Chic Aeon

Perhaps you will be happier in Sansar!

The simple answer is YES! Cycles is fantastic (after the learning curve) and it works wonderfully in SL (again after the learning curve). It took me almost a year to REALLY get Cycles doing what I wanted it to do. Now it is much fun and I can pretty much get exactly what I want without a ton of effort. Here are a couple of hints about things you asked. Do a test bake at 20 samples. That goes quickly and you can see if everything is baking (I usually have several materials baking onto one map) AND if the lighting is going to be OK. I later bake at 400 these days but I have a hefty computer (bought in part for Cycles work). LIGHTING is key. It takes awhile to get the feel of that and get your personal default lighting set up. It will depend a lot on what you are making (furniture, houses, etc) and how large things are. I have a lot of Cycles info on my tutorial list (most from last year so I won't stand by all that info as I was still learning LOL) but there are also some newer screenshots from this year in my Google Plus feed here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/100190052320604204973/posts Here is the Cycles Specific list: https://plus.google.com/u/0/100190052320604204973/posts/45DDHkUnGvZ So there might be some info there that is helpful. Note that there are a lot of videos on YouTube on Cycles == many were also experiments and while going through the tutorials will likely be helpful you will probably find your own way . As someone said when I started to learn Cycles Spring of 2015 -- its like leveling up in a computer game. That is a very astute comment it turns out. Good luck. Keep going. Have fun.

Demos solve much of the problem for sales as people can see what items will look like in THEIR viewer. I find that very few people think about what it might look like to others . I use Cycles Render and make my textures within the program so there are no AO maps. I find that with careful lighting in Blender I get get a realistic look of AMBIENT light. I avoid cast shadows on object or in buildings as I always use viewer shadows and have known for years how problematic those hard cast (Blender Render mostly) shadows can be. They drive me nuts. I find that with Cycles render materials ala SL specular and normal maps are rarely needed. The beauty of cycles is that even the folks without advanced lighting on see a lovely texture. I occassionaly add a normal map on items that would be very rough texture (like rocks) but stay away from them in general as the lighting can indeed give some nasty effects. We work within the programs and the confines of what we can do. That's pretty much our only choice if we want to keep creating .

the Marketplace might be a good place to start: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?search[category_id]=852&search[keywords]=apartment+rental&search[maturity]=General&search =1&search[per_page]=12 Filter for rentals and I typed in "apartment rental". Enjoy the hunt. Always fun.

The items that disappeared were VERY low land impact (like 4 to 7), some just prims and I have a couple of hundred LIs for buffer at all times. No one can rez on my land other than folk perhaps in the same land group (just fixed that ) but I have autoreturn on also. The only missing areas that I have FOUND have been there along the roadway. I replaced them easy enough but since the do NOT come back to the Lost and Found just realizing they are missing can take some days. I am usually up in the sky. AND thinking about that now, if someone had tried to overfill the land I would have (should have) had any items taken off come back in my Lost and Found with a notice. I can remember that happening on a 512 once. There is very little that can be lost that I can't replace since it is a shop with all my stuff, but it is a hassle.

This is the second time in a month when I have had to redo the front area of my store because sections just vanished. They were mine. I built them (mostly mesh, some prim). They were both CLEARLY inside the land lines and they abut the linden roadway. Two weeks ago the trees disappeared with a SECTION of my front entry wall. This morning a large grassy section AND the bus stop and pad disappeared. The no copy big tree and grasses happily remained. Being an old timer I of course had copies (some of which have mysteriously turned to no mod recently so things must not be going well :D). Anyway, there appears to be an issue and reporting as I know some devs read this thread. EDITED: A nice person contacted me in world with some ideas but I had checked those. Physics boxes (in some cases it was just a prim that was returned so no special "bounding box" there) were good and inside property. The two trees might have been into the air of the right of way but not the other items and the trees are not linked to the walls. ITEMS WERE NOT RETURNED TO LOST AND FOUND like happens when you encroach. Checked with the Linden Viewer and nothing miraculously appreared, so the items missing from today and a couple of weeks ago are still gone, not a viewer cache issue. There may be other things missing as it is a quarter of a sim withe various demo levels, but at least I know THESE things disappeared :D. 

