If you watch detective shows on TV, every so often they will do something with LiDAR. These are generally really expensive systems that scan a crime scene and eventually produce a 3D model. Expensive in this case is like US$10k and up. There are cheaper ones in the $100 and less range for personal or hobby use. But you may already own a LiDAR system and not know it.
Professional LiDAR
If you have a newer smart device that uses facial recognition then you may have a LiDAR system. The iPhone-12 has an actual LiDAR camera/laser on the front… back?… camera away from the screen… normally used for distance measuring. It is rather low resolution but also is stronger and reaches farther.
The screen side camera facing you is used for facial recognition. It is higher resolution but not as strong… meaning far-reaching.
Penny Patton has a new written EEP tutorial out about how to use the Enhanced Environment Project, the Windlight update, on your land. She uses the Black Dragon viewer in her tutorial for the source of the illustrations. Most viewers have the exact same panels for setting up the environment. So, the only problem for Firestorm and other viewer users is getting the initial About Land panel open. About Land allows you to edit the parcel’s environment settings. Otherwise, you are editing your personal view of the environment.
Custom Environment
At ground level in Firestorm, you can right-click the ground and select About Land. You can then edit the environment at the parcel or region level. Easy.
In Firestorm, the World->Region Details or Alt+R and then the Environment tab opens the same environment panel but, for Estate Managers until you right-click the ground you are editing your personal settings. And if you click on anything else you snap out of the parcel environment edit mode.
Also, if you teleport up to a high altitude you will likely lose the link to the parcel and can’t edit the environment.
This week Firestorm release an update to their viewer, 6.4.13. For details of what got updated see Inara’s article Firestorm 6.4.13 Release. I am only going to talk about the stuff that interests me.
The Bridge
It seems they made the viewer easier to fix when it comes to the Firestorm Bridge.
My Porch 2021
The bridge is an attachment the viewer puts on your avatar. It provides an interface between in-world scripts and the viewer. Basically, it gives the Firestorm viewer more capabilities. The techy details are here: Firestorm Bridge.
As one bounces between viewers, like I do, one can run into problems. Also, the general flakiness of a connection to a virtual world can cause problems with the bridge. The viewer is smart enough to resolve most problems on its own when something goes wrong with the bridge. But, not all of them. Then it can be a pain to fix the bridge… and often a headache figuring out just what the problem is.
Now there is a BUTTON! Yay! Well… more a menu command than button, but you get the idea. Click Avatar->Avatar Health->Recreate LSL Bridge. Poof the problem bridge is turned into free electrons to evaporate into the valley of lost bits. A new one is generated and attached. Problem should be solved.
This makes it so easy to fix you could add it to your first steps of troubleshooting.
The Hideaway is a recent addition to SL. It is a place to meet up anonymously and hook up. Think about being anonymous in SL… really!?! How does one do that? Caroline and crew found a way.
If you haven’t found Caroline Takeda’s Second Life Adventures and the Second Life Escorts sites (both NSFW URLs) and are into sex… then you are missing out. Caroline is always working on ways to make a buck starting sex businesses. Sex sells… don’t you know? And the articles there while sometimes educational are almost always titillating.
Eye Wide Shut!?!
One of the more recent efforts is her Secret Hideaway. She has written about it (here and here) in her blogs. Alas I only occasionally check in on her blogs. So, I hadn’t noticed the club opening until Caroline sent me an invitation to get a free mask. They normally cost a thousand Linden. O.O So, yeah, I thought I better get my little tush down there and get one. I did.
If it is about new features, or something, in SL I haven’t seen in SL then I’m interested. But a thousand Linden, that would have put me off. I won’t spend L$200 without a demo first. But free… I’m all in.
This anonymous thing had me curious how will they do that? Plus, the place is secret and you supposedly can’t find it without the mask.
In SL your RL ID is confidential. But your avatar’s ID is way public, like living under the UK cameras. But they did find a near-perfect way to hide your identity while in the club. Surprising. It works.
I used to scout enemy bases in NOR (combat/sex RP). I am pretty good at getting into places I’m not supposed to be in. So, claiming it couldn’t be found was a challenge. But so far, it has been difficult enough I gave up.
Back in December of 2019… that long ago? …I wrote a review of available women’s genitals. See Second Life Vaginas: The V. That is the vagina for the Maitreya body. Now there is a version for Slink Original and Hourglass and Inithium Kupra (with a 50% off Kupra version until Feb 14, 2021 – see details at the in-world store. – MAP URL). The marketplace URL is here (URL – NSFW).
A working girl…
I got the Slink Hourglass demo. It comes with Slink Classic and Redux versions. Both in the same package. If you don’t know Slink, the Redux version is the version highly optimized for BOM. Slink Classic is their older more complex applier style body. Whichever you prefer, they have something for you.
The Original and Hourglass versions of The V are different and NOT interchangeable. So, for Slink users that frequently swap between Slink bodies like I do, they will need to make a decision. Hourglass or Original or buy both? They don’t have a package deal for buying the two.
We know all the region servers are now running in Amazon Web Services aka THE CLOUD. A number of backend services were moved before the region servers. The uplifting of all the services needed to run Second Life™ and render it was announced January 5, 2021, in a featured article: 2021 Update: Life in the Cloud. They were announcing the completion of the move to the cloud.
The idea of SL being completely moved to the cloud depends on who is speaking and what they are thinking of as the Second Life SYSTEM and what they mean by ‘moved’. On a general and practical level, Second Life is in the cloud. In Strawberry’s article of January 22, we are told the Destination Guide is in the cloud and running too.
No… not for SL, for “it”. For those with the standard perverted mind that generally lives in the gutter the intent for “it” is obvious, SEX.
I write when I think something is interesting (sex qualifies), surprises me (I didn’t know that), or is a happening thing for SL residents (oh, there are people here). I recently came across Bar No.5 (map URL) in an area labeled Street Whores in the region Hoogenach. The region qualifies on all three. While the bar isn’t all that busy it is notorious… well… to some. I hadn’t heard of it.
Waiting in an empty bar…
For some reason, I had gone over to Caroline’s Second Life Adventures (NSFW URL) and saw a couple of posts on Bar No.5. Hmmm… so what is this place? Candy, the girl in the post, was having fun. Curiosity. I decided to check it out.
I had to do some searching using the viewer’s search to find the bar. One has to enter Bar No.5 with the period and no spaces between the ‘No’, period, and ‘5’. You find the region Hoogenach, which Google Translate thinks is Dutch but the translation makes no sense.
I recently saw a video about getting Firestorm Viewer’s shadows to look as good as Black Dragon’s shadows. Huh? What?
The thing they were doing is getting hair shadows to render well on the avatar face. The video (4 min) I found has horrible audio. Luca The Guide, the author, was ill the day she made the video. So, I can’t complain too much. I don’t even try to make video tutorials when I am sick.
The video did get me looking and comparing Black Dragon and Firestorm. I launched Black Dragon (BD) and took a couple of pictures, see below. Then Launched Firestorm (FS) and took a couple.
Black Dragon – My typical environmentFirestorm – Again my typical environment
With both, I used the same projector attached to the Center of Gravity attachment point aimed at my nose and in front and above my head. Both viewers were set to use the default environment in the Bellisseria region. Both viewers were using their default shadow settings.
