Second Life – Page 517 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Editing Terrain or Raw Files with Photoshop

2011/04/172010/12/06 by Nalates Urriah

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

2010/12/04 by Nalates Urriah

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/

Second Life Viewer 2.4 Beta Released

2010/12/03 by Nalates Urriah

Snowstorm Project

We have a new Beta version out. See the announcement: Try Out the New Viewer 2.4 Beta, Now Available. Jack Linden posted the news today.

Auto-Updater

This new feature is included in this Beta release. I’ve been watching it coming through Snowstorm this week. It will be interesting to see how well it works… or not. The idea here being that viewer updates will download in background. At your next logon you will be asked if you want to install the upgrade. You have a choice.

This should make the process of updating a viewer much simpler for non-techs and less tedious for power users.

Mesh Feedback Thread

2011/03/102010/12/03 by Nalates Urriah

Gaia Clary has opened a thread in the SL Blogrum for feedback on the Mesh Upload Process. You may know Gaia from the video tutorials about Blender and SL sculpties and meshes found on Machinimatrix.org.

See: feedback to the mesh model upload tool

Mesh Testers Needed

2011/03/102010/12/02 by Nalates Urriah

Dan Linden has put up a post asking for mesh testers. Help us test Mesh performance

There is a challenge in regard to testing prim equivalency and parcel prim limits. There are some serous tick-you-off gotcha’s evolved in prim limits and mesh equivalents. This is the testing they need help with. So, if you want a parcel on the Preview Grid and are willing to help out with building mesh stuff, sign up.

Hey folks,
we need your help in testing Mesh within real limitations. We want to get “real world” numbers for render and streaming performance and this means building content on parcels with restricted size instead of region size sandboxes.

See the post for how to sign up. Only 64 parcels available. You need to fill them up with meshes.

Phoenix Viewer Final Release?

2010/12/02 by Nalates Urriah

The Phoenix team posted an announcement today. Some time ago they said there would be one more release of Phoenix before they moved on to the Firestorm viewer, which will be based on Snowstorm code. Well, they say the new release of Phoenix will be out this Friday. See Nov 30th Office Hour & Contest info

Video Tutorials

Jessica Lyons talked about the coming release in Rezzed.tv’s Phoenix Hour. The first announcement is about the creation of a YouTube series of video tutorials in Phoenix’s YouTube.com Channel. The first ones will cover multi-wearables and inventory links. There are two videos up as I write. One is about the new Parcel Windlight Settings. More about that later. The other is about Display Names and more about that too.