Second Life

Things about SL

Firestorm Viewer Update

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The release date is getting pushed back… again… So, they are looking at a beta release then quickly (?) followed by a main release. So, we will probably see a beta viewer released in April. When will the main release appear? No one knows. I am guessing May…

Ever
Ever by Strawberry Singh, on Flickr

While the FS Viewer has caught up with the SL Viewer code-wise, they can’t release the viewer yet as they are still fighting problems. Some FS testers are finding many more problems with the internal FS QA release than with the SL Viewer. The basic complaints are slow rez, some objects never rez, and there are more attachments dropped on teleport problems.

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Second Life’s Return to Last Position

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Jessica and Oz were discussing the blog article Jessica put up: ‘Restore to Last Position’ Needs You’, in the third party developers meeting, Friday (3/28). There are now 389 comments (as I write) by people explaining how they use the feature and why they need it.

Nobody Wants To Talk About The Elephant In The Room
Nobody Wants To Talk About The Elephant In The Room by Connie Arida, on Flickr

Oz Linden is making his way through the comments and is about half way. He promises to read them all.

His take is that there are definite use-cases that need to be handled. He remains unconvinced that RTLP is the best solution. You will find the discussion at TM: 22:00±. 

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Second Life Bits Week 13

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Fabulously Free Hunts

Hopefully you know that each week and almost every day Fab Free publishes a list of what they think is the grids top ten hunts. See: Today’s Top Ten Hunts in Second Life. I’m not sure how Fab and Hunt SL hook up… but, they are the people to follow if you like hunts.

Aught
Aught by dolletjes, on Flickr

I love a couple of the names; 50 Shades Of Lust and Slap Yo Mama, Easter Is Comin… J

Capital Exchange Update

Skip Oceanlane posted an update on the saga of getting Linden Lab’s attorney to approve the Capital Exchange game or not. At this point Skip is saying they are on their last attempt.

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Second Life: Singularity Viewer

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A new release is out. It is primarily for users with AMD/ATI video cards. Unless you are having a problem, you don’t need this release.

From the video "Inner winter" 5
From the video “Inner winter” 5 by Pepa Cometa, on Flickr

You may be aware of a recent AMD/ATI driver update to stopped mesh items from rendering. This isn’t a Singularity problem. It affected all viewers as it was a driver problem. If you had an ATI/AMD video card and updated your driver, you had the problem.

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Second Life: Black Dragon 2.42 Released

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If you know the viewer, you know it is an experimental viewer. The author of it tries all sorts of things. Like Benjamin Franklin and others NiranV has lots of what I label failures. But, the gems that do work out make it worth it.

Dragon Warrior
Dragon Warrior

A current feature Black Dragon has is Volumetric Lighting, previously labeled GodRays. This is a rendering process that reveals light interacting with air… the atmosphere. The feature makes for dramatic images. I think this is going to be an awesome features for those using Oculus Rift type displays.

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Second Life: Mesh Upload

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You may have picked up from the SL Viewer news that a change is coming to the Lab’s mesh uploader. There are, I think, some nice changes coming.

WA D-Lab PICCOLI2 IN YOUR GARDEN
WA D-Lab PICCOLI2 IN YOUR GARDEN by Willow, on Flickr

As it is now, when uploading mesh we often get an error and the error message is basically useless, no help. The Lindens are working to improve that. They hope to give us a better idea of what went wrong.

Also, we are currently limited to 8 faces per mesh. That means any single mesh object can only have 8 materials. That too is going to change. The Lindens are saying if there will be a new limit just that we can have more than 8.

There is also something changing about how the various LoD models and physics models will associate with our item based on file naming. I don’t get what they are doing here as I have yet to play with the RC/Project viewer that is out.