Developing Games in Second Life

by

Ciaran Laval comes up with interesting stuff and often unique perspectives. He has an article up about MadPea Games. His take is that since MadPea can develop games in Second Life others can too. True. That is proof positive. But, there are games and then there are GAMES.

Party Area?
Party Area? by Ciaran Laval, on Flickr

One support in the argument for Second Life as a game development platform is the new region Consignment. As you explore the region you’ll find the history of MadPea games. So, there is no doubt MadPea has been developing great games for some time and they are popular with SL users. But, are these the games gamers look for? 

Read more

Bits and Pieces of Second Life 2015 Week 10

by

MOV Files to HTML5

As the Second Life Viewer moves toward using CEF (Chrome Embedded Framework) the use of HTML5 video becomes more important. Fortunately there is a free program that converts formats.

See: How to Convert MOV to HTML5 Video?

Journey is'nt over yet
Journey is’nt over yet by Sunnygeorge, on Flickr

Boxes

Lindal Kidd has a tutorial up on how to use boxes… yes, those prim cube things. See: Boxes

If you are wondering WHY? … Well, her blog is subtitled: Notes From Second Life – Advice for the New Avatar.  She also spends a lot of time helping people in the SL Forum. So, she meets lots of new SL users. So, I suspect she will also use this tutorial as a link-to when answering pleas for help.

This will be a handy link to give to noobies.

Read more

IAR Exports – OpenSim

by

If you play in OpenSim worlds you have probably heard of IAR exports. If you built a region in OpenSim, then you probably use IAR exports to backup your work. I do… did. I haven’t started my OSGrid regions for some time.

0496 - Condensation/OpenSim
Condensation/OpenSim by Zonja Capalini, on Flickr

IAR is an Inventory ARchive file. Very handy thing to have. If your grid closes, having an IAR copy of your work that you can take to another grid can mean not having to redo your work.

Hypergrid Business has an article on the recent debate that erupted over the safety of this export/import feature of OpenSim. Safe in the sense of is it safe or subject to abuse? Abuse, like copyboting theft. It is subject to abuse, but that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

I think Maria Korolov does a good job of putting things in perspective. See: How dangerous are IAR exports?

Second Life’s Full Perm Fair

by

I had never heard of it. But this is apparently the 6th fair. It’s an interesting event with a ton of Full Perm stuff for sale. I runs from March 1 to 22. You’ll find it in Old Europe Village. It is small but jam packed.

Full Perm Fair - March 2015
Full Perm Fair – March 2015

I am guessing the purpose of the fair is to provide source items for people good at texturing and weak at mesh modeling.

Read more

IDOBATA 2.0 Freeware for Second Life

by

This is a tool for turning Skype and Second Life Viewer text chat to speech. The idea is that with this running you can multi-task and not miss business IM’s and chats in Second Life. This is apparently a two way chat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skJozy95SDs

Yuzuru’s English is a bit broken. But, way better than my Japanese, which I don’t speak.

This is freeware. You can get it here: IDOBATA 2.

Firestorm TTT – Clean Install 2015

by

Hopefully by now you know TTT is Firestorm’s Tool Tip Tuesday. This week Jessica walks people through the process of performing a clean install. First step is backing up your Firestorm Viewer ‘s chat logs and settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gc0dBfVGJ0

None of the steps for a clean install are technically difficult for the intermediate computer user. However, if you are not used to working with files and navigating the hard disk, I suspect you will be in over your head. Copy-Paste, Move, and disk navigation using the Windows File Explorer (and Mac equivalent) are required skills.

Read more