Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life News 2013-49 #3

by

Next week (50) we will likely have a rollout to the main grid and another to the RC channels. Then we enter a no change window. We won’t see any new rollouts until probably January 7th.

The packages in the tube right now are minor packages with only a small number of problem fixes.

Viewers have the same no change window. We might see RC and Project viewers updating. But, the main release viewer is unlikely to change after next week (50).

Fitted Mesh Viewer

A new version of this project viewer is out: 3.6.12.284458.

This version lists JIRA item STORM-1985 – Mesh garments don’t adapt to changes in avatar shape.  One of the things mentioned in the JIRA item is FITMESH-6 and how enabling and disabling the Advanced Lighting Model changes the behavior of the viewer’s ability to render shape changed clothing items in wireframe mode. For those of us looking to see how well demo clothes are made before purchasing, this is a definite problem.

Presumably this is fixed in this version.

MAINT-3311 – Skinning to some collision volumes is broken. I can’t read details on MAINT items. But, presumably this too is fixed.

Download here: Alternate Viewer Page.

Breaking Oculus news

by

VoidPointer Linden is telling us Oculus Rift support is now feature complete. We should see it release Linden ‘soon’. Apparently he is one of the ones working on Oculus and the Viewer.

If you are not using Oculus then there is no apparent change to the viewer.

When asked Void answered things look ‘really’ cool. He also mentioned he was using Oculus during the meeting. If you have seen Void’s avatar, you can imagine that it would be pretty awesome.

Apparently no one has tossed their cookies in testing.

Void says he has a pretty hot machine, but he is getting close to his normal FPS. So, it may not be that much of an additional load. But, it will be another machine by machine thing.

Void is keeping it a secret what they have done with the viewer control panels. We have to wait for the release and official notice. The same with what he is using for a controller, mouse, LEAP, something else… no word.

Watch for the official announcement. It is hard to predict when that might be. I am guessing not before January.

PS: it works with shutter  glasses.

 

 

Second Life Tier – Again?

by

Hamlet has an article on New World Notes about the loss of revenue we think the Lab is experiencing. See: Second Life’s Private Sim Revenue in 2013 Forecast at $48M, Down From $61M in 2010. Hamlet points to an article by Ener Hax: Second Life’s private sim watch, which is based on Tyche Shepard’s Grid Survey.

From the information we have it is pretty easy to surmise that 2011’s revenue from private sim leasing was about US$60 million. Using the same type of data we can surmise that 2013’s revenue is about $48 million. This is only region leasing fees income. That is a loss of about $12 million per year or about a 20% loss. Do you think management might notice that? For sure.

There are some other factors to consider in the overall equation. Wizard Gynoid points out in Ener’s article’s comments; in 2009 the Lab’s income was US$80-100 million with a 50% profit margin and roughly 2/3’s if the income was from region leases/tier. 

Read more

Pages: 1 2 3

Second Life News 2013-49 #2

by

Tuesday the viewers on the RC Viewers’ page updated. We have two new RC viewers added. One is a Maintenance Viewer 3.6.12.284430. The other is the Name Fix Viewer 3.6.12.284323.

The Maintenance Viewer has 29 fixes. You can read about them in the release notes. One of the fixes solves problems with how names render in the chat floater. Problems with the Current Outfit Folder not displaying in viewers with the new Chat Hud UI are solved. Also the problem of the CHUI being moved below the bottom buttons and lost is fixed.

There are other fixes but none all that interesting. Plus the Lindens use JIRA MAINT item ID’s. these are only readable by Lindens. That limits the usefulness and interest in the fixes.

There are currently 8 known issues that have not been resolved. Several of these have to do with how ‘bumpiness’ and transparency render.

The Name Fix Viewer 3.6.12.284323 is a change that has to do with how those making viewers name their viewers. The change is important for TPV Dev’s and the Lab. It allows them to more easily track bugs and separate the tracking data by viewer version. For the rest of us this is an invisible change. Eventually we will see it improve viewer development.

As I mentioned yesterday, the Interesting RC Viewer and Fitted Mesh Project Viewer remain unchanged.

Microsoft’s Spark

by

Microsoft® has just put a new game development platform out in Beta version: SPARK®. This is a game developer’s free form design tool and game engine. The results can be played on Xbox One, Win 8 and soon other platforms.

[youtube 8jDY-6aZSjM]

You can read more at TechCrunch: Microsoft’s Project Spark DIY Game Creation Software Beta Begins Today.

Unfortunately this is a Windows 8 app only. As yet it does not even run on RT. It also is more of a novice game maker’s tool. While free form it is still within a set world, a pre-made world that one can modify.

I think The Verge’s article better describes SPARK: Microsoft’s ‘Project Spark’ beta arrives on Windows 8.1, lets you create an Xbox One game.

Fitted Mesh Update 2013-49

by

Machinimatrix has released a new test version of AVASTAR: avastar-1-1-910_blender-2-64. You can get it from your personal Avastar download link.

[youtube rKcyUSfUFk8]

(Forum discussion of video – 2012)

This update adds 7 Collision Bones:

  • RIGHT_HANDLE
  • LEFT_HANDLE
  • BUTT
  • LOWER_BACK
  • UPPER_BACK
  • LEFT_PECK
  • RIGHT_PEC

Along with the bones a tool for copying weights from ‘deformation’ bones to ‘collision’ bones has been added. Instructions for using the tool can be found here: Avastar new testversion for “Fitted Mesh”. Gaia says this tool does not so much copy the information as rename the weight groups. This is something you can do with just Blender and something I was experimenting with. 

Read more