Charlotte Bartlett

November 28, 2022

Example of my test today - albeit just after I took the SL screenshot Beta died on me, and when I reloaded the materials were all grey'd out and wouldn't reload/allow me to edit.
White background is SL without elements like the changing the strength on the occlusionRoughnessMetallic map in the SL editor.
Detailed background is Substance Painter. I was going to compare to non materials format with just diffuse. These are already baked with a high poly model over the low poly in Substance Painter for the creases etc.

Not optimised mesh or materials (e.g. I would want to test the secondary maps at 64 versus 512 sizing to see what it delivers as things like leather can be a bit blurry in those elements).
The "leather" cushion at the back, isn't good enough using the SL default PBR material settings, it loses some of the dynamic elements so I'll fiddle with that to test my own options.

Thought useful to show though in the interim.

November 28, 2022

11 hours ago, arton Rotaru said:

Importing meshes in the glTF format is indeed planned, but will be a separate project. This time it's just glTF material import.

Just dropping this here as a FYI for Substance 3D Painter users.

Creating a new project (Remove channels under Texture Set Settings like Emissive, Opacity if you don't need them.):

To export simply choose glTF PBR Metal Roughness as the Output template:

Importing glTF Materials. Currently we have to choose one material at a time from the list of materials in the .glTF file.
The material asset will be dragged and dropped onto the objects face directly from your inventory once uploaded.

It's also possible to load glTF materials as local materials: This time it will load all materials at once.
(Note: This feature is broken in the current GLTF Project viewer 7.0.0.576331)

Dropping just a single asset on the models face(s) is far more convenient than setting up legacy materials actually.

Thanks on the SP part, I had played with that yesterday. Results are fairly ok, but still finding the values slightly off on the rendering in SL in comparison.

My personal issue is still that material creation in world. When we do larger assets with upload in the diffuse channel - then there may be some additional materials (normals) on focused areas. I will be shocked I mean surprised if LL actually pipeline it so we can import efficiently versus having to do manual material assignment in world.

What really needs to happen is the GitF material can be assigned to a mesh for upload via dae (well FBX would be even better but I digress).
As with many of these improvement projects, the user cases never seem to be public to understand how they are designing it and lack of documentation for thereafter to ensure best practice and optimisation.

November 28, 2022

I had a play today on beta.

I was looking to create defaults for substance painter for optimal workflow.

I don’t like the implementation in SL with the material creation, it’s clunky and adds more steps to workflow that could be far more efficient. I can see it being manageable for small items or clothing but a full house unless we can map with upload it’s going to be painful.

November 25, 2022

Our Saturday Sale 75l item this weekend has a small alcove would fit a table versus a sofa. Links are in my profile Charlotte Bartlett.

If not you may want to try Galland Homes they have some lovely houses which may fit your needs.

November 21, 2022

12 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I don't buy (any more) clothing these days. Bodies. Hairs. Accessories. None of that.

But gorgeous homes and buildings? I'm a junkie for.

Just finished plopping down yet another SC home (Zanzibar) and an AL Manufactory (Rhode Island Station) for my renter and my sailing parcel theme respectively, and will be hitting SC like a shopping fiend.

That’s super kind! Glad you able to use it, one of my favorites!! ❤️❤️❤️

November 21, 2022

On 11/20/2022 at 1:36 PM, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Seraphim puts out a massive list of participating stores each year. The countdown to the release of this year's list is currently at 3 days and 13 hours, so we'll know for sure early next week what stores are doing what.

Many have started their sales early, though (Black Friday Week, instead of weekend, it seems).

For heads - Lel and AK will have 50% off (Lel starts on the 25th, AK's is on now).

Not sure about bodies yet.

For decor - so far, I've seen Fourth Wall has started theirs, Square, and Tarte has some holiday stuff discounted.

Hair - Magika's sale ends today, I think. Kuni has a sale as well. Olive's birthday sale is still ongoing the last I checked, even though it was supposed to end days ago. Edit: Just saw Moon started theirs, as well (50% off).

