Second Life

Things about SL

Most Interesting Second Life Viewer

by

Most of us are curious about which viewer is popular and most used. We only know how many people are logging on with a particular viewer when Linden Lab decides to tell us, and that isn’t often. Viewer developers can usually tell us how many downloads have been made. Some that use their own web based splash page can tell us how many unique visitors come to the page. But the information is sketchy at best.

Viewer Interest

This blog has stats and I’ve tried to make the viewer articles easy to find via Google/Yahoo search. The top two viewers bringing visitors to my site are Ascent and Emerald. Interest in Ascent has lead the stats here for weeks. Ascent is 1st, Out of Emerald’s Ashes… 4th, Greenlife Emerald 5th, Phoenix 7th, Greenlife Emerald Breasts 8th, Phoenix 9th, and Emerald 10th. 

Read more

Browser Based Second Life

by

News is leaking out that Linden Lab will be running a closed beta on Skylight, a browser based viewer for Second Life. Only selected regions and people will be allowed into the test. I first saw the news on New World Notes (Linden Lab Testing Version of Second Life That Runs on a Web Browser).

I’ve since come across a first hand account with the details here: Beta Testing of Skylight Web Viewer for Second Life

Second Life Beta Viewer 2.3.0 Released

by

The new SL 2.3 Beta version viewer is out. You can read the official release information here.

Display Names

The big change is the addition of Display Names. There is a Torley video at the link above showing how to use Display Names.

While the viewer has the feature not all the regions have it turned on. The Lab is being cautious rolling it out. They made changes from user input. Griefing and impersonation being the leading concerns. 

Read more

Imprudence Experimental Release: 2010.10.23

by

A new Experimental Viewer is out. The big feature addition in this viewer is Qarl’s Alignment Tool. \o/ Yay!!! I have an alignment tool I can use in OSGrid. Hopefully it will make it to SL viewers. There we have Prim Docker (pay for tool) a way better (but not as easy to use) alignment tool, so alignment is already possible and the new tool is not so important in SL.

The Imprudence page has the release notes. Release 2010.10.23

Alignment Tool

Using the tool is easy and intuitive. Make yourself some prims of different sizes. This is about learning so irregular sizes will let you better see what is happening.

To use the tool notice the Align choice between Edit linked parts and Select faces to texture. Click it and the alignment tool is active. Select the prims you want to align. It is not necessary to link the prims.

It is easy to see how the tool works than describe it. Try it, you’ll love it. Mikey did.

Playing with Second Life Mesh

by
SL OS Mesh OSGrid Second Life
Mesh Pedestal

I built a model I plan to use in my OSGrid regions. I don’t want to do a tutorial on Second Life Mesh. Gaia at Machinimatrix.org does those so much better than I would. But, I do want to pass on what I have learned without getting too techy.

I can say that mesh is working pretty well. It certainly is much easier to texture mesh than it is sculpties. One can have custom UV Maps and that is a big step up.

I also took a quick look around the ADITI Mesh Enabled Regions. I have included some images I captured.

Those that have played in the more recent Myst games (see Myst Online for the free mMOG) will recognize the type of pedestal. The ‘linking’ (like a teleport) pedestal (grass background) is made in two pieces. 

Read more