Second Life and NVIDA Update Problem – Fix

It seems people updating to the current NVIDIA driver are having problems logging in. They crash on viewer launch.

As of April 6, there is an NVIDIA driver version 381.65. This is the one people have a problem with. The previous version 378.92, the one I am running, does not have the problem. So, some people are rolling back to 378.92.

Whirly Fizzle has posted in the SL Forum that the problem has been tracked to NVIDIA’s Shadowplay/Share feature. Turn it off and things work.

We are early in this problem fix cycle. So, we may learn more soon.

Second Life and Sansar in the News

The Irish Times has an article by Marie Boran, Virtual reality is giving Second Life a second lease of life. (4/13) Marie was a participant in Second Life™ in 2010. In the first few words she reports the Trump-Swastikas at a Bernie Sanders meetup. That mention should clue people to the possibility of the reporting being shallow. I’ll try to push the Sansar news deeper and provide some perspective on Second Life..

The Blarneystone in Dublin, SL – 2017

Marie moves on to point out that while there is an ‘underbelly’ to SL, that is often reported on, there is also a surprising number of ‘ordinary’ folks in SL. The real world is pretty much that way… so…

Next Marie says her 2010 outfit and skin had expired… I went back and tried some of my 2008 outfits, well, we didn’t have “Outfits” in 2008. So, I had to find some stuff from then and make an outfit to see if things still worked. They did. I looked horrible. We can’t be sure what happened to Marie. I’ll take this as being another nail in ‘shallow’. But… Continue reading

Second Life: Inventory Help

There are loads of tutorials giving Second Life™ inventory management styles and suggestions. It is Kitty Barnett that is actually building helpful tools into the Inventory Panel. Kitty, having a 100K+ items in inventory has been finding using the inventory TEDIOUS. I can feel her.

~Everybody's Changing~

~Everybody’s Changing~

These are the types of tools users think awesome and Lab programmers doubt they are worth the effort. I believe this type of improvement is something only someone using their inventory daily would think of and see its value.

So, being the programmer for the Catznip Viewer and using her inventory a lot, she is adding handy tools to her version of the viewer. To see what she is adding and why, see her series of articles titled: Three Days of Teasers. Continue reading

Slink Male Dynamic Hands Released

I just saw an in-world notice that Slink has released their Male Dynamic Hands, or AKA Bento hands.

If you already have Slink hands then this is just an update, no cost. Just visit the in-world Slink store (map URL) and click redeliver.

What you get depends on which hands package you purchased. If the full pack, you get the full HUD that has all the hand poses.

I’ve been wearing my Dynamic hands since they came out. Love them. Of course none of my rings work any more and nails have to be Slink or Slink Bento nails.

Second Life: Moo-ish Opinions

Penny Patton often writes about getting the best experience in Second Life™ (SL). Smaller textures, fewer polygons, to scale building, RL sized avatars, and more. Penny also participates in the SL Forum. There she is often misunderstood as evidenced by people mis-phrasing her positions. So, she wrote The Penny FAQ to keep the record straight.

Size Comparison

Penny is what I would call a Second Life Technical Conservationist. Her political position comes across as Libertarian, Lazier-Fair. So, letting people do what they want without a lot of fascist rule enforcement seems to be her usual position, at least of those I’ve seen. It’s an education versus dominance stance.

Second Life Animation: Priorities

Medhue Simoni is doing a live stream YouTube presentation on Second Life™ subjects. You can catch his previous live streams, now videos, on his YouTube channel.

For now he plans to start a stream between 8 and 9 AM SLT. I caught this one live. YouTube provides a live chat channel to go with the stream.

I think Medhue is winging it through the presentations, extemporaneous. There are sufficient and-huh’s, a bit of ramble, and several false starts. But, the information is good. Scripting the presentation, working from an outline, and quick rehearsals all before the live presentation can greatly improve it. But, it is more work. Continue reading

Second Life Animation: BVH vs ANIM

There are two formats of animation file used in Second Life™. Which one to use? Medhue gives us his take on the two formats.

Basically, ANIM avoids the SL Import Program’s gotchas.

Medhue talks about animation priorities, for the overall animation and/or for each individual bone.

Bone translation has additional options in ANIM. If you aren’t familiar with the idea of bone translation, think bone placement.

 

Second Life News 2017 w15

Servers

This week there is no planned roll of the main channel servers.

Destination: Gates of Melancholy

Destination: Gates of Melancholy

The RC channels are getting a new package and will roll on Wednesday. According to the ‘deploys’ thread they all get the same package. This package includes:

  • Several internal fixes and two new internal logging modes
  • Another adjustment to fix issues with offline IM and Group Notice delivery reliability
  • Fixes an issue where large numbers of objects could be returned after a rolling restart

My understanding was the change for Estate Owner and Manager control of parcel access in a region was to be in this release but, I see no mention of it. Last week Oz, Grumpity, Caleb, and Mazidox Linden were all talking about it.  Continue reading