Second Life and Virtual Worlds
My viewer updated last Thursday (3/5). I’m now running on the RC Tools Update Viewer version. This is the newer Login Viewer compiled with the new build tools.
The memory leak I’ve been dealing with in the previous version seemed worse in this version. I was lasting about 15 minutes then my viewer was stuttering, jerking and thrashing textures. I was thinking I would probably have to move off it and get another RC viewer or maybe even a Project viewer.
Body snatchers unit. New mesh bodies are here. Loki Eliot has made new mesh bodies. For now they are free. There are also clothes packs to go with the avatars. These are ‘packs’ not clothes. The point being is they are for designers wanting to make clothes for the Loki avatars.
These apparently are not Fitted Mesh avatars. Loki says he is still working to figure out Fitted Mesh. That is no easy task. I’ve been through it. There is a lot to learn. The SL Classic Avatar uses morphing for size changing. Plus the scaling of shapes coming out of SL via XML files and later uploaded into SL have scaling issues. (See: Exporting Second Life Shapes) Anyone trying to figure things out has to discover these hidden problems.
I gave up and bought AvaStar, being a Blender user. Maya users can now buy MayaStar. Most of the esoteric SL problems are solved in those two tools.
See Exploring the future of my Avatars Shape – part 5 – Loki Avatars for more details.
This is an ongoing saga. Capital Exchange is a stock market simulation game caught in the Lab’s rules for Skill Gaming. For months they have been arguing with the Lab’s attorney (s).
There is a new update on the process: March 2015 Skill Gaming Update.
As I read the account of what is happening. I notice a similarity to many politically based legal disputes; delay, require more paper, drive legal costs up, never provide a clear point to oppose, … just an endless stream of obfuscation and delay.
Is the Lab deliberately using stalling tactics? Are the attorneys billing hourly? What’s going on? We can’t know.
Whatever the case, Skip Oceanlane, CEO, is now asking for your help. I suggest you read the articles he has been posting for months and make your decision as to whether you want to help. As it is now it is looking like the Lab, deliberately or not, has reached the point of abusing this SL business owner. It certainly appears to be the way to drive businesses out of Second Life.
Scoop.it has links to another interesting tutorial. This one is about working with green screen… or I would say masking and cutting your avatar out of the background.
Nimil Blackflag wrote the tutorial and made the images. This is basically an example of how to use the Background Eraser and setup the image so it works amazingly well. It is simple, fast, and near perfect. But, it does require Photoshop.
See: so you want to remove a green screen?
I think sooner or later everyone gets bitten. CyberWarZone.com has an article up listing the best sites for researching malware and finding ways to get it out.
Drax does a series of videos depicting Second Life as it really is. He doesn’t show ALL of Second Life. He shows the side he feels is most under reported, the missing side. The reports are accurate representations of the side of Second Life he wants to show. See: Drax Files for my coverage of those videos and see YouTube for the full collection of his videos.
There are parts of real life that we don’t see. Just as the media does their hype for their purposes with little regard for presenting a balanced view of Second Life. So too the media and politicians hype their idea of what we should be responding too in RL based on their agenda, which mostly benefits the politicians. There is little if any balance our mainstream media and the accuracy is way questionable.
There hasn’t been a Drax to balance the reporting in RL. Now there is a group that is starting to do just that. Opportunity Lives is featuring a series of videos titled “Comeback” showing what RL people are doing without waiting for the government to save them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0TAuWyDi4
There is to be a series of these videos.
You’ll be seeing the blogosphere for Second Life covering Login2Life, a documentary video that runs an hour and 26 minutes. This video starts in English and English is scattered throughout. It uses English subtitles where needed. About 87 minutes is in various languages. I think I hear; German, French, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and …
This is at least ‘R’ rated… my opinion. Not pornographic. But, adult sex is a part of the documentary. It’s well handled.
Login2Life is not the fast paced videos I am used to seeing that Drax makes about Second Life. It is a little slow paced for me. But, this isn’t something to be squeezed into something like Drax’s 5 minute vignettes.
Check it out. Please watch it on YouTube and give it a thumbs up.