Vulpinus

What's prompted this is I bought something on the MP, with no inworld demo, and there's a problem with it*. So, I'm trying to recreate my own version from it. It's a 'simple' flying animated texture, crows in this case. A texture on the usual wavy circularish sculpt to make the wings animate. But... There are four crows on each sculpt. The texture only has one crow. If I put the texture on the sculpt, it looks badly stretched unless I set the horizontal scale to 4, then it looks right (like the original, which is quite nice). Using llSetTextureAnim sets the multiple back to one though, so this is clearly not the way it is done on the thing I bought. Unless I'm missing something about using llSetTextureAnim. Am I? For clarity, this is my code: llSetTextureAnim(1 | LOOP | REVERSE | SMOOTH , ALL_SIDES, 1, 1, 0.0, 1.0, 0.05); The only other way I can think of is continually sliding the texture offset (with llSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast) on a timer, to avoid using llSetTextureAnim and keep the four crows. Surely this is a nasty thing to do to the server, and my bandwidth... isn't it? Is there another way to do this? *Yes, I have tried to contact the maker, I'll wait and hope for a while for a response.

Wow... just, wow! Talk about rubbing people up the wrong way. Sorry I pushed your buttons - not! Bottom line: the way groups are *now* being used makes them a perfect spam-list maker, should anyone want to do that. What's wrong with saying that? Or, should we all just accept what LL feeds us and not make anything other than positive oh-thank-you comments? Just because you (or I) have an opinion does not make it right for everyone else. No, it's actually not why I asked the question. It was more about personal privacy matters (not even mine) and using a group is essential to the purpose. So, get off you aggressive high horses folks - you don't impress me. Try to discuss matters with at least a little decorum.

I'm a bit late to the party, I know, but I had to make a comment here. I've had recourse to use the inworld FS support a couple of times, and found the helpers very helpful indeed. (In fact, it turned out to be a sort of glitch in FS which I eventually pinpointed with their guidance and they put it on the look-at list) I did get one instance of a short, to the point, 'nothing to do with us" answer which at first felt a little harsh. Given the amount of nonsense the helpers must get asked on a regular basis though (I've worked front-line support myself!), a bit of shortness rather than hand-holding over something not relevant to them (or mistaken for such, perhaps) is certainly understandable. YMMV.

Thanks for the confirmation. I really think that's atrociously poor security on the part of LL. It's akin to an advertising email shot being CC'd, revealing all the recipients to everyone, instead of BCC'd. I'm surprised it's not been said before... it probably has, but my seaches haven't found it. Anyway, such is (second) life.

Can group members' names be hidden from other group members in the group info tab? So, for example, people in the role Private Members* would not appear in the members list for any other group members exept for officers/owners. I can't seem to find a way if there is. I came across the 'reveal members' checkbox, but it does not seem to have any effect on group members. I guess it only applies to non-group members viewing the group info. Seems a bit of a potential secuirty issue to me, and a great way to harvest targetted spam lists. I'm actually quite shockedif this is (or seems to be) the case. *Personally, I don't mind people seeing my Private Member, but that's just me ;)

Oops, no, is that expected? I did try bowing but couldn't find an appropriate animation. Instead it just looked like I was trying to give a Glaswegian kiss! ...and then he was gone. I never even got chance to ask if he had seen my support ticket about buying some abandoned land.

Wow - just wow. He's important, isn't he? Think I should ask him if he can take a look at my support ticket? (It's my first Linden...)

Yeah, thanks, it is looking better to buy. I've just redone my spreadsheet with more accurate currency conversions and it makes the difference even more in favour of buying. Actually, buying another three premium memberships to double my land allowance would only cost me £24 more a year than I'm paying now, if I withdrew all the stipend from those three. That's not bad... about $3 per month for 1680sq.m (384 prims). That's much better value than paying tier. I could live for another year on double the prims I have now... (Of course, I need the discipline to actually save up and withdraw the stipend)

Qie Niangao wrote: Projected lights are weird, too, and depend on the light emitter being visible. In fact, you can completely defeat a projected light by covering it in a hollow sphere that's opaque on the outside, even when that inner hollow surface is transparent. If the source is completely hidden, its light is hidden too. Thank you for that - it explains why my lights seem to flicker sometimes when I move about, and never seem to do what I expected unless I'm stood in the room with them.

