Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life Region Crossings

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If you regularly read this blog you know that the Multi-Threaded Region-Crossing code rolled to the main channel last week (5). We’ve had the code running for a week as I write this. So, how is it working for you?

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot has written up his experience now that the code is in place. See: Region Crossing: A Report On Experience. Wolf thinks crossing are not as good as they once were… I suppose he means like ‘ever.’ Personally I can’t remember when they were better. But, later he says there is little if any change when walking across regions, which is my experience.

It is small, but I do think I get control of my avatar a bit faster after a crossing. But, it is hard to say.

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Bye Bye Flufee

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I am sure everyone with even a vague awareness of what is happening in Second Life™ has seen the Flufee Missions, or at least knows of them. I’ve featured several of them. The videos are made by the creative Draxtor Despres (RL: Bernard Drax).

A problem has come up with Flufee. The problem has to do with intellectual property rights. While Drax has made the videos, he did not create Flufee and that has become a problem. So, no more Flufee videos by Drax and associates.

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The Flufee avatar is made by an avatar named Dirty Lynx or may be more accurately the Bytegang peeps. You can see the full body mesh avatar in world at Bytegang (URL). There is no doubt it is a cute and creative. And there are various types of these full body avatars. 

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Mesh Deformer 2013-5

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There is really no new news on this project. There is an updated Deformer Project Viewer. But the update is just blending all the other viewer changes into the Deformer Project. The Deformer has not changed, as best I can tell.

In the Metareality podcast this week Karl talked about lag from the Deformer and mesh clothes. Yes, there is lag caused by both. How much depends on how the mesh is made. Just as with other mesh objects we are finding out they can reduce lag compared to prims or increase it.

Mesh clothes are always going to increase an avatars polygon count. So, they will always add some lag. How much is dependent on how well the mesh is designed. Since there is little cost difference between poorly made and well made mesh clothes there is little incentive to make well made clothes, at least from a cost perspective.

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Second Life News 2013-5 (2)

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As reported earlier this week, things are moving forward with server releases. There isn’t much new to report. See: Second Life News 2013-5 (1). Things have gone pretty much as expected.

The Lindens think the package running on the Le Tigre RC channel will get promoted to the main channel in week 6. This is the package with the fix for regions not showing up in search. Yawn.

Region-Crossing

The Multi-Threaded Region-Crossing code rolled to the main channel this week. That mostly seems to have worked.

Don’t expect to see much difference when you cross a region. I think my avatar responses to navigation instructions faster after a crossing. But, it is not significant enough a change that I can be sure.

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Metareality Podcast 2013-5

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This week Metareality has a new podcast out: New Spaces. There is not a lot of new hard news in the cast, so it is harder to summarize. The discussions Gianna, Qarl, and Drax have touch on many aspects of the topics. I decided to try and get index points to the discussions. But, I’m not going to try to paraphrase them.

Metareality Podcasts
Metareality Podcasts

The following comments on the podcast are my take on what was said.

01:00 – Discussion regarding comments on last week’s podcast topic: Is the Market Place having an effect on land sales. Basically is the Market Place killing off land sales? They don’t think so. The why is interesting but hard summarize. Also the topics blur as asides are used to describe why each thinks as they do.

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Second Life DNS Login Problems – Help!

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For some time we have known that some people have been having problems logging into Second Life. The error messages when dug out of the log show DNS problems. Now Monty Linden is looking at the problem. He has posted requesting help in the SL Forum. So, help out folks.

First some explanation: DNS stands for Domain Name System. This is an arrangement of servers across the world that turn ‘domain’ names, like SecondLife.com, into IP Addresses. Just like phone books allow you to look up a name and get a phone number. With the number you can make a call. It is the same with computers. They need that IP Address to make a connection.

Generally your ISP provides you the address of a DNS server. From that server you get all other addresses.

Mac users have had an especially hard time with the problem.

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