This was just recently (hours ago) announced on Twitter. They give a link to the download page, which doesn’t really say anything about Beta 2… duh. But, the beta link does lead to version 2.4.0(216393), which they are calling Beta 2. This appears to be the Dec 3rd release announced on the blog days ago. But, on December 3rd I blogged about the 2.4.0(215891) Beta release, which is Beta 1. You would never know there was a change by looking at the blog or download page.
Second Life
Things about SL
Second Life Mesh Tutorial
Those into sculpties will or should know the name Gaia Clary. Gaia makes sculpty tutorial videos and runs the Machinimatrix.org blog. Gaia also makes JASS, Just Another Sculpty Studio.
Gaia has a new, and to me surprising, tutorial up. This one includes how to export your avatar from Second Life and get it ready for other mesh work.
The tutorial is for those making mesh avatars and clothes. Plus it is a way to export your custom avatar for use in Blender or 3DSMax. It goes on to cover attaching the mesh to the avatar armature and weighting the mesh so it deforms correctly with joint movement.
Xcite Releases X4 Genitals in Second Life
Sex is part of the fun in Second Life. Many think it is just the naughty part and way strange. I suppose they have never understood phone sex either. Whatever the case, those that have figured out sex can be fun have an interest in the various brands of genitals. Xcite is probably the top of the line in genitals and they have just released a new line of private parts. Several of the changes are noteworthy as they mark changes in SL technology and while they can apply to other aspects of SL, they make this a new system.
Copy Enabled – Replacements
A new feature of this release is the parts are Copy enabled. One can make copies of genital parts and the hud. This reduces the chance of an SL glitch vaporizing your parts and leaving you anatomically incomplete. No copy items have been an SL problem for some time.
KirstenLee Viewer S20(43) Released
KirstenLee has a new release of her viewer out. This one seems to have run up against the lack of support Apple provides for 3D rendering. Users on Mac OS 10.4 and earlier will likely have problems. However the Windows and Linux versions are out. See: Apple Issues… :/
I’m downloading the viewer and will try it out later today.
The release notes show KirstenLee has upgrade the code for Mac OS 10.6. The Depth of Field feature the Lindens are adding as a by-product of fixing Anti-Aliasing has been added with user interface controls for it. The mesh object count has been updated. Some other techie fixes and upgrades.
Still no mesh upload. But, the viewer renders mesh.
Editing Terrain or Raw Files with Photoshop
I needed to edit a terrain file for one of my regions in OpenSim. Trying to smooth the terrain with the terrain editing tools in viewers just was not working. Whether one is targeting OpenSim or Second Life it is the same process. Photoshop is where the challenge is, getting a terrain.raw or terrain.r32 file open in Photoshop. This article shares the information I found and avoids a lot of the link rot that has set in on this subject.
Terrain and Camera
When searching Google one quickly realizes there is more than one type of RAW file. RAW files are used for images files created by many scientific applications… and especially digital cameras. When searching for terrain tutorials on Google use the negative term –camera (minus sign/dash and a word) to exclude information about camera raw files.
Phoenix Viewer 1.5.2.725 Release Review
Note: This is a ‘unfinished’ article. But it will get you the information I have learned from using this new release. So, far it seems pretty nice.
Install
Version 1.5.2(725) has a slightly different installer than most viewers. It is more like most application installers. The default is to install in the folder Phoenix Viewer. This is the folder previous versions have used. So, it over writes the previous 373 version.
In the release announcement the team warns this viewer is a drastic… significant… change from the previous viewers. They ask everyone link to the announcement so users can be warned to check out the tutorials and manual the team has been building in the wiki. So, for a download visit: http://phoenixviewer.blogspot.com/