Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Last week I was busy with RL, so I’m just getting around to catching up on what was happening in SL. Looking through last week’s meetings minutes, several of the regular user group meetings were short and there was little discussion. So, there is little news to report.
We did get a roll out of new server software to the main channel on Tuesday. The server maintenance package running on Blue Steel rolled to the main channel. This package was bug fixes and likely some security fixes.
We have new updates to Linden Lab’s viewers. I haven’t had much time to play with them. I’ve only been on a couple of hours in the last few days because of RL work. But, I do have them installed and running.
I’ve seen some odd behavior in this viewer. I had problems installing it. Files like static_data.db2 failed to update giving an error: can’t write to file. I think there were 3 of them, all dot DB2 files. But, the viewer seems to work.
I have noticed that some mesh avatars and mesh objects disappear as LoD levels change. Oskar Linden wears an avatar (or outfit) that blinks in and out as you move away from it.
I am getting more FPS from this version which is nice. With L&S, Ambient Occlusion, and Sun/Moon enabled I’m staying in the 20’s tending to be around 28 FPS in my house.
One of the more interesting things going on this week is a thread on SLUniverse. Ayesha Lytton made the opening post June 25 asking some questions; would you want to work at Linden Lab, what job would you want, title, what would you want to accomplish?
The thread had grown to 3 pages by 10 PM the same day. The next day Rod Humble, as Rodvik, posted asking a more specific question:
“Assuming SL improved performance enormously, from region crossings to lag to render times. (big assumption I know but roll with me here) What would you do to insure new users ‘stuck’?”
As of 9AM 7/27 the thread had grown to 17 pages. There are a number of comments as to what can be done. All the expected suggestions are there. Also, a number of novel, at least to me, ideas appeared. Here is a summary of what has been suggested. These are not all direct quotes. Many I have twisted to have them make sense when shortened.
This week’s show is titled: The Noob Experience. There is some interesting information in the podcast. I didn’t find much actionable information. The result is the index of the audio tape is a bit sparse. I have some comments in the summary.
The index starts after the fold…
I have a RL work project that is going to require my time for a couple of days. I won’t have time for much else. I hope to have it completed by the week’s end.
There is an article by Hamlet, Future Phoenix Viewer Development in Peril?, that points to a post by one of the Phoenix-Firestorm developers, Tonya Souther. See: Viewer 1 is officially on borrowed time. The title says it pretty clearly. The writing is on the wall, Phoenix is a dying viewer with an expected near term death. While Hamlet focused on Phoenix, there are problems ahead for any V1 viewer. Well… actually any number of viewers brands.
Near the end of June an announcement was made about the projects Linden Lab™ will be working on for the next few months. See: Project Shining to Improve Avatar and Object Streaming Speeds and my article Second Life Changes Coming.
HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. If you’re curious about the more technical but simple definition read The Webopedia definition of HTTP. For an even more technical explanation see: What’s HTTP? Explain HTTP Request and HTTP Response.