Second Life News 2014-10 #2

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There are a couple of new RC Viewers out now.

Voice Viewer version 3.7.3.287288 – This RC Viewer pulls in Vivox 4.6.x libraries instead of the 4.5 libraries for improved stability and to address reported issues. If you are having voice problems, try this viewer.

Sunshine Viewer version 3.7.3.287158 – This is a promotion of the Project Viewer 3.7.1.286565. The release notes say it had improved stability and retry capabilities for Server Side Avatar baking. It should be able to better detect ‘stuck’ conditions and clear them so the avatar will render. 

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AvaStar Update 2014-10

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Blender 2.7 Test Still having problems?
Blender 2.7 Test Still having problems?

 Gaia has an article out explaining the basic differences between AvaStar 1.0 and the coming 1.1 version. We can get test and RC versions of AvaStar from our personal download pages at Machinimatrix. So, knowing the differences is helpful. See: Which Avastar to use ?

The article tells us there is a bug in the shape sliders in the test versions. But, all the other stuff needed to build Fitted Mesh is in the test versions. The ETA on having a fix out is 2 weeks. So, we should see it in week 12 or 3/17-12.

The current test version as of today is: avastar-1-1-998_blender-2-65.

The Blender 2.70 test build is still a 2/20/14 version: blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64. I have links in the left column too.

The nightly build for 3/5/14 is: blender-2.69-4acff9d-win64.

The avatar models provided via the SL Wiki are broken. The current best model for non-AvaStar users is the free file from Machinimatrix: The Avatar Workbench.

Second Life News 2014-10

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Perspective

We don’t often get any insight into what Lindens are thinking about going on’s in the Lab. Today one gave us a glimpse.

I’ll wrap up and say that there’s a lot of good talking [in the Lab] going on about what works in SL, what doesn’t, what we’ve tried before and all that … as you know some changes take a lot of time and work, others can be done quickly.    But overall I’m more optimistic than I was 6 months ago, and I like that.

Server-Scripting UG 2014-10
Server-Scripting UG 2014-10

Better Building

Ciaran has an article up promoting Penny Patton’s ideas about building things to scale in Second Life™. See: Second Life Content Creators Should Pay Attention To Penny Patton.

Ciaran is focusing on a June 2013 article that Penny wrote: Building a Better Second Life. I covered it at the time it was published: Best Building Practices in Second Life.

If you haven’t read any of these articles, please do before you start building your dream home. 

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SL JIRA Change 2014-10 Update

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There was interesting discussion about how existing JIRA items will be handled. They may not be part of the new open JIRA. The open setting may only affect newly filed JIRA items.

I am pretty sure no one but the guys setting up the new permissions know. But, there are some possible privacy issues being considered.

What if, as Simon pointed out, somebody thinking they are private filed a my embarrassing part doesn’t work right type bug report? Now we open all those JIRA’s up? Oops!

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Second Life’s Bug Island

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Have you ever wondered if your viewer and computer were rendering Second Life™ correctly? Do you see what other users see? And if you compiled a viewer, is it rendering things correctly? The answers to those questions can be found at Bug Island.

Of course showing up there and looking to see what you viewer shows you is only half the answer. You also need to know what things are supposed to look like. The SL Wiki shows you the pictures and behaviors, in movies, of what you should see. SL Wiki page: Bug Island Test. 

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