Interesting Things in Second Life

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During the run up to Second Life’s birthdays we see some blogging about the past, present, and future. This 10th birthday (SL10B) is no different. There are funny, interesting, sad, New, and a whole range of other things turning up.

Blender-Avastar

Iris Ophelia on Hamlet’s New World Notes has an article about the Avastar plug-in for Blender. Iris is suggesting that Avastar be used by designers to create a better SL avatar.

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Well, it is possible. But, that still leaves lots of problems unanswered. However, I do think Avastar is currently the best answer available for many of the challenges we have in making clothes, avatars, and animations. 

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Wackadoodles

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These wackadoodle people show up in so many places… it gets infuriating. I see where Jessica Lyon responded to one in the Firestorm Viewer blog. I mention this because I am impressed by her statesman like response. Well done Jessica.

The blog article is announcing the re-opening of the Firestorm Viewer’s Preview Group. This is a group that will get Firestorm’s Beta version of their viewer. The team wants people that will help them test the viewer before it goes to main release.

Just as the Lab rolls server updates to 30% of the main grid for testing in a more diverse environment so too, the FS Team needs a larger selection of equipment and driver versions running their viewer before making a final release.

So, if you are interested in helping the team, check out: Feeling Brave? If you are NOT willing to file JIRA bug reports, please don’t bother.

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Second Life News 2013-13

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This week we did get a rollout to the main channel. The code running on Blue Steal and Le Tigre was promoted Tuesday morning.  This is a package that has a bug fix or two and a crash mode fix, which I think is mostly a security fix. So, we won’t see much change in the main channel… may be a bit less griefing.

Server-Scripting Meeting - Baker's Estate in Background
Server-Scripting Meeting – Baker’s Estate in Background

Release Channels

Wednesday we will see the Blue Steal and Le Tigre RC channels get the exciting rollout. SVC-3755 is included which changes how the CHANGED() event works. Now CHANGED_REGION and CHANGED_TELEPORT will work from child prims.

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SL10B Announced

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Daniel Voyager has an article out about the coming 10th birthday of Second Life™, SL10B.

The ‘official’ announcement is here: The SL10B Community Event is coming!

Second Life 10th Brithday
SL10B Banner

The domain sl10b.com is owned by someone in Scottsdale, Arizona. The registration is classed as private, so no company or individual’s name shows up, that sort of makes sense for a resident sponsored group. But, it is also not very transparent. I don’t see anything on the SL Blog yet. 

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Second Life Normal Textures Tutorial

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The Materials System Project is steadily progressing. We do not have an ETA, yet. We do have a bit of a place marker in that we are told projects are moving in the order of; Chat HUD User Interface, Server Side Appearance, and then Materials. So, we know it will arrive soon, but is still a ways off. If we want Materials to work the way we want, we need to be able to provide feedback during the coming Beta Phase of the development process.

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To be able to give feedback we need to understand how to make and use of Normal and Specular Maps (or textures – interchangeable words in this case). So now is probably a good time to start learning the basics to allow us to participate in the beta testing without looking too ignorant. 

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Xing – The Land Beyond

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I check the Myst Online community every other day or so. I found they are talking about and excited about the Alpha/Beta releases of a game called Xing (pronounced zing) The Land Beyond (more videos and pictures here). For those of us familiar with the Myst worlds the game is very similar. Several reviewers have already made the connection. Xing’s big claim to fame for Myst fans is, like Myst, its non-violent, so it is a great parent-child activity to share.

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The creative team behind Xing is White Lotus Interactive. John Torkington and Koriel Kruer started the Xing project as a classroom project in early 2012. The first 4 levels became one of the top ten finalists in the IEEE GameSig competition at Chapman University. In a completion judged by industry professionals they took second place. Then in late 2012 James Steininger joined the team.

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