Tag Archives: Tutorials

On Various Subjects

Moving #SL Magic Boxes

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Hopefully in the first quarter of 2012 the need for Magic Boxes will go away. Until then, we occasionally have to move them. That often creates problems with the items we have in the Market Place. But, it is possible to move them and avoid the problems.

Magic Box Move

To avoid problems you need to understand that everything rezzed in-world gets a UUID, a Universal Unique Identifier. I get confused trying to remember how an object’s UUID changes or does not change when we take it back into inventory and later rez it again. In general each time something is rezzed it seems to get a new UUID. Also, it gets confusing figuring out which things in the box have which UUID’s and how those match up with the items in the Market Place. Thinking that through is too much brain damage.

So, this is actually a tutorial on how to move objects and RETAIN their existing UUID. This process is not limited to just Magic Boxes.

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Second Life Prim Twisting Tutorial

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Ener Hax at “i live in science land” posted about a tutorial on prim twisting. The tutorial was made by Ayumi Cassini and posted in 2009 on Ayumi’s blog as: The ultimate guide to prim twisting. It and the in-world Ivory Tower Library of Primitive are the best sources of information for building with prims.

A Single Twisted Prim - Amazing

In our early entry into Second Life’s age of enthusiasm for mesh building, prims are still the primary material for most building. Understanding what can be done with prims gives one insight into which is a better choice for any build.

Check out the tutorial. I’m impressed.

How To get a Faster Second Life

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Several people in the forums are asking how to get better Frames per Second rates and why their computer is so slow running SL. Several are asking about upgrading their computer for Christmas or getting a new one. So, I decided to write a HOW TO specific to Second Life so I could avoid repetitive forum posts…

Speed Hump? - Image by TheDarkThing - Flickr

Even if you never want to open the computer’s case, this information will help you know what to have your computer tech upgrade for you.

First consider what we are working with, other games have better graphics and performance than Second Life. When comparing SL with other games, one is wise to remember that most things in the SL world are made by novice content creators. Render efficiency is not foremost in their design goals and that shows in SL frame rates. Take a look at: Typical Second Life Frame Rate Performance by Graphics Card/GPU. The page was last updated in August 2011. It shows an nVidia 470 getting about 45 FPS.

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Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection

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Troubleshoot Your Second Life Connection

I made this post to avoid typing this information into the SL Forum a gazillion times. I was answering this type of question for the third time today. (Last updated April 2023)

There are a number of reasons one cannot log in or stay logged into Second Life. One of the more significant reasons is a poor connection. You may have a good Internet connection and a bad connection to SL. A poor connection can be caused by multiple problems in different locations. In this article, I try to give you some troubleshooting tips to help find where the problem is and who can fix it.

The problem may be in your computer, router, modem, ISP’s hardware, backbone hardware, Linden Lab’s hardware, or their software. We need to figure out which.

I’m Windows-based. So, this article is Windows oriented. But, all the same problems exist for Mac and Linux users. The Mac and Linux users will have to translate Windows commands. Sorry. I just don’t know them.

Troubleshooting

In the Viewer

If you can log into Second Life, do so. If not, check the grid status to make sure it is not a problem with Second Life. Or look at the concurrent user graph at Etitsup.com. You should see a smoothly curving line. An abrupt drop shows a general problem.

Also, try logging into a different region. Before logging in open Preferences->General->Start Location – Show at Login and enable the option. After closing Preferences, you’ll see a new field by the login button, ‘Start At:’. Try a Linden-owned region like Pooley or Furball. If you still cannot log in skip down to On Your End and SpeedTest.net.

Update: Jan 2018 – SpeedTest.net has changed. They no longer allow you to test to a city or server of your choice. So, for these tests, the site is was useless for our purposes. You’ll have to Google for an Internet speed test on a specific server and hope to find a good one. I’m looking… Found – see: Internet Speed Tests. – Update April 2023 – The Firestorm Viewer Team has information up on testing your connection speed HERE. The article has been updated but while they tell how little the Max Bandwidth setting will affect performance they also left all the advice for what it can affect from days of old. Don’t expect much from tweaking your bandwidth setting.

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Blender 2.5 Exporting Height Maps Tutorial – Part 2

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The previous part of this tutorial is OpenSim Terrain Tutorial via Blender – Part 1. The previous part is about getting terrain from Second Life and OpenSim into Blender. This part is about exporting  the terrain from Blender 2.59 as a height map image.