I'm struggling with a decision here, and could do with some experienced input. In a couple of months, my premium membership is up. I currently run three memberships, and with the group bonus that means I get 1680 square metres of land (which I have) without paying extra tier. I want more (who doesn't). It doesn't have to be huge, and money is of course an issue. If I stick to buying mainland, keep my three premium accounts, and pay some exta tier, I could have about 900 prims or 1416 prims total (with 2048 or 4096 additional sq.m. tier). The total cost of those would be £264 and £344 per year; if I were to take out the stipend (and not spend it...) that equates to £147and £227. That's a cost per prim of about £0.16 per year. Now, I've just looked at some rental prices. About L$1400 per week for 4096sq.m. and 937 prims. I also want to keep one premium account; I like being able to use the sandboxes for building. So, that works out at about £230 per year. £191 if I withdraw the single stipend, with cost per prim £0.20 per year. If I don't withdraw the stipend from either, the cost per prim is similar at around £0.25 give or take a fraction. But, I get more stipend to spend with the buying scenario, which realistically, with more land to fill, I will spend. So - I'm really looking for advice here... am I getting this about right? It looks to me like buying is the better option, even if I spend the stipend. But so many people seem to rent... there must be a good reason... :confused:

Yep, from the sounds of it I'm getting this too with the latest FS version. Never happened before, and I have always regularly left it logged in over night, or minimised while I work. Sometimes with more than one session (I use an alt to do development stuff, and my main for 'fun' at the same time). Any time Firestorm is left minimised for a long period, it is freezing up. Can't say how long, I haven't timed it, but maybe an hour... Most of the time FS becomes completely unresponsive. On clicking it, the window turns lighter (MS Windows is doing that I think, because FS is unresponsive) and I get the usual "this program is not responding" Windows message. This can last for five minutes, by which time I've usually force-closed FS, or sometimes it will suddenly come back to life after a minute or so and I'm still logged in and everything is fine. Once (today in fact) after a few minutes of unresponsiveness I got the SL viewer message "You've been logged out of second life", but that is the first time for that. I did of course do a proper clean install of this new version. ETA: Less than an hour. I've just left two sessions running, minimised, for about 45 minutes and both have locked up. Both, however, finally responded again after about a minute. My hard disks do not power down, btw, and I don't have any power saving features active, not even a screensaver, so it's not related to that.

Hmm... I'll have to check that, I hope you're right. I know when I first created my main account, and later an alt, that I ran into problems logging in. It took me a while to figure out why at first, after going through a number of password resets. Only dropping down to no symbols (and I thought 16 characters) on my main account allowed me to log in to SL. That doesn't change the main thrust of my post though. ETA: Checked it. On the "create a new account" setup, there is no mention made of password requirements, just a box to enter the password and it accepts (and uses) symbols and long passwords. When I did that though, with my usual 24 character full-ASCII password, that would not allow me to log in to SL itself. This is a picture from the password change, where I finally noticed the 16 character limit and no spaces. It was probably a space being put in my original (generated) passwords that caused the issue, as I have just tried setting a PW with some symbols in and it worked for SL login. So, my mistake there. If you have used a 64 character PW, then there is certainly some incongruity in the system. Good password length, BTW.

Please don't get personal - I haven't. What you are asking is effectively "let's lock things down so that people CANNOT do something unless we approve". You are automatically protected at the expense of a purchaser's freedom. What I am saying is "let's not lock things down so that people CAN do something unless they are told not to". You still have protection under law, and the ability to decide how to sell your product. Just as you have now. There is nothing wrong (or greedy) about about wanting some built-in flexibility as a consumer, and not to be treated automatically as a potential thief who needs to be rigidly controlled and only allowed to do what we are told with what we buy. That is the effect of what you want to implement