Mylar

1: There are two of us. I handle most of the technical stuff and modeling, my business partner is a graphic designer. So we have someone handling the creative side and someone handling the technical side. This allows us each to focus on just one area. 2: We haven't done much advertising and don't send out notices. I post new products and information to the feed in my profile. 3: I do all my own pictures. For packaging I have a template that my partner created. 4: Just the two of us . Cheers

The RC LeTigre server no longer supports mesh http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Server/Deploys-for-the-week-of-2011-08-08/td-p/1026135 ETA: kinda sucks, I had some nice chairs around my shop that are now boxes. But oh well, I can wait a couple weeks

I logged in to my home region this morning after working on a mesh project over on aditi, and found I now have boxes where my meshes were at, and I'm no longer able to upload meshes. I checked the release notes, and the last upgrade just says it was a security fix (There are no release notes on the current version). I went to a mesh sandbox and everything works fine there. Did LL take my meshes away?

guY Ralior wrote: Do you mind providing a link to the gobs of blatant IP violations? This is the second time someone has said something like this and I don't know if something is wrong with my search but I can find barely a handful of anything that is mesh. I was thinking people were being very good and not putting mesh up for sale yet as LL is asking us to do, until the full rollout. I would like to see what people are talking about. As far as the vehitars provided by LL in the library I am not going to comment as I do not know what rights LL holds to stuff or how much they have made sure the precentage of change from original is enough to not warrent IP infringement. I can't point out the actual violations, since that's against the TOS for this board. I would be happy to point out designers that are making legitimate mesh avatars if you like. @jennylongview: IP violation is selling something you don't own the rights to, such as stuff from final fantasy or pokemon.

I just did a search on the market place for mesh avatars, and found a whole gob of avatars that are blatant IP violations. And only the IP owner can flag these items (anyone should be able to flag them, since it violates the TOS as well as IP rights). So when you get right down to it, why did LL even bother. I actually had to take the test twice (for agni AND aditi). Mesh hasn't even been fully rolled out, and the attempt at IP protection is already out the window.

Darren Scorpio wrote: Mylar, you can reply to the person directly from the email, so even if they have chosen to hide their profile (a situation that has been fixed on the latest viewers) you can still reply to their IM. I was not aware of this. Thank you :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

I have had situations in the past where some one sent an IM, which went to my email. I log in and my IMs have been capped so that IM is not there. I then get the persons name from the email and search it, only to find that they've hidden their profile from the search. So at that point there's no way to contact that person. Still, between notecards and IMs I prefer IMs, but I have no problems with either. Which ever way is easier for the customer.

Personally, I would prefer people use the feed in my profile. I can check that and respond regardless of where I am. Plus there's a public record of the conversation, so if there's a problem that many people have with one of my products, they can see if someone has already asked that and what my response is. This can prevent me from getting several IMs/notecards saying basically the same thing. Of course, I'm just starting out and have like three customers, so it's not really an issue for me yet :matte-motes-big-grin:

Another thing you might wanna do is brag yourself up a tad. I'm sure I'm not the only one who read your original post and thought "yeah, sure, another mall. you and everyone else". I went to your mall honestly expecting another row of prim box stalls with freebie textures slapped on any old way (like the thousands of other malls in SL). But your mall is nice. It seems well thought out, and it's pretty obvious you're a designer of some sort yourself. These are some details you'll want to have out front when approaching designers

you can do a switch over time and have your friend put in the description something like :"Kasabian is taking over listing for this product, please see the page at..." then give the URL for your listing. It's not a perfect solution, but will give your customers time to make the switch over to your listing and add reviews and such there. You could also offer it for a reduced price during that time to encourage people to use your listing. ETA: Another thing you can do: I'm in a similar situation where I'm listing products that I build together with a friend, since we're both making L$ off of my listings, she puts a link to my marketplace store in her profile. You could ask your friend to do something similar.