Just wanted to add here that just now I found a build of mine (absolutely ALL MINE including scripts and baked textures and sold on the Marketplace as mod-copy-nt) become NO MOD for ME. Definitely not handy. MAKE COPIES!!!!! And of course I have those. Some other very strange things have been happening this last couple of weeks but not relating to permissions.

For anyone that may have missed that. https://www.blender.org/ Some pretty nifty changes and newness. Some WAY beyond me LOL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajdnTVDxsxU

In case you don't know, you can use EDIT LINKED PARTS to see what item might be inside of things (like a door) and CHANGE the permissions WITHOUT unlinking. It is most likely a script, but that being said, I have had items COMPLETLY made by me (both prim and mesh) with only my scripts and textures turn into NO MOD for me (don't remember about the no transfer) over the years. One was only last month. Luckily I had the same piece that had turned no mod (only a mesh piece with NO SCRIPTS and only MY TEXTURES) as a copy so I didn't have to upload again. It does happen. Most likely it is YOU but it might just be SL Good luck. Make mulitple copies in the future - LOL. We learn as we age.

And they seldom fit in the eye slots as you would want them to so adjustments are normal.

Out of curiosity I did that same search Wednesday 8 PM SL time and got a very similar page (those items were in the mix up top). The only item over $100 was a (two of the same thing) heart in the sand item (hence not a house so how the hell did it get in there). From a broad perspective -- not just as a seller -- this is very discouraging.

Actually I love the events. I have -- in some manner -- been doing them for years, just no regularly. I like to watch the items come in and see the setups happen. I am apparently a commercial voyeur Also of note, all the items that are CURRENTLY selling regularly are $150 for the most part. A couple at $100. The surrounds are more of course but they don't sell as often as those other items I mentioned. It is all very strange. Hopefully it will work itself out.

I have to revisit this discussion also . For awhile it seemed like the update search wasn't affecting me at all. Then something changed and I had very few sales. Then things got close to normal and then back to almost no sales at all for a few days. This is NOT my norm . Things are better now and I am selling surrounds again (they dropped to page four and then only a kit -- normally they were number two or three in the list). BUT as has been said in this thread. Finding what you want is even trickier than before with more C**P items in the mix on the first page you see. Certainly not a good "aren't we a wonderful platform" material for new folks to see that don't know those items are left over from 2005. MOSTLY I have been selling the same very niche products that are a both low cost and that were fairly good historial sellers for MANY MANY YEARS (yes I have updated and improved them with new versions, but still the database thinks they go back a very long time - hence sales record). Tunnel (fairly new but definitely an unusual product), camping cot, camera equipment with poses, barbed wire fence, flowing stream (not all that great I admit LOL). The last day or so I sold some surrounds. What saddens me in an overall way is that the NEW and BETTER products of everyone are moving to the end of the line. I have much better items for sale that no one apparently ever sees unless they search MY store after seeing an item in world. This is so not good on any level. And sales of $1 items gets The Lab nothing so not good for them either. DEMOTE THAT GUY OR THAT TEAM that worked on this !!! LOL I have three revenue steams so a messed up Marketplace is not the end of the world. I know some folks whose income has dropped dramatically (like 75%). Doesn't give them a lot of reason to stay. Thank the goddess for EVENTS! For me anyway.

Try the inwold help group. You can get there under the HELP tab in your viewer.

I agree that Opensim is your most likely answer. For your proposal should you go in that direction I would talk to your computer support folks and see if they would be willing to set up and maintain your grid. It would need to be on a dedicated server but could be an older computer so maybe no new purchases. There are some basic OARS out there for a school environment to get you started. Another alternative (if this is for next year) might be Sansar where the age limit has been anounced as 13. The land prices are supposed to be less there (we only know under a hundred bucks at the moment ). Good luck. Also if you look up the Best Practices in Education folks (Google can probably find them) I imagine there are people there who would help you with Opensim or SL.

