Second Life News 2014-23 – Group Ban

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We have some actual news today!

Group Ban

This new feature is now running in the main grid in RC channel: Le Tigre. Many people have been looking forward to this feature coming out. If all goes well we could see it move to the entire grid next week.

Art for Games Tutorials
Art for Games Tutorials

Any group owner or manager with proper permissions can use the feature.  You need to visit a region in the Le Tigre channel to use the feature. Also you need to be using the Group Ban Project Viewer. Unfortunately the viewer is not showing on the RC/Project Viewers page. But, you can get the viewer here: Download: Windows, Mac, Linux.

You can find details on using the project feature here: Group Ban FAQ.

Be warned, the bans made in Le Tigre may not stick, meaning a banned person may be able to re-join from regions outside the Le Tigre channel. So, while the ban is server side older regions don’t know to check for a ban before allowing a join. But, the person will be in the ban list.

Once the project goes grid wide you may have to re-ban or eject the banned people one last time.

The server side code is at RC level, meaning it is working as planned and is expected to be the finished product. The viewer is just reaching ‘project viewer’ status, which we might consider the old beta version status.

Expect some changes to the viewer before it rolls out as the main viewer. When the server side code goes grid wide one can then use the Group Ban Viewer and ban people. Since the ban is enforced server-side and all the servers will then be running it, it won’t matter which viewer a banned person uses, they won’t be able to get in the group.

This should make life in group chat much better.

Servers

There was no roll to the main channel this morning. There was maintenance to the servers and logins were down for a time this morning. 

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LEAP Motion 2014-22

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The LEAP Motion people have an article up (Drax links to it also in episode 21) about recent changes in their technology. They are striving to make a natural user interface for the computer. With VR becoming a reality many think we need a new user interface that allows us to use the computer in the same way we manipulate real world things.

LEAP Motion Controller - Image by: Ken Hawkins - Flickr
LEAP Motion Controller – Image by: Ken Hawkins – Flickr

The LEAP controller I purchased some months ago is not the answer. It can detect hand motion. But, to control a game we used gestures. Trying to remember that gesture ‘A’ (may be pointing two fingers right) means turn right and gesture ‘B’ (may be moving both hands up and down) means jump is not much of an improvement. We are just changing what we manipulate to tell the computer something.

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Drax Files Radio #21

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Dxax announced in this show that this is the last live show of the first season. Shows will continue each Friday but, they will apparently be pre-recorded and are cued for the summer. Live shows will return mid August. We’ll have to see if they sound much different. I suspect the real difference will be a looser tie to current events.

Also, Drax and Jo are looking for funding. We can subscribe to the show for L$100/month (US$0.41 or about $0.10/show). The plan is a bit trick. To subscribe IM Drax and request a ‘subscription device’, in this case an on-air sign and microphone. They will apparently work like a land, house, or shop rental box. You pay the box. The on-air sign lights up. A month later it turns off and sends you a couple of notices presumably reminding you to pay the monthly support. The money raised will go toward supporting the show.

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Climate 2014-22

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Mid-term elections are coming in the US. Next week California is having its preliminary elections, where political parties decide on candidates to run in the Fall. California changed how those elections work to farther divide voting groups and reduce minority input assuring Democrat (liberal) control of California for the foreseeable future, regardless of what voters want. In November we will return to the polls to elect Congressional members.

Finally we have the cause...
Finally we have the cause…

For the people the biggest issue is jobs. Politicians are giving that lip service only.

For Republicans (conservatives) the issues are Democrat corruption and misuse of government agencies and authority along with the Democrat’s failure to enforce laws they have sworn to upload but do not like. While the media drums on about the Republicans having no plans, the party is pumping out plan after plan. So, many the party is divided on which is best.

You just can’t trust what you hear in the media.

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Oculus Rumors 2014-22

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Engadget originally reported that Samsung was racing with Oculus Rift to market a gaming VR headset first. Now the rumor has shifted. Samsung wants Oculus tech for media display not gaming and is apparently willing to give Oculus first priority on their high-definition display screens.

This seems to make lots of sense as Oculus was/is having a problem getting parts. Enough so that they delayed the release of the Oculus Rift DK2.

For more details see Road to VR: News Bits: Samsung Partners with Oculus on New ‘Media Focussed’ VR Headset?

Scripting Second Life Materials Testing

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We have a new aspect of Materials arriving, the ability to script materials as we script textures (diffuse map).

Simon Linden has posted in the Server Beta UG agenda about the coming Materials Scripting feature to allow script control of the new Materials. Quoting:

  • LSL support for materials is in testing
    • Certain Aditi regions (DRTSIM-253 channel, presently) have LSL support for materials
      • Regions “roller-test102” and “roller-test103” are on this channel
      • This is still a work-in-progress – testing is still underway
    • Materials can be added to object faces with llSetPrimitiveParams() functions
      • [PRIM_SPECULAR, integer face, string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians, vector color, integer glossy, integer environment]
      • [PRIM_NORMAL, integer face, string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians]
      • [PRIM_ALPHA_MODE, integer face, integer alpha_mode, integer alpha_cutoff]
        • Valid alpha_mode options are PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_NONE, PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_BLEND, PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_MASK, PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_EMISSIVE
    • Materials can be read with the various llGetPrimitiveParams() functions
      • [PRIM_SPECULAR, integer face] returns [string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians, vector color, integer glossy, integer environment]
      • [PRIM_NORMAL, integer face] returns [string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians]
      • [PRIM_ALPHA_MODE, integer face] returns [integer alpha_mode, integer alpha_cutoff]
  • Behavior for both getting and setting materials parameters should basically correspond to behavior with PRIM_TEXTURE
  • The color vectors use 0.0-1.0 as the range, as with llSetColor()
  • The integer parameters for PRIM_SPECULAR correspond to the same values that you see in the build tool
  • Components of a material can be ‘reset’ as follows:
    • PRIM_NORMAL and PRIM_SPECULAR settings are set to ‘default’ values by setting the texture to NULL_KEY
    • PRIM_ALPHA_MODE settings are set to ‘default’ values by setting the alpha_mode to PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_BLEND
      • mask_cutoff is actually reset to 0 unless the alpha mode is PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_MASK
    • When PRIM_NORMAL, PRIM_SPECULAR, and PRIM_ALPHA_MODE settings are all set to ‘default’ values, the material is deleted from that prim face, and LI may be updated accordingly
  • Known issues
    • There is a viewer rendering issue, where the face will not be rendered and you’ll see log spam (BUG-6187),
      • If the viewer has ALM enabled
      • and a prim face has a material on it
      • and PRIM_ALPHA_MODE is PRIM_ALPHA_MODE_BLEND (this is the default after a material is added)
      • and the diffuse texture does not have an alpha channel (e.g. plywood)
    • The version currently on Aditi lacks proper throttling, so there could be performance issues if scripts behave badly

You can test this new code in ADITI regions; “roller-test102” and “roller-test103”. These are mainland regions (meaning they are running the code currently on the main grid) in the ADITI grid.

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