Alchemy Release 3.8.2

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A new release of the Alchemy Viewer is out. The announcement is here: Alchemy Release 3.8.2.

Serenity At The Beach
Serenity At The Beach

The highlights of this version are:

  • OpenSimulator Support
  • Build tools improvements
  • Second Life 3.8.2 Base and library updates
  • Update to the Visual Studio 2015 toolchain for Windows
  • Support for up to 2 gigabytes of texture memory

New features:

  • Add a means of aligning materials to texture
  • Add Script Options from the Build>Scripts> menu to the right click>build> submenu
  • Hypergrid support/multigrid support
  • OpenSim Varregion support

There are some other improvements and bug fixes. Release Notes.

Comparison: Mesh Bodies

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The site MeshBodyAddicts.com has new reviews and comparison charts of the mesh bodies available in Second Life. So, if you are shopping, this is a good source of information. See: Reviews: Isteni, Tonic & Dude SLink!

Visage Head Becky
Visage Head Becky

As of now there is no Render Complexity Information in the reviews. With the Complexity Feature on the way (See Quick Graphics viewer in Alternates) I think this is a huge oversight.

If you have wondered about the Omega Applier, see: Omega Solutions.

Blender Interesting – Sansar

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This is just a fun video showing what one person made in Blender.

I wonder about making a comparison between Blender and Project Sansar. It is obviously more technically complicated to make a yard, house, and environment in Blender than it is in Second Life™. The learning curve in SL is high but Blender has a much higher learning curve.

So, will Sansar be a Blender-like creative tool with an intuitive user interface and presets for worlds? We will have to wait to find out.

Did you notice how the facial expressions used? I expect this level of facial control in the Sansar avatars.

Second Life in the News Week 38

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I found a couple of new articles about Project Sansar. I’m only going to point out the stuff in the articles I found interesting.

Second Life eyes second act as virtual reality matures – Financial Times (FT)

Jolie Birdy
Jolie Birdy

The FT says the Lab has magazine covers from 2005 that tell about Second Life™ being the next big thing hanging in their offices.

FT points to Project Sansar, High Fidelity, and AltspaceVR as the coming new Virtual Worlds (VW).

FT quotes Wagner James Au (Hamlet), New World Notes, as saying fashion designers are the likely second category of VW users that will make money from VW’s. Presumably the first is those needing to build VW’s for various reasons.

I sure it will thrill many that Hamlet says the third money making category is probably going to be porn. I agree with him. Porn was the early money maker when the Internet started. Hamlet also thinks many big businesses will make the same mistakes they made in Second Life. They will jump into VW’s to look cutting edge, high tech with little or no idea what they are doing and whether it will make them money. 

Read more

Server Updates Week 38

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Both the main and RC channels are getting updates this week. This is a step up as several of the past weeks we have only seen one or the other get an update. Two packages are going into the RC channels.

Main

This update package has the Navmesh fix (BUG-9504). No other change is listed.

RC Channels

Blue Steel is getting a package that improves inventory performance. See my article: Second Life Inventory Update Week 37+.

Le Tigre and Magnum are getting a package that has fixes for:

  • BUG-9683 “Feature Request: llGetAttachedList() – returns a list of root keys of all visible attachments worn by an agent.”
  • BUG-9891 “[Feature Request] – llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_CLICK_ACTION”

More Sansar Week 38

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CNN Money has an article out titled: Company behind Second Life building virtual reality universe. They repeat much of what we already know. They have to catch their readers up on what they are talking about. But, there is an interesting item I found new.

inner thoughts..
inner thoughts..

Quoting:

Internally, Linden Lab employees are working on polishing the product [Sansar], building their own test worlds along the way. They’ve made a desert scene with crazy big machinery, weird futuristic lounges and a famous landmark. They’ve even created an exact replica of a conference room in Linden Lab’s San Francisco office, down to the objects on the desk.

I also saw in another place that the Lab is offering a VR workshop Sept. 18 at their offices.