Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
I missed the video Siddean Munro made showing off the new features in version 3.0 of Slink Bodies. So, here it is.
Siddean doesn’t get into the Auto-Alapha thing I covered in the previous article.
There is another video for the male body.
The formal announce by Siddean is here: Slink – A huge update!!
Today I got a notice that Slink updated their Physique, Hourglass, and Male Physique bodies. The update is free. Visit the store and click the Re-delivery terminal. You’ll be sent to a web page with a list of the Slink things you have purchased.
You’ll get a new copy of your Slink body. I was using a body labeled v2.8 and a HUD labeled v2.7. They say this new body is compatible will all the stuff I bought for Slink so far.
The biggest visual changes are in the HUD. It is now 4 panels instead of the single panel with everything in one place. There is now a panel for; Alpha, Layers, Skin, and Effects.
There are several changes and additions. The big change is in alpha layers. How the body areas are divided up for masking is a bit different. I am undecided if it is better. It looks like it may be. I’ve had a number of problems trying to mask the previous body to work well with mesh clothes. Backless and open sided dress were a pain.
I thought we would be in the no change window all this week. But, the Lindens have decided to roll last week’s RC update to the main channel… or they automated the forum posting like they did the status reports… naw.
The package rolling to the main channel is listed as having ‘improved internal server logging’. So, it makes sense to me that there is little likelihood of new bugs being introduced by adding and changing logging features. The week in testing probably revealed no performance change problems for this package. So, why not roll it out?
Oz Linden tells us they are making progress on the 64-bit version of the Linden made Second Life™ viewer. Also, they are cleaning up a lot of stuff in the process.
There is a small possibility of having a project version of the 64-bit version out before the full no change window break.
The new voice update is likely after the first of the new year. It fixes some things and improves voice diagnostics.
Lots of people are saying the new Firestorm Viewer 5.0.1 is faster than previous versions. My personal experience is it is. But, what I really want to know is it faster than the default Linden Viewer 5.0.0. Here I find the results a bit mixed.
The image shows my front porch where I did some of the testing. In the image starting on the left I have 3 Firestorm and then 3 Linden viewer numbers. The first FPS from ground level at my house is labeled FS 5.0.1 and shows an FPS of 78.3. The number was bouncing between 75 and 84 FPS.
Yesterday in my SL News I mentioned the rumor that the Firestorm Dev Team would release version 5.0.1. The viewer hasn’t updated since August 2016, four plus months. It did release late Tuesday. Once word spread the Firestorm site overloaded, I think, and has been down on and off ever since.
You can expect that behavior to continue today.