Second Life

Things about SL

KirstenLee S21(5) Viewer Released Review

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Kirsten Radar or Nearby
Radar or Nearby

This version is released in Windows and Mac versions only. The release is labeled an early build… All the typical versioning designators used by most software developers do not apply to the Kirsten Viewers. It is somewhat like experimental aircraft. Even when an experimental plane reaches a stable model and is sold to others it remains an experimental model. So, it is not completely accurate to say this is an alpha or beta version.

One has to realize KirstenLee is developing for the high-end techie with a high-end machine. Consideration for legacy machines and novice users is NOT high on KirstenLee’s priority list. It isn’t an animosity; it’s just that KirstenLee is not letting requirements to be compatible with older technology disproportionately hold back development of the viewer.

In keeping with that line of thinking this viewer will NOT install on machines that do not meet advanced requirements. I suppose too many people with old hardware and software were complaining of problems. No matter what KirstenLee says about the viewer being an advanced model with advanced hardware requirements people tried to run it on equipment that was not adequate and then complained. Now it should be blatantly obvious when you don’t have the hardware to get it up.

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Dolphin Viewer 2 2.5.0.14583 and Dolphin Viewer 1.5.45.3627 Review

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Dolphin Viewers 1 & 2 have new versions out, actually they were out on the 12th and I’m lagging. The Dolphin Viewer 2 (DV2) is based on SLV2.5 code. No new features for it, yet. The Dolphin Viewer 1.5 (DV1) has four new features, which are described on the Dolphin blog. See: Dolphin Viewer

This week Lance announced that the Dolphin Viewers for Linux will be built on openSUSE 11.2… openSUSE announced they were releasing 11.3… so… I’m not sure what Lance is saying. I know some people prefer to be a version behind because the problems and work-arounds are known. So, I can suppose…

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Second Life Clean Install

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UPDATED: March 2015.

There are a number of tutorials and “How To’s” for doing a clean install of Second Life Viewers. Several viewers have their own instructions in their wiki or forum. I’ve read through a bunch of them. In general they seem to be written by a one-viewer user with some minor concessions to the possibility one may be using more than one viewer. I’ve had over 15 viewers simultaneously installed and working. I’ve also had things horribly balled up. So, I’ve experimented with several different clean install processes. This is what I’ve learned about Second Life Clean Installs.

Second Life Clean Install
Cleaning – By: Chicago Art Department

Warning: This is Windows oriented. I don’t do Mac, sorry. And I don’t have any running Linux boxes. The difference in how a clean stall is done is mostly in file locations.

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Second Lifes Linden Groups

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Second Life Communications
Listening - By: vagawi @ Flickr

Since long before I found Second Life residents, users, have complained about poor communications between Linden Lab and users. In 2010 Phillip Rosedale proclaimed that would change and the Lab would be more open. That has been happening and there have been problems. So, more changes are coming.

 

Contacting Linden Lab

Some time ago I wrote an article on how to effectively contact the Lab. Contacting & Influencing Second Life. Things are starting to change and eventually the information there will be way out of date.

This article is sort of the transition phase of how to connect with the Lab until we know more.

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Second Life Mesh Status Week 8

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Development work on mesh is proceeding. I haven’t written much about it lately because most of the information is rather geeky… boring. I don’t really care about the details of the equation used to calculate upload cost of mesh nor all the changes made to the equation to make it equitable. I do care about what will make them cheap to upload. Whether I write about it or not there is lots going on in the Mesh Development Project. There is also LOTS of interest in SL Mesh. The Mesh Office Hours meetings are held at the corner of the region because the region is filling up. That allows people to flow into 4 regions for the meeting.

Second Life Mesh
Second Life Mesh in February 2011

First of all, Charlar Linden tells us that some of the mesh objects imported with older versions of the mesh viewer will become invalid. These are typically mesh objects that have a box outline around them in the physics shape display. Use Develop->Render Metadata->Physics Shapes to see the shape.

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Second Life Mono2 Scripting Coming

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If you create things in Second Life and they use scripts, this change will affect you. The Le Tigre Release Candidate is currently running what one might call the Mono2 Bridge. The Lab currently has it labeled as Mono2-Aware. This is the part that integrates legacy scripting and the coming new Mono2 Scripting engine on the server side of things. So, how will this change affect script writers and script users?

LSLEditor
Mono2 Scripting Enroute

Complex scripts that use various work-arounds may have problems. They could fail. Simple scripts that rely on depreciated functions/commands will likely have problems too. Linden Lab is doing all it can to avoid problems. But, it is impossible to anticipate and know everything that everyone has written into a scrip. So, problems are likely.

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