Second Life and Virtual Worlds
It seems the gaming news site Massively is being closed down, in spite of a 40% per year readership growth rate. Click the link above to learn more.
I used to follow Massively’s section on Second Life. But, as SL coverage there decreased, so too did my interest in Massively. While I am not certain of the future of Massively (will someone buy it?), it seems doomed. If it does pass, I’ll feel the loss.
There are photographic artists and skilled photographers playing in Second Life that display their work on Flickr. I follow a number of them, but certainly do not know of all of the talented ones.
Most artists/photographers have a personal style. I think their styles tell us what they like and when similar to my likes, I follow them.
Some photographers do a good job of portraying ideas and/or evoking feelings. Isa Messioptra’s Darwin is interesting in that respect. I wonder how many that see this image consider whether their belief system is provable and whether they blindly believe or can actually show the reasoning behind their belief?
In last Friday’s meeting all the Linden news was covered in 8 minutes. The entire meeting was only 30 minutes. Not much in the way of new information or to talk about. There are even fewer things of interest for general users.
Brooke Linden spoke about Viewer Managed Marketplace project and their progress. She says they are still incorporating user feedback. A new viewer is coming with the feedback implemented, probably in week 6… or 7. There will probably be another round of user feedback before the project goes to beta. The timing is definitely that beta will only start sometime after the Valentine’s holiday. How much after is undecided and depends on user feedback.
Others are covering this new service provided by the Firestorm peeps. So, I’ll be brief.
The Firestorm Viewer is the power user’s viewer of choice. But, even power users can’t know all the features rolled into this pretty awesome viewer. Many of the features are things you would probably use if you knew about them. So… the team is making little videos to show you how to use the features. (6 min)
This one is an example. Lots of good stuff in a short video. They say there will be another one released next Tuesday. They first post on the Firestorm Viewer Blog.
Obviously these are primarily for Firestorm users. But, some of the controls work in other viewers too.
The Camera Tools are a Firestorm and Third Party Viewers thing, at least for now.
Gaia Clary at Machinimatrix.org is running a 50% off on Sparkles for AvaStar users. It ends February 15, until then Sparkles Pro: US$15 web* – US$7.50±/L$1,800* in-world, with 1 year of updates. (Prices are a bit unclear. I checked and the regular price is/will be $15.)
If you are not sure what Sparkles is… the video is a preview. But, read on…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfO1PKge4Q4
Sparkles is a standalone tool set for building clothes and characters for Second Life. It is integrated with AvaStar, but does not require AvaStar to be used. The list of tools is:
A new version of Blender came out last week; 2.73a. Click for: Download Blender and changes overview.
This download is a 90mb file. I use the ZIP version of the install as it operates as a standalone version. That allows me to have multiple versions installed at the same time.
AvaStar will need to be updated to the latest update (avastar-1.3-18_blender-2-70) to work with Blender 2.73a.