Second Life Collada Import Problem

I came across a tidbit of news this morning. If you are setting your SL Viewer to any language other than English, the Collada import for mesh may not work.

You’ll see the problem in the import preview window. You’ll see polygons with normals reversed and vertices here and there out of place. If you try more than one import, you’ll see the reversed normal polygons and the out of place vertices change and which are messed up are unpredictable.

Problem w/Mesh Import by Lemon AcidJuice @ Flickr

Problem w/Mesh Import by Lemon AcidJuice @ Flickr

For now the problem is corrected by switching the viewer to use English.

If you are seeing the problem and can reproduce it on demand file a JIRA bug report with all the steps.

The discussion of the problem is in the SL Forum: Unpredictable mesh import.

High-Fidelity Sky

 

High-Fidelity (HF), Rosedale’s new virtual world, is prototyping parts of their planned virtual world. Last week they released a picture of their sky render and promised a ‘long’ blog post. Today the image popped up in my Feedly.

Prototype Sky at High Fidelity VW

Prototype Sky at High Fidelity VW

The sky is interesting. I suppose it could be the night sky.

I also find it interesting that both Cloud Party (CP) and HF are publishing a step-by-step of the development process. CP seems to be taking feedback and ideas from users. HF is not to that point yet. Will they take feedback too? We’ll have to wait to see.

Restrained Life Viewer Update Released

I have not been a fan of RLV until recently, not the viewer the feature. A friend formerly from Land of Nor has been showing me how it could be used to improve roll play and combat games. I was impressed and have sense been spending more time paying with it.

Marine Kelley posted about the recent update to the RLV viewer: RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.4.1. Marine explains some of the problems integrating the CHUI changes to RLV. It took a couple of months to find bugs and resolve them. The fixes are done and a new version is released.

Second Life Information

I see from Inara’s Living in a Modem World that Designing Worlds has a new show premiering today. This show it titled: Project Materials

You can see the showing at Designing World’s theater:  Designing Worlds Studio at 2 PM SLT (PDT) today Monday, May 13.

As always you can see it via web cast on Treat.TV (live) at the same time.

Usually a day or two after the premier you can find it in the library of shows.

Second Life Chrome Extensions

Daniel Voyager has an article up: Second Life Extensions on Google Chrome.Wow! How neat is that?

Check it out.

If you are wondering what a ‘browser extension’ is, it is a program that runs in your browser. It adds functionality to the Browser. For instance; to check on which of your friends are online you currently have visit the SL web pages, login, and look for friends. An extension does all the work for you. You see a friends list without all the hassle.

Daniel list 3 more extensions you can get.

There is a small downside to extensions. They burn up some CPU cycles and slow your browser down. They are more of a hit at start up when opening the browser then while it is running. When your browser is closed they don’t run. So, it is not a big deal.

If your browser is loaded with search tools bars like My Web Search and other annoying near malware, you need to learn about extensions and remove the annoying crap. Check these removal tutorials for help with; Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox.

 

ToS L$ Change Update #2

Maria Korolov over on Hypergrid Business is doing an excellent job of tracking events related to the changes in the Linden Dollar exchanges due to the Linden change in ToS. If you need the latest information, I suggest you follow her blog.

The point has come up that the Linden ToS provides for a 30 day window from the time of a change until the day it is enforced. The Lab is telling third party exchanges they must be shut down by Monday morning (5/13).  If they enforce the Monday Morning shut down, that would seem to leave the Lab liable to lawsuits for damages. So, this Monday morning’s shut downs may be a costly mistake.

However, the Lindens do have the capability to shut down non-compliant exchanges. On the Linden side it is just a matter of deciding to and doing it, some clicks on the Linden computer screens.

Continue reading

Goon Squad Viewer

I am wondering how many people have not heard of the Goon Squad? If not, I guess you could want their viewer. But, I would think just having ‘goon’ in the name would be a tipoff to get really skeptical.

Goon – noun: A bully or thug, esp. one hired to terrorize or do away with opposition.

Image found by:

Image found by: Innula Zenovka

Seems there is such a viewer. Check out this user’s review of the product:

[SIC] A few days ago someone send me a link to a web forum called goon sqaud. I decided to sign up and ended up downloading on of their viewers called shooperlife. Only minutes after i loggin a guy forced tp me to his sim and stripped off all my clothes,rezzed my inventory on the ground and logged me out with the message “owned by goon sqaud” I quickly removed the client from my pc and tried to login to change my password but it was to late . The hackers already changed the password to my account and email so i end up calling LL and they put the account on hold .

There is no way to know whether this post is for real. Did it happen or is this too a spoof?

Also, notice the ‘…and email.’ If you use the same password at SL as you use on your email, you could lose that too. Be smart in how you use passwords.

Someone asked what the goon squad wants. Really? Insight into a griefer? Anyway, a good answer came back: “What is best in Second Life? To crush de noobs, rez deir inventories on de ground, and read de lamentations of de suckers on de forumz.”

Gee, I wonder why Inara hasn’t been reviewing this viewer? …NOT! (She has a brain)

ToS L$ Change Update

There is still a huge amount of speculation going on in regard to the ToS change and the Lab’s issuing Cease and Desist emails to those operating L$ exchanges and building viewers that link to third party exchanges.

Linden Dollar Exchange PODEX

Linden Dollar Exchange PODEX

In one thread over on SLUniverse the participants are trying to figure out why third party exchanges are suddenly illegal. They aren’t illegal. But, they do violate the Lab’s ToS… may be. That is where the confusion is, the ToS.  Continue reading