Second Life ToS Analyzed

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Over on SLUniverse people are tracking down the changes in the ToS (Terms of Service) that popped up the other day.

So, far it seems to mostly be CYA clauses. There is also a reorganization of the information. Several people think this was to accommodate using the same ToS for all of Linden Lab’s™ products. Whatever the case no one has found a new deal breaker.

See: Yipes – can’t agree to TOS – The main point being several people have not been able to see the text of the ToS in the viewer’s login screen. They get the “Please Agree” window, it’s just empty, nothing to read.

Darien Caldwell has some posts in the thread pointing out some things Darien was unfamiliar with. See: post. Ayesha Lytton has an interesting post about what happens when you remove things from the grid or leave SL. See: post.

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Second Life Texture Thrashing

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Second Life™ users have been seeing textures load in blurry and progress toward a new crisp image. That is where things are supposed to stop. But, quit often people are seeing them repeatedly load blurry and re-render to a nice crisp image and then repeat and repeat and repeat…

The video card for some reason is discarding the texture already in memory, and redoing it. Some think the video cache is more than full and just cycling through textures in your field of view.

There are HUD’s that which are known to cause the problem. So, if you are seeing the problem, remove you HUD’s and relog. Then watch to see if it happens again. If not add your HUD’s back 1 by 1. You’ll figure out which HUD triggers the problem, or possibly the sum of a set of HUD’s triggers the problem.

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Strawberry Meme & Liquid Mesh

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I read the memes that Strawberry comes up with each Monday. I’ve never taken the time to do one. The post Strawberry wrote to start this week’s meme is one of the better articles on Liquid Mesh. Her position is intelligent and rational. I decided to provide more of the background on my thinking about Liquid Mesh. Rereading my articles I think I the last one was overly negative. See: Inventory Meme & Liquid Mesh.

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And consider.

Liquid Mesh items are being sold across the grid. Not all are labeled Liquid Mesh, but the advertising term is gaining popularity. As word of the possible destruction of Liquid Mesh spreads we may see more items sold under other promotional names. All will convey the idea that a mesh item can be changed to fit your shape. There is no official Linden supported way to do that that supports a change when the Leg Muscles setting in the Appearance editor is changed.

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Second Life Avatar UVMaps Quirks

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When the current avatar was made the Lindens were optimizing for performance. This meant they took some crafty shortcuts to save download and CPU time. One of those crafty design features creates some strange behavior with the Second Life™ avatar’s UVMap and how the viewer handles it.

Gaia Clary of Machinimatrix.org has figured out what is going on and how to compensate for it.

To understand the problem and how to work around it check out the video that Gaia made.

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The problem is complex. Solving it allows one to make better looking skins and system clothes. Understanding what is happening allows one to make better mesh clothes.

Drop by the SL Forum and thank Gaia for this video and figuring out how the UVMap is being maniplulated. Improve UVs for SL compatible meshes.

Obviously making mesh clothes is complex. As time has passed we have learned how complex it is. That makes for a very steep learning curve. Perhaps while the Lindens are talking about Liquid Mesh they could say a word or two about how to make things easier for new clothes makers.