XXX Original Event – This is an adult event… shocking, I know you wouldn’t have guessed… All sexy stuff and a load of free stuff (it all lands in the Objects folder) for Maitreya and Slink (both O & H). Plus, some of the free gifts have Standard Size versions included. There is a good percent of guy-stuff there too. And a few gag-gifts that are funny.
Aline Passiflora over on Fabulously Free caught my attention and I followed a link to the event, which ends August… something. The events are on-going. Only this event set of stuff will disappear. You do need to join the free XXX Event Group (SLURL) to get the free stuff.
Nal – Watching You
Blender 2.8 Release – Release is planned for the end of July, which is today Tuesday.
Hangars Liquides – Seems the sims have been saved, at least for a time. The crowdfunding effort has made over 55% of the goal. So, the sims will live past the end of July.
However, the full goal has NOT been reached. So, if you can, donate.
Updating the EEP RC Viewer – If you are running on Win-10 v1903 with NVIDIA and update the EEP viewer as it requires by clicking OK, it will trash your video settings. I mean your screen will go wonky and require a computer restart to reset it. The NVIDIA reset (Win Key)+Ctrl+Shift+B won’t help.
Paint for Shergood’s H-160
Avoid the problem and download the EEP RC Viewer from the Alternate Second Life Viewers page. You can install over the top of the prior install.
AvaStar – Welcome to Avastar 2.79, the new release, July 14, 2019. This will be the last release for Blender 2.79. With this release the version numbering changes. I suppose the point is to make it easier to know which AvaStar works with which Blender.
AvaStar 2.79 will NOT work with Blender 2.80 and above. The next version of AvaStar will be 2.80 and it is being designed to work with Blender 2.80 and up.
Shergood Aviation – New waypoints have been released. These are server-side changes. So, various aircraft do not have to be updated. This is primarily a help to H-160 and Chinook pilots and GPS HUD users. It will be of less importance to older craft but, still a nice improvement.
A notice was sent to the Shergood Aviation group (SLURL) members explaining how to make use of the new waypoint system. To get a copy, join the group, look in Notices.
Topless Cruise – Cruises start weekly Tuesdays 1PM SLT (21:00 BST / 22:00 CEST) – To get updates, join the group Topless Cruisers. (SLURL)
Sailors are welcome to change wind direction. I try to make it without changing wind direction. For me, it depends on whether or not I hit some laggy regions where I cannot maintain control of the boat.
Everyone is welcome to the after-party. This week it is (‘was’ depending on when I get this published) at Twice Bitten Villa. (URL)
Servers
Again… no Deploys post.
My home region in the main channel was restarted this morning. It is running version Second Life Server 19.06.14.528215, which is the same version as last week and the week before.
Blue Steel is running the same version as of Tuesday morning. I presume Le Tigre and Magnum are also. I will have to look tomorrow to see if they change.
Aah Ha. Simon Linden at the Server-Scripting UG says we will get an update on the Magnum channel Wednesday. Saying, “a tiny performance boost … one crash fix, an esoteric TP failure fix, update a system library … general fix-it stuff that isn’t likely to be visible.”
Simon also points out that various employees are on vacation. So, some projects, like Scripts Run %, are not being worked on.
A thread in the SL Forum is about what the Lab should do to get more people into Second Life™. (Thread: Its amazing how strong SL seems to be!?) I read through it. Seems everyone has their opinion. I see no real suggestions based on anything other than opinion. So, I doubt the Lindens will find anything worthy of their time. But…
We Are….
Are you aware of what the Lindens have done and are doing to attract new users? Or maybe how much they are spending on advertising? Or even how targeted Internet advertising works?
Are you aware the Lab has done and continues to do lots of A-B testing?
If you can’t answer yes to most of these questions and whip off some of the university studies carried out in SL then why would you think you are qualified to advise the Lab on what they should do?
In the article The Daily Grind: What tends to attract you to an MMO? Massively Overpowered provides a way to get information that people actually may know something about that could be useful. The title explains it all.
Windows 10 Build 1903 – This is the current significant update from Microsoft. For now, it is an optional update.
In the SL community, a number of people have had issues after installing 1903. NVIDIA users have to use one of the newer viewers to avoid video issues when exiting the SL Viewer. The Lindens latest default viewer (6.2.3.527756) has a fix for the problem. The viewer will automatically install the update. You don’t need to do anything.
The What’s New video for Windows 10 is here…
Windows 10 1903 Optimization – This is another video that is an extensive guide. If you are trying to squeeze the most from your computer, this is the guide you will want. The changes he recommends are reversible.
From the Content Creators’ UG (CCUG) meeting we get some more precise project updates. I’ve also tossed in some information from Meet the Lindens get togethers.
Starting out Alexa Linden is talking about Bakes on Mesh, BoM. It appears they are getting close to releasing it. There is apparently ‘one more’ thing they are tweaking… presumably, before it can release.
Alexa says items that use the new BoM will have a unique inventory icon.
EEP is getting another viewer update. This version will be in QA over the weekend and if it passes, they hope to have it out Monday.
Getting the news out took a bit as I decided to include my own Meet the Lindens video. Pantera Północy posts his videos more quickly than I do. I get bored with his single camera angle. I also process the video to improve the audio… since my camera is moving around have to capture audio at my avatar’s location, not the more easily controlled camera location which has the audio level is all over the place if I move around. That single spot audio is not the best, so I think it still needs some help. But it is serviceable.
SL16B Crowd – The Meet the Lindens Tuesday event was attended by close to 200 people, 11 were Lindens, spread over four regions. Max per region was about 55. I didn’t crash and things worked well. People were a bit slow rendering, textures lagged, but no regions crashed. My FPS was in the 7 to 11 FPS (i5, 32GB, GTX-1060 High-Ultra Shadows + Projectors). – April’s mic was cutting out. – The video is a bit jerky. At 7FPS that happens.
Video Abstract
The video starts with Oz and April telling us about their history with Second Life™. Both were residents before they were hired by the Lab. I found this part of the video INTERESTING… Saffia is a good interviewer.
When we can get Oz or other techy Lindens talking, they always have interesting stuff to say and we learn things about the SL system.
In this Meet the Lindens meeting, April Linden confessed that 2 to 6 months ago they moved the SL inventory to the cloud. Not every detail has moved, but basic inventory (database) now runs in the cloud on much faster computers. And no one noticed, which is what the Lindens want.
