#SL Content/Mesh News Week 7

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In the Content and Mesh User Group some interesting things came up today.

Transparent Mesh

If a mesh object is transparent should that change its Land Impact cost? Should it even render? If it doesn’t render, doesn’t it use fewer resources? It seems the Lindens are looking at this special case and considering how to implement such a change.

Content-Mesh Meeting

Runitai says the code to NOT render 100% transparent objects is in the pipeline. The release of the code has been delayed because it broke highlight transparent. (SH-2963)

Dropping Mesh Things

If you have a mesh attachment, you cannot drop it as you would a prim or sculpty attachment. Mesh objects rigged or not, detach back into inventory.

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#SL Scripting News Week 7

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The big news this week was Tiggs’ announcement about Linden Realms’ Tools. I cover that in: #SL Linden Realm Tools. Otherwise, there was little news in the scripting area.

New Functions

For some time we have had the improved List Functions bouncing in and out of the release channels. It looks like they will make it to the main grid this week. For the past week the server maintenance package including them has been running on all 3 release channels. So, it should be well tested. Keep your fingers crossed.

These are the improvements to speed up Linden Scripting Language (LSL) functions that handle lists. Look back through the articles in Scripting News for a list of them.

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#SL Linden Realm Tools

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This morning Tiggs Linden visited Kelly Linden’s Scripting User Group to talk about Linden Realm Tools and made some announcements. Charlar Linden pointed out that none of the information is cast in stone, so things may change.

Tiggs Linden and a smokey pipe

Tiggs made it clear we are only getting part of the story for now by saying there are two things Tiggs would be discussing, a third Tiggs would be hinted at, and a fourth component of which no mention would be made.

Two Tools

The first two things are new scripting functions; llTeleportAgent() and llAttachToAvatarTemp().

Tiggs is opening up llTeleportAgent() to allow the same access as llTeleportAgentHome(). This means the object running a script with this command must be owned by the parcel/land owner.

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#SL Linden’s Blogging Offer

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This is probably of more interest to bloggers than blog readers. But, opinion on the Lab’s request for guest bloggers has been the topic in many blogs. Some are outraged that Linden Lab would dare to insult them by offering to allow guest articles without offering to pay the writer. They see it as the height of arrogance and insensitivity. Others of us see it differently.

One person taking a minority stance is Gwyneth Llewelyn in her blog article: Working for free for Linden Lab’s blog. Its long 4,838 words. You won’t be left asking, ‘Wonder why she thinks that?’ You will know.

She points out the aspect several others are over looking or discounting. Having an article on the Lab’s blog has value. The systems that analyze the value of advertising and links on a site give a high value to the Lab’s blog. CWire.org gives Text Link Advertising on the Lab’s site a value of approximately $929/Link/Month. So, the link they allow in the bio is worth almost a grand. On my blog a link is worth $2… whoop! whoop!

The comments after the article are as interesting or possibly more so than the article. The comments do show that the Lab’s offer is not unique. Online blogs often have the same arrangement with writers or make a standing offer for guest posters.

Whether one thinks a link is worth as much as CWire is what the free market is about. We are all free to decide for ourselves and participate or not. But, one has to wonder why people are outraged, upset, or otherwise annoyed at the Lab’s offer.

Kokua Viewer Update

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Maria Korolov has an update on the Kokua Viewer at Hypergrid Business: Kokua viewer to support Imprudence exports. The Kokua/Imprudence developers have been on a bit of a holiday, taking some well deserved time. This January they were planning the development path and asking for user feedback. The general plan is now to stop development of Imprudence and move forward with the Kokua Viewer development.

Kokua/Imprudence Viewers

Important Feature

One of the features of Imprudence is import/export of objects in OpenSim worlds and Second Life. Many build in OpenSim worlds and then move final projects to SL for use or sale. Some also move things from SL to OpenSim. So, the import/export is an important feature for many. Maria spoke with the Kokua developers about the feature.

The news is while the viewer will not initially have the feature it will eventually be added. While there are things with higher priorities to be addressed before import/export the feature is on the to-be-included list.

There seems to be some challenge making the future Kokua import/export compatible with Imprudence’s. The developers plan to make it compatible, if possible. Remember. The viewer and server must cooperate for the feature to work. So, it is not solely a viewer side thing.

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