High Fidelity Note

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The High Fidelity team has a new blog post up. This one is about using Google Glass to drive an avatar’s head. They go on to mention having made an Android app that collects a phone’s sensor data. This essentially turns the phone into a WII like controller.

With their testing of Glass they found that the Android app was transmitting data to it. They aren’t where they can use it yet. But, the communications is working.

They also mention the have Oculus Rift working. In regard to High Fidelity, I have no idea what that means. Can they see into their test world? Or do they mean drive an avatar?

Whatever, there are lots of interesting pieces in the puzzle.

Second Life Mesh Rendering Problems

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Each week the blog Lette’s Trivia And Trivial Stuff publishes the week’s top support issues with the Firestorm viewer. Another issue is out. But, some issues are not limited to the Firestorm Viewer. One of those is mesh objects failing to render.

Lette has written up an excellent section on the problem. She focuses on: MeshMaxConcurrentRequests. This is a Debug Setting in both the Firestorm and SL Viewers.

Word on the virtual street is that setting this higher is better and a must. Well… as often is the case the general advice is wrong. It depends on your computer and connection. But, in general it is a bad thing to change. To solve specific problems it is an acceptable temporary fix. But, used as a permanent change, it is a lag producer for you and everyone in the region.

Find out how to use this setting and understand the tradeoffs: Frequently Asked Support Questions of May 17.

More L$ Exchange Information 2013-20A

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Gwyneth Llewelyn has published her take on the new More Options announcement by the Lab. See: Financial crisis in Second Life ended? There are some details and gotcha’s worth knowing.

Gwyneth speculates on whether the Lab will turn off the cash out feature of the LindeX. As it is now the More Options change means other exchanges CANNOT convert L$ to RL currencies.

If FinCEN is forcing the Lab to move that direction, it will happen. But, that would be a huge hit for the Lab. There are people making a RL living from their SL businesses. Preventing any outward cash flow would kill those businesses.

For instance the motion capture company just covered in The Drax Files would likely drop their efforts in SL and move on to something else.

Personally I think stopping the outward cash flow will kill Second Life. As things are now SL provides entertainment and income. I’ll have to look to see how many private islands/regions are a shop of some kind. Tier is paid by sales. That tier payment thing could continue. But, some significant portion of those people are taking money out of SL. I suspect that significant portion is likely to give up their land.

Would losing the ability to take RL payment from SL affect you?

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The Drax Files – World Makers: Episode 6 – Abramelin Wolfe

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This episode is about Abramelin Wolfe one of the people behind Abranimations. His wife helps him. If you have ever searched for a hard to find animation in Second Life™ you have probably come across Abranimations.

Check out Abranimations web site. If you like Jo Yardly’s 1920’s Berlin, then you must have Abranimations’ 1920’s Flapper Dances… or so I think. Abranimations also has a collection of Vintage Dances. They should work too.

Continue reading →

Oculus Rift Update 2013-20

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Jo Yardley, of 1920 Berlin fame, has an update on the Oculus Rift from Rod Humble. See: Rod Humble: Oculus Rift already in Second Life, want to make it excellent. The title pretty much says it all. But, Jo provides some interesting background making it worth the read time.

Oculus Rift COmpared to other display systems.

Oculus Rift Compared to other display systems.

I think Jo is somewhat representative of builders like Loki Eliot, Penny Patton, and others that create fantastic builds. I expect many of that caliber builders will be looking at their builds though Oculus Rift eyes.

I suspect that a shift to Oculus Rift will change how Second Life is built and experienced. While I am looking forward to the Oculus Rift arriving in a retail version I am probably not as excited about it as Jo. It will affect all the things she says it will affect. But…

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Lab Makes L$ Exchange Announcement

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There is a new post on the Second Life™ blog announcing: More Options for Buying Linden Dollars.

Quoting:

With a credit card, you can purchase L$ on the LindeX using 27 different currencies, including EUR, GBP, JPY, and AUD. If you don’t have a credit card, you can also use PayPal, which can be connected directly to a bank account in more than 193 countries and regions.

OK… most of us know that. Then they go to say:

Now, to give users more options and make it easier to purchase L$, we’re launching a pilot program of Authorized Resellers of L$. These sites are authorized by Linden Lab to purchase L$ on the LindeX and then resell those L$ using a variety of international currencies and payment methods. To be clear: per the Terms of Service, these resellers will not be allowed to purchase L$ outside of the LindeX (i.e. they will not be able to buy L$ back from users and cash people out). The list of Authorized Resellers participating in the pilot program is available here.

They also acknowledge there is a problem with cash out time via the LindeX saying:

We know that users are also concerned about the length of the LindeX’s cashout process and the limited choice of currencies when selling L$. We’re currently investigating ways to improve that experience for users while still providing superior fraud protections, and hope to hasten the cash out process and offer new currency options in the future.

So, something is at least in the works. I expect to hear more as the day wears on.

Blender 2.67 Released

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It’s over a week ago (May 7) that Blender released a new version: 2.67. I just noticed.

Blender Download – Use the Archive version for better compatibility with previous versions.

New in this Release

Free Style

This may seem odd to you, but Blender just got a Free-Style Render Engine that renders non-photorealistic images. See: Blender Free Style for more examples.

Blender 2.67

Blender 2.67

Paint System

The paint system has improvements. Brushes work in more modes and have more features. Bugs in the system have been fixed.  Continue reading →