in edit mode, select all, then use Ctrl+N to recalculate the normals.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: ralph Alderton wrote: Also, I didn't like to say but if we're now helping Madeliefste with feedback : The back and front UV's for the fan should be the same size - right now the back is smaller As Vincent suggests the sticks should be stacked and there are ALSO way too many vertical verts and edges in the sticks. As there are 10 sticks that's a whole bunch of unecessary polygons Also the knob looks seriously dense with verts and edges as it appears white in the UV - more optimisation needed Since there are no prim limits for AV accessories I foresee a lot of enthusiastic mesh beginners piling on the polygons and not optimising their models. This is particularly bad with full perm creators as they will be effectively selling and distributing laggy content Actually this comment of Ralph's about the likely onslought of mesh models - many of them potentially very ineffecient and therefore also potentially very PE costly and laggy - made me think of something regarding the sale and listing of mesh models on SLM or inworld.... Can there be / will there be some new field in the SLM listings, OR, would there be a value that any responsible mesh creator would point out in a mesh listing that can tell the potential customer how efficient the mesh model is? Again, I am no mesh terminology expert but maybe you experts can think of something that a Mesh Seller can mention in their listing that would give the buyer a good indication of its effeciency on the grid. Almost like when yo ubuy a car - the care maker would tell you the car's fuel economy (city / highway). Or when you buy a furnance or appliance - its EPA power consumption efficiency rating with others of its kind. Is this the PE value? Lets look at Made's oriental fan. A few of you are saying although its a beautiful fan - its structurally an ineffecient build for what its purpose is that its accomplishing. So... if Made told you its PE was 150 (just a number I pulled out of my hat), is that all you would need to know to be able to tell its efficiency? Or is there more that Made would have to tell you in the SLM Listing when you are buying that would give you a much more accurate impression on its efficiency? THIS is a question that goes directly to the OP's question.... I believe the terms your looking for are face count, or poly count. In blender you can get this information in the upper right of the screen when you select a mesh in object mode

There are a couple of tools in the UV edit window that can help you out. I'm using Blender 2.58, but if you're using 2.49 I'm sure there's something similar. In the UV menu there's Pack Islands, which tries to fit the UV map into the most available space, and there's Average Island Scale, which makes all the sections of your UV map scaled to evenly match how they fit on the mesh. Another useful tool (again, I'm only sure of how it works in 2.58) is the "Stretch" tool. in the properties panel there should be a check box labeled "Stretch". This will highlight the UV map in (hopefully) blue. Any areas that are not blue indicate areas that the texture is being stretched over the mesh in an odd way. Just a couple of tips I thought I'd throw out there, hope it helps:matte-motes-big-grin:

One thing you could consider is offering an altered version of the mesh in RL. Make some change like subdividing the mesh or converting some of the faces from quads to triangles or vice versa; Something that makes the mesh unusable if they upload it to SL (or less usable), but doesn't change how the texture is wrapped onto it. Most people who are going to use Blender to bake a texture on the mesh are going to do this anyway...work with a high poly model to do the texture.

On RL stock sites, such as renderosity, etc, they usually offer royalty free licenses. Some have limited licenses, as in you can only sell so many copies. But it's really down to the individual creators. I've never seen any creator in RL or SL that requires royalties for using their art in your own creation. I have seen exclusive licenses, where you pay a gob load of money and you get full rights and ownership of the work. I have a few products that I use public domain artwork as part of the texture (it's derivative, I don't just slap the artwork on a prim). I have a sign in my shop that says this, and I cite where the work is from in my MP listings for these products.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: You can compete on that level with proper marketing. You can compete on any level with proper marketing. oh, I know :matte-motes-big-grin: It does just get frustrating sometimes. I see all these biz-in-a-box stores popping up and grabbing a quick profit, while I've decided to do it the hard way, which will pay off better in the long run. But, as you've pointed out, this is waaaaaay off topic. :matte-motes-grin: Hope all the questions have been answered.

As for the side argument, I actually agree with both sides. It's true that no one has all the skills, and providing component pieces for designers to use actually increases the over all quality of SL content, by allowing good designers to focus on what they are best at. On the other hand, my biggest competition are the dozens of people with no real talent that are slapping full perm textures on full perm furniture and making a fortune, while I'm working my tail off to provide something original and making pennies.

If you've done any clothing at all in SL, you've already worked with a UVW map, i.e. this one. The concept is the same. Madeliefste, think about who your market is. If you're selling accessories to designers to be used in their own creations, then you're dealing with people who already have some experience working with UV maps in photoshop or gimp, so providing a UV map may just be sufficient.

