Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
Travel to other virtual worlds and look cool doing it. Cool as in wear your skin, shape and clothes. How is ths done? Answer: Dynamic Hypergrid Links or just Dynamic Links. Dynamic Links? What the heck is a dynamic link? In this case the Open Sim crowd means links between virtual worlds. The idea is a Second Life resident (player) can open the world map and select other worlds, not just regions.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIikPdQBsoI]
Anyone that is creating in Second Life now has the ability to export the things they have created in Second Life to Open Sim. For instance, in SL I have a house I built and a number of other things. I do not own land in SL so I really have no place to put … Read more
The Guild of Messengers (GoMe) runs a monthly photo contest for Uru fans. You can read about it in several places. There is a thread on GoMa here: Maintainers’ Myst-Uru Photos Thread. The ‘How To’ for participating can be found on the GoMe forum in PhotoQuest Remembered. The rules of the contest are here: PhotoQuest Remembered Rules.
This contest is a continuation of the contest that ran in-game, thus the ‘remembered’. Without a live online game the CD/DVD based Myst games are being used.
This viewer updates rapidly. I have made several posts here about the different features being added to Greenlife Emerald viewer and provided reviews. There is a trail of links you can read through to read them in order. Or you can click on the Archive page and select the Emerald Viewer Reviews to see all the posts that relate.
12/3/09: I’ve added an index to all the Emerald Viewer Reviews. See: Emerald Viewer Review Index
Seems like everyone is making viewers for Second Life. GreenLife Emerald Viewer is an outstanding viewer for builders doing build-by-number building and sim managers that need to control AV’s in their sim. Emerald has several neat features handy for games inside SL.
You find several of Emerald’s new features in a new menu item labeled Emerald. See the image for a list if the items in this menu drop down.
I think everyone knows the Lindens are always working to improve things and add features for which SL Players/residents are asking. Those of us that write complex scripts, programs if you will, are concerned about what happens when a Linden change breaks one of our scripts being used in a product we are selling. Well, Stroker Serpentine has been through such an ordeal. While I don’t know what one can do to change things, his story can prepare you for what can happen.
Stroker is the manufacturer of the Stoker SexGen beds, line of animations, genitals and scripts for builders. Over 2-1/2 years he has sold thousands of his products and they are all over SL. Imagine his IM’s when suddenly thousands of horny residents can no longer have sex. Not a pretty thought, especially if one considers facing a handsome male AV pointing to a limp noodle and asking ‘What the @#%@&*?’
Many builders for Second Life use Blender to make their sculpties. Blender is complicated but a free and very powerful 3D modeling and animation tool. Add to the complexity of Blender the requirements and limits Second Life imposes on sculpties and it creates a steep learning curve for those new to sculpties. In some cases an overwhelming turnoff. But, read on to learn how to reduce that learning curve and speed up your design work. Learn how to make those really stunning sculpties.
Others also use Blender to check clothes design. I found Blender is a faster round trip check from Photoshop to Blender to Photoshop than most other processes. Many also use Photoshop to work with terrain texture and raw files. Recently the help, support and tools for all these just got better.
Linden Labs has published a new policy on camping robots. (You need an SL account to access the page) If you don’t know these are robots that are used to make a place look inhabited and to pump up traffic scores for better placement on SL Search. Robots come in various flavors. Some have artificial intelligence and can even carry on a lame conversation.
Many of us think getting rid of bots would be a totally good thing, but not everyone. Some bots are hired to model cloths, hair and stuff in various stores. What about those?
Windlight is a neat fun part of the Second Life (SL) viewer. New World Notes (NWN) just posted links to some new pre-made WindLight Presets. These were made by Mescaline Tammas a machinima maker in SL. He used them for his filming/recording in SL. Those of you that want to take dramatic pictures in SL … Read more