Second Life News 2018 w13

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Servers

It is Tuesday (well, would have been if I had remembered to post this…) and the main channel was updated to version #18.03.14.513292. The changes are the ever-occurring Internal fixes then logging to help diagnose an issue with in-world HTTP servers returning HTTP 503 (BUG-214702), adding a new capability to request IMs that were delivered to the requesting agent while the agent was offline, and adding a new capability to request the most up to date list of abuse report categories.

Yellow Bag
Yellow Bag

Until we have a viewer update that can use the new caps, we can’t see or use the new additions.

Wednesday, the Blue Steel channel will be updated with version #18.03.17.513365, ‘internal changes’.

Le Tigre and Magnum may get an update. The Lindens had not decided on a version as I write this. The entry for these channels is a little confusing as they show the #18.03.14.513292 version, which I suspect many will assume is an update going to these channels. But it went to the main channel and may remain in these RC channels.

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Star Citizen – Open Sandbox

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Every so often I look around to see what is happening in the gaming world. This week STAR CITIZEN’S CHARACTER CUSTOMIZER is the subject of an article on Massively (3/23/2018) that caught my interest. They featured this video. While it is an interesting video of what is happening in the design room, we never get to see the character creator. 🙁

But, skipping through the video made me curious. I wanted to see what the game will look like… this video is the impressive one, IMO. The size of the world is amazing. But at time mark 19:00 you are finding the planet was just a small part of this virtual world that is truly a virtual universe.

It is pretty impressive. The size of the cities is surprising. What gets really amazing is the trip up to the space station (time marked link opens a browser). Then the jump to the next system and a trip down to the surface of another planet. For now, the universe in Star Citizen is limited. This is alpha.

By the 32:00 time mark they are down on the ground showing of the detail of the planet.

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SL and Other News Bits 2018 w12

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GA.EG has a gum chewing, bubble blowing animation for Jennifer. The chewing animations are awesomely cute.

This is what bento is about. The neat animations we can build.

Ryan Schultz is writing about his Pet Peeves in Second Life™. The great part of the article is he gives solutions for all of the solvable ones. The solutions are free. So, you’ll want to get them.

Freebie stores… Ryan has his rant on those. I agree with him. There are really bad freebie stores. There are also some good ones, He lists a couple. A favorite of mine that he likes is Free Dove.

In 2008 when I was a new avatar Free Dove was my store of choice. Some great designers had introductory gifts. GuRL 6 had a free hairdo for those newer than 30-days old. I jumped on that. I bought a bunch of GuRL 6 hair once I figured out how to earn money, my stripper-days. I still have some GuRL 6 do’s I wear. The ACI is pretty good. But, GuRL 6 is no more. 🙁

Oculus Go – A new cheap Oculus is coming. Word is this year. Stated price US$200. For details see the long article, Oculus Go world premiere: Acceptable compromises, amazing quality. Consider this, Hands-On: Oculus Go – The Gear VR Killer.

So, will Go wipe out sales for Gear VR, DayDream, and similar phone-VR headsets? For those that don’t have or are avoiding an update of their smartphone, yeah. The phone-VR field has its problems and dedicated VR headsets are a better choice on several points. But, the price is still holding back VR adoption, IMO, and supporting the cheaper phone-VR headset market.

More on Second Life Names

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Ryan Schultz talked with Patch Linden about the returning ability to pick a last name. And today in the Content Creators UG meeting Oz Linden spoke more about the coming ability to change your name.

First, both are making it clear this is something that will change in late 2018. Oz hopes before the end of the year, not the last minute of December, but not real soon either.

Isle of May @ Weed - 30
Isle of May @ Weed – 30

Anyone, new or old, can change their first and last names. It will cost RL money to change your name. Price has not been decided. Some MMO’s charge US$20 and a few more. So, whatever rumors you hear on price, that is wild speculation so be skeptical.

You will be able to change first and last names. So, all those scripts that depend on remembering an avatar name, they are going to be obsolete. If you have a need to remember an avatar, your script will have to use the UUID, as the UUID for an avatar will never change.

You can create any first name. Last names will be selected from a list. I think it was Hamlet that was writing about watching a Linden trying to come up with last names to select from. Oz says they will be selecting names users submit. They will probably update the selection list in batches.

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New Stuff Coming to Second Life – Last Names?

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The Lindens are talking… somewhat. But, we will have to capture one and waterboard them to get any real details. See their post, Happy 15th Birthday, Second Life! Fifteen Reasons to Celebrate.

We already know about lower land prices and double tier. But, you may not know they are planning to go farther with making land cheaper. Don’t think they are going to lower their income. They are just looking for ways to shift the cost to us.

Just Waiting
Just Waiting

Part of that shift is finding ways to make Premium Membership more enticing. So, Premium Members can expect nice stuff coming their way.

We know Animesh and Bakes-On are coming. And there is the migration of SL systems to the cloud.

Windlight is getting an upgrade. We know that change as Enhanced Environment Project or EEP. I’ve been writing about it over the past weeks. Of the known things coming, this is the one I am really excited to see.

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AvaStar and Slink March 2018

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AvaStar is at version 2.3-1 released 17 January 2018 according to announcements in the Blender-AvaStar group. In the products page where I download the file, it is labeled 2.3-2. The release is called a bug fix. It has 10 bug fixes and 4 improvements. See the changelog here. Notice the Dev Kit manager…

Blender is currently at version 2.79a. The Blender download is here. The Portable version is the version I use so I can have multiple versions installed. I’ll explain why later.

Blender Download March 2018

Today I see Slink released an update to their Dev Kit for AvaStar. I find the email got to me yesterday 3/19. It tells me, “The bodies in these kits have been reworked from the ground up, for better geometry, more accurate weighting and better fit!” (Emphasis is theirs.)

Also, Slink Development now has a Discord Server for developers. The link is in the email. Siddean is available 9 to 5 Eastern Australian Time… Australia has 13 time zones… O.O  so… divide by 13 then 24 and multiply by… and turn the world around once… and that gives us 4pm to 12AM SLT/PT. Technically, they are 17 to 18 hours ahead of California, depending on Daylight Saving Time. If it is Monday here it is likely Tuesday there.

If it weren’t for the International Date Line they would be 5 to 6 hours behind California. 

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