Ribbon Particles in Second Life

These have been the works for some time. The server side was completed earlier this year. The Wiki was updated in the spring. But, we have not had a viewer that could display the particles. That is about to change. We should get a RC Viewer tomorrow, Friday. And as usual that might not happen.

Server Beta Meeting 2013-37 - Particle Demo Object
Server Beta Meeting 2013-37 – Particle Demo Object

Or you can go here now: Ribbon Viewer. If you choose to get and use this viewer, turn off all automatic updates. And leave them turned off until you reinstall the main viewer. This means if you have the main viewer installed, disable ‘willing to RC’ and auto-update. Then install this viewer.

Realize you will most likely break your current install pipeline until you do a default install of an RC or the main viewer. So, install at your risk.

This version is not likely to be up to date with other viewer updates and fixes. It is very likely behind. So, if you do try it out, get the RC version from the pipeline tomorrow.

Do NOT call support if you are using this viewer!!!

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Second Life News 2013-37

I was hoping to hear some word on what new projects the Lab is working on. But, not yet. May be in a couple of weeks.

Interest List Viewer Side

For a few weeks now the server side of the Interest List changes have been done and rolled out. But, the viewer side of those changes is taking some time. The team working on the viewer side is still stomping on bugs.

TPV Dev Meetin 2013-30
TPV Dev Meetin 2013-30

When changing Interest List code there is lots of opportunity for mistakes and things not to work as expected. The team is working to avoid a bad launch of the viewer side changes.

And we are told this viewer side Interest List stuff is not one of the secret things coming…

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Second Life News 2013-36 #2

From my perspective things are quite on the development side of Second Life™.  I suppose the Lindens could just be busy cleaning up CHUI, SSA, and working on HTTP. We also know they are working on the Advanced Experience Tools, which is probably requiring the rewriting of much of the permissions handling code for the SL system. But, every now and then we get a hint some neat new things are coming. Beyond ‘neat’ we know little if anything.

Beta Server Meeting 2013-33
Beta Server Meeting 2013-33

Andrew Linden said Tuesday that he had been fixing a griefing exploit. This is the one where large prims could knock avatars out of a region. Once upon a time that had been fixed. But, at some point the fix had been broken. That has now been fixed and the code is running in the RC channels.

While we no longer have any user group or Linden person associated with the SL Web Sites, we have heard that Monty Linden is doing some ‘web site maintenance’, which I suspect is adding some of the newer HTTP protocol code to the sites. But, we don’t really know. I guess that adding the newer HTTP communication stuff to the Direct Delivery process would be an improvement. 

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Second Life Android Viewer

The Second Life Third Party Viewer Directory lists a new viewer for the Android 2.1 and up devices named LittleSight. It appeared on the list about September 3, 2013.

LittleSight Android SL Viewer - Image: Google Apps Store
LittleSight Android SL Viewer – Image: Google Apps Store

This is a Japanese made app. The current version according to the web site appears to be 1.2.0. But, on Google Play it is listed as version 1.4.1.

While it is listed as an app for Android 2.1 and up one user reports it working fine on 1st generation Androids. Since it is free-to-try there is little risk to checking it out.

The web site for the viewer is written in Japanese. Google Translate is not that good with Japanese. So, I find it hard to understand. That may explain my confusion over the version number.

LittleSight 1.4.1
LittleSight 1.4.1

The free app can be found on Google Play. But, it is not completely free. It may be better to call this a free to try app. The catch is you cannot teleport. You login to a single location, which you cannot select, until you purchase their service.

Users are rating LittleSight 3.1 out of 5 with 65 reviews. Mostly re views are good. Complaints I noticed are about earlier versions. It seems most of those have been fixed.

It appears to be a chat viewer for SL with the ability to use the SL World Map for navigation through SL, once you purchase the app’s service. I didn’t find a cost for the app’s service. Not having an Android I can’t really check it out.

 

Oculus Rift in Second Life’s Berlin 1920

Jo Yardley has been talking with Björn-Christian Bönkost. Björn has a Rift SDK unit that he is using with David Rowe’s CtrlAltStudio Viewer. Björn visited Berlin in Second Life™ and Jo got him to write about it. You can read his account here: First Oculus Rift user visits Berlin.

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I think for anyone thinking of trying out the Rift, Björn ‘s comments say it very well: “I was impressed, amazed and stunned. The city is bigger than anything you can find as a demo for the rift.” 

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