Linden Lab

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, Valentine's Day -Month -Year -Life by Rainey Manx.

An ethereal wisp glides through a fantasy forest and then vanishes, only to reappear at your side a few seconds later. Dozens of beetles and rats creep across the floor of a decaying,decrepit building, scurrying away whenever you get near. A hideous, scaly beast chases you up hills and across regions, dodging anything that gets between it and dinner. These experiences are possible because Linden Lab is about to unveil a new, robust pathfinding system that will allow objects to intelligently navigate around the world while avoiding obstacles. Pathfinding is a new set of LSL calls and Viewer tools that allow for smoother and smarter movement for non-player characters and objects in Second Life. These new tools will allow Residents to create objects that move around corners, climb inclines and cross region boundaries. Newly created functions such as “pursue,” “patrol,” “wander,” “evade,” and go to a specified point — all of which are particularly useful for pet, NPC and enemy behavior — will allow for non player movements and behaviors never before possible in Second Life. Pathfinding is efficient because it allows creators to place a much larger number of moving objects in a particular area without affecting server performance. Because the algorithmic complexity is on the server side, Residents can easily script with short and intuitive LSL functions that make creating a pet that follows you around as simple as rezzing a box. As part of the pathfinding project, Linden Lab will also introduce new Viewer-side tools that will allow Residents to more efficiently create, visualize, test and debug Pathfinding-enabled characters. These tools are not required to create pathfinding behaviors but are particularly useful to builders and experience creators in second life. Additional pathfinding tools, and the ability to generate your own pathing data, will be put in Beta in the coming weeks. Linden Lab will begin releasing these tools to all Residents in the next several months. You can try out the new LSL functionality in select regions for which we have prepared pathfinding data on the Wiki page: http://bit.ly/wDrWhC . UPDATE: 9/20/2012 Content Creation Best Practices Guide and FAQ Now Available As many of you are aware, we recently released the pathfinding server code that enabled all pathfinding behaviors and LSL calls grid-wide. In the next few weeks, we will also be releasing the viewer tools for changing pathfinding attributes and visualizing the navmesh. While these tools are not necessary to create a pathfinding-enabled character, they are extremely helpful in making new content or retrofitting existing builds to work with pathfinding. You can have early access to the viewer tools by downloading the beta viewer from here. In addition, there are many helpful pathfinding best practices articles at the Good Building Practices wiki hub. Here you will find tips and tricks about how to build and optimize content in Second Life using mesh, scripting, pathfinding, textures, and animations. Over the next several months, the Lab will continue to add additional guides, as well as a series of builder-oriented tutorial videos! The Lab would also like to take this opportunity to answer some of the common questions that have been asked about pathfinding here. We have been very impressed by some of your pathfinding-enabled creations and can’t wait to see what else you will create once the viewer tools are released!

Hello, Yesterday, we posted a summary of the downtime we experienced on Valentine’s Day. We indicated in that post that there were still some orders that needed to be pushed through to completion. We want to assure merchants who have orders in the “Being Delivered” state that we are currently pushing those orders to completion and reconciling the payout to the merchants. We anticipate that orders in this state should be processed by end of day Thursday. Once these are complete, we will post another update here, along with details on how to address any orders that are still stuck. Best regards, The Commerce Team

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "ChouChou," by luna. Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "Just for You," by YucaChoco Magic.

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "Spirit by Claudia Jewell," by Lainy Voom. Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "Aurora Borealis," by moniq.

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "Rock Star," by Tristion Paine

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Latex Web Exteriors Complete," by DeNovo Broome. Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Exploring Drowsy," by Olea Parx. Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Nausicaa," by drinkinstein.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "SUNN," by eternalsunshine. Visit inworld here.

