Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Bandwidth is a problem right now. Those using capped services and those having ISP’s with a strict abuse ToS are supposedly running into problems.
The Magnum release channel seems to suffer the most. The worst case is when approaching the SW corner of a region that has 3 adjacent regions. Large draw distance aggravate the problem.
No new news on the Deformer. Karl, the one programming the Deformer, is usually a guest on MetaReality. Gianna that runs the show has been busy with other things. So, for the last 2 weeks no MetaReality podcasts and that means no updates on the Mesh Deformer.
The Redpoly Process is available for use, but it always was. AFAIK, no one has built a tool for use in Blender to make using the Redpoly process easy. So, that seems to be on hold.
I’m a little behind getting a Week 32 news update out today. But, other things to play with and write about.
Metareality’s Gianna is busy with something, so there has been no podcast for the last 2 weeks. The podcasts were our major source of first hand news on the Mesh Deformer. So, we have no clue where we are with this project.
We have had lots of misinformation about this roll out and a load of misunderstanding. Fridays meeting of the Server/Scripting group got some more information out on the updates.
Andrew Linden tells there are a couple of things that crash regions running the new PathFinding/Havok 2012.1 software. Falcon Linden has fixes that are being added to the server maintenance package. Those should be on an RC this coming Wednesday.
The two problems are rare, random, and not easily exploited by griefers or so it seems.
I found a work-around for some of the vehicle problems in the SL Forum. MB Robonaught wrote:
While many of the problems with vehicles used on Pathfinder have been addressed to help with older created cars, there remains a few issues that need serious attention for newer Mesh cars. As per SVC-8048 I have discovered that if a builder uses at least 4 contact points with linden ground where all 4 are set to Convex hull the car will not sink. A single prim does not appear to have the buoyancy to ride above the edge of the land no matter what the size of the prim.
For those that run race tracks, we’ve found that volume detect is handled in a much different way. When a collision occurs between a physical vehicle and a prim that uses llVomumeDetect prim, size matters. For example if a prim that measures 0.5m x 1.0m x 10.0m is used it will randomly trigger a collision event (PATHBUG-156) making the car suddenly jump or veer off to one side. A fix for this for now is to make the prims as small as possible, such as using a 0.05m x 0.05m x 10.0m prim size instead of the above. Another option is to drive over instead of through the prim. (Reference)
My friends that work with vehicles are experimenting to see what works. So, I’m not testing vehicles. I can fly and don’t really need a vehicle. I know for many the various vehicle experiences in SL are a primary reason to be here.
For land and shop owners this is a serious problem. With the roll out of the latest update lots of people are seeing the problem.
SVC-7458 – Traffic counts borked across (All or Many Regions) – See 1. Second Life Viewer – VWR VWR-27621 Drop In Traffic Calculations. Nov 2011. Short not much information.
SVC-7459 – Drop In Traffic Calculations. Nov 2011. Updated Aug 2012. This seems to be the most active JIRA on the topic.
I was talking to a friend about being at a concert while programming. That thoroughly confused them. I needed something to show them for a quick explanation. Trying to explain Second Life™ with words is pointless, in my experience.
The Lab has a good web page up that serves the purpose of explaining SL. While it falls short, the videos there are far better than my words and verbal efforts. I can just say, “Second Life is a second fun only life.” Send them to the web page and they seem to get a closer idea of what SL is. But, I have yet to see any answer to the question “What is Second Life?” that actually works for everyone.
Check out: What is Second Life?