The Move

I am mostly moved into my new place, boxes still everywhere and it seems whatever I need at the moment is in a box at the bottom of a stack. But, the Internet is up and while AT&T’ U-verse is only 3mb/sec here, Second Life runs with no apparent loss of performance.

I'm Back - By: Christopher Sessums - Flickr
I’m Back – By: Christopher Sessums – Flickr

California’s weather decided to imitate Florida’s. So, 80-90F (32C) with 80-90% humidity and showers the last day of the move. Friends helped but I am still sore from lifting and carrying and tired. We partied Friday night.

I crushed my 7 month old S4 phone during the move. :/ So, I was totally without tech for a day. That was an expensive mistake/accident. But, I got a new S5, which is supposed to have a better camera. I did NOT like the S4’s camera. I haven’t decided if the S5’s is better, yet.

Now, to get unpacked and do some catching up on Second Life.

Moving

For the next 10 days or so I’ll be moving. I don’t know when my office will be back up. I’m moving from country life, as much as California has such a thing, into a small college town (50k 2010). Still inland San Diego area and I’ll have larger towns around me. Unfortunately no fiber optics, so I’ll be going with ATT Uverse wireless. I have no idea how well that will or won’t work. But, vacancy rates are 3% in SD just now. So, while I didn’t get what I want, I at least found something.

By Beverley Goodwin @ Flickr
By Beverley Goodwin @ Flickr

I won’t be in world much during the move. Nor will I be posting as my system will be down. I’ll have to see how the move goes before I’ll know when I’ll be back online.

 

Second Life’s Corn Field Reopens

Yesterday about noon the Lindens posted that Experience Keys can be tried out in the Corn Field. You can now try out the new features, at least from the user side. If you are into the creative side and have asked to participate in the Beta then expect to get a Key for use in creating your experience.

The post is here: Check Out Experience Keys in… The Cornfield!

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You can get a viewer that is updated to use the new Experience Tools (XP Tools). The Project Viewer is here: Project Viewer version 3.7.12.291846 aka: Project Experience Tools Channel. It is now on the RC and Project Viewers page too.

Once installed you need to head to the Corn Field (SLURL). This used to be a place where people were forcibly teleported by the Governor’s Enforcement team and locked in for some time. It has history. The Lindens, or more specifically the Moles, have remade it to test the XP Tools.

I’m still trying to get into Hair Fair.

Second Life & Beyond

Designing Worlds hosted a discussion on how to support Second Life™ now that we know SL2 is on its way. Some are giving up on SL1, which some of us think is silly. The discussion focuses on sustaining SL1.

I covered this discussion in an earlier post. The video just came out.

See the video here: Second Life & Beyond.

Second Life News 2014-29

Servers

Maestro Linden is going on vacation. But, he did post the Deploys post Friday. It is planned that the Experience Tools package will be promoted to the main channel Tuesday, thus making it grid wide by late Wednesday.

Music Concert 2014
Music Concert 2014

There are no noticeable feature changes using the current SL Viewer. One needs the Experience Tools Project Viewer to use the changes provided by the server update. There is no official link to that viewer on the Project Viewers page, yet. Once the beta testing proceeds to Experience User testing we’ll see that viewer appear. For now testing is with Experience Creators. 

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New Second Life Tool for Blender

Machinimatrix.org is releasing a new tool for use by Second Life™ creators. This one is called Sparkles Tool Box. The promotional video comes as a tutorial for merging UVMaps and shows people how to perform the task manually. Then goes on to show how much time can be saved by using the new tool.

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If you already have AvaStar, you may not need the new tool, depending on your workflow. I have Blender 2.71 and avastar-1.1-beta-4_blender-2-70 installed. When I copy the AvaStar model’s lower, upper, and head and combine them I get the UVMap result that Sparkles provides as shown in the video.

But, if you are working with anything other than the AvaStar model, Sparkles is going to be a time saver.