The podcast was out early this morning. I wasn’t. This morning I have been playing with my new blog theme, which breaks my Dreamweaver. So, the podcast is a nice break from sorting out database changes and the WordPress foibles of setting up a local copy of a live site.
[youtube FJwljGamIGw]
As always, what I write about the podcast is my take on things. So, listen to the podcast before flaming. You can listen to it or download it (nice addition to Drax’s blog) here: Drax Show #2 Osprey Therian. Drax links to a CNN article on Osprey. I think it would be nice if Osprey’s friends posted some comments on the December 2013 article.
I am not making any pretense of transcribing the audio. My comments are just that comments on what is said in the show. I’ll be clear when I make a quote.
This viewer is not yet the main viewer for Second Life™, but it did get an update Tuesday 1/14. This is the Interesting RC Viewer. It is known for faster scene rendering. You can download it here: Second Life RC & Project Viewers. If you are doing photography, this version could save your sanity. Even shopping things are rendering fast. I haven’t got to use it much. But, it seems great, better than previous version.
I’m looking for a new theme for this blog. I am trying this one out, SUNSPOT. I kinda like it. I’ll give it a few days.
The feed in the old theme is broken. Somewhere in the code I built I added a space into the output where I shouldn’t have. Ever since I started getting notes that the feed was broken I’ve been looking for the problem. I’ve traced it into the theme. But, I have not been able to find the mistake. With this theme that should be fixed.
Thanks for the notes about it being broken. If it is still not working let me know.
I’ll be adding back in my advertising and other widgets over the next few days. Most of the important stuff is there. Plus this is a responsive design so it should be better for phones and tablets. I hate the menu on phones and tablets. I’ll either customize it or replace the theme just because of that. But, it is useable and I do like the look on a desk top.
Blender users are often looking for information and tutorials about Blender. Second Life™ users are often looking for SL specific Blender information. They now have a new source, or at least a remodeled source, of Blender information. Dark Scarab is a Blender feeds aggregator.
Dark Scarab has a list of Resources, image Gallery, the Blog, and a forum.
This is a handy site to follow for those wanting to stay up on Blender updates.
A couple of years ago we were sorting out just which files we could get that had a model of the Second Life™ avatar with a default shape. We were going to need that for use with the Mesh Deformer. A good ‘default shape’ file will still be needed on the OpenSim grids. I wrote a long article on which files were which and did a lot of testing of the files to find the differences and decide which file to base my work on. I am sort of in the same place now with Fitted mesh.
I’ll say that OFFICIALLY there are no files for Fitted Mesh… yet. The reason for that is Fitted Mesh is still in development. So, there is no FINAL version of the avatar. But, we do have two files that can be used by experimenters. I’ll explain what we have have now.
Linden Fitted Mesh Avatar
The Wiki has a ZIP file that has a number of files in various formats. The files appear to have been last updated 12/16/20134/2014. They are provided in a ZIP file and include the file I show below. The Mac folder has the same files with slightly different file names.
You can see there are Blender, Collada (dae), FBX, and Maya (ma). The last two are AutoDesk file formats. For compatibility consider:
Autodesk FBX technology helps to enable the interchange of 3D data between the following Autodesk products: Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, Autodesk® Softimage®, Autodesk® MotionBuilder®, Autodesk® Mudbox®, Autodesk® Smoke® and Autodesk® Flame® software. Consult the compatibility charts below to learn about the level of support for these applications.
This week there are no updates rolling out to the servers. At this point all we know is Maestro Linden has said they want to allow the existing packages to run for another week. We may learn more at today’s (1/14) Server & Scripting meeting.
There are a couple of speculations that it is from a problem with region crossings or the rash of unscheduled inventory maintenance events we have been seeing. The maintenance passes are happening several times per week. SL has been working pretty well for me, so I have no guesses at this point. I do continue to see people in Answers complaining of being logged out. I’ve run into that problem too. But, only once.
Religious Places in SL
We have an interesting new page in the Second Life Wiki: Religious Places. It seems to be the result of effort from Anaimfinity Resident. Anaimfinity notes the page should be complete this month. If you know of place that is not on the list, you can add it.
Mimes
Strawberry Singh has her Monday Mimes going again. This week’s is about practical jokes. I’m admitting nothing… it wasn’t me.
