Second Life: Is VR Likely?

VR for Second Life™? Hamlet just wrote about SL and VR. See Is Second Life Too Technically Limited To Create A VR Version For It?

One of the people that came to SL from Myst Online, Adeon Writer, is quoted and has opined in the article’s comments about what is technically possible.

i9-9900k – October 2018

Like most things, anything is possible. But that doesn’t say anything about whether it is likely or reasonable. Both likely and reasonable are generally matters of opinion and the answers are a matter of who you ask. And in matters of opinion, there is generally no final or definitive answer. So, it is a matter of understanding another’s viewpoint and reasons for their opinion.

So, will we have VR or can we have VR? The will and can questions have very different answers… probably. We know we can have VR because it has already been done. So, that answer is out of the realm of opinion. The Lab made a VR viewer for SL years back. Two more VR viewers have been made since then. One shortly after the Lab discontinued their VR viewer. Another just recently. So, can? Yes. As a fact, it has been done. Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w09

Servers

Updates were planned. A problem was discovered last minute and neither the main or RC channels updated. Simon Linden explained at the Server-Scripting UG Tuesday. The Deploys post now reflects that change of plans.

[2019/02/26 12:02]  Simon Linden: Let’s see … well, for server news, our update this morning got cancelled by another last-minute problem we discovered

[2019/02/26 12:03]  Simon Linden: That stops tomorrows updates as well, but I believe we’re planning on doing restarts of all the regions on the RC channels

[2019/02/26 12:03]  Simon Linden: … and I’m working with another colleague as we speak helping to sort that issue out

[2019/02/26 12:04]  Simon Linden: That’s my excitement for the week, so the table is open for topics or discussion

One of the things to happen with the planned update was a channel with the UDP API disabled. This would test viewers to see if they were in some way still dependent on the UDP API. Those developing viewers or if you want to test can visit Mesh Sandbox 3 in Aditi. It has the planned update running.

You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry. Don't worry.

You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry.

Some experimenting with whether or not their viewer is UDP dependent or not have seen some odd behavior. Whirly Fizzle did some testing and reports here.

It seems you inventory will load, the list. But you cannot fetch any of the assets.

So, Firestorm 5.0.7 users have about a week left before that viewer is totally crippled and then soon blocked. Update early. Avoid problems. Continue reading

Second Life Bits – 2019 w09

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 Content Creation UG #08

Interesting meeting.

Simon Linden is busy investigating the problems causing a disruption in service last Saturday. So, no new news on Animash. We do have news on EEP.

CCUG Meeting

All the news is in the first few minutes. The rest is discussion.

You may notice the difference in panning between this video and the previous video. I’m not totally sure it is just this version of Firestorm. For now I suspect the viewer update is the reason for the improvement.

Second Life’s OTHER News 2019 w08

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 News 2019 w08

We have some news. Nothing too earth-shaking Firestorm did get their Animesh supporting viewer released. EEP server-side is behind expectations by another week. But better to fix before grid-wide release. The third-party dev UG  (YouTube video) was last Friday.

Servers

No roll to the main channel. We are staying on version #19.01.25.523656. They found an issue while the planned to roll version was in RC last week. So, there will be a new RC of this one Wednesday. But the regions reaching two weeks without a restart will be getting a restart.

Take over

Take over

An issue for some has come up. If the regions are restarted at different times their day/night cycle gets out of sync with adjacent regions. When the main grid is restarted for an update all those regions are pretty much in sync for daytime.  Regions that have been restarted at various times for some reason get left out of the two-week no update restart, at least I think that is what is being complained about.

Seems the Lindens are not deliberately trying to do a daylight time sync. It is just however it works out. They consider when daylight happens as up to the region owner. Continue reading

Firestorm Viewer Update – Feb 2019 = 6.0.2.56680

We have been waiting for this update. This is the one that adds Animesh. If you haven’t heard of Animesh… well, where have you been? This is the feature that allows us to animate mesh things. So, better horses and dogs…

Firestorm Viewer has had a beta version of their viewer out. It had the Animesh feature too. People often prefer not to update to a beta version. With ~75% of Second Life™ users running on Firestorm and a significant number not updating, Animesh has not been a thing in SL. Now we are likely to see it explode as new animated things begin to be released, animals, pets, babies, Non-Player characters (think Santa and store-bots), new machines…

The Firestorm Update 6.0.2

So… This is version 6.0.2.56680. It has some new features. Inara has a couple of writeups about the two Animesh versions of the viewer, FIRESTORM 6.0.2: ANIMESH RELEASE (this release) and Firestorm 6.0.1: Animesh Early Access (the previous release). Check those writeups if you want lots of details.

Otherwise… Besides Animesh, we get a few fixes, about a half dozen I have never run into (see release notes). The ‘splayed hands’ problem has a fix. Some install parts of the viewer updated; all the Linden 6.0.1 fixes and additions, changes to the code playing sound, the code handling the images – Kakadu – was updated, and the OGG library that has to do with… audio compression of files, you know the sound files we upload versus voice.

RLVa has about a half dozen fixes. Continue reading

Second Life – How to get better image quality…

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