You would be given the image on the right of the sample above, and take that into GIMP, and paint within the lines basically, then bring the image back into SL and just slap it on the mesh. :matte-motes-big-grin: ETA: only the part of the texture inside the lines would show on the mesh, the rest would be hidden

mesh designers can provide a UVW map, which is a projection of how the texture will be applied to the mesh. Industrious designers could even label the UVW map with which sections map to what parts of the mesh. If the mesh is unwrapped correctly it would be easy to create a texture for it, since there wouldn't be any weird stretching like you get with a lot of sculpties.

ralph Alderton wrote: Well actually I don't want full perm meshes being served at all. Full perm mesh should be banned. Full perm sculpties should be banned. Full perm sculpties and mesh are bad for the ecosystem and the economy don't ya know. Madeliefste, you'd make more money and contribute more to the economy and the community by making unique products yourself instead of undermining your own skills and enabling people to overwhelm the marketplace with the same old re-textured, regurgitated products. The marketplace is already overwhelmed by a SUPERABUNDANCE of samey, samey products. SL needs more original, unique creators who value their own work and skills and do not sell it full perm The only things that should be full perm are scripts and textures NOTE that NO 3D mesh artists in RL sells their content with full permissions. And NO 3D artist in RL would sell their mesh content with permissions to create and sell derivative works of the original model. If you're a mesh artists, just say NO to full perm mesh, it's the road to diminishing returns. Don't sell yourself cheap by making full perm mesh. Make your own unique products, make more money and protect your hard earned skills. I absolutely agree with this sentiment. I'm finding it very difficult to compete with the dozens of shops out there that can fill a region with stuff they bought full perm in the time it takes me to build one item. My business partner and I have a joke about "that chair", which every furniture store in SL is selling (Here's one). This is from one of a bunch of sets of full perm furniture you can get for 199 L$. As to the question, sell two versions: one with just the texture map, and one with the DAE file in a notecard, as someone suggested, but charge more for that one. That way only people who need the 3D model will actually buy that version, and you can get an idea of how many of your customers want the model included.

I don't know about stability, but here's the list of features I use the most and really like; I can get rid of the sidebar Temporary uploads and inworld animation previews have saved me a *lot* in upload costs. Double click teleport The chat commands: gth #: teleports me to a certain height. flr: teleports me to the ground dd #: changes my draw distance rezplat: rezzes a platform directly below me (for building in the sky) there are a bunch of others, but those are the ones I use. The "Nearby" tab in the people window shows more information (payment info, distance, and age of nearby avatars) The "show look at" cross hairs has the avatar name attached to them. That's all I can think of ATM, I know there are a lot of other features. ETA: Many of these are carry overs from Phoenix, but still worth mentioning. --||-

Chelsea Malibu wrote: Are you talking about me or Sassy. If me, (blushes) thank you very much and if for Sassy, yes I agree and I love all of her stuff especially her regular skirts. the answer to that question would be yes, I've been to both your shop and Sassy's :matte-motes-big-grin:

Chelsea Malibu wrote: Sassy Romano wrote: each month I renew some mall spots that never make money. its just brand awareness and advertising. Sassy, you are all over the place and have done an amazing job marketing a product that I would have thought would be somewhat a hard sale but you rock. Your products rock and I love your style! But I do get your point. My mall locations have only been to drive traffic back to my main store. Everything, even MP is to drive traffic to my main store. Speaking of people doing an amazing job, I've been to your main store...very nice work :matte-motes-big-grin: As to advertising on the market place, I agree with what others are saying; it's not about selling *that* product, it's about driving traffic. For me, I'm waiting till the end of August to advertise anything, and I've got a couple products that I'm making sure the listing on the market place is rock solid before I pay to feature them. That seems the most sensible way to go about it.

As far as I know there is no cut off date. You can continue to use V1 for as long as you want. However, there will be no more updates or support for it, and V1 viewers will become more and more unusable as new features, such as mesh, are added to SL. Like others have said, go with firestorm. It can be set up to behave almost identically to V1.