Second Life News   #51

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Servers

The main grid was to get version #18.12.05.522294 on Tuesday 12/18. My region did not get a restart. The last restart was 12/4 and my home region is running this version. So… wasup?

The three RC channels updated to version #18.12.03.522210 Wednesday.

The RC Snack channel is said to be running an EEP version 18.12.14.522551.

At the Server-Scripting UG meeting, there was some discussion of how the coming ability to change avatar names might work. It quickly becomes obvious that third-party service providers need someway to ID avatars with changing names. Think ‘redelivery terminals’.

It was noted that the new LSL functions for Animesh are not included in the Wiki LSL documentation. Oops. The Lindens are looking to get that fixed.

One of the server updates seems to be causing people to disconnect. This is more of a problem in ADITI. If you are seeing the problem let the Lindens know which region and what date and time.

No UG meetings until January 8th…

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Firestorm 6.0.1 Beta Released to Public

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Firestorm Beta 6.0.1 is out in public beta form. This version adds support for animesh. If you don’t keep up with ‘in development projects’ and are wondering what animesh is, the Firestorm 6.0.1 announcement explains. It provides links to sample animesh, sandboxes, and the documentation.

Firestorm Beta 6.0.1 Dec 2018

The 6.0.1 download is fast, the install easy and in a sperate folder. This allows you to have 5.0.7 or 5.1.7 and 6.0.1 Beta installed. You can then use either.

This version has lots of bugs fixes including Vivox voice and some improvements to some user-tools.

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Blender 2.8 – Beginner’s Tutorial

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Blender is in Beta and it seems everyone is making tutorials. Once you open Blender 2.8 you’ll know the previous tutorials are out of date to the point of useless. So, here is a nice video for total noobs.

BLENDER 2.8 BEGINNER COURSE: ESSENTIALS

Blender 2.8 Alpha Splash

This is a web page with written information and four short tutorials. Then a second page with 4 more tutorials.

The instructions cover the ‘archive-type’ install on Windows that is now the default Blender install. I’ve used the archive-type install for years allowing me to have various versions installed at the same time. With 2.8 I suspect many will want a 2.79 version and 2.80 installed. One for production and one for learning.

Content Creators’ UG Meeting 2018 w50

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Interesting news came out of the CCUG meeting today. There is word on Firestorm’s release.

Here is the video of the meeting. I missed the first couple of minutes.

Word on Firestorm is at the start of the video. Beq Janus gave us an update in chat on where Firestorm is. Their Beta testing has moved to the larger group of Firestorm testers named the Preview Group. Next, it will go to public Beta before Christmas and the final release is expected for early January 2019.

In another article I pointed you toward Beq’s article on the changes to the Mesh Uploader in this next release of Firestorm.

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Second Life and Mesh Body Lag

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Revised 1/3/2019 – Hamlet has an interesting article Well-Optimized Alternatives To Resource-Heavy Mesh Bodies For SL touching on the contentious debate going in Second Life as to how much lag mesh bodies are causing. The high polygon count in mesh bodies is the suggested cause of the lag.

Tachinni - Bonnie Dress - @ACCESS Exclusive
Tachinni – Bonnie Dress – @ACCESS Exclusive

We don’t have an obvious resolution to the argument. Nothing the non-techies can grasp. The techies stay out of the argument having learned one cannot argue with the ignorant as it is all opinion for the uneducated.

Recent technology changes have complicated the information on polygon counts and how they may affect your viewer’s performance. One complication is the shift from video card manufacturers bragging about polygons-per-second rendered to frames-per-second and now giga-rays-per-second… Part of the reason for changing metrics is the marketing hype card makers introduce to sell more cards.

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Second Life News 2018 w50

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This week we have a deploys post. Not much information in them these days. But, we have one. There is no user group meeting this Tuesday. So, no news from there.

Winter storm
Winter Storm

Server

The main channel is to get an update to version #18.12.04.522206. This version has changes to improve region stability, sim-host deployment, and logging.

The RC channels are described as TBD… To Be Determined. As of Monday, something was holding up the decision. I suspect something in the QA review was pending resolution.

The Snack channel is getting an EEP update to 18.12.07.522390.

Flying and playing in Amazon River I’ve been having more trouble
crossing regions. Flying I bang into regions that are offline forcing me to
relog. I hit the boundary and then they turn red on the minimap and show as red after the relog. Annoying. Walking I walk through prim ground/hills and get trapped inside. It has been years since I had to rez a cube to sit on to get out of a prim.

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