Note that Amethyst's Parcel Sharing is an OPT in effect in Firestorm. So only those who like to see the owner's parcel settings will see them. I am wondering if you could set the Windlight so that anyone opting into an experience would see the world as you want. I don't know much about Experiences but do know there have some features just added (official viewer so far). So that could be something to check out. It seems to me that when I did the Mad Pea hunt at Firestorm that the Windlight was NOT one of my personal ones. Again, though you would need to research that as I have no concrete info.

I did some testing on OS grid's Sandbox III this morning and items with physics meshes that I made for SL yesterday worked exactly the same there. Land impact was a bit lower on OS but other than that identical as far as I could see. Very happy I have always used CUBES for my physics models as that is needed in this OS version.

I made a photo demo post on getting an applier skin on your body. DO wear the shape you were wearing before that you liked. The skin you pick will of course change the look of your face and you will want to find one that you like. You CAN wear your old skin and try and match the body color but really that doesn't work well at all. So for practice, I suggest getting some demo skins or one of the two free ones from Lumae (other skin groups give away free skins with appliers also but most have a fee to join) and see how that works for you. Getting a mesh body is complex, I remember how confused I was. And yes, some of your clothes will no longer work -- all the texture garments will need to be thrown out and some of the mesh. And yes, the tab marked ALPHA on the Lara hud lets you make different parts of your body invisible -- click on and off. Depending on your shape, the clothes made for Lara will work best (note not all are of the same quality or fit). I am sure when you figure it all out you will LOVE your body. Almost everyone does! Good luck

I am a picture gal and so I took some screenshots to explain in newbie terms how to get a skin on your mesh body. Wear your mesh body (in this case Lara) as well as both hands and feet. So five pieces of mesh.  Buy a skin with appliers for Maitreya (Lara) or get a demo OR grab a free group skin somewhere (I am using Lumae for the demo).  After your skin applier opens (you might need to click on the box or bag if it works that way) you will have a folder with parts.  Wear (in your case) one of the legacy (traditional skins for avatars without mesh bodies) skins. Here, there are different brow versions and also with or without freckles. Find one you like. This will be the skin for your HEAD as well as go UNDER the mesh body. 

I, along with a few of my friends still use Firefox. It DOES open up the viewer for me to the right location whether I am already inworld or it has to open the viewer from scratch. So it will work -- at least with Firestorm. Just so you know.

Here are a couple of web pages / posts. https://plus.google.com/106115943375300299121/posts/17Xb11oHHxp http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/09/grids-face-mesh-issue-in-next-opensim-release/ It will only affect grids adapting the new code of course. Opinions are very varied.

If you paste in a screenshot of your Blender window someone can likely help. Any chance your mesh has a lot of vertices? I have seen that cause thir problem too. As mentioned alway apply location, rotation and scale before uploading. A good habit to get into. Someone told me that years ago and it has kept away many issues.

Lits of folks that rig and weight and paint and all that jazz (I do so only under EXTREME circumstances) use AVASTAR, that might be the plug in you are thinking of. Very popular . A quick trip to Google will get you to the website and some videos and such.

Just wanted to note that not being able to rez in a mesh building is due to a bad (or perhaps uploader generated) physics model. It is not intrinsic to mesh models. Agree that seeing a demo or going to the store is always the best method for buying on the Marketplace. MANY folks are no longer there and haven't been for years. Getting rid of all the OLD stuff might be the best thing the marketplace could do. Anyone still wanting their four or five year old or more products up there could put them up again . And to the OP There is a "Not as Advertised" choice in the "Flag This Listing" area on the Marketplace along with a place to comment. The not being able to rez is not against any rules but if the permissions were listed as wrong, that certainly is. You can also put in a ticket under MARKETPLACE (not with your complaints, but with the things that were listed incorrectly). It is doubtful you will get a refund but you might get the item removed if the owner doesn't fix.

The one I checked was a double prim 4096. Flat, green, nice woodsy surround with lots of water. Many breedables there but looked nice for those folks .