Second Life

Things about SL

Firestorm Viewer Release 4.6.7-42398 is Here

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Firestorm has released a new viewer. That happened Sunday sometime. The announcement is here: Firestorm Viewer Release 4.6.7-42398.

There are some great fixes in this version. One for Mac users is the Alt-cam clicking that sent the camera flying away. There is still work being done on selecting things in Mac versions, so there is more to come along this line. And there is a 64-bit Beta Mac version. They also have a partial fix for the s l o w typing bug on Mac. I’ll refer you to Inara’s article for the details on that.

OPen Source Meeting - 2014-34
OPen Source Meeting – 2014-34

Inara Pey has a review of the viewer up here: Firestorm 4.6.7: rolling forward. I’ll cover things she didn’t and some she did.

She points out that Mac users on 4.4.2 will be able to continue using it. It will not be subjected to Firestorm’s 3-version rule UNTIL all the Cocoa bugs are fixed. This is a big concession from the FS Team. It would be easier for them to not have to support more than 3 versions.

If you are running 4.5.1 Beta, it is going to be blocked soon. So, upgrade before you find yourself locked out of SL on that viewer.

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Second Life’s Firestorm Viewer 4.6.7 – Soon?

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We know that a new release of the Firestorm Viewer is getting close because the team has been talking about it. Today I am seeing the wiki changes that proceed a release. So, we are getting very close. The wiki changes mean they have likely gone to feature-lock. Not much point trying to write about what’s changed while things are still changing.

Firestorm Logo
Firestorm Logo

The current version is 4.6.5 (40833). The new wiki pages are using 4.6.7.42398 as the new version number.

All this is in progress and may change, but I suspect it won’t. The wiki pages are being edited and THEY will change. It is hard to tell what is new and what is old in the pages as to some extent they seem to have been copied from a previous update page. There are several “Fix It” notes here and there.

The current editing on the page says the viewer merges to Linden Lab 3.7.5 codebase… the last release was merging up to 3.7.4… I am hoping this is just an editing stage and the 3.7.5 number is a place holder. The current Linden code base is at 3.7.13 with the Linden wiki now showing changes indicating a coming release of version 3.7.14, which may happen today or Monday…. That’s my pure guess, it could be longer.

The updates to Firestorm are mostly fixes. But, there is a healthy dose of new features and feature tweaks currently showing on the preliminary pages. It is not a huge page but there is plenty of good stuff listed and some nice feature improvements, like Radar now showing typing or sitting indicators and the ability to omit blocked avatars from showing on the map.

In all it looks like a version to look forward to.

I am using Firestorm more for photography now than I have over the past year. I also hope to do more machinima and get better at it. The Firestorm Viewer is certainly my choice for those tasks. So, I am looking forward to the coming release.

Second Life News 2014-33 Friday

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Servers

As previously reported the main channel got the maintenance release with a JSON rollback.

Nachwerk July 2014
Nachwerk July 2014

RC Channels

This week the RC Channels are running the same release as the main channel.

Maestro Linden tells us that next week the servers will get fix for a sim crash. After the fix is in place we MAY learn what it was. But, for now they are not saying.

Other Server

Maestro looked into the BUG-6925/BUG-6908 bug of attachments ending up on invalid attachment points after a teleport. The Lindens are having trouble reproducing the problem. Speculation is the low ping rate within the Lab eliminates the problem.

Whirly Fizzle is reporting that the Mystitool HUD sets the bug off as well as another couple of HUD’s. 

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Second Life – Blender Animation Problem

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I need to create some poses and short animations for use with an sofa I am making. I’ve been using Blender 2.71a and AvaStar RC3 to make models. So, of course I thought I would use that setup to make my poses and animation. It didn’t work. So, a couple days later I’ve figured it out.

Planned Pose
Planned Pose

Animations exported from 2.70, 2.71, and 2.71a using any version of AvaStar don’t work… mostly. To explain mostly… I want a pose of an avatar laying on the sofa. In this pose the avatar is reclining and I want the hands on the tummy. Everything worked except the hands. See the image. It shows the hands where I want them.

I rotate the hands about 40-45 degrees in the pose. So, the movement should show up. But, it doesn’t whether I use anim or bvh file types. The hands show in SL with no change from the forearm to hand T-pose positioning.

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Second Life’s New User Avatars

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Designing Worlds has a show up in which they interview people running Japanese new user help regions. I watched the show on SLArtists, the Treat.tv site seemed to be down this morning, at least I could not access it. The video is here: Designing Worlds DW 245 – Japan’s New Residents. The Designing Worlds page that should have the video is here: Designing Worlds visits the Japanese regions to learn how they support new users – now on the web!

Taciturnly - April 2014
Taciturnly – April 2014

About 3:30 minutes in, they talk about the problem the new user avatars are causing. They feel this is a MAJOR obstacle to improving player retention.

The new mesh avatars for new users was thought by some to be a definite problem for new users. The thinking was they would create more problems than they solve and harm player retention more than help. The people doing support in beginner areas are confirming the problems are manifesting. The question they are hearing often is, the promos say we can customize our avatars, so why can’t I change my avatar?  

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Second Life Money Hack

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Iris Ophelia wrote an article appearing on New World Notes: A Second Life Public Service Announcement: Here’s Why Free L$ Cheats Don’t Work. It is a nice clean explanation of one of the ongoing YouTube scams, not by YouTube, but on YouTube.

I see these everyday as I scan my aggregator for news of what is happening in SL. They have titles like SLWorld Hack, SL Hack, Second Life Cheats, Revision 2 – 100% Success, Second Life Money Hack, and on and on.

Ophelia points out why it technically doesn’t work, money can’t be created by users in SL. It can be stolen from other players. But, that leaves a trail and the Lindens can follow it to recover the money.

Of course the real purpose of these scams is to get the SL ID and password of whoever tries the ‘hack’ program, so the scammer can steal from them.

W. C. Fields once wrote, you can’t con and honest man…