Clothes - Addams already started, too.

Skins: Velour's sale started, and I saw earlier that Ives has their Black Friday sale on right now, too.

Seraphim is probably your best source at the moment. Check the Super Sales Listing tab, the regular events on the homepage, and the main Black Friday list countdown is here - https://www.seraphimsl.com/black-friday-sales-list/

They are a good resource. But many of us who do our own mainstore sale won’t be listed there. (We are doing ours this year across our four regions).

November 20, 2022

How I would love inventory management improvements so we could do power sorting and management beyond what is offered today with an archive and recall feature.
16 years as a creator, I don't let my inventory go over 16K still and I try to keep it mostly to around 12K but it takes a lot of effort/time.

November 15, 2022

I have been noting this a bit recently too. I reboot the viewer and it seems to resolve.

November 6, 2022

3 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

"no mod" in SL prevents counterfeiting and protects the creator's ownership of the design.

No it doesn't in reality, your statement could mislead people. New or uninformed creators end up missing out on many sales as they think no mod is some sort of ownership protection. They should be fully aware of copyright laws and how to protect their designs external to Second Life, so they can enforce if needed. No mod does nothing in relationship to "ownership".

The only user case when they is actually true are elements like scripts where they are server side (if you mean to stop copying contents).

To OP

Home & Decor people will always be mod if they want volume of sales.
Some scripts in Home & Decor may not be mod e.g. for Huds purely as they are third party items.
It is always worth asking the creator if they will do a mod version and a polite discussion. It may be an old item, a new creator or somebody not understanding the commercial benefits of providing mod items to their customers.

Fashion people (generally) will go no mod (I don't agree with it) if there are fatpacks etc - the rationale from some I have heard directly from is they don't want people tinting a white item (huge generalisation here) to lose out on sales.

Honestly you can normally find things very similar in Second Life if one creator isn't meeting your direct needs that will have the perms you would like.

October 23, 2022

1 hour ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Can you elaborate? What the heck would they do with our data on individual items we buy unless they want to sell us more stuff? Not to mention it's costly to run sophisticated data farming. They'd need to get something out it. But, what are you thinking they would get out it?

It's not this data in isolation. It's the concept of big data about you as a person in the whole. That information allows profiling, which has historically (and currently still is) used for predatory targeting. You as a person, based on analysis of thousands of variables, are rated from your credit through to what to sell to you. The correlations of this data have potential to have disparate impacts to you, with you having little understanding of how data is used, packaged and resold History has proven (for those who remember the 2008 housing crash) how data was used to provide discriminatory outcomes.

Data is really important as a whole, not just the small purchase of game tokens when you look at the wider picture.

October 23, 2022

4 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I honestly thought I was paying Tillia and then they paid LL to fill said Linden dollar order. But then again, I honestly don't know the inner workings of how all that works.

No. It has been since day 1 you have been buying from another resident. They just provide the exchange. It has always been documented.

October 22, 2022

On 10/20/2022 at 11:57 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

I don't know why everyone is rushing to assume that what this means is that we can skip Paypal when cashing out. Says who? Is that to their advantage? How will this be achieved? As an ACH payment? As a wire transfer? What FEES will be introduced?

Their aim is to provide (and their website has been updated to include)

TiliaPay

Pay out wallet values to users and creators as real money

Several payout currencies

Direct deposit to bank accounts

My original post notes information and fee structures they need to complete with. JPM payments will give them the ability to automate cash out processing via the ACH system.

October 18, 2022

3 hours ago, animats said:

“It's very important virtual worlds have the instantaneous settlement Tilia provides,” said Brad Oberwager, Executive Chairman of Tilia, and acting CEO of Linden Lab. “We can handle very high transaction volume at very low dollar amount that even with USDC, the systems aren't built for that kind of stuff. We move one 250th of a dollar sometimes.”

