Marcus Hancroft

Dresden Ceriano wrote: Is there any place in SL that caters to gay men and plays country music? I've been to many places that play country and are very welcoming to the glbt community, but none that specialize in playing country with an emphasis on gay men. If anyone knows of one I'd really appreciate it if you send me in their direction. Thanks... Dres Howdy, Dresden! I thought I was the only Cowboy in SL who was into dudes and likes country music! Like you, I go to several of the country/western clubs around, but, they are all straight. Yeah, they have been welcoming but, I don't walk in and announce for all the world that I like dudes and so no women need to IM me either. Something I don't get is, when I go into those clubs, why am I the only guy there wearing a hat? All the other guys there have long hair and 1000's of tattoos. *chuckles* Anyway, I would love to find a real c/w club that played country music all the time and was for gays. Maybe on the SanFrancisco sims? But...I don't know how much demand for such a place there is in SL. Would we two be the only ones there dancin? Sounds like something I need to check into further. IM me inworld sometime and let's compare notes.

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: I checked online for a more-or-less-authorative answer. This sums it up nicely 3. Can I get a Copyright on This Name/Word/Phrase/Title? No. You can’t. Copyright protects works of creative authorship that are fixed into a tangible medium of expression and it specifically precludes short phrases, titles, etc. The law is very clear on this and for very good reason, if you could copyright a title or a name, then very quickly nothing in the English language would be safe from copyright protection. There is no way to copyright words or short phrases and that’s to the benefit of all. (My emphasis) Why it Isn’t Stupid [to ask] You can’t copyright a short word or phrase, but you can trademark one. Many people confuse trademark and copyright law because they are similar in many regards and do have a great deal of overlap, especially when dealing with logo design. Trademark is a much more limited protection than a copyright, designed solely to protect a business’ identifying marks and names within its field, but the two do have a lot in common. Given that there are three types of intellectual property, copyright, trademark and patents, it is understandable that people would be confused, especially when there is so much overlap between the three. (http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/01/21/5-stupid-copyright-questions-that-arent/) I wonder about this. Marine Kelly created long ago the "Restrained Life Viewer." Some time ago she was informed by Linden Labs that the word "Life" is either copyrighted or trademarked and she may not use that word anywhere within SecondLife, so, she had to change the name of her viewer. Because it had become so well known as the "RLV," Marine changed the full name to the "Restrained Love Viewer." Personally, I thought it was ridiculous that a word could be excluded from any and all creations in SL because they have the copyright or trademark to a single word. I guess this is the case, but I sure don't understand HOW.

Rolig Loon wrote: Any script posted in the library is presumed to be full perm. I would be very upset if I heard that someone were trying to sell the script itself, since I could have done that too but chose not to. You're quite welcome to use it in a product or anything else short of that, however. Glad that you find it useful. :smileywink: Well, what I would do is create a shadow for each of my products and include that shadow in the sale with instructions on its use. I would never sell the script itself. I think it would be a nice thing to include and people can either use it or not as they decide! Thanks very much! :smileywink:

Howdy, Miss Rolig! I tried this shadow script you made and I love it! What are your permissions pertaining to it? For example, would I be allowed to use it in my builds to sell, or is it just for personal use? Either way...thank you SO much for this! It's fantastic! :-)

Well the trick is basically to fold the sculpt over inside itself so that it has no invisible interior surface. As this is acheived by mirroring, the alpha is also a mirror. Mirroring an asymmetrical alpha leaf onto a mirrored helical cone (for example) produces both a back and a front to the leaf which map perfectly back to front. Done correctly, the effect is essentially the same each time the leaf is duplicated horizonatally. Try changing the number of horizontal repeats by using the arrow and see what happens.

