Fennet

ps. They make very pretty puppies; I just birthed the first one and it isn't pink at all. 

I know I'm really really putting my head in the chopper here, but I simply had to do this before I hit the "heaven" button. So go easy on me, OK? Yes, I realize they're only pixel pets. Anyone want a free pair of pink boxers? They've already had one puppy. Maybe I'll give that one away, too. Yes, these are the SL13B dogs. So maybe you already have a pair of boxers; want some more? Contact me inworld if you're longing for a couple of dogs of your own, or just can't get enough and want these ones, too.  

I don't know if this is a dead thread or not, but it seemed like the place. The voice problem seems to be a re-curring issue with a lot of people. I also get the "can't connect to voice server" message and the unuseable link, but only on the SL viewer. On Firestorm I have voice, not great, but it works. Unfortunately Firestorm is exceptionally laggy for me no matter how low I set my graphics. Two issues, here, I know. I do wish they'd get the bugs ironed out of voice for the Standard SL viewer, though. Or that a genius would see this and tell me how to fix it permanently.

Naw, I have the devil's own time keeping my inventory under 10,000. Unless, of course, he's shedding roman columns, caves, or kitty cats. I can always make room for a few more of those.

I have Lolo pets, I have tomato park animals, and many other brands, and I love them all, but None of them tug at my heartstrings like these silly little KittyCatS. I did sign up on the website, even though I had to travel across second life to do it, and I will fill out a support ticket for my destroyed freebee SL 13th Birthday kitten, because all of my cats are listed right there in the pedigree section. I think they're mighty fine.

Thanks for that tip, I'm going to rush right out and register. If I get my Birthday cat back I'll have 6 ravenous mouths to feed instead of the one I planned for and the 5 I already got, lol. Oh my gawd.......

Wow. And I thought I was the last curmudgeon. Apparently I'm a bottomless well of tolerance, because I've encountered mostly astonishing generosity of spirit in SL, (aside from the rare greifer or molester.)

Thanks. I think I inadvertently did that already when I added my friend list to the access option box. I didn't realize it would prevent entry to all others.

Forgot to add; when the kittens from my surprise boxes were born, the had the bright red type above their heads, but it was telling me to update them. Then MY OWN LAND ate the updater and told me I didn't have permission to rez objects. (That happens sometimes, rarely, fortunately, and it doesn't usually eat the objects.) So I had to go to the KittyCatS main store to get another updater, which are free, BTW. The very helpful lady working there showed me where the updaters were, in the wee hours of the morning. You need to have a minimum of 30 LI units available on the parcel when you rez the updater to update your kittens, I found that out just in time by reading the copious and somewhat cryptic instructions. If you do lose a kitten, you can get a new one on the marketplace for as little as L$20, and they're gorgeous and so sweet it'll break your heart. The price of food is another matter entirely......

I tried for 2 days to access the kittycats website and could not get it to load. It wasn't a problem with my computer or internet, either. I got one of the free SL birthday cats, opened it in a sandbox, and it's alive, growing, and happy as a lark. That was for my homeless alternate incognito avatar. I went back to get a kitten for my usual avatar, (The sign says "One kitten per avatar", so I do not believe I was breaking the rules in any way, shape, or form). I went to the same sandbox that had worked the first time, followed the instructions, rezzed the box and waited an hour or so for the menu to appear, but it never did. The message only said "still loading, do not take into inventory" or something like that. So I pulled the box back into inventory against the instructions. I couldn't wait all day, and it was obviously not going to work at that sandbox again anyway. Then I tried to access the KittyCatS website, all day, to no avail.......(It's back up now, btw). Short version, when I rezzed the kitten box again, it said "SL copy; delete me". I tried this several times, on my own land, in the hopes that my kitten would miraculously materialize, but it was a goner. So I opened the box, copied it to inventory, messed around with it for awhile, then I deleted everything. Went to the marketplace and bought a L$25 surprise kitten box, and rezzed it on my own parcel. Now I'm hooked. I bought a more expensive one and got an empty box. In a frenzy of kittycats lust I bought another inexpensive surprise package, right before the empty box seller sent me my live kitten with grave apologies. Now I have 3 kittens, on top of all my other animals and cats large and small. KittyCatS are more addictive than cigarettes, lol. But I'm still mourning the loss of my birthday cat. I've read up on them as much as I can and bought a ton of food for my kittens. (I also got the pair of breedable pink boxers, but that's another story.) The lady at the kittycats main store was beyiond helpful, she was a gem, at 3am nonetheless. On a side note, my alt avatar later lost the live birthday kitten by rezzing it in a sandbox to feed it. Although she had done it several times before, this time it "poof" disappeared with a message from SL that the land did not allow object entry, which was nonsense. It seemed that both birthday kittens were now in kittycats heaven, but when the alt avatar logged back in, the cat was in inventory. Phew, such a relief! I would like to allow my alt avatar's kitten to live on my parcel, but can't figure out how. If anyone can tell me how to allow the cat and only the cat onto my parcel without forming a group I'd be very grateful.

