Slink – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Slink Leaves Second Life

2023/01/03 by Nalates Urriah

As of January 1, 2023, the Slink brand of bodies and clothes is closed. Short notice. Siddean Munro announced the closure January 1 effective immediately.

For many of us this is a big deal. I am a Slink fan girl. I love my Redux Original body. AKA the Physique body. It is my everyday body. And when I make clothes, I make them for Slink.

The reasons for Siddean deciding to close are given on her company’s blog: Slink is closing – 1-1-2023 (PDF version of the page).

I appreciate Siddean and her contributions to the Second Life community. I believe her bodies have always been and are the technological leaders in the field. There is no technically better body.

I am saddened by the closing and to learn of the stresses in Siddean’s life. I wish her and her’s the best.

While I have not been paying a lot of attention to other bodies, I have from time to time looked at them and played with demos. The leader in the field is unquestionably Maitreya. I have Maitreya demos. I do not like the body because of how the shoulders are made and how the joints animate. Both are deal breakers for me.

So, now I will be looking at alternatives. While I had been thinking of a change to Cinn & Chai they are part of the Slink empire that is closing. That idea is out. But I am glad I purchased Cinn & Chai during the recent sale.

I suppose I may do reviews of the various bodies as I look at them. But there is no rush. The Slink bodies will continue to work for years to come. And there is a huge inventory of clothes for the Slink bodies. While few designers are designing for Slink these days, and the number is likely to decrease, there are numerous designers designing for Slink and lots of clothes for Slink. I know I bought over 150 new dresses and other clothes in 2022. So, no need for immediate change.

Time marches on…

What is a ‘Slink Feet Switcher’?

2020/07/05 by Nalates Urriah

Every so often I stumble onto something in Second Life™ I didn’t know about. Slink’s Deluxe Feet Auto Switcher is one of those things… and I’m a Slink fan.

Slink has five foot-positions in their main body HUD, Slink Physique (F) Utilities HUD (Redux) V4.0.0.

I’ve been putting on the HUD every time I needed to change foot positions. It can take a minute for the HUD to fully render. But the way I dress that usually isn’t a problem. I’m a top to bottom girl. By the time my dressing routine that I am picking out shoes the HUD has had plenty of time to rez.

When I change between existing outfits, going from a club to the beach, it can force me to wait on the HUD. However, there is a solution for the existing Outfit problem, the Foot Switcher. Makes the wait go away.

Making Slink Sizes

2020/01/14 by Nalates Urriah

In December Siddean Munro made a video of how to easily make the various Slink sizes.

I think the video shows how easy and quick it is. So, I continue to be baffled at why so many provide only Hourglass sizes of their products. Especially when discussions in the SL Forum show growing support for the Slink Redux bodies.

If you are a Slink Original wearer, Physique or Redux, and your designer isn’t making the sizes you need, send them a link to this article.

Second Life: Updating AvaStar with Slink Dev Kit

2018/08/212018/08/20 by Nalates Urriah

I happen to like Slink, so I build what I can wear. For me that means using the Slink Developer Kit. Finishing some stuff up I decided it is time to update my AvaStar, Blender, and Slink Kit before moving on to new things. Also, I wanted to try out the AvaStar feature that adds Dev Kits.

My previous updates I have written about here; AvaStar – Add the Slink 2017 Model – (5/2017) and AvaStar Tutorial: Adding the Slink Model to AvaStar – (3/2017).

Blender Update

The highest Blender I have is version 2.79c. This can get a bit confusing. The official release is 2.79b according to the Blender.org site. The main download provides an MSI file for use with Windows. This is a basic Windows install file. Not what I suspect most developers want. We want the ‘Archive’ file, the one that allows us to have multiple versions installed. You get that from the same download page just look in ‘other versions’ and grab the ZIP file.

AvaStar and Slink March 2018

2018/03/212018/03/20 by Nalates Urriah

AvaStar is at version 2.3-1 released 17 January 2018 according to announcements in the Blender-AvaStar group. In the products page where I download the file, it is labeled 2.3-2. The release is called a bug fix. It has 10 bug fixes and 4 improvements. See the changelog here. Notice the Dev Kit manager…

Blender is currently at version 2.79a. The Blender download is here. The Portable version is the version I use so I can have multiple versions installed. I’ll explain why later.

Today I see Slink released an update to their Dev Kit for AvaStar. I find the email got to me yesterday 3/19. It tells me, “The bodies in these kits have been reworked from the ground up, for better geometry, more accurate weighting and better fit!” (Emphasis is theirs.)

Also, Slink Development now has a Discord Server for developers. The link is in the email. Siddean is available 9 to 5 Eastern Australian Time… Australia has 13 time zones… O.O so… divide by 13 then 24 and multiply by… and turn the world around once… and that gives us 4pm to 12AM SLT/PT. Technically, they are 17 to 18 hours ahead of California, depending on Daylight Saving Time. If it is Monday here it is likely Tuesday there.

If it weren’t for the International Date Line they would be 5 to 6 hours behind California.

Breaking: Slink Update

2018/03/07 by Nalates Urriah

There is a Slink update out. I started seeing people talking about it in the Slink, Classy gear for classy babes group.

Slink Versions – It is hard to stay current unless you refer to this page: Slink Versions. It provides the version numbers for the latest versions of hands, feet, body, heads, and HUD’s.

As of late 3/6 or early 3/7, depending…, there is a new ALMOST release from Slink: Petite Augment Pack. The ‘almost’ means info has leaked, but the item is not yet in the Slink store. As of 3/7 @ 3PM SLT/PT.

I suppose this is an enhancement for itty-bitty-titties… Is this a new trend or is Siddean Munro just swimming upstream? I don’t know. But, I’m not a fan of blimp size breasts. I think B and C cups are best. So, I think this is pretty neat.