Second Life News 2018 w22

Monday was a US holiday, Memorial Day. So, today is the Lab’s first workday this week. As of 10 AM SLT this morning there is no Deploy post. But, there is some HOT new news today. See the Other News section.

From the Server-Scripting meeting, Simon Linden: Let’s see … for server news, we had a rollback last week of the RC channels for a bug.  I think there was a post somewhere about that. We’re going to have updates out tomorrow that have that fixed … and possibly another release that has a few other items in it.  It’s all internal changes, as far as I know.

Concrete studied under orange light - 3

Concrete studied under orange light – 3

Viewers

Second Life Love Me Render Viewer version 5.1.5.515528 – This an update from the previous version 5.1.4.514788 released in week #16.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.1.5.515527 – Last updated in week #21.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.3.513006 – Last updated in week #10.

Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.1.4.515420 – Released week #16.

Second Life Project Bakes On Mesh Viewer version 5.1.3.513936 – Last updated in week #14.  Continue reading

Second Life’s The Wastelands

So, what is The Wastelands? It is a game within Second Life™. It is a bit different. It uses a somewhat typical post-apocalyptic setting. The 10 regions making up the game area are all Moderate rated. Full nudity is prohibited and no sex… O.O

Also, the game has been around since 2006. Making it definitely an SL classic.

This video was taken as I begin to explorer The Wastelands. I happened to be there when the monthly meeting was announced and The War Zone game started. Luck. I don’t plan to video the meetings. This is a one-off type thing.

I clipped out parts of the video and sped up parts I left in. So, reading the chat as it scrolls by won’t get you a transcript of the meeting. So, I have a transcript below.

The War Zone game as I understand it is a control the flag game. I have seen it played and heard the rules explained once. The flag is radio-active. So, carrying it will kill you. As you run with the flag the other team is trying to kill you. You are going to die. But, games have the ability to resurrect you. At the end of the game whichever team controlled the flag the ‘most time’ wins. And… you have to stay in the region.

There is a fans’ mobile ‘bleachers’ that follows the flag. You sit on it to follow the moving game. That is kinda neat. It is jerky. So, that is what you see in the jerky parts of the video. It isn’t my computer stuttering. Continue reading

SL’s new Grid Wide Experience

The new experience is titled Tyrah & the Curse of the Magical Glytches. (TCMG) The intro video is here…

I think it is way funny.

The announcement is here: Introducing a New Grid-Wide Experience. The announcement tells you how to get started and the rules…

You can have Glytches, the bad guys, on your private parcels. For the ‘how to’ on that see the Official TCMG Wiki page.

Check out the announcement and wiki page to get started collecting and I suppose imprisoning Glytches to save the grid.

Second Life: New Forced Sit Coming

Yeah… sit down and be quite… probably a sentiment many of us feel in this political season in the USA. However, this new feature will only be a help in Second Life™. It is a new feature in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL), something I haven’t gotten to write about in some time.

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose...

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose…

Rider Linden was at the Beta Server user group meeting Thursday to let us know what’s in the works. It seems the Lindens are expanding the Advanced Experience Tools feature of Second Life. The idea of Forced Sit seems an odd feature to me, but the oddity comes from the name. Several people have a use for it and I rename it and describe it below. It is about way more than just sitting.

Rider says there will be some new functions that only work within Experience enabled scripts. You can get the full details of what is being envisioned in a Google Doc: Espeon: Forced Sits. (see WARNING below) Overview:

With the advent of Experiences Keys we would like to be able to allow scripts being run as part of an experience to force an avatar to sit in a particular location.  This feature will be useful in an adventure game scenario where an avatar is forced to sit in a trap so that it may sync its animations with the avatar, or in an amphitheater or classroom situation where a presenter wishes for all the other participants to remain seated. This document replaces the previous Scripted Sits document.

We will add at least one new LSL script function that will force an avatar to sit on a particular prim and make adjustments to the existing llUnSit() function to perform the counter action.

I’ll use an example from the game Obduction™, made by the people that made Myst™. They use this type of ‘forced sit’ in every game they have written. In Obduction there is a rail mounted car-type-machine you click on to ride/drive. Once you click a script takes over. It has the avatar open the car, enter, and sit. I believe this is what is being added to SL scripting, LSL – Linden Scripting Language.  Continue reading

Second Life: LOTS of News

From the Third Party Dev Meeting 2016-16… Oz Linden starts off saying there isn’t a lot of new stuff. But, news-wise there was quite a bit and I found most of it interesting.

Fantasy Faire 2016

Fantasy Faire 2016 – Now Happening

Viewers

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 4.0.4.314012 – Oz describes this version as having lots of annoyances fixed. It hasn’t changed since my previous Tuesday update.  Continue reading

Second Life: Forced Firestorm Experience?

No one likes having things forced on them… well… some people are into that sort of consenting adult thing. But, is that really forcing without permission?

https://flic.kr/p/9EUzgA

Back on topic, recently a Firestorm user was complaining about the Firestorm Experience. The bitch was; why do I have this experience in my viewer that I never asked for?  Continue reading

Ghost Town Screw Ups

This time I’ll warn you up front, the title is a deliberately ambiguous headline.

Ghost Town Welcome Sign

Ghost Town Welcome Sign

We have lots of interesting Second Life™ promotions stuff going on. Firestorm is asking for people to submit photos: Share your photos this weekend to promote Second Life. The photos will go in the Firestorm Gateway section of Flickr. Canary Beck is moderating the photo pool. It has 4,678 images as I write this.

CAUTION: SPOILER AHEAD!

Continue reading

Selling Second Life Experiences

At the Second Life™ Developers’ meeting a question came up about whether it would be possible to sell experiences, the kind made with the new Advanced Experience Tools. There was discussion about the idea at the TPD meeting.

The Well

The Well

The answer is: it has been discussed within the Lab, they would like for that to be possible, it is a complex add, and currently no one is working on it. So, a ‘NO’, but with hope. I would say, very very little hope. It is high hanging fruit.

What about grid wide experiences? The Lab is waiting to see how the land-based experiences go. There are several hundred experiences in the system. Not all of them are in use or that have scripts associated with them. So, it is a bit early to decide how well Experiences is going to be adopted by users.

As the Lab learns more about the feature’s popularity and how people use it, at some point they’ll decide if adding grid-wide experiences is worth the effort.