Short of forming a group, is there any way to let one friend, and no one else, leave objects on my land? A cat, in this case?

Yep, you were right. Walked all over the land, then flew up, over 3000 meters, and got ejected by the orb when I object profiled the skybox, (I was flying over my own property at the time, too), lol. Nothing like a seriously threatening security orb to induce curiosity.

This is just an odd thing that happened, and I couldn't think of a better place to ask about it, so here goes: I live in a nearly vacant sim, but people are moving in. However, I'm used to tromping around on the adjacent vacant lots, dreaming about getting a bigger island than the one I currently rent. The other day, I double-click-teleported next door to a lot I'd tramped over many times before, one that has no visible objects on it and says it allows public access, (it isn't as if I was deliberately snooping). Imagine my surprise when I found myself inside a house, in someone's bed, with a security orb hysterically threatening not only to eject me, but to tell the "owners" the name of the barbarian who had just invaded their land. How is that even possible? "Highlighting invisible" shows nothing, and nothing else I do makes a house, or anything else, for that matter, appear on the lot. Land impact, (after my orb scare I checked ), shows a couple of hundred objects on the land, but there's nothing visible to the viewer's eye. It's just a bald ass island with basic green ground texture and zilch. Note: fear not, I learned my lesson after being scolded by the orb, and won't set finger or toe on That chunk of real estate again, although I'm tempted to repeat the experience to see if I only imagined it.

Thanks! It's injurious enough trying to get used to Blender without the added insult of wasting money uploading trial meshes. (And I did; I discovered I still had L$99 in my account and couldn't resist temptation, and yep, the first attempts were worthless, just like I knew they were.)

As far as I can tell, I am certified to upload meshes to SL, but I'm unwilling to put more money in my account so I can test on the main grid. I have everything on account they say is needed, and I took the mesh tutorial to get certified. I get the upload window for mesh on the main grid, and there doesn't seem to be any problem, I just don't have any money left in my account. So I went to Aditi. I've been there and tested all sorts of things, several times, uploaded textures, but this is my first mesh. I'm just starting out in blender, I know it's a wash, so there is little chance I'm going to go over my budget and put Ls in my main grid account just to test an item I already know is flawed. At any rate, on Aditi I get a message saying I need to get qualified to test mesh. Grrr. I filed a support ticket. Now I suppose I just have to wait?

Thanks. Blender Coffee cup will be my next project. (Coffeecup? Meh! Why can't it be a column, or an elaborately carved stone facade with numerous classical figures, lol?)

Chic Aeon wrote: Smiles. The real answer to your query is Blender Cycles (or the equivalent in another 3D program). This bakes the shadows into the mesh (well it makes a texture that you add to the mesh and you end up with a very convincing look (with practice) of light and shadow EVEN for folks with lower abilities in the graphics department. That however takes TIME. Lots and lots of time. Anyway, that is the LONG answer. The SHORT answer and what was used for a long time years ago would be to make a texture (or a few - 512 x 512 - 512 x 256 - 1024 x 1024 etc) with you base texture as you have shown with SHADOWED edges around the sides. The bottom line is that if you are serious about building then learning 3D modeling will be extremely important. It is not a short term deal as I said before. It takes a commitment. BUT once you have put in your time, life goes back to fun and creating rather than "how the hell do I do that" mode LOL. Most everyone started with a cube. Actually, I'm not really all that dissatisfied, although I know a lot more is possible. I see builds that look as flat as mine, or worse, all over SL every day, and I don't usually even notice that they don't look like photorealistic 3d models of the Parthenon. I did make a few edge shaded textures, but didn't care for the results I got when applying them. I've heard pros and cons about using shaded textures. I've had good results with shaded textures on small items like jewelry, on the build, not so much. But I'm just getting started. I'm not planning on making a killing selling my stuff on the marketplace anytime soon, either. Me learning Blender is the plan. As for the difficulty, I realize it isn't a 7 day task. I managed to master Final Cut and Flash well enough back in the day, so I'm pretty sure i can wrap my little old mind around a new program, even if it is the dreaded 3D. "Most everyone started with a cube" That's what I'm doing. That, and asking questions whenever I hit a roadblock.

Fixed? I don't think so. 30 minutes after logging out of SL, (well, trying to log out. I almost Always have to force quit the viewer, and it's the latest default viewer update) win_crash_logger.exe is still eating up 50% of my CPU. (Now it isn't; I just shut it down with task manager. Had to search the internet to find out exactly what was going on.) Since you "fixed" the problem in the current default viewer, (mine), maybe you can tell me how I can use SL without this happening. It's beginning to be a crashing bore, pun intentional.

