Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
There is no roll out to the main grid this week. None of the release channels tests passed. I think this is the second week in a row they have failed. It appears the weekly restart has also been skipped.
These two release channels are to get a new server maintenance package. No details yet.
Qarl posted a new video on his blog to update us on the Mesh Deformer. Qarl says thanks for your support. He points out that he does not have the time to answer everyone’s questions on all the forums he reads. He has noticed several problems with the Deformer being discussed and provided in the feedback.
All the cases he has seen these are problems of having used the wrong beginning avatar. If one designed over size clothes for an over sized avatar, then the deformer will make the clothes twice as big. The same problem happens going the other way toward tiny avatars, but twice as small.
The base avatar to use is the one you get when you create a new default female shape. Domino and Gaia both provide copies of that avatar.
For humans we have a pretty nice set if shape editing tools. However, when we start making non-human avatars the values we can set with the shape sliders falls short of what we need. A JIRA is being opened to request an extended range of values. Basically, taller and fatter avatars will be possible if the feature is added.
Since this is likely an easy programming change, I would expect it to happen. If there is any interst, then it might happen quickly.
I can’t find the JIRA they were going to make for this, so I can’t link you to it. I suspect they have not gotten to it as I write this.
Now there is an idea… Inventory likely becomes a headache for every user of Second Life. I know I have an ongoing battle with inventory. Now the Lab has come up with a new idea. I suppose it is a spinoff from the SLCC announcement of making SL easier to use.
ProductTeam Linden posted an announcement in the Second Life Forum about the new project to test the idea of a simplified inventory. See: Simple Inventory Project Viewer. They want feedback on the new inventory. They ask you to give them information on how you think it will affect new users. I guess we can put on our newbie avayar and see how it goes.
The project has a Project Viewer, JIRA Section SINV, and a Simplified Inventory wiki page.
This is the standard download (28mb) and install. The viewer installs in its own folder, so there should be little conflict. It also uses its own settings file (settings_projectviewer-simpleinventory.xml). It does share the cache. While I am a great fan of separate caches for each viewer, I have been allowing all the viewers from the Lab to share the same cache. I don’t recommend allowing the Lab’s 1.23 to share a cache with the new 3.x.x viewers.
Server roll outs have not been going that well this year. Tuesday a new roll was planed and started. It went well. Then Wednesday came and release channels were rolling out. The roll to Magnum went bad.
Oskar says, ‘This is the code that’s been in a few RC’s this year. It is looking stable.’ This is the code that rolled to Blue Steel this week.
New LSL function: integer llSetRegionPos(vector position) – The object with the script will move the root prim position to the given location. The position is any position within the region. If the position is below ground, it will be set to the ground level at that X,Y spot. The function has no delay or throttle.
“frame_number” option added to llGetEnv() – Returns an integer that represents the current ‘frame’ of the simulator. The function is generally only useful for specific debugging cases.
Today a new post appeared on the Imprudence-Kokua Viewer site. It gives us some insight into what is going on with Imprudence & Kokua viewer development. From a users perspective it seems pretty well stalled to me. But, now we know what’s up and that some decision is going to be made. So, is this the end of Imprudence?
For a long time Imprudence was my viewer of choice for use on OSGrid. With the arrival of mesh that changed.
Imprudence was the viewer of choice for builders in OSGrid and Second Life. For many it still is. But, it is getting old and the team is going to have to decide if they can keep supporting it.
This is the newer follow on to Imprudence. It allowed the team to regroup and start from a fresh beginning. It was said this would be a viewer for OpenSim and the Aurora branches of the OpenSim grids.