If you have been put off learning Blender because of the arcane user interface and myriad of invisible shortcut keys, it is probably time to reconsider learning Blender. If you learned Blender 2.49, you may be frustrated with 2.5. I know one of the challenges I’ve had shifting over to Blender 2.57 is figuring out where the tools are that I use in 2.4. The new 2.5 user interface in Blender has drastically changed. I think it is much easier to learn than 2.4. If you are looking for good, simple tutorials on 2.5 read on.
Blender 2.57b
Blender Basics
It seems most tutorials are about how to do something in Blender. How to use Blender, it’s user interface, is a byproduct of learning to build or texture something. The basic information needed to use Blender is skipped over and it is assumed you know or can find the commands needed.
A recent post on the SL Forum went into the details of creating cheap mesh, cheap as in low upload cost and tier. The actual costs remain in a state of change. There are still some obvious problems with the current implementation of the mesh uploader in respect to cost. But, the basic ideas of controlling mesh cost are becoming apparent.
What Affects Mesh Cost?
Performance is important to Linden Lab. Your render performance in the viewer and the load on the server are both of concern to the Lab. In the viewer it is all about appearance, how the mesh looks in your viewer. That aspect is all about Level of Detail (LoD) and total polygons.
On the server side it is all about physics calculations, which means the complexity of the shape for collision calculations.
The other day Tateru was blogging about the life expectancy of SLV 1.23 and series 1 viewers. (Reference) She was quoting OZ Linden. Today the minutes for the Open Development User Group posted. Oz Linden is talking about where the Lab is with older viewers and has the quotes. So, how long do the older viewers have?
Old Viewers
‘Old’ is always a subjective or relative term. Apparently some residents are using some really old viewers… you know, the ones that come on the stone disk. I guess the Lab just doesn’t bother to block older third party viewers (TPV).
The problem with older viewers is in the way they talk to the Second Life servers. Over time how the servers talk changes and viewers have to keep up. After all when was the last time you saw a rotary dial phone?
We have an approximate roll out date. This feature is expected to hit the grid this summer, first in Beta and within a couple of months the final version. It is down to weeks. So, what is Direct Delivery?
Direct Delivery is a new way to deliver products to residents in SL. We will have 2 folders in inventory. One folder for receiving items we buy and one for items we want to sell in the SL Market Place.
Arriving new purchases will arrive in the receiving folder. That will be nice. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to hunt for new delivery.
The Magic Box, now used to put products into the SL Market Place, will eventually be replaced and vanish. For a time both can be used.
Brooke Linden promises more information two weeks before Direct Delivery Beta goes live. Watch the Commerce Forum for more information. There is currently a live thread there now with several questions asking for clarification on various things. No answers yet.
Several people have asked forward thinking questions that didn’t occur to me. Check them out and add any you may have.
I’m curious how this will affect real estate in SL. Merchants will no longer need a place in SL to park their Magic Boxes. That would seem to reduce the need for land in SL. I guess we’ll see.
This list is ordered by crash rate. The viewer at the top of the list has the best (least) crash rate. Dolphin has not been in this list because crash reporting is optional and the Lindens lacked the data to rank it. Some minimum number of reports and logins have to be received to be ranked.
The ranking is:
Dolphin 1
SLV 1.23
Phoenix (probably 1050 – 1102 is too new)
Imprudence
SLV 2.6.3
Singularity
SLV Beta 2.6.8
Firestorm (pre-alpha)
Emergence
Ascent
Kirstens
The last two weeks have been hectic for the Lindens. Several updates to the server software did not work as expected and the crash rates went up. It seems those have been corrected and things are returning to the normal cycle of upgrades.
This week’s (today’s) roll out was stopped and rolled back part way through the process. Something went wrong.
CERN Server Room - By: torkildr @ Flickr
Snack Release Channel
One of the code updates that is proving difficult to get working is the Mono2 upgrade. You probably remember it is the Mono scripts rezzing in a region that caused regions to stall for 5 to 30 seconds. That fix has been in progress since Mono was released. A couple of times now Mono2 updates and improvements have been rolled out and back. The Snack Release Channel is a special channel made up of just a few simulators on the main grid where the Mono2 changes can be tested.
