Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life’s Limits

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In the SL Wiki there is a page titled LIMITS. This page lists most of the limits we encounter in SL. The page updated today to indicate the change from the main viewer with a new mesh uploader.

simple living room
simple living room – (in Second Life)

::Since viewer release 3.8.4, processing of meshes in the Collada file that have faces assigned to more than 8 materials has changed. Instead of simply dropping the extra material faces, the uploader now creates a new object to accommodate them. The result is that the single mesh is divided into multiple objects (prims) in a linkset (or coalesced object). Thus the limitation to 8 materials is removed as far as input is concerned, but still applies to each of the resulting linked objects actually uploaded. As a consequence it is now possible to upload a mesh with more than 174,752 triangles, although it will be divided into multiple objects. (Reference)

This sounds like a good change. But Drongle McMahon made this comment in my blog about the change (I’ve done a little editing on it – reference):

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Second Life Blogger’s Meeting

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SL Blogger Support is planning to have an in-world meeting. I think Candy Canary Beck is organizing it. It is for this coming Saturday, 10/3 @ 1PM SLT. See the post here: SL Blogger Meetup Announced. Location: Basilique (SLURL) – Harvey’s Bar To the East of the landing point. Arrive early, it takes some time for things to download and render.

A Little From The Middle - Two Fisted Typist
A Little From The Middle – Two Fisted Typist

This is a general discussion held in text chat. To keep the group’s conversation coherent Candy Canary uses a set of discussion rules. One person has the chat box for 5 minutes or until they say DONE, whichever comes first. Then the group has the next 5 minutes to respond to the person. The right to the chat box moves around the room.

Second Life’s Jelly Babies – BUG?

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The coming Quick Graphics Viewer now in RC has some odd behaviors. Well, it is an RC version, so no surprise. One of the ideas with this viewer is to reduce render lag by telling the viewer to avoid rendering complex avatars. These are avatars with lots of high polygon count attachments and large textures that require lots of computer power to render.

The Candy Princess - by Bewitched Difference @ Flickr
The Candy Princess – by
Bewitched Difference @ Flickr

There is a setting in Preferences* that lets you set a personal limit for what you want your viewer to render. Any avatar over that limit will render as a jelly baby. But, if you change the setting to NO LIMIT you’ll find there are still avatars that render as jelly babies. What’s up with that? 

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Second Life’s Mesh Mess

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Kat Feldragonne is a mesh fan. But recently had a problem with mesh render time at an event. It apparently was frustrating enough Kat wrote about the experience: Mesh Mess – A Lesson in Frustration. If you read it, I suspect you will know exactly what Kat is writing about. I’ve experienced the problem. I suspect most of us have.

Slow Render Problems
Slow Render Problems

There are places and times when it seems to take forever for things to render. Avatars are missing parts or clothes are gray and stuck on sideways or at some odd direction. Nude avatars render in all their glory and only later do the clothes render. Of course the nude person has no idea their clothes have yet to render for those around them. The clothes always render quickly for the one wearing them.

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Second Life Guilds and Clans

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Massively Over Powered usually has a lot of short articles. But, now and then they have a longer one with interesting information. This title gave me a sense of conceptual discord: Guild Chat: Creating A Solo-Friendly MMO Guild. Playing solo in an MMOG? There is a point? Well, they make a good point.

Heroes of Our Time
Heroes of Our Time

We have a number of RPG’s with combat that have factions, teams, coalitions, clans, tribes, houses, or some other designation for a group of players working together. The basic play types of; fighter, defender, and healer common to most combat games is present in Second Life™. Those that win in combat, organize the types and work together.

A problem comes up when players with limited time and random availability want to play in MMORPG’s. For these people it is difficult to be a team player and they often tend to play solo. Massively is pointing out that solo players with time limits and unpredictable schedules out number what we call the serious gamers that can spend hours in-game and can have a regular gaming schedule. So, games wanting more players could pick up this demographic by providing support for them.

What an idea…

Server Updates Week 40

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The main grid got a roll out Tuesday (9/29). This package has internal fixes to improve inventory performance. We know little else from the Deploy post and release notes.

Waiting for tomorrow to come
Waiting for tomorrow to come

The RC Channels will all get the same package. The package includes: a fix for a server crash and a fix for the Region Debug Console help text.