SL Region Management Problems

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WARNING: There is currently a problem that appears to be part of the Region-Crossing update. If an estate manager or other land owner bans and ejects a user, the region will crash when they leave the region. Oops!

It is currently unclear what the details are. Try ejecting without banning then ban. I have no idea if that will help.

The problem is related to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SEC-1204 and https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SEC-1215. I can’t read the JIRA items in SEC, as most of us cannot. So, it is a pain getting details.

Some of the hinky details are in the Deploy thread: Deploys for 2013-01-28.

Second Life Materials Update 2013-5

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You may have noticed the RC channel Blue Steel is running the server side of the Materials System update. While there is no Project Viewer available yet, this suggests that it is getting close. What more confidently suggests the nearing release are these screen shots of Materials in use.

Materials System in Action - Normal & Specular - Enlarge
Materials System in Action – Normal & Specular – Enlarge

The above image shows an interesting surface. I think that is a simple cube with a normal map. 

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New Second Life Controller Experiment

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A new post popped up on the Linden Blog today: Reaching into Second Life with Leap Motion.

[youtube -8WkyBBwYTI]

I’m not sure this is something I would be interested in. But, it does show the Lab is experimenting with things, which leaves me wondering if it is just pure research or part of some project. I get the idea it is a promotional thing. But, who knows?

They say:

If you have a Leap Motion controller and would like to experiment with the Second Life Viewer, you can find the source code for these experiments at http://bitbucket.org/simon_linden/viewer-rabbit. The indra/newview/llleapmotioncontroller.cpp file contains most new functionality. The Viewer is built to work in several different modes. These modes can be used to control the avatar while flying, send data into Second Life for scripts to intercept, detect hand motions that trigger avatar gestures, or control the camera and avatar movement. To switch between these modes use the “LeapMotionTestMode” value in the Debug Settings, accessible from the Advanced menu.

Dio?

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Looking at Daniel Voyager’s blog I see Linden Lab has released Dio Beta. The web site is here: Dio. The press release is here: Linden Lab® Introduces dio™: a New Shared Creative Space. This is my first quick look at Dio.

So, what is it? A creative space… well, so what’s that mean? It is apparently like a Facebook timeline with linkable posts. Think Facebook timeline crossbred with Google Circles, but with links from circle to circle. Yeah, that about as clear as mud.

There is a video that tries to explain it. Here it is.

[youtube na2OJ1YA7CI]

Dio looks nothing like the video. That is supposed to give you the concept of what Dio is. The video didn’t do much for me. The Lab folks continue to seem to have a hard time explaining what they mean.

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Just Interesting – EVE Online

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I saw today that EVE Online made gaming news. I have friends that play EVE. I like EVE but, it doesn’t suit my time limits. I am, however, impressed by a recent battle in EVE. The video of part of it is below. It runs 18+ minutes. You can watch it in full screen.

[youtube TLqb-m1ZZUA]

You may not know much about EVE. It is obviously a space game evolving space ships and fleets of ships. Now Gamer describes it as:

In short, it’s a cruel world where deception, piracy and scams run rife, and if you don’t have a smart head on your shoulders, you will likely get eaten alive. The learning curve for new players is mountainous, but those who survive the first few months encounter a unique world rarely seen in gaming.  

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Second Life News 2013-5 (1)

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This is short but exciting… The picks for this week’s rollouts are out. The main channel will get the Region-Crossing package on Tuesday. This package is running on the Blue Steel and Le Tigre RC channels. It has apparently done well in the RC, so it gets promoted..

Unfortunately the Interest List package has not done well, creating lots of problems for users. The package created high packet loss for many resulting in avatars and other objects failing to render. This week we will see a revised version of this package return to the Magnum channel. Hopefully this one will be better.

Blue Steel is getting the Materials System Package. We still won’t be able to try it out. There is no viewer that can take advantage of the feature. There are private testing builds. But, none most SL users cannot find or get access to them. So, I see this test as more of a compatibility thing.

Le Tigre is getting the fix for the World Map problem where some regions are not showing up in search.

I am hoping to see a Materials System Viewer soon.