Second Life and Virtual Worlds
I think we all have questions about Project Sansar, aka SL 2.0. On the 14th a forum thread was started titled ‘Ask the CEO.’ There is a load of questions and answers. See: Ask the CEO.
Ebbe is not talking about the avatar skeleton. Answering a direct question about whether skeletons other than the basic avatar will be available he answered ‘say tuned.’
Linden Lab has announced that migration from the existing Second Life Marketplace to the new Viewer Managed Marketplace (VMM) will start July 23, 2015. See: Viewer-Man
Migrations will start at 9PM PT and run to 9AM the following day. I expect this to take days, but may be not. You will get an email when they start and finish. Merchants with a large number (5,000+) of products will get advance warning of the pending migration.
Oh noooo… everyone is writing about Dr. Phil doing a show on computer gaming. The show aired on CBS this Tuesday (7/14 – 3PM PT – I was working). For Second Life residents the big deal was to be some coverage of Second Life and an interview with Ebbe Altberg, the Linden Lab CEO.
Hurry and see the video. I’m not sure whether CBS will allow it to remain. 1/5/2016: Some have been removed others have remained. This one replaces the one I originally used.
Drax is said to have helped setup the in-world parts.
Dr. Phil visits Second Life and 1920s Berlin
Dr. Phil Features Second Life in Show on Game Addiction
I Met Dr. Phil in Second Life! – If you only have time for one, read Strawberry’s. She has a play-by-play of the show on Plurk.
I am finding it harder and harder to find interesting news happening in Second Life™. I have a collection of blogs I like. I find that their content is becoming more diverse. Fashion and porn blogs are still focused. Most of the others seem to be losing focus. I feel like the focus I had on developments in SL is harder to maintain.
I may write less and build more… which will mean more tutorials. Those are still consistently the most viewed articles on this blog.
No roll to the main channel this week. The RC channels all get the same package, a maintenance fix with internal simulator fixes…
NiranV has added a modified version of the Linden’s new Notifications Panel. If you read anything about the Third Party Dev’s (TPD) meeting this weekend you know the Lindens have a project viewer out with a Notifications feature change.
Normally TPD’s leave project viewer features out of their viewers until the Lab stops changing them, which is usually when the viewer goes to RC status. NiranV is usually experimenting with user interface (UI) and panel arrangements to avoid screen clutter. Adding the feature early gives users a chance to see how a new feature can work and see a UI that might be better.
This version has more RLVa fixes.
You may not know that in most viewers shadows are rendered according to how you have your draw distance set. NiranV has added more control by adding a slider control that gives you access to the shadow setting. Read more in NiranV’s blog. There is an image showing the effect of the control.
The new shadow control also affects Volumetric Light, God Rays.
The version 7 release adds the Linden Maintenance Viewer version 3.8.1.303166 updates. A large collection of fixes. (Release Notes)
There are some known bugs in 6 & 7. One is the ability to accept animation permission requests and group join requests.. After the request fades you can’t accept. NiranV is aware of the problem and plans to wait for the Lindens to fix it. NiranV is playing with other stuff.
The trailer is an 8 minute video… a bit long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzMPLRpgK8k
You probably know Hair Faire is an event to benefit Wigs for Kids. You can visit in-world here (SLURL). The fair ends July 26th.
As usual the regions are full to capacity, about 40 people. Peak use in SL is about 2 to 3 PM PT. The minimum use time is about 2 to 3 AM PT.