Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life Viewer Status

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Within the Snowstorm project many things come up. Some make it into the viewer and some don’t. Discussion in the group is along the lines of what should change and why, what features should be added and how will they work, what isn’t working for people and why. This article is about some of the things under consideration, being fixed, fixed, and/or added. You’ll learn all sorts of little bits about the viewers.

Login Locations

The feature request Storm-34 was recently implemented. You will find it in KirstenLee’s S21 and the Lab’s 2.5 Beta. This is the feature that adds your favorites to the list of places you can log into. So, it is no longer just ‘Last Location’ and ‘Home’.

But, how many times have you seen an interesting place on the login screen and wanted to know where it is? Kirsten’s viewer places the region name on the image. One can use it to log into the region. The same feature is being suggested for SL viewers.

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Second Life Viewer 2.5 Beta Released

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A new Beta viewer came out 1/19. There are some things to consider about SLV2.5 Beta and coming changes. If you run a business or are in other ways dependent on your Profile, you need to read on.

Web Profiles

This Beta uses the new Profiles. I suggest you get 2.5 Beta and check out your Profile. Or you can visit the web site and see your Profile, actually you should probably do both. To visit the web site and see your Profile you need to build a URL.

http://My.SecondLife.com/[first.last]

Replace [first.last] with your avatar name.The dot is important. This will bring up your Profile. If you login, you can edit the Profile. There is a Facebook setting, so you can link Facebook and SL. There are links to LinkedIn and Twitter too.

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KirstenLee S21(3) Released Review

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KirstenLee Viewer S21
KirstenLee S21 Logo

Today KirstenLee has released the first complete version of S21… well… one that is not a release candidate. I’ve been enjoying using the Release Candidate 2 version for several days. I’m happy to see this version out. My impressions of the viewer follow.

Install

The install program shows the version as 2.6.0.3, which shows the viewer is using the newest possible code from Linden Lab, who’s Development viewer is at 2-6-0-219259. The ‘3’ is KirstenLee’s development iteration as 219259 is the Lab’s. The Lab is averaging 68 iterations per day, which is pretty impressive. I suspect KirstenLee has far more iterations than the version numbers show.

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Multi-Chan Hax

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UPDATE: 3/2012 – This was neat, but the site with the download is down. It may come back or there may be another download site. I do not know of another site and we can only hope the site comes back.

Photoshop CS4 and 5 Extended allow one to skip using HAX and work directly on the 3D avatar model. Blender will also allow import of the SL avatar model. One can use its texturing and painting tools to work directly on the model.

So, unfortunately, as with many things, HAX and this article are out of date.

UPDATE: claireharford has started hosting the files needed for Multi-Chan Hax. LINK

This is neat. If you are a clothes maker in Second Life, you need to know about this way of making clothes. Clair Hartford posted a tutorial on the SL blogrum today.  I think the thing is awesome. I’m excited. If you want to make seamless clothes, this is something you really want to know. This process has been around since 2009 and I’m just now finding out about it. Darn.

[youtube N1AyEuB0b6M]

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Second Life Server Updates Week 2

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Here is an update on the changes happening with the grid servers.

The Encroachment Project, the feature to allow one to remove prims encroaching on their property, failed to pass its test in the Blue Steel Release Channel. That means it is stuck in Blue Steel for another week with new fixes applied. With any luck it will roll to the main grid next week.

The Le Tigre channel was testing the new Simulator Shutdown code. It passed its tests and was rolled to the main grid. This code improves several things on the server side of the Second Life Grid. Faster simulator restarts and fewer inventory problems are two expected improvements.

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Singularity 1.5.3 Viewer Review

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Playing with the new group limit I was joining all the viewer related groups I found. The Singularity group is one I joined in the process. The other day that got me a notice that a new version of the Singularity Viewer is out. I’ve never used the viewer. For that matter I’ve never heard about it. It is not in the TPV Directory. But, I’m curious so I wanted to try it. I have an avatar just for testing viewers not in the TPV Directory.

The viewer’s web site is, of course, Singularity Viewer. It is a nice looking site. They have a knowledgebase, download, forum, and a link to the Github for the source code. The forum appears to be a Google Group, not what I think of as a forum.

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