Rya Nitely wrote: Marcus, as creator your name is on every item you sell. Once you get enough of your items out there and displayed in SL they will advertise themselves. If the item is good and eye catching people will find you - make sure all necesssary info such as inworld store and marketplace link is in your profile . This is the only marketing I do and my sales reach new records every month. The more I sell the more exposure my creations get, which leads to more sales. Most customers have told me they found my brand this way, and I get IMs all the time asking where this or that item can be bought. This wouldn't work for everyone but it would for you. I've never paid for advertising, except a couple of enhancements, which didn't really pay off. I am also not a believer that twitter or posting etc. generates a significant amount of customers - but just my opinion. Or maybe in my case it doesn't. I post because it's fun, not to get customers. One more thing, sculpted plants are not my main market, but because people know and trust my brand they sell very well - they come for boats they take home plants. Your 1 prim plants look good and if they sell everyday then you are heading the right way, the rest is just time and work to Increase your inventory and gain more experience in building and texturing, which only comes with time and effort - I think this is wiser than spending time posting and tweeting. Thank you for this, Rya! I appreciate the nice words about my stuff! I DID however have a head slap moment when you said to be sure my MP store is in my profile. OMG...why didn't I think of that?! :laughs! I'll be sure to put my MP link in there when I log in next. Thanks for the info and the positive feedback! :smileyhappy:

Luna Bliss wrote: Marcus... I would definitely get a signature going in here. I create sims for others, and often I refer various parts of these (homes, scripts, furniture) to other people I've discovered in these forums. I can't do that if I don't know what you make. Howdy, Miss Luna! I just added a sig line for my posts as you suggested. I'll work on a sig line logo like you have and insert it as soon as I am satisfied with it! I hadn't thought about doing that until I read the posts in this forum! Again, I am really satisfied with my store! So far, I haven't had a day where I have had zero sales! I know that probably won't be true ALL the time, but I have covered my rent and made enough to get more textures, etc! About classified ads...I have NEVER once, in almost 3 years in SL, EVER looked at them. Until yesterday. Using the keyword "flowers," the advertisement at the top of the list was a maker of jewelry, tuxedos, dresses and wedding items! And how much did they pay for THAT ad?? Over $42,000L!! For a one week ad?? There is NO way I could afford that kind of money. So, my ad would be buried deep in the list if I only paid $100L, or $50L. So far, I can't see the expense.

Josh Susanto wrote: My own sculpted plants don't have this problem, and you'll see why when you see them; from no angle do they appear either flat or made from flat things; they look like plants from the top, and even from inside the limits of the prim. I already offer some for free, and I'll give more to those who ask niceley. If anyone cares, I'll be improving and expanding my sculpted alpha plant line in the near future; the stems portions will be better. Howdy, Josh! I would LOVE to see those actually! Where can I see them and get the ones you already have done? *ON EDIT - Found you on Marketplace! I can't wait to see them!

Howdy, Dartagan! Thank you for the info! UPDATE: I decided to open a small store on a small parcel I liked a lot on a commercial sim in Lionheart! I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and decided right then and there to snatch it up before someone else did! So, I got my parcel, opened my store and set the land to show in search. Also, I have listed most all my products in the Marketplace. So far, my sales at my inworld store have been great! (at least *I* think they have been), but the MP has produced absolutely nothing. I thought about placing a classified ad but, I have no idea how much money to pay to make it worth it. Are classifieds even worth the expense? Reading the other forum about Boosting Sales In The Marketplace tells me that search is broken and enhancements are a rip-off. So, I'm hesitant to spend any of my money on them. I am constantly creating new items. But because the parcel I have is so small, there's only so much room and I've been down to only 3 prims left at a couple of points. As a result, in this first week, I have changed several products around inside the store. I am going to start having special sales and "Buy one get this free item" sales at my inworld store. Hopefully this will bring people back to my store more often. I've thought about creating a store group, but I decided to wait to do THAT until I see how the store does in the long run.

I came to the Merchants forum because I have been working recently on creating products (I'm proud of each of them) and I'm ready to start selling them! I've been scouting around for locations to open a small store and wanted to see if there were any suggestions here or ideas on how to set up a small location inworld (a mall store or something). I have found a couple of places I like and I could easily pay the rent box and proceed to open. That would be foolish though until I understand how inworld stores work and the things I need to do outside of simply making the vendors, rezzing my products and crossing my fingers. I have had a very successful seller in SL who has many satellite stores and a huge main store (and who is also a friend) tell me that in SL, "like breeds like." In other words, I need to put my inworld store in areas where the same sorts of products are sold and not put it in a totally unrelated area. So, I came to this forum to find out even more. I've read every post. Thought about every viewpoint expressed here, and, I gotta tell ya folks...I'm not sure now WHAT to do. I don't want to open a small store and then have to close it a month later. I don't want to have to lose part of my sales to commissions (I would actually change my prices to reflect the commissions, so they would be more expensive to purchase on the Marketplace than they would in an inworld store). Hearing about all these places that are closing, land that is getting abandoned, a search function that is hit or miss, makes me wonder if it's even worth the effort. :smileysad:

