Changes Coming to Second Life – 2010

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In the last week of December several bloggers wrote their predictions for Second Life in 2010. Others were writing their insights. From what I am reading and see happening there are some interesting things I think will happen in 2010.

Two of the changes will have a significant impact on those of us making content in SL. I expect mesh imports to come to SL in the first half of 2010 and be the biggest impact on SL. There are lots of reasons for why this will change how we make and sell content in SL and possibly change the social fabric of SL.

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Blue Mars Goes Open Beta

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Blue Mars
Blue Mars Install Screen

See New World Notes: Blue Mars Goes Into Open Beta Today for a quick summary.

Updated 12/24/09

We are up to version 0.0.6589.0. A big change is the size of the download. It has gone from 1.3gb down to 392mb. Nice. BUT… they have added a CITY BROWSER. This shows you the cities you have already downloaded and those available for download. New cities are 200mb to 500mb downloads. They download in background. One must restart the main program to access a newly downloaded city. I’m sure that will change by the end of the beta.

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Second Life Scripting Changes

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Second Life residents can check out the discussion that started 12/11 on the SL blogs; To All Merchants Selling Scripted Objects – MUST READ!

Massively has a quick summary here; Long-delayed Second Life script-limitations back in the public eye

There will be lots of misinformation in the SL discussion. There always is. But, I suspect the Lindens will chime in from time to time to correct it. Avoid being reactive.

If you sell scripted products in SL, this is likely to be a problem for you.  If you use scripted objects, think adjustable hair, you may also have a problem.

What we know for sure is a new geeky addition s being added to the viewer so one can know what resources a script is using. We also know the Lindens will be imposing script limits. Depending on what the limits are, this may be a small or gigantic problem. In cases where scripts exceed the limit they won’t rez. In cases where LL does not like the script, they will return it.

So, it could be a mess.

New KirstenLee (215) Viewer Out – Review

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S18 (215),Second Life Viewers
AV Scanner

KirstenLee released an update of her S18-1 (215) viewer. I’ve downloaded it. KirstenLee S-18 Viewer

Previous blog: KirstenLee’s S18-1 (214)
Previous blog: KirstenLee Cinquetti S-17 and S-18 (208 & 209) Viewer Review

This (215) update includes some fixes, a bit more speed and nicer graphics panels in preferences. However, tis update is mostly about Niran’s Mod exposing more advanced graphics options for end users.

The image left shows the AVATAR scanner/radar. This scanner is more combat RPG friendly than others. Those with the tracking ability are usually frowned on by most RPG combat players. It makes it impossible to escape a pursuer.

Several viewers are adding support for multiple avatars. Most of us selling products in SL have at least a second AV for testing our packaging and permissions. Combat RPG players use several to allow them to play different characters in the same or different games. Some people share a computer and have separate accounts and with alternative AV’s the may have several ID/login’s to deal with. The multi-login feature is popular.

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Getting OSGrid Running

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OSGrid
OpenSim

Running a standalone grid on your home computer is not big thing to do. Finding all the information you need to get it working as you want is a bit of a pain. All the people that are working on OSGrid know where everything is. So, they don’t write it down.

When I reinstalled my OpenSim server (I broke mine upgrading) it did not let me walk on prims. Everything was phantom. Setting things to physical did not help, they were still behaving as if phantom. So, I started looking for how to fix that.

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