Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
In week 26 the Third Party Developers’ meeting ran 47 minutes. As it is a holiday weekend in the USA many of the regular attenders were not there. But, we did get some good information and lots of dates, which is unusual. So, this gives us a good guide for what is coming and when.
Second Life Inventory Message Viewer version 4.0.6.315555 – This RC viewer is almost certain to see a Tuesday promotion to the main viewer.
More and more viewers are adopting the latest Linden additions to the viewer. The RLViewer just added the Avatar Complexity feature. So, more and more people are noticing the pop up messages generated by the Avatar Complexity feature. Merchants are starting to respond to the feature also. I suspect for now that concern is anticipatory rather than reactive.
I have always suspected the majority of Second Life™ users have a level of concern about the amount of lag they add to the system and take some steps to reduce it. Of course most of us want to avoid lag. A few entitlement types put off on the Lab. But, I think that is a small percentage.
I see a new version of the Project Bento viewer is out. The Lindens say the changes are:
This build contains some bug fixes:
AvaStar, the Blender add-on for Second Life animation, has released a new update. The details are here: Avastar-2.0-alpha_3_blender-2-77. This is not a version for regular use. It requires that you use the Project Bento viewer to upload the animations made with it. You can upload to either the main or preview grids.
This release has a new avatar and the latest Project Bento skeleton. I suspect that there is a free updated skeleton somewhere. But, I have not yet gone looking for it.
There are some bugs in this version. Read the article at Machinimatrix for the details. Most of the problems have work-arounds.
RLV = Restrained Love Viewer, formerly Restrained Life Viewer. But Linden Lab® thought that use of the word Life in the name infringed on or put at risk their Second Life™ trademark. So, they pushed on those developing RLV and it changed.
What RLV is, is a set of tools built into a viewer that extends what we can do with Second Life™. The RLV capable viewers have a way for users to program/control each other’s viewers. Just as the Lab’s Advanced Experience Tools (AET) allow a programmer to; attach a HUD to your viewer, teleport your avatar, and do other things without the normal user interaction. So too, RLV allows a programmer to do similar things with your viewer and avatar. The difference between AET and RLV is in the flavor and amount of control the user gives to a third party.