That's a good point, Tilia can do small transactions at low cost. Nobody else does that very well. The crypto people can't do that. Banks can't do that.

What they cannot do (yet) are small transactions at high volume, at the 2% cost level, in an automated fashion with real-time settlement...
- That's where I see the interest with the JPM angle and significant opportunity for Tilia to operate in that market - then it becomes a interesting company.
- It gives them the ability to move into new and variable sectors (think areas like micro transactions for articles etc - whether you agree with that or not).
- Expanding that further open banking payments is looking to reach $116 billion globally..

So it's a good time to solve for my first sentence as there is significant revenue opportunity for those in the race to be gained.

October 18, 2022

My random thoughts:

I think it will finally allow connectivity into mainstream elements as part of a digital strategy.

Also the JPM payment model (as let's hope the investment will have connectivity from the Tilia side into the JPM network) could allow them to automate a fair chunk (no more waiting for 2-5 days for a cash out as they can use the built in functionality and automation methodology that exists today). So cost avoidance, whilst not increasing their fraud and risk factors and basically ensuring it's a scalable model to roll out to other target markets/entities (and navigating the regulatory landscape). It also will help them provide a payment service that is inline with competitors and normal operations in 2022 (as they are behind on that as the whole cash out model used today is antiquated to say the least).

From a Fintech space they have to compete with a 2% cost of payment (generally). So hopefully that investment goes into elements like opportunities to cross populate with Plaid, Zelle etc as well as automated ACH etc (for the US side) leveraging JPM Payments methodology. We pay 5% right now to cash out, so with the automation and scalability I would expect this to actually protect us from larger increases and remain more stable on the cost front. Now I have jinxed it I am sure...

October 9, 2022

(1) your poly/tris are WAY too high you need to reduce these . Can you screenshot the numbers with LODS. I have seen this happen with mesh that is too complex (sometimes a relog can give your viewer a break to see it), but if that's the case it shouldn't be in SL in that format.

That does not answer your question, but with poorly optimised mesh, there could be multiple of reasons. Unlikely flipped normals if they presented ok before linking.

October 9, 2022

Hi thank you, the Reliable option presents with the bug from the dae file so isn't a workaround but I have some more testing to do this weekend to narrow it Thanks on the upload link that's exactly what I needed, I appreciate it!

October 8, 2022

Hi,

I am probably being stupid but can't find the July 2021 release for Firestorm to download on their site - does anybody have a link? I mistakenly upgraded to the latest version and it no longer supports any non custom LODS using DAE when auto generated in the old "way". The issue is at my end versus theirs but until I can spend quality time on creating a new Second Life workflow I need to fix my Saturday Sale build

Background in case any other Cinema 4D users search for LOD issues:

The issue presents as when the LOD swaps the materials, the order and to which face the materials are assigned to, gets confused (so material 1 switches to the wrong face when the LOD moves from High to Med etc etc). So it looks great on high but then mid if you have 8 materials they all switch around and again on Low and Lowest for each custom LOD.

It's been a known general issue (including LL viewer) as Cinema 4D has always done something strange with DAE 4 export if you create Custom LODS. The issue prior to the newest Version of Firestorm, if you used autogenerated LODs did not present. It now does present for those too.
The workaround is to export to FBX from Cinema 4D pull into Blender and then use the Blender DAE export and ta da it works (obviously annoying to do this from a time standpoint)).

I never really have had time to do a compare between the two program DAE exports to see what specifically triggers the issue (I need to to see if I can automate any fix at my end as the moving files through Blender adds more time/effort to upload).

For furniture, I do full custom LODS hence I use the "Blender workaround" but for some larger uploads on houses where I only need the lower and lowest to be custom the new Firestorm viewer now behaves as when auto generated LODS are included (e.g on Lowest) the Custom LOD bug appears . I am on the latest subscription version of Cinema 4D, but I am a rare breed as I know only two other creators who use it, so it's something I need to fix at my end. (Unless I should be using DAE 5 over 4 etc now which I am midst testing).

Note I put all the information on why I am seeking the old version (so I have time to debug and plan more fully) in case there are more than two creators using Cinema 4D and they also have an issue so search the Forum for a resolution

October 5, 2022

Was excited to see this. Not yet usable for us who create multiple part meshes like houses as it splits the DAE into each mesh versus treating the DAE as one (and no ability to select all items to "Rez").

But looking forward to the next versions as hopefully this becomes available. Anything that avoids me having to use the Beta Grid is a bonus! Thanks for all the hard work on this, it's going to be so helpful for creators.

September 25, 2022

Going to be interesting how the workflow develops especially pipeline from Substance Painter for non avatar items.

Very keen to test it through along with probes.

September 21, 2022

Proper LODs is a hell of an effort so your item looks nice at a proper distance. So hope you appreciate it, is how I would explain it to a Newbie.

I am biased: last month 50 plus piece kitchen and accessories all with custom LODs bar the lowest (sorry not sorry). The effort this takes is incredible compared to those who zero it all out (those detailed furniture makers)….

Many new and old customers always want LOW LI and All The Details as that is “quality”. I can probably count on one hand those who ask if the LODs are custom. It’s a really small subset of at least my user base.

Also it is its own workflow optimizing mesh properly. It is not really documented for SL products. It took me a lot of help from forum users over the years to figure my custom workflow.

Either way if a newbie asked me about LODs I think I would be very happy!!

September 19, 2022

On 9/14/2022 at 4:40 PM, Maitimo said:

Yes we'll probably be paying a commission to Linden Lab on in-world purchases (a sales tax, if you like). But weren't we already paying that commission to Casper anyway?

Many merchants purchased the premium no commission license.
We do not pay commission to Casper as we purchased the outright premium package at higher cost.
It's that user case which is problematic if LL then try to charge on top.

So I remain OT and don't get deleted:
Linden Lab V Residents - If Caspervend wanted to withdraw from SL I can't see that LL had any choice due to the number of users on the platform using it.. So if that is the case, LL coming into a resident provided service makes sense.

September 14, 2022

Interesting news.

The good news is if they misstep and try to overwrite the license those of us whom paid upfront and try to implement transaction fees in the future, we can easily migrate to a third party vendor system and there are wider options now including self hosting for those who want their own servers/hosting. The bigger brands do this already.

Opportunity to integrate into architecture and remove elements like dropbox. But what they MUST not do is try to make this like clunky Marketplace. Caspervends interface is actually pretty decent. Some gaps like product templates etc but generally not too painful to use. Losing that functionality must not happen.

Finally, the revenue side, I could never understand how CasperVend kept profitable with their hosting needs with a one time up front payment for the core product. So I have to extend that concern to how LL is actually going to profit off this and that tells me despite the "for now" statement (no offence Patch), there will be monetisation efforts underway and at some point these will occur and cost us. Otherwise this acquisition makes little sense for LL.

September 13, 2022

General Rule of Thumb

You should only export items you personally create in Second Life.

You should not export items you purchase from other users as licensing terms are only specific to Second Life usage under the permissions set.

Some sellers however will advertise that they sell the external file (e.g. .dae or PSD files) and those are delivered outside of Second Life. These can be used based on the specific license terms they note. So no need to export yourself.

What sort of personal use at you looking for specifically as there are some other options too which are an exception to the general rule of thumb e.g. texture maps, if texturing a full perm item that can be exported to create your own textures from.

September 10, 2022

You have the diffuse channel showing - not material - have you exported the 2D view to see what it looks like?

I don't use Spec I mostly use Rough for wood and plaster.

Also when 2D looks wonky on your view 9 times out of 10 it's something on your material - check your metallic and roughness settings on the material.

September 7, 2022

On 9/4/2022 at 6:15 AM, Robberinthemuseum said:

I love you very much (and am making more skyboxes!) ❤️

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