That's fine, you confirmed everything I already suspected. Without the capability to add ALM, however, I won't be able to see any improvements I might get through using mesh, so my first most essential need is MORE RAM! I do have Blender installed, but haven't really gotten started on it yet, I was in kind of a rush to make this test sample so I decided to go with what I was familiar with, which is to say: prims. Most importantly, I just enlisted a couple of assistants who do have better graphics capabilities, so if nothing else they can check my builds and give me advice on any changes I might need to make for the viewing pleasure of those with better computers than mine. I copied and filed away your steps to mastering Blender, (as well as those recommended by others). As soon as I get enough RAM to improve my graphics performance, I'll get right on it.

Because I'm so limited to the lighting and shadow detail I can see with my graphics card capabilities, I feel the need to ask around for some tips. I've got fairly good shadow definition on my prim constructed elements, without adding baked shadows. There are a few problems, however. Elements that are perpendicular to the light source are brightly lit, too brightly, in fact. Detail and color is lost Tilt the slabs a couple of degrees and it's as if the light doesn't hit them at all. The sculpty elements seem to have do shadow definition at all, (the cave), and interiors under a roof are as brightly lit as the open space outside the structure. If you have any ideas about how to make a more realistically lit space without using advanced lighting preferences, (but one that will also look realistic to those who do have better graphic capabilities), or can steer me to any tutorials about this, I would greatly appreciate it. Here's a new example of my sample build:  Note in particular the apparent lack of light on the peaked roof of the pediment, in comparison to the brightly lit cutout of same, as well as the brightly lit interior floor under the cave roof, (visible through the doorway between the central comumns). Am I doing something wrong, or is this just how it's going to look without advanced lighting? I can live with it, I suppose, but if it's possible to improve on it I'm sure going to try.

A the risk of sounding hopelessly ignorant, I have to say that the usual search option only gives me Agni locations. I was able to pull up a map and find a few sandboxes by searching on the map. And I managed to replace the invisible avatar with one I recognize from the other grid, and test some textures on a large build I'm working on, so I suppose I am making progress.

I went to Aditi today, so I have a question for you; last time I went, a month or so ago, my landing spot was right next to a bunch of really nice sandboxes. Today I thought I used the same landmark, but got dumped in the middle of a market with no sandbox in flying distance. I ran a search but only came up with agni grid places, (at least i think that's what they were, I couldn't teleport to any of them, at any rate). How to find anything on Aditi? Also, do you have to change your password every time you want to update your inventory so you can work with it on Aditi? I never seem to have the same inventory when I go there, it's all a mystery to me. Half the time I don't even have a body; not wearing any alphas, just have no body. I'm invisible inside my clothes.

Thank you, that should help. The existing lighting does most of the work for me, so I won't have to worry too much about adding shadows to my textures, fortunately. I'm having the most trouble with the big complicated cave sculpt, It has no faces and the texture gets too stretched and weird looking. I'll probably scrap the cave and use something else. It helped for the original mock-up, though. Maybe, just maybe, I can learn enough blender to make my own in a relatively short time frame.

Really appreciate the answers to my extremely uninformed questions. OK, great, thanks. This was just a sample anyway, to prove to myself I could do this. I used just one of the textures from the library with an added colot tint, not a custom made texture; I had to set it to full bright to get the color light enough. So I'll obviously have to spend some time in photoshop. Next question is: will I be able to get away with one or a few basic 512px textures and no alphas, or will I need to make complex textures with mapping designed for each piece? Personally, I'm pretty satisfied with the texture the way it looks, (other than the flat lighting and brightness problem). I'm teaching myself at least partially by looking at, and tearing apart Aley builds, (maybe I should be embarassed to say that). From what I've seen, she managed to do amazing things with simple textures such as a shamelss beginner like myself might be able to imitate. ---------------------------------- I was able to throw together a few textures to test that don't need to be full bright, and lo and behold, I have shadows! (Taking off the facelight helped, too. I didn't realize just how much they light up the area around my avatar.)  I'm not there yet, but at least it looks 3 dimensional now. I had a feeling the problem was using full-bright, thanks for all the help.

First, I can't use shadows through windlight. All I can add is basic shaders, and they don't change a thing when I enable them, so adjusting my preferences isn't going to do it for me. I'm not really concerned about that; what I see isn't as important as what others will see when they view my builds. I've recently made a fairly elaborate sample ruin, and it looks OK, but without shadows the architectural details aren't really apparent, (picture included). I used full bright on almost all the textures, and I'm not sure how this is going to affect how others see the build.  At any rate, what I need to know is: Will others be able to view it with the proper lighting if their system can handle it? Is there something else I need to do to make this possible? How do I optimize it so that the cave interior is darker than the area outside? Will the use of full-bright textures light the interior spaces and nooks and crannies and prevent the full 3D effect? Yes, I'm relatively new to building. This is a prim build with a sculpty cave. I also need to fix the physics but I'm pretty sure I know how to do that to my satisfaction, and it isn't as important as lighting, anyway.