Are you a passionate Second Life resident who loves to write about your Second Life experience and are looking for exposure for your own existing blog? Looking for a way to connect with other bloggers and open your door to new Second Life community readers? If so, you might want to submit an original blog post (no links please) to us and it could end up being featured in the Second Life Community blogs. As the movers, shakers, and experts on everything Second Life, we’d like to invite you to submit your original blog articles to us at blog-call@lindenlab.com with the Subject Line: Guest Blog Submission. Selected submissions will be posted to the Blog section of the Community as a featured guest post! Here are some popular Second Life topics to consider: Fashion, Home Decor, Mesh, Relationships, Spirituality, Education and Music. GUIDELINES If you would like to submit a guest post for the Second Life Blog, please consider these guidelines. Only submissions that meet these criteria will be considered for publishing. All selected posts must adhere to our Community Participation Guidelines. All selected posts should support the inclusiveness of the Second Life community. Selected posts must not include marketing-related links and must not be entirely self-promotional. The post may include links to your website and blog in a brief author’s bio (approximately 3 sentences), which will be published at the end of the guest post. Please limit the number of images included in your submission to 4 or less. We reserve the right to review and edit. We regularly edit posts by our contributors and guest bloggers. Guest posts must be original and may not have been published elsewhere online already. The blog call is on! Read the guidelines, then submit your posts to blog-call@lindenlab.com

@Amant You will need to be a logged in "resident" rank of the community to add an image to the contest. To achieve this, you would log in and write at least one forum post or comment. Then you may upload images. Now that you have written a comment, you should have no trouble entering the contest! You can also learn more about ranks here, if you are curious.

Check out the SL Flikcr Pic of the Day, "2 Ways," by Fox Mortensen.

February is the month of love, and a great time to show off your photo taking skills. If this sounds fun, then we have a contest for you! Take an inworld image that you feel portrays your Second Life love story. Get creative — but keep it clean! A Second Life love story can mean different things to different people. Maybe you met your RL partner in SL, or you have a Second Life romance to share. Perhaps you just fell in love with all of Second Life! Read all the contest details and then submit your photo. The person who submits the winning image will get to share their Second Life love story with the rest of Second Life residents in a blog with additional images to help illustrate their story. Their blog post will be posted on the Second Life Inworld blog space for the whole community to read and enjoy. We will tweet and post links on the official SL Facebook page to the winner’s love story! How to participate: Take a picture, save it on your computer and then upload it on the contest page. Entries will be accepted noon (Pacific) on Feb. 6 through 11:59pm (Pacific) Feb. 14. How to Vote: Voting begins Feb. 15, 12:01am (Pacific) and ends Feb. 21, noon (Pacific). You will only get one vote, so pick your favorite! To vote, simply hit the “Kudo” button on the image page of your choice. For some tips on how to take good pictures in Second Life, take a look at the Knowledge Base article. To take a snapshot using a Mac press Command+Shift+S To take a snapshot using a PC press Control+Shift+S Good Luck!

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Venice," By Tomais Ashdene. Go inworld here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Crimarizon the Opening Party," by Megan Prumier. Visit inworld here!

Check out today's Flickr Pic of the Day, " ...lovely kitchen," by lindini2.

Check out the SL Fickr Pic of the Day, "The Lighthouse at the Blake Sea," by Yordie Sands. Visit inworld here.

To celebrate this month of amore, we invite you to share a little love for your Second Life crush or flame in a short but sweet love note. Compose a haiku, pen some romantic prose, or simply proclaim your love in the Love Gallery- in 50 words or less! Look for this to go live at 12 p.m. Pacific on February 1st in the Official Contests. Let your romantic side shine, embrace the spirit of Saint Valentine and take a moment to ask that special someone to “Be Mine”, or admire them more discreetly with a little love note. You can read what other’s have left - you never know there may be one for you. Don’t forget, you only have 50 words to craft your ode! Kudos are open, so feel free to give them freely in the spirit of the month. Love Me Notes will run from now until 12 p.m Pacific on February 29th, so take the power of the pen to the forums and bring on the love. Simply click the New Entry link to get started.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Tribute to Shelley by nessuno myoo," by Ravenelle.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the day, "Magical2012," by Ai Hienrichs.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Sling and Alexa's Wedding 10," by Phebbe Foxx.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Loin des equilibres 001."