Second Life

Things about SL

Blue Mars Developer’s Tools Review

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Blue Mars Developer Tools
Blue Mars Block Editor

To create things in Blue Mars one must become a developer. So, how easy is it to register? No problem. How easy is it to build something in Blue Mars? Not very.

Registration

First, one registers on the Blue Mars site and gains access to the Developers’ section of the Blue Mars web site. The tools needed to build things for Blue Mars can be downloaded from within the section. The developer is getting a sub-licensed copy of CryEngine 2 MOD SDK*. Easy enough. Blue Mars is supposed to offer more control over ownership of created items. From the look of the info on your personal developer’s page it looks like that will be the case.

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Second Life Currency Exchange Extended

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VirWoX Home Page
VirWoX Web Site

I wrote an earlier post on the Second Life Currency Exchange as a tutorial. Parts of the post are being updated. The idea behind that post was how to easy get a better price and understand some of what is going on there. However, the SL Exchange is not the only currency exchange available to Second Life residents/players. One is Virtual World Exchange or VirWoX.

VirWoX Advantages

The biggest advantages VirWoX offers are for residents outside the USA. They can avoid exchanging Linden Dollars for US Dollars then their native currency. That saves a transaction/exchange fee. Europeans can use direct bank transfers to avoid some other costs too and supposedly be safer.

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Script Limits in Second Life

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Most of us that work with scripts and those that own land have heard Script Limits are coming. For many this is scary as it affects so many things.

Ever wonder what happens to an AV wearing scripted objects that enters an area at its script limit? You might expect your AO to stop working. But vehicles one is ‘sitting’ in may be returned to owner … its undecided. But what if your AO is returned to you also? Hmmmm. Not good. But, that AO return probably won’t happen. You’ll just walk funny.

Not much has been reported lately. Getting information on where Lindens are in the process is difficult.

There are however some places where one can find out what is going on.

Thread on SL Forum: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=337734

Babbage Linden is another source of information as he is doing most of the planning.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Babbage_Linden (scroll down for transcript list)

It appears this is not something that will happen soon. It is a complex change and affects many things. I expect the Lindens to be very cautious with the change and the implementation. But we certainly want to be planning now.

Land of NoR (LoN) Goes DCS2

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This post is about the insides of the RPG’s within Second Life. The largest and, what until now, most exciting game in SL has changed its combat/RP system. What does a meter change mean to a game?

Land of NoR (Nation of Remembrance) is self described as a Dark RPG with combat. Previously it used the WARPS (now XRPS – NextRPS) combat system. For two years this 29 sim RPG used WARPS. Now for various reasons Land of NoR (LoN – do we have enough acronyms yet?) begin upgrading the WARPS to XRPS and is now changing to DCS2, another combat system. Why?

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KirstenLee Cinquetti S-17 and S-18 (208 & 209) Viewer Review

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KirstenLee Viewer Icon
KirstenLee Viewer Icon

This is a Second Life photographer’s dream viewer. I don’t use it for everyday use. But it is fast and has great visual features. As KirstenLee is changing things faster than most other viewer makers so this may be the least stable of the alternate Second Life® viewers. Others claim it is the most stable and needs the least CPU power. That just has not been my experience. Still, if you want that great shot of an area or model looking so sexy, this is your viewer.

Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote about viewers in June and felt the S-17 (198) viewer was simply great. See Pushing the Limits.

I did try it in a combat sim. Server lag, automatic weapons fire and all… it did pretty good. No locks ups and the FPS stayed over 10, which is great for a combat sim.

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Preview of Coming Things in Second Life

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Here is a cool video of the 3D mesh import and dynamic shadows coming to Second Life. If you click to watch on YouTube, you can click the HD button and see detail and read the menus. I suggest that and stop the video to check out what is in them.

Video Gone… 🙁

It is interesting to see ‘Upload Model’ in a menu. As they advance through the video they turn on dynamic shadows. If you have used Kirstenlee’s S-18 viewer and played with dynamic shadows that part will be familiar.

Use of ‘Deferred Rendering’ for shadows is an older technique that Maya has used for years. It has been improved over time and will likely give the Second Life Viewer the ability to render hundreds of lights instead of the 6 to 10 it handles now, without a significant performance hit.

For a bit more information see New World Notes. And their follow up: Aimee Logs Into Second Life… From Within Second Life!

Another good blog post is here: Linden Lab Announces Mesh Support

The ability to remote access computers from SL is a possibility too. See: Trescothick Aims To Please

Also, notice the shadows and lighting. Under the arches there is a light reflection. This is diffuse light or indirect lighting. Usually only done when ray tracing is available. So, this will be a big step up for SL.