Tutorial: Second Life Masking

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Lildaria Resident started to do a tutorial on Masking in Second Life™. But, she found a good tutorial already exists. She reprinted that tutorial. See: Tutorial: Understanding Mask Mode.

(Image and user poofed…) Blackspot by dolletjes, on Flickr

In the tutorial it is talking about masking meaning alpha layers, hiding parts of the avatar or things in Second Life. If you aren’t clear on how this invisible, transparent, and translucent thing works, check it out. I think it will help.

If you are trying to understand how to implement ‘masking’… I think this tutorial falls a bit short. But, that may just be me not getting the ‘how to’ part of it.

The End of Second Life?

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Everything ends. It is just a matter of when. We hear this story of Second Life™ ending all the time. It is not new. Lots of Chicken Little. That SL has not ended, does not mean it won’t. The sky COULD fall. But, I think we will have plenty of warning should the end draw near.

mediterranean girl
Mediterranean girl by Annahyss Resident, on Flickr

I came to Second Life from Myst Online, which has closed and come back a number of times. So, I’m used to games I like closing. Rizom is another one I liked and played for a time. It too closed and came back. Others just closed. 

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Second Life: Catching Up

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Being gone for almost 2 weeks, there is lots for me to catch up on. These are the things I found interesting.

Mer étincelante
Mer étincelante by Nunie-SL, on Flickr

Scripting

I previously mentioned this. But, now the new avatar height and hover controls officially have their counterparts in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL): LLGetObjectDetails() and LLGetAgentSize(). See: New LSL support for Avatar Shape, Height and Hover.

A part of LLGetObjectDetails() is the flag: OBJECT_HOVER_HEIGHT – Gets the hover height of the avatar.
If id is not an avatar, 0.0 is returned. Normal values are in the range of-2.0 to 2.0 with a default value of 0.0. This value does not reflect the avatar shape’s “Hover” setting, only the dynamic viewer setting.

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Firestorm Viewer 4.7.1-45325

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I downloaded a copy today. Installed it, no problem. I did the remove and then  install process, which is annoying. But, enough people have problems when they install over the last install, it is probably a good idea.

*125
*125 by Mia Sparks, on Flickr

It is hard for me to remember when I made my last settings back up. But, the ‘restore’ settings seems to have missed a few settings. I reset those few manually and made a new backup of the settings. 

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Second Life and Adult Sex

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This week there is flurry of postings about the Atlas Obscura article about Second Life™. Strawberry Singh Ziki Questi is disappointed in Hamlet’s New World Notes post I think is attempting to put things into some perspective and warn of the problems with the type of posts that unrealistically spin the nature of SL. She Plurked: …read this ill informed post… referring to Hamlet’s post.

Unavailable
Unavailable by Mr S. is looking at you, on Flickr

Hamlet’s post may be annoying to many, but I can’t see where he is misinformed. See: Reporter Who Only Gets Expert Tour of Second Life Only Gets Part of Second Life’s Story Right. 

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Blender and Shape Keys

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Blender has had shape keys for some time. They are a common part of most 3D models. But, since we can’t import Blender generated shape key information into Second Life™, the keys have not been much use to us. However, they can be used to make different size dresses, shirts, hands, feet, and whatever along with testing whatever we make.

AvaStar added tools for the use of shape keys to help in making standard sizes of our creations. Now Medhue Simoni has made a video showing what can be done with shape keys and how they work. He doesn’t say much about how we use the keys with things we are making for SL, but he does mention an important point: we will likely be able to use shape keys in the Next Generation Platform, SANSAR.

If you are interested in using shape keys to more quickly make standard size clothing items, refer to the AvaStar tutorials on Machinimatrix.org.