Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life Server Tidbits

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I missed the Simulator User Group meeting. But, I just saw the meeting minutes got posted. There are a few interesting things that came up in the meeting.

TimeWarp

This is the Linden name for the problem of simulators stalling for 30 to 60 seconds, which knocks people in the simulators’ regions offline. Since the operating system kernel upgrades on the ADITI grid that problem has disappeared.

This week, Oct 3 to 7, The Lab will be upgrading the kernel on all the servers running simulators. If I understood correctly, that upgrade will also be applied to many of the support services servers. This means the week will see lots of region restarts. See: Critical OS Software Upgrade — Region Restarts

Regions will see at least 2 restarts and if unlucky 3.

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Exodus Viewer Feature Explanations

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Thursday a new post appeared on the Exodus Viewer blog explaining two features of this new viewer. HDR and FXAA. I had guessed, wrongly, that the HDR was High Definition Render. It is High Dynamic Range. My guess average is sliding down…

Exodus Viewer

The article provides a good explanation of the subject terms HDR and FXAA. But, they don’t explain all the terms they use, like MSAA and others. So, I’ll give a try at an explanation too.

HDR

HDR or HDRI is High Dynamic Range Imaging. Exodus explains it and you can find more detailed information in the Wikipedia: HDRI.

If you have used film based photography or the older digital cameras you have run into RANGE problems. Neither could handle the range of bright and dark the eye can see. So, photographs and digital images never looked quite real because we could not see detail in the bright or dark areas of a picture. The top edge of tire in a car’s wheel well would disappear into the black of the wheel well.

Photoshop users can correct the problem to some extent using LEVELS or CURVES.

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Consumers’ Guide to Mesh Clothes

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Tateru Nino of Dwell On It linked to Satiated Desires’ post, A consumer’s guide to Second Life mesh.  This is a must read for Second Life resident considering buying mesh clothes. No tech or geek, just the stuff you want to know. If you think I’m geeky when explaining mesh, check out Satiated Desires. Satiated explains … Read more

Second Life Server News Week 39

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Tuesday a new version of the server rolled to the main grid. Only one high priority fix made it to the main channel this week. This version contains the fix for SVC-7283 – llRemoteLoadScriptPin and llGiveInventory fail when installing non-full perm items into worn attachments.

This problem was causing the permanent loss of scripts in worn objects. As it was breaking existing content, this was a top priority to get fixed. It was considered enough of a priority that it was placed on all three Release Channels to assure we would have a fix this week, provided the fix passed testing, it did. See Second Life Server News Week 38 for more information.

Some are upset that it took 2 weeks to roll out this fix. The plan is to test and test and be sure a fix actually fixes the problem without breaking something else. That means a week of testing in ADITI and a week of testing in a release channel. The Lindens thought this fix important enough to place it on all 3 RC’s. If it had failed it would have failed all the release channels and delayed all other fixes in progress. Their concern and urgency on this issue pushed them to use all 3 channels. But, for some that is not good enough. That’s life.

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