Second Life and Virtual Worlds
New Work Notes has posted a rare tutorial: Metaverse ProTips: Building With Second Life Specular Maps. Well… I think rare for NWN. This is a good tutorial on how specular maps are used in SL.
When we upload mesh items, clothes or other things, one of the questions is how many polygons can I use? An alternative of that one, how many should I use, is also common.
For the second there is no ‘numeric’ answer for the ‘should’ version. The common answer is: as few as will do the job. But, how many can we use? Is there a limit?
Blender has some safety nets. If you have ever lost work from a crash, forgetting to save, or saving over a file you wanted to keep… then this video is for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-ot0j8W2XE
Hamlet has a guest blogger, Brookston Holiday, that wrote a great article on doing lighting in Second Life™. See: SL Building Tutorial: Seven Lighting Tips for Stunning Results. PS: There is a thread about Hamlet’s post on SLUniverse: Guest NWN post.
This is a big deal. I’ll get into what it means and what some of the possibilities are.
For years Second Life™ users have been asking for more bones. That would let users make avatars with tails that are easily animated. Or with more than 4 arm-leg appendages. We will be able to have a centaur with 4 legs, two arms, and a tail, something that is way complicated now and pretty lame. Or a spider with 8 legs.
I think most Second LifeTM modelers are looking for ways to reduce polygon count and still have good deformation for animations. his tip should help.