There is a new contest that Linden Lab is running. The Lab wants to see how your avatar has evolved from 2013 to 2014. Get pictures. They are to chow the change from 2013 to 2014. Then visit Second Life’s Facebook page, like it, and look for the contest button.
The contest rules are here. Other details are there as well.
Gaia Clary released a new tutorial for using Avastar to make Fitted Mesh clothes. The video tutorial was published December 24th on YouTube.
[youtube jzZbDqZ6fg4]
This tutorial gives you a quick education on how Avastar is intended to be used. I think it also clearly shows that weighting is going to be a more complex task. Using the old bones, old as in pre-Fitted Mesh era, and weighting one could kind of get by using just the avatar’s skin weights and a rudimentary understanding of weighting. That meant for a short skirt one was focusing only on the mPelvis, mHipLeft, and mHipRight bones.
Now we will also be considering the Butt, Belly, Right_Handle, Left_Handle, and Lower_Back. That gives us a total of 8 additional bones to consider. Weighting was complicated enough with 3 bones.
Goofing around with my new phone I decided to check out CreatorVerse. I tend to have a problem with the permissions I have to hand out to load some apps. Since January 2013 it has become illegal to root a smart phone. So, I am not allowed to control my phone. You cannot do as you want with a phone you purchase. Gotta love big government that is in the pocket of special interests… Whatever.
Check out this permission on the Android app CreatorVerse:
CreatorVerse Permissions
If you get a Linden’s attention and can get an answer about this, you will likely find out there is a reason for needing this permission so that CreatorVerse can connect to its user base and possibly other social networks. Of course the Lab would never collect all your other account information or misuse it. At least something similar is what ESET told me when I asked about why they needed access to my contacts list for their free anti-virus program. We are just supposed to trust they won’t do what the app’s permissions allow them to do.
Each of us has to decide how much we can trust corporations. Especially after the Snowden leaks have lead to revealing Google’s, RSA’s, and Microsoft’s involvement with NSA when the most transparent administration ever has won more Pinocchios this year and has more people and agencies under simultaneous investigation than any other administration in history. So, I’m not feeling overly trusting.
I seldom play in Patterns. I did notice that Patterns got a materials editor. It looks pretty neat. I have yet to play with it. But, check out the video tutorial:
There is nothing really new in the UK paper The Telegraph, but that the article appears in the Telegraph is interesting. It is a good article for the non-techies of the world well explaining why this is such an important step forward in computer technology.
One of the interesting points in the article is how game development is driving military technology. They point out that many military research budgets are nothing when compared to some the research budgets for game technology.
Honour has an article up on her blog showing some great pictures of Atlantas. But, she titled it: Google Really, Really Hates Second Life. So, what’s with that? The title and writing is because of Google’s adding @im.agni.lindenlab.com to their spam filter. She points to Prim Perfect’s recent article on how to fix Google’s filtering of Linden email headed to you to via a GMAIL address.
The steps to fix the problem are easy but not intuitive. Nor is this a particularly noticeable problem. You may not notice the loss of these emails until you are looking for some specific email.
You can see if you are getting bit by this problem by looking in the left side menu of GMAIL. In the section of the menu with Inbox and Sent Mail you will find MORE. Click it and look for SPAM. Click SPAM and you’ll see the email going there. In SPAM, you will likely find email from: @im.agni.lindenlab.com. If so you need to fix your GMAIL.