Height Maps via Blender Nodes

Terrain

By the time you start this tutorial you should have a completed terrain or at least have a test terrain to try.

Also, you should have a backup of your region. Loading the tutorial can mess up your region. So, a backup is a good idea. In OpenSim I make OAR file backups. (save oar [filename.oar] – save to OpenSim’s working folder. You can specify a path.)

Now is a good time to back up your Blender file too. It is a great idea to work in a copy of the file.

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OpenSim Terrain Tutorial via Blender – Part 1

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Updates: Includes minor updates for use with Blender 2.63.

Blender 2.5 has a new import feature that can be used for making terrain in Blender. Most terrain tutorials are about getting terrain into Blender and little if anything about getting it out. Those that are about exporting terrain are mostly for Blender 2.49. There are enough changes between 2.49 and 2.59 that it is hard to figure how to accomplish 2.49 tasks in 2.59. This article is about importing terrain to Blender and exporting for use in Second Life and OpenSim. Part 1 is about getting terrain into Blender and Part 2 about getting terrain out.

Terrain Imported from OpenSim

I’ll be working with Blender 2.59 and OpenSim 0.7.2 Dev. The height maps can be used in either SL or OpenSim.

Terrain Vertices Count

First I need to know what I’ll need to export for use in OpenSim. Plus I have a terrain in OpenSim (OSGrid) which I’ve worked on for some time that I want to get into Blender and start from there. So, I need to import and export terrain to and from Blender.

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#SL Cloth Simulation Clothes

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With the addition of mesh objects we have some nice possibilities for creating new things in Second Life. Ashasekayi made a great 6 part clothing/rigged mesh tutorial. Gaia also makes wonderful tutorials for working with sculpties, going from sculpties to mesh, and mesh. They have the basics pretty well covered. I want to get beyond the basics and find more Blender features. I have found several features that can help with modeling and in particular with making clothes. This article is about one of the Blender features.

Second Life Tutorial Example

Nice Clothes Example

Looking through loads of tutorials I’ve found some I think are pretty good examples of how to use the feature for making clothes look like they are made from real cloth. This is not a complete how to make a top. This is about a feature you can use in making a blouse.

Feature

Cloth Simulation – This is a feature in Blender that I have seldom seen discussed in Second Life circles. I wanted to explore what it can do and try it out. I used Blender 2.59.

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Second Life Mesh Clothing Tutorial

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UPDATE May 2012 – I’ve replaced this tutorial with a new revised tutorial. It is updated for Blender 2.63a and the coming Mesh Deformer. See: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial

Update: 2012-03-08 – The coming Mesh Deformer is going to change some of the thinking in this tutorial. At the time I wrote this and these tutorials were being made the thinking was using our avatar shape to make custom mesh clothes was a good idea. In some ways it still is. But, for those of us that sell clothes, not so much. The Mesh Deformer will allow mesh clothes to be adjusted by the viewer to any avatar. This means making clothes for the base avatar is probably the better choice.

UPDATE: 2012-05-13 – There is a Mesh Deformer Project Viewer available with the 0.3.3 version of the Deformer. You need this viewer to upload mesh that will use the Deformer. This the only SL Viewer that recognizes mesh deformation and displays and uploads it. A number of TPV’s have the Deformer in test versions. 

You can get a copy of the Deformer Project Viewer from: Downloading Viewer Test Builds. I also have a link in my blog’s left column. You can find lots of information on the Deformer in this blog, just click Deformer in the tags section of the right column. There is additional information in JIRA STORM-1716.

Ashasekayi has made a 6 part video tutorial on making mesh clothes. The tutorial uses Blender 2.49 rather than 2.5x. That is good and bad news. The good news is that Blender 2.49 has been doing a better job of making importable clothes than 2.59. The bad news is everyone is moving to Blender 2.59. Linden Lab is working to fix problems with Blender 2.59 clothes imports and has it mostly fixed. Following are my tips to help get you through the tutorial, avoid some gotchas, and descriptions of each video part’s content.

 

Mesh Clothing Video Tutorial

I suggest you use Blender 2.49 if you plan to follow the tutorial, especially if you are not familiar with 2.59. I started out using Blender 2.59 to follow the videos. It is not too bad. Keyboard shortcuts are mostly the same between 2.4 and 2.5. When I reached the point where I needed to copy bone weights I ran into problems. Over the last couple of days those have been worked out. Read this article and you’ll know how to use 2.59 for the bone weights work. I used Blender 2.49 while I worked through the problems with 2.59. Then redid it using 2.59.

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