Rain Stardust wrote: I recently bought several animations that are rather long and not of uniform length. They loop nicely when played alone, but I currently have them in a ZHAO AO (I don't think it's even ZHAO-II, this thing's old I haven't been around for a while) and I've tried a few different numbers as the default length of time until the stand switches in the script and can't find one that doesn't cut the animations off in the middle. Can anyone suggest an AO that is perhaps meant to be used with non-static stands and switches when they are finished rather than after a given amount of time? That's the only solution I can think of, but if anyone has another suggestion, I'd love to hear it. Thanks so much! Howdy, Rain! I would suggest you go get the Huddles EZ Animator. It's what I've used for a long time and have never had any trouble with animation times in the AO. If your Zhao is old, it's time to update anyway! :smileyhappy: The Huddles is much more than just an AO hud. It can also hold dances, and you can have 10 people dancing with you! Here's the link to the Marketplace page for the deluxe version: CLICK HERE It is WELL worth the money!

Howdy, Miss Venus! What I don't get are those avatars who look like noobs with freenis', system hair, etc., and when you look at their profile they are over 1200 days old. I've seen a number of them recently and when I do, my first thought is that they must not care one whit what THEY look like, but expect that another avatar that's beautifully put together is gonna want to marry him/her right on the spot! When I see someone that old whose in a noob skin and all, they invariably have NPIOF. Which means they've never spent one single linden in SL. It's those people who I ignore. If there is a new resident who has obviously TRIED to do something with themselves, I have a lot of help I can give. I made my own shapes that I can give to them for free, I have a bunch of landmarks to freebie skins, clothes, etc that I can give them and I even have a gift bag full of premium clothes that I have purchased in the past that I no longer wear that I can give them! The last time I did that, though, I saw the guy I gave all that stuff to a few days later, and he was in worse shape than the first day I saw him in SL. When I asked him about everything, he said he decided not to keep any of that, trashed it and was happy as heck at his new avatar! So, there went all that money I spent, down the drain. Oh, well, I wasn't wearing those clothes anymore anyway. But it was just how unappreciated everything I did for him went in the end. I'll be a LOT more selective from now on in who I decide to help. :smileysad:

Void Singer wrote: softness: how much it "wave" it can have in the middle, opposite of stifness. gravity: the ammount and direction the gravity tends to pull/push on it (expressed as region +/- z) drag: how much to slow movements (limits "wagging") wind: multiplier to be affected by region wind (which is a region x/y force) tension: how strongly it reacts to movement force x/y/z: the *region relative gravity to apply in a particular direction. ETA: *sorry, force is region relative, not prim or object relative, correted above Thanks so much for the explanation of what each of those settings do, Miss Void! This helped me a lot figure out how much I they needed to "wave". :smileyhappy:

Rolig Loon wrote: You'll want to use a negative value for Gravity, so that the cattails always point up instead of drooping, and you'll want to keep Wind set rather low (probably no more than 1.0) to keep them from whipping aroiund too much. Moderate settings for Drag and Tension will also help make them slow to respond. You can ignore the Force settings, since they won't do much for you at all. Just play around and see what looks good. BTW, you can't link anything to the flexi end of a prim. If you try, it loses its flexiness (if that's a word). That means either making your cattails out of a single prim or having only the topmost part of a cattail flexi while the lower part is rigid. It would be ideal if we could make sculpties flexi, but that's not possible yet. Howdy, Miss Rolig! Thank you very much for your help. I took your advice and worked the settings as you suggested. My cattails look great moving in the wind like they do now and, I learned something new in the process! Thanks again! :smileywink:

I am wanting to make some cattails that blow in the wind. I've got the prim textured and ready to go, but, there are so many options in the flexible path section. Softness, Gravity, Drag, Wind, Tension and Force X, Y and Z. Anybody know what the settings are for all those to make this tall grass blow in the wind? Thanks in advance!

Rolig Loon wrote: Yes, you should be able to change the repeats to something just slightly under 1.0 (try 0.98) to get rid of the wraparaound issue. This is a common solution for dealing with the floating X over plants and ghost lines at the ends of hair prims. Ah! Thank you so much for that, Miss Rolig! I'll give that a try!

Marcus Hancroft wrote: Jaylin Wytchwood wrote: Regarding the sculpy being rendered as blob, check your LOD / Level of Detail: 1. Show the “Advanced” menu with Ctrl-Alt-D 2. Select “debug settings” near the bottom. 3. In the blank space, copy and paste the word: RenderVolumeLODFactor 4. Set this to 4 I will check this when I get inworld, Jaylin, but I think it already IS set to 4. I'll double check though. Just checked and it was set to 2.0, not 4.0. Just changed it. Now to see if that solved the problem! Yep! That worked! So the cone problem is fixed now...at least for ME! Thank you, Jaylin!

Wildcat Furse wrote: I agree with you Marcus, I use a soft light version that is just enough to improve my face, I really don't want to walk around like a neon light .... *meows* /me laughs! That's exactly how he looked too, Miss Wildcat! Like a walking neon light. :smileyvery-happy:

Jaylin Wytchwood wrote: Regarding the sculpy being rendered as blob, check your LOD / Level of Detail: 1. Show the “Advanced” menu with Ctrl-Alt-D 2. Select “debug settings” near the bottom. 3. In the blank space, copy and paste the word: RenderVolumeLODFactor 4. Set this to 4 I will check this when I get inworld, Jaylin, but I think it already IS set to 4. I'll double check though.

Winter Ventura wrote: What you're seeing is actually the bottom of the texture, wrapping around. Ah! Okay...thank you for that Miss Winter! I don't have the textures on my hard drive (I purchase all mine) so should I change the vertical repeats in some way to compensate for the wrap around?

Endija Sella wrote: Face lights are so 2009 :DD :smileyvery-happy: I agree, Endija! I was at a location a few days ago and suddenly the room lit up with a blinding light and washed everybody out. I looked and there was a guy there with the brightest face/body light I have EVER seen! I went to infared and there were no less than 6 invisible prims around his body extending at least 3 meters from him, shining light all around him! As I said, it was blindingly white. First I derendered each of his orbs (which wasn't easy since he started dancing and trying to catch them was like trying to take a cookie away from a child) and then I muted him. People, if you're gonna wear a facelight, take care of how bright it is will ya please? Thank you.

I have a number of sculpted plant prims that I use. I have two that are single plant prims, one is an 8 panel sculpt, the other is a 16 panel. When I apply a plant texture to the 8 panel prim, there is a distinct line above the prim where the panels criss cross. So it looks like a large asterisk hovering above my plant. At first, I thought it was the texture having a line like that at the top, or the alpha not being "complete" up there, but I have tried many different textures from many creators and they are all like that. Now I feel like it is the sculpt map I'm using. Does anybody know what causes that and if there is a way to counteract it? Also, on the 16 panel prim, when I apply the textures, they look great, but when I cam back, the prim morphs from a round, 16 panel prim, to an upside down cone. It's the strangest thing. Then, when I zoom back to normal, it changes back to the way it's supposed to be. I thought maybe it was because of zooming out when camera locked on it, so I just walked a fair distance away from it, turned around and looked and sure enough, I had a field of upside down cones over where I should have a field of flowers and ferns. So what causes THAT and how can I fix it? Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated! :smileywink:

There is quite a bit of misinformation out there about Avatar Rendering Cost. When LL first introduced it, they indicated it was an estimate only and not a completely accurate figure. That's why one viewer will show one number, another may show a completely different one. In truth...ARC does not cause sim lag, it creates client lag. Especially if your graphics card is on the lower end. So, that persons hair across the dance floor from you that looks like it has 10,000 flexi prims is NOT causing YOU lag. I posted the link to Ana Lutetia's blog post about lag in another thread, but it is such good information that HERE it is again. It is rather long, but the information in it is excellent and everybody should read and understand everything inside. There's even excellent information for store owners on how to set up their store's layout to help lower the lag in and around their place of business!

The newest one of me taken today...

Finora Kuncoro wrote: Thanks Marcus. The article was a rather long read for a non computer person like myself, but I got the general gist: My hair does not cause much lag at all Yay take that "ARC Nazis" (my emphasis) /me laughs That's what I say, Miss Finora!