Nalates' Things & Stuff

Finding Interesting Places and Things

2012/05/232011/05/17 by Nalates Urriah

I think many Second Life residents have a bit of the explorer in them. Curiosity is an attribute of many residents. So, news of interesting places is usually welcome. And then there are clothes and shoes, which are really important. Finding good sources of information on places, clothes, and shoes can be a problem. I’ve … Read more

SL Viewer Development

2011/05/162011/05/16 by Nalates Urriah

I tend to leave previous downloads of the viewers on my computer. If the new install is bad, I can revert back to the previously downloaded version. Every so often I clean out the folder. I thought it would be interesting to see how fast things were happening in viewer development. I put the version build ID, which advances numerically, and download date in a spreadsheet. It may not be significant or particularly accurate, but it is interesting.

The information doesn’t directly say anything about features being added, bug fix rates, or much of anything other than some Linden felt another iteration of the viewer was ready to test.

Blender 2.57b Released

2011/05/152011/05/15 by Nalates Urriah

Version 2.57b was released a couple of weeks ago. This version has over 100 significant bug fixes. You can get your copy at: Blender 2.57b Download

Windows Installing?

One of the problems I’ve had with Blender is my need to run multiple versions. Until just recently building for Myst-Uru Plazma required 2.49b. Also, the Collada exporter in 2.49b is reputed to be better for Second Life. Then there are the JASS and Primstar tools made by Gaia Clary and Domino Marama which have dependencies on Blender and Python versions.

Mesh and OpenSim

2011/05/14 by Nalates Urriah

The Lindens have reasons to change how mesh is handled in Second Life. The changes are format changes to the mesh data set. The reason given is performance and compatibility issues with the existing SL software.

For those of us that are not up on C# or C++ and object oriented data that doesn’t tell us much. Suffice to say mesh is sort of changing from a round peg to a square peg. That means all the holes for mesh have to change too. The place in the asset database where mesh information is stored must change. How the physics engine deals with mesh has to change. The inventory handlers, the build/edit dialog, render pipeline, and other parts of the viewer handling mesh must change.

This week the movers and shakers in OpenSim have been looking at how this change will affect OpenSim. Justincc has a post up on what is known now. His post is probably the most authoritative words on the subject for OpenSim. See: Warning: Don’t rely on meshes uploaded to OpenSim (just yet)

SL Community Forums Update Week 19

2011/05/13 by Nalates Urriah

It seems the worlds greatest pass-time is complaining. The new Answers, Blogs, Forums, and Knowledge Base are certainly something residents complain about. Often with good reason. There are a number of things that are being corrected and changed on the AnBlorumledge… eck… forum.

One thing is those pesky emoticons. They are displaying wrong, mis-positioned, and that delayed a number of other fixes being rolled out, which sounds odd to me. But, whatever. I don’t work with Lithium, the forum software.

Answers

You may have noticed there is a place for comments in the Answers section. It seems those are not supposed to be there. They managed to get rid of the comments button but not the comments box. So, I suppose we should avoid using comments in Answers.

Kirsten Viewer S21(7a) Review Continued

2011/05/12 by Nalates Urriah

I’ve been able to use the viewer for a time now. My experience with it follows.

Download & Install

The download (29mb) and install is standard for the KirstenLee Viewer. It uninstalls the previous version in the process. The cache and settings locations are retained. The settings are kept.

Anna's Many Murders

Experience

No reboot needed. Viewer cranked up and ran well. In my cottage I get 27 to 32 FPS. In Celtic Myst I get 17 to 21 FPS. This is with Lighting & Shadows + Ambient Occlusion enabled and Sun/Moon shadows off.