Second Life

Things about SL

How To get a Faster Second Life

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Several people in the forums are asking how to get better Frames per Second rates and why their computer is so slow running SL. Several are asking about upgrading their computer for Christmas or getting a new one. So, I decided to write a HOW TO specific to Second Life so I could avoid repetitive forum posts…

Speed Hump? - Image by TheDarkThing - Flickr

Even if you never want to open the computer’s case, this information will help you know what to have your computer tech upgrade for you.

First consider what we are working with, other games have better graphics and performance than Second Life. When comparing SL with other games, one is wise to remember that most things in the SL world are made by novice content creators. Render efficiency is not foremost in their design goals and that shows in SL frame rates. Take a look at: Typical Second Life Frame Rate Performance by Graphics Card/GPU. The page was last updated in August 2011. It shows an nVidia 470 getting about 45 FPS.

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#SL Mesh and the Button Problem

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Poking Through

I think most of us know about the problem of getting mesh clothes to fit well. Qarl Fizz succinctly described the problem in STORM-1716 when he wrote, “…when wearing mesh clothing in second life – modifying the body shape of the avatar causes the clothing to no longer fit. Making the avatar fatter causes it to protrude beyond clothing; making it thinner causes the clothing to hang in space away from the avatar.”

I caught this image as I was rezzing. The texture on the mesh top had not yet rezzed. The glitch layer did.

The Mesh Deformer Project (MDP) is developing a plan to fix how mesh clothes fit and then write the programming code to implement the fix.

Standard Avatar Sizes

We aren’t sure how long it will take to get the MDP completed and adopted by Linden Lab… or even if they will adopt the MDP. All the users and all the Lindens want a MDP to be adopted. But it has to work with past, present, and future aspects of Second Life. So, adoption is not a certainty.

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Firestorm Viewer 3.2.2.24336 Review

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The production release of the Firestorm Viewer is here. It has taken 15 months from the preview to this production viewer. The team has essentially combined the features from the Phoenix Viewer with the new Linden Lab Viewer and technology while giving it a custom user interface.

Significant portions of the Lab’s technology have been changing while the team was working. The team had a changing foundation to deal with as they built. For now, the team feels they have caught up with the Lab. Check it out. The following is what I found.

Second Life
New Firestorm Splash Screen

In February of this year we saw the first previews of the Firestorm viewer in a video, see: Firestorm Viewer Preview, and a preview version of the viewer. Since then releases of the Firestorm Viewer have been few and far between. I think that phase of Firestorm’s development is over. I expect to see the release cycle speed up.

We are promised another release of Phoenix. I doubt we will see any more development in Phoenix once it gets mesh. Once that release is out we will see all of the team’s effort placed into Firestorm. There will probably be some bug fixes on Phoenix, but Firestorm is the replacement for Phoenix.

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Firestorm Viewer 3.2.2.24336 Released

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The Firestorm-Phoenix team has released a production version of the Firestorm Viewer.

Download Firestorm 3.2.2.24336

Linden Lab has been making a number of changes to viewer graphics. Many of them have made it into this release. But, the team decided to make another release (3.2.1.24179) without all the new fixes. So, if you have problems with FS 3.2.2 download and try FS 3.2.1.

Download Firestorm 3.2.1.24179

I’ll be trying the viewer Monday. Once I’ve had some time to play with it I’ll write a review.

 

 

 

 

Non-Repetitive Floor Tiles for #SL

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For those of us building large areas there is the problem of avoiding obviously repetitive patterns. While ceramic and vinyl tile often form patterns, stone courtyard tiles don’t. Nor do weathered or aged floors and walls. Maeve Balfour posted in the SL Forum, Creative/Mesh section about avoiding obvious repetition.

Check out the post: Creatively harnessing UVs and Materials – an experiment

The discussion in the thread covers how handling the vertices will affect Land Impact cost.

The post describes a handy idea that solved a problem I have with one of my models. I imagine it can be used in many ways to avoid having areas with repetitive looking textures.

Mesh Deformer Update Week 47

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A bunch of news has trickled out on the Mesh Deformer Project. Check out STORM-1716 – Mesh Deformer for tayloring [SIC] mesh clothing. The JIRA item was filed by Qarl Fizz. He explains the issue very well and goes into some detail about the direction the project is heading. Clothes makers will want to read the item to see what to expect.

Since it is in the JIRA we can expect the more advanced content creators to be involved in the discussion. Also, show some interest. Drop by and click WATCH.

Q&A Items

Qarl poses and answers questions. Probably the most important concept in STORM-1716 is the idea of basing all mesh clothes on the Ruth/Roth avatar rather than a custom avatar, as in one based on your shape or different size avatars… think small, medium, and large, I suppose.

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