Second Life

Things about SL

#SL Pathfinding Update Week 35

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It seems some viewer problems are holding up the Pathfinding Project’s formal release into Second Life™. Along with that are some server side problems too. But, the viewer is the main hang up.

A World with Critters

If you have been using the LL Development Viewer, you know it is horrible. Of course it is the job of a development version to reveal problems and it certainly is doing that. The problems are not really related to Pathfinding or the Pathfinding tools. But, a decision to allow the PF Tools and a number of other viewer changes to be rolled together means they are now stuck going through QA together. It seems we are past the point of no-return for that ship.

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Mesh Deformer Status Week 35

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Max Graf posted on Plurk. I’ve quoted most of his comments and I’ve corrected some spelling, completed some sentences, made paragraphs, and omitted comments by others. It is not a perfect quote. Read the actual Plurk thread before reacting to this version of the post. I am also going to assume you know the players. If not, click on the Tagged: Deformer link in the right-hand column.

Nice but High Poly Count

[It is] 415 days since we formally requested LL fix mesh clothing. Qarl submitted the first working deformer 245 days ago. WTF, LL? Will it ever be?

This is the kind of disgusting response to the community that is going to drive SL into the ground. Change needs to happen. Looking at you, Oz and Rod. Really.

As I stated from the beginning, why should they implement this, honestly, when we are so willing to change our shapes to fit the mesh or do countless hours of extra work in order to make the system usable? If we want to do all that extra work, they are more than happy to let us.

I mean, we even came together and PAID FOR IT, Rod. If that doesn’t tell you how badly we want this, nothing will. In the meantime, the months roll by, the tier adds up; perfectly understandable why solutions are slow to arrive. We keep paying.

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#SL News Update Week 35

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Le Tigre

It has gotten a little confusing as to what is or is not running in the Le Tigre release channel. It is officially now reported as an infrastructure package with no anticipated changes for the regions. There is some rumor that these are network exploit fixes. But, it is hard to know. Others have said it is an isolated SVC-8124 fix for the bandwidth problem, which is what I’ve been thinking. I’m at the point I just don’t know. I lean toward the network exploit fixes now. But, since we can’t see any operational differences the point is mostly moot.

Server Beta Group

SVC-8177

SVC-8177 – here is different behavior between the RC channels and the main channel involving permissions, objects loose modify permissions. This problem may be the sole reason that nothing rolled to the main channel this week. The RC’s are running a fix for the problem. However, there are some reports the problem persists.

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#SL Mesh Uploading Update

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Yesterday Gaia Clary published an article on Machinimatrix.org about the state of mesh uploading. There are still ‘gotchas’ in the process, some of which have been fixed in the SL Development Viewer.

If you are uploading rigged mesh, it is worth your time to read the short article. See: Upload issues with rigged meshes.

If your rigged meshes are uploading OK with the current release viewer (3.3.4-262321), you are avoiding the things that Gaia mentions as problems. That is a good thing. Knowing about them will hopefully assure it stays that way.

Once the next version of the release viewer comes out rigged mesh uploading should be a bit easier.

Thinking About #SL Mesh Modeling?

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I wrote the following for an SL user that wants to learn to build mesh items for Second Life™. If you are thinking about learning to build mesh items for Second Life, you too may find it interesting.

First: 3D modeling is not as complex as it is voluminous… There is just so much to learn… So, my suggestion is to avoid getting bogged down in details and cover as many aspects of modeling as possible. Then as you choose to make things, get into the details related to your project.

With and Without Normal Mapping

Modeling for each world or game has its restrictions and limits and Second Life certainly does. You will find lots of generic modeling tutorials around that are NOT Second Life specific. CG Cookie is a great source for good to great generic educational tutorials. Their best stuff is not free. But, it is cheap, cheaper than a book and more up to date. Also, some of the purchase-to-view stuff becomes free after a time. I tend to purchase a month’s access every now and then. I download the lessons so I can go back and review them later.

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Havok Collision Points

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For some time people have been fighting with getting roads to work well in Second Life. The subject came up again this week. Andrew Linden gave us some information that may help some work around the problem:

It [the road seam bounce] is a really hard problem to fix… it is a basic quirk of the physics engine. It might be fixable with careful content workarounds, but it is very hard for us to fix by tweaking vehicles any further.

I don’t know the best way to work-around the seam jump. I’m guessing that you could add a “transition slope” at the edge of the roads pieces that drop down, and overlap the meshes there.

What happens is that the physics engine will produce collision points between the car and some surfaces that are “behind” others … if they are on distinct objects.

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