Nothing exciting. Third Party Viewers are catching up with features in the Linden made main and RC SL Viewers. A few are adding their own special features. But, most of the updating is bug fixes and catch up…
Once more by Yυi ʕ • ₒ • ʔ, on Flickr
Last week the first phase of the Experience Tools feature arrived for Premium Members of Second Life™. I think by now most bloggers have covered the arrival.
Serenade for a Fae by Aelin Quan, on Flickr
According to Google we are the top three reporting on Experience Tools. There are plenty of links leading to the SL Forum and Wiki. So, finding information on how to use the Tools and what they can do should be easy. Continue reading
Tuesday (6/30) at about 11 AM PT the Lindens announced the partial release of Experience Tools. I write ‘partial’ because they are only fully released to Premium Members. This afternoon the 3.8.0 (302622) Jun 12 viewer automatically downloaded and I installed it.
This is also the main viewer now. Look at the download page.
That is a Jul 2, 2014 video.
The announcement is here: Experience Tools Available Now For Premium Members!
All users can get the viewer and use it. My understanding is only Premium Members can build experiences with this viewer, but all users can enjoy the experiences.
There is a knowledge Base article that helps you get started creating experiences. See: Experiences in Second Life. This is for both those wanting to participate in an experience and those wanting to create an experience.
There is a forum section the beta testers and early adopters used. It is now open to all. See: Experience Tools Forum.
You can find experiences to play in Second Life™ here; Resident-created experiences in our Destination Guide and the Linden Portal Parks.
Server updates are coming slower than in 2013 and 2014. The Lab seems to be settling into an update every other week. This week the RC channels saw and update roll out, but not last week. The main channel did not get a roll out this week, but did last week.
Always Evolving… by Sombra Monroe, on Flickr
My thinking is that after 3 or more years of intense weekly bug fixing, the Lab has to be running out of bugs. In the last 30 days only 229 issues have been filed. Some number of those are duplicates. Of those 200 have been handled. There is probably some way to separate out viewer, web, and server issues. But, I haven’t tried. A quick count across the first page of issues gives me the impression about 20% of the issues are sort of server related. So, that is about 40 issues for the last 30 days and presumably 30 something of those are fixed. Continue reading
Ciaran has an article up on what Skill Gaming is. If there is any confusion on your part check it out. See: LL Issue Reminder And Warning On Skill Gaming Policy. His information is based on Linden Lab’s latest: Reminder: New Skill Gaming Policy in Effect September 1, 2014.
Be sure to check out the comments below that article. It seems they are a bit one sided… Where do all these negative people come from?
Purdie Silkmour made a video that popped up on YouTube today: How To Improve Your Appearance in Second Life. (11 minutes) This is much better than your typical SL How To. Purdie does a great job of showing how to change avatar appearance and gives a good taste of the verity in Second Life. Plus they get to see search in action and learn how to find shapes, skins, etc. It isn’t just about the technical details of using SL. Nice!
I think the big problem is how to get this video in front of new SL users. This would be a good URL to save and give to new peeps you meet.
It seems there is a series of these videos… well two. Continue reading
Brains and Beauty – Whirly @ Server Scripting 2014-31
The Zip RC Viewer came back Wednesday. This is the fast install viewer. The release notes say there is a fix for the XUI Preview Tool… I think that fix has something to do with previewing user interface changes. It also got all the updates now in the main SL Viewer 3.7.12.
For the everyday SL user there isn’t much news here. The testing in Beta is progressing. The Lindens are deciding if they need more testing or will move toward ‘experience users’ testing. Currently they are working with experience creators. The Cornfield Experience is a test with the experience users.
The next stage of Beta testing will turn users loose on user created experiences. If there are any serious problems they should turn up during that stage of testing. Continue reading
Yesterday about noon the Lindens posted that Experience Keys can be tried out in the Corn Field. You can now try out the new features, at least from the user side. If you are into the creative side and have asked to participate in the Beta then expect to get a Key for use in creating your experience.
The post is here: Check Out Experience Keys in… The Cornfield!
You can get a viewer that is updated to use the new Experience Tools (XP Tools). The Project Viewer is here: Project Viewer version 3.7.12.291846 aka: Project Experience Tools Channel. It is now on the RC and Project Viewers page too.
Once installed you need to head to the Corn Field (SLURL). This used to be a place where people were forcibly teleported by the Governor’s Enforcement team and locked in for some time. It has history. The Lindens, or more specifically the Moles, have remade it to test the XP Tools.
I’m still trying to get into Hair Fair.
Today Dolphin Linden was at the Scripting-Server User Group meeting answering questions about the Experience Tools (XP Tools) and how they will work. The made for an interesting meeting. I posted about this meeting’s coming Q&A last week.
Dryland Mado – 2014
The current request for Beta Testers is for experience creators, Madpea or Loki Eliot type people. Latter they will be asking for experience participants (users) to join the beta testing.
There is a knowledge base article up: Experiences in Second Life. This is mostly for users not scriptwriters. We are told by Oz and Dolphin Linden that wiki documentation is in the works. The current draft is being reviewed by those Lindens that do the reviews. Scriptwriters check the last line of this post. Continue reading