #25. At 08:15 Vir says release is dependent on getting an updated project viewer out before the server roll.

There are some bugs/problems that will still be running around next week. (03:45) The Encroachment Problem is being worked on. We will see the Linden solution in the next update of the Animesh viewer. Continue reading

AvaStar and Slink March 2018

AvaStar is at version 2.3-1 released 17 January 2018 according to announcements in the Blender-AvaStar group. In the products page where I download the file, it is labeled 2.3-2. The release is called a bug fix. It has 10 bug fixes and 4 improvements. See the changelog here. Notice the Dev Kit manager…

Blender is currently at version 2.79a. The Blender download is here. The Portable version is the version I use so I can have multiple versions installed. I’ll explain why later.

Blender Download March 2018

Today I see Slink released an update to their Dev Kit for AvaStar. I find the email got to me yesterday 3/19. It tells me, “The bodies in these kits have been reworked from the ground up, for better geometry, more accurate weighting and better fit!” (Emphasis is theirs.)

Also, Slink Development now has a Discord Server for developers. The link is in the email. Siddean is available 9 to 5 Eastern Australian Time… Australia has 13 time zones… O.O  so… divide by 13 then 24 and multiply by… and turn the world around once… and that gives us 4pm to 12AM SLT/PT. Technically, they are 17 to 18 hours ahead of California, depending on Daylight Saving Time. If it is Monday here it is likely Tuesday there.

If it weren’t for the International Date Line they would be 5 to 6 hours behind California.  Continue reading

Integrated Animation Overriders … A what?

Mesh Body Addicts posted about Vista Animations (VA) new Bento Head animations. The post content is actually within in a video (vlog), Vista Diana & Lia.

The explanation she gives of the existing onion-skin animations used before Bento is not wrong, but most of the techies will disagree with it. If you are not into the tech, it is good enough to get you by. Besides, Animesh and Bakes-On are coming and likely to change much of this anyway.

The word in the video is there is a Bento Full Body AO coming. As it is now I have an AO for my body, the stands, sits, walks, etc. I have another for my new mesh head. And another for my hands. I am assuming VA is combining body, hands, and head into one AO. Jump to time mark 18:00± to get an idea of what the coming AO will look like in operation. Continue reading

Second Life Content Creators’ Meeting 2018 w10

Getting video of these meetings is a PITA. Medhue (1:27 PM) and I (1:08 PM) both were late getting to the meeting. Medhue’s audio has reverb… which generally comes from room echo… the combination of the sound source (talker) and reflected sound from walls reaching the mic at slightly different times. There are no echoes or room reverb in Second Life™. So, the computer’s speaker output has to be fed back via an open mic or duel channels in the recording app. Neither appears to be the case for Medhue…

I got there a bit earlier. I recorded the meeting, so the source is on my computer. I can edit it and clean up the audio. So, this week I’ll use my video. It takes some time to clean up the video and audio. Plus, Thursday is a busy day for me, RL. So, mine comes out later, like Saturday or Sunday.

The first thing you are likely to notice in the video is Vir Linden’s voice is messed up. In Medhue’s video, Vir Linden’s voice is also messed up but in a different way. So, the problem is in the connections or our computers. I have yet to figure out what’s up with mine.

I’ve cleaned the audio up a bit. But, there is only so much repair work one can do.  Continue reading

What’s in My Head…

I’ve been looking for a mesh head for a long time. When it comes to my avatar’s appearance I get picky. My first skin was free and came from a strip club. I then spent months finding the just right skin. I finally decided on a Nomine WL Mocha skin by Munchflower Zaius, an artist that gave up creating because of copyboting (still in Marketplace). It was my first ever big purchase. Paid for from dancing-stripping, camping, and money trees in 2008.

Classic to Bento – Distant

I tend to spend months playing with demos and talking with people when I buy my first body anything. So, feet then hands, then body and now head. Also, I had hoped Slink would come out with a Bento head. But…

I like my classic head. So, I wanted a head that would allow me to have a very similar face. That was harder than I thought. I went through a lot of heads and spent days making shapes. I decided I would never get the look I wanted with some popular heads.

I decided on GA.EG’s Jennifer head. Very quickly I got near the shape/look I wanted. Plus, an included skin matched my favorite YS&YS’ Viola skin. That greatly simplified the addition. I had been planning on having to buy a new skin. My YS&YS to too old to have appliers for Omega and does not have any head applier. Still, I may get a skin with an applier for this new head. Continue reading

Second Life Bits 2018 w07

Dance – Crap Mariner has an article about dance in the One Billion Rising event. You’ll find it on Inara’s blog: Who Puts the Dance into One Billion Rising? Long, interesting.

Happy Valentine

Happy Valentine

Restarts – When the simulators are restarted it usually takes just a few hours. Some are experiencing way long times for restarts. Caleb Linden is looking into it. If you have specific information on a long restart, email it to Caleb or file a JIRA Bug Report and mention Caleb’s name.

Interesting – There is a huge 220 page, and growing, thread in the SL Forum, How does your avatar look today? A resident by the name of Nostoll started the thread in May 2017. With about 26 posts per page that is almost 6,000 posts residents have made.

A variety of avatars are portrayed with varying quality. I suppose we could consider the images a representation of a cross-section of SL users. If that were accurate then we could draw conclusions from what see, like hardware in use and graphics settings, whether or not ALM is in use… Continue reading