Extrude Ragu

If you're a tech wiz this is already possible. I've actually made NPC's like this at Kokoro. Dressed them up how I fancied, designed their personality for the AI language model. I have already been called a stupid idiot by one of my npc's and hit with a chair (I was trying to get them to kiss me). Perfect bashful npc 10/10 she's perfect.

On the topic of greeters I avoided bringing this up yesterday because I didn't want to name and shame people by posting about it as it was happening. I observed during part of the day yesterday there were two mentors standing either side of the orientation arrow, right where the gate was. Roughly where they were standing. They were both looking inwards towards the orientation. Probably if you're an extrovert you don't see the problem... But this might as well be like building a solid wall across the gateway. To an introvert this basically looks like an ambush, two people waiting for you to dare to cross their path. They're never going to walk through. In fact in my shyer days I probably wouldn't have dared to move from the little circle whilst people were staying at me like that, fearing it would trigger a helper to come rushing forward. I think it would have been better to stand off to the side or maybe even inside the help booth, to signal you want people to approach them, rather than they are going to approach you.

Maybe one of the overlooked things about SecondLife now is that as the game got older, there became a lot of services for older residents and marketing is naturally trying to show all those services. But really the needs of players who have been playing SecondLife for 10+ years are very different to those who signed up an hour ago.

I think another problem is that completing the whole tutorial can be overwhelming for a new user. One way video games teach players how to play is a Message of the Day (MOTD). The messages usually appear during loading screens, and display a random tidbit of helpful information. My own sim, Kokoro Academy, displays a random MOTD via an Experience each time you teleport in. Examples of MOTD Messages from my own sim. Perhaps LL could be utilizing teleport/login loading screens to display small, easy to digest chunks of useful information like this in teleport/login screens to help players passively learn the game over time.

What I noticed is that, when the new welcome hub was first introduced, all of the 'play games to earn L$' signage etc wasn't around. They seem to be a later addition. It makes me have the sneaking suspicion that whoever did the 'level design' for the welcome hub knew it wasn't a good thing to bother a user immediately after the tutorial with, but a higher up has later demanded that it included such elements and thus it has been retrofitted. It has to be said. I've played games in the past that have tried to nickel and dime me immediately after the tutorial, and in general I personally have just quit them. I don't think it's very wise placement. There should be some fun activities to reward the user for completing the tutorial more than anything.

X Marks the confusion spot This is another route I've seen a couple of new residents take, after bouncing off the L$ kiosk, they will go through the Senra Avatar Market and then end up on that long circuitous path with nothing on it. It takes a while to walk that path, and I've seen a couple get confused around here, but they did at least not give up. Watching another newbie, I saw them go back to this Welcome Hub Map. They looked at it, walked off, then seemed to double take and walked back to the map. Wayfinding map - You are not here! I took a closer look at the wayfinding map. It's not correct. The 'you are here' marker is not where the sign is, which I think is probably serving to confuse newbies a lot more than help them. I've marked where they really are in green.

Another observation. There's this buy L$ kiosk at the end of the orientation tutorial:- The kiosk. Note that the orientation exit is behind it. I've seen two newbies stop in front of the kiosk and become distracted by it (Presumably fiddling about with that web page floater that pops up, getting nagged to set up payment information) One of the newbies after clicking the kiosk and seeing the web page, logged off. I wonder if this is really a smart place to put the kiosk. I get LL probably want newbies to set up payment information on their account, but this kiosk appears long before a newbie might become in any way invested in SecondLife, or has even seen examples of what L$ can buy. I can't help but feel it would have been better for the newbie to see some actual content first. Maybe even a shop, so they could become invested in the platform and had some kind of motivation to buy L$

More people watching this morning. One newbie did make it to the community exhibition this morning, and even looked around, but I wonder if it clicked with them that the exhibits are not the destinations themselves. The newbie seemed not to be reading things in general, rather seeming keen to make progress and reach the 'finish'. Perhaps the welcome hub assumes too much that newbies will read things. When they reached the back of the exhibit and there was a big fence blocking further progress, they logged off. Where they logged off Maybe a great big 'where next' sign with a link to the destination guide around that back wall might help with that issue of people who need to feel like they're progressing. I can see how to a newbie it might look like 'that's it, you've seen all there is to see'. That or a portal to somewhere interesting or maybe portal park etc.

Something I'd like if a Linden or a mole could clarify on:- There is a sign telling established SecondLife residents to stay out of the Landing Zone. But I'm not sure if we are allowed in the tutorial area, just behind the landing zone? Can anyone sit in the booth with the beer crate inside it?

I spent a few hours out the front of the new community exhibition the other day. For new users, they should, in theory actually end up there, because the 'follow the arrow' tutorial from the landing zone does take you there. One newbie made it as far as me and proceeded to try to hit on me (as you do) but most of the new accounts did not complete the tutorial. In my opinion, having seen the landing area and the route newbies are supposed to take, I think a secondary art pass would help. The choice of fonts, the textures etc it's all a bit 'technobabble' and not very enticing to explore. The tutorials look very informative but it's just not so inviting a path to walk along. It's all a bit sterile.

I don't think op is complaining they can't find sandboxes in secondlife, I think they're complaining that the dedicated sandbox category in the destination guide has zero sandboxes

Yeah, the minimum requirements are definitely out of touch. There seems to be consensus from the third party viewer developers about this. I think LL just hasn't updated the page in a very long time. Really the 'recommended' column should be the 'minimum' column today. SecondLife is blessed (and cursed) that it has an ageing user-base. It has managed to keep people around for a very long time, which is a nice problem to have, but also a progressively more expensive one trying to keep SecondLife playable on hardware that was probably mid-tier in the late 2000s' whilst simultaneously trying to attract a new audience to maintain itself. These old computers are actually probably even slower today than they were in the 2000s as I doubt many residents are dusting insides/pasting them (or taking it to a shop to have that done for them.). Components wear over time, fan bearings etc. If I were the lab I'd maybe start thinking about putting some 'SecondLife University' style videos to help residents start making informed upgrade decisions or even just basic things like looking after their computer. Not all residents are very computer literate, so it would help a lot. After all, the better residents computers are performing, the more of them are likely to stick around and keep playing SecondLife. As for the inevitable 'what if they can't afford to upgrade' question - I don't claim to know the answer. But I don't think trying to keep SL working on older and older computers will be sustainable in the long run, even if the lab wanted to do it, I doubt they could afford it. Performance improvements should still be sought, but effort also needs to go towards ensuring residents have modern computers.

back in the day when i was a young mainlander i made Steve Steve is a giant robot built with the sole purpose of peering over the neighbors fence and making them feel awkward

When you say downloaded a PBR viewer, do you mean the SecondLife default one, or a TPV?

I have more alts than I can count but I mostly just like using them to play dress up. I'm weird. I just enjoy that they each have their own name and I can give them character quirks and personality of their own, with their own adventures in the virtual world. Another thing is because I run a community sim, I don't like to leave it unattended too long. Having alts knocking around means I can attend an LL creators meeting whilst still being with friends and loved ones in my own sim for example. Also it's weird but because my sim is a community sim it can kinda feel like a 'state visit' when I send my main to sims with overlapping communities/similar interests. Like I don't hide that it's me being on an alt, but the fact it's not my main seems to get the point across to people that I'm not here for some ceremonial purpose but just come to hang out casually, not to be treated like the owner of that sim or the store owner of that store.

Ah, I think so. Yes, there's definitely the case to be made that by SecondLife moving to a more standard format like gltf, that it becomes easier to upload content that doesn't belong to them. It's a reasonable concern and one I share too. On the flip-side, it also makes it easier for a content creator to upload content that does belong to them. Most modern tooling like Blender, Substance etc is PBR first and creators were having to convert content they made in these programs to look right under secondlife's older renderer. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the process but lets just say it's not an exact process and a lot of time ends up requiring a lot of time depending on what you're making. I also think it will lead to more original work for the reason that the pay-off is higher for creators. For example, here is a trim sheet I made the other day for creation purposes in Secondlife. A PBR street texture. https://gyazo.com/d1cd39ff6893d1d2d7707c3bf7a8c118 If it were not for PBR support I'd have never bothered to make it, because the old renderer in SecondLife would butcher them it's simply not worth it to spend the time. Now I know I can get decent wysiwig, I am more happy to sit and spend more time on materials.

This last statement confused me a bit. Do you mean the existing items you already purchased will look worse?

You don't need to make the shape match. In graphics there are two types of reflection map, both are essentially a fancy picture taken from the center of some place, that is used to approximate reflections. When you place a sphere probe, what you're essentially doing is telling the viewer to do is automatically generate a reflection image from a specific spot. Here is an example of a 360 map image. The probe size in SL simply decides the 'draw distance' If it's not long enough to include the walls, the walls won't be in the generated map. The name of the game is just getting good approximate reflections so that reflections color correctly. In non-boxy spaces you'd generally place a sphere probe. If two probes overlap, the viewer will blend between the two reflection probes. A box probe simply generates a similar type of image, but generates more accurate reflections in boxy spaces. The viewer will generate reflection maps even if you place no probes - But it takes a 'best guess' approach, which doesn't always get best results. Obviously improving the automatic probe placement is something that LL could be doing as well in the future. Just explaining how it works.

Yes, not claiming its a perfect solution. Often people in the group do bring up points from the forum though, so it's not a complete loss to talk about stuff here either. Inara Pey does a good job documenting the meetings, if you are interested in what LL are working on and what is getting discussed https://modemworld.me/category/second-life/sl-tech/sl-project-updates/

I find LL does engage, just not really on the forums https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=c_kphtklo9degke40dpk7nr6cclc@group.calendar.google.com The Content Creation User Group is a good place to go if you want to talk to LL viewer developers, whilst the Simulator User Group is a good place to raise script concerns. I have been daily driving Firestorm PBR Alpha and yes it definitely has FPS issues. But I personally haven't had FPS issues in the LL default viewer or Alchemy Beta. Since the Firestorm build is in alpha, I think this is to be expected though. I'm waiting to see Firestorm PBR Viewer reach at least beta before I start criticising it, because alpha in software generally means it's still under heavy development and likely to change a lot.

Your legs aren't useful to mega-corporations They'd sooner you were a sock puppet so they can have their hand up your .............. behind

So going through all of my posts one by one just to put a laughing face on it isn't over the top and unnecessary? I never thought I'd find myself defending Zal, but you paint yourself as reasonable. If you found my opinions laughable you would have said it once and moved on. You're aware that every time you click one of those buttons it creates a notification right? So when you go through and do it 5, 6, 10 times it is like harassing me in a way? Yes? Can you see why I might be prompted to react and ask why you are doing it?

To be honest we're all just killing time lol

A rare moment of Zalificent appreciation - I prefer Zalificents criticism of me to the way Solar treats me. Whilst often inflammatory in some way or other, at least she takes the time to explain her point of view very clearly. I appreciate someone who will stand behind their words and face me head on.

I think what it comes down to really is personal preference. Different people consider different things more personal, different things some residents are more comfortable sharing than others. Residents tend to lead very different SecondLive's to each other. What seems reasonable to share to one is not reasonable to another. In the end, my personal feeling is its best to just let residents choose what they want to share. It doesn't really do any harm and prevents hard feelings from people who might otherwise feel intentionally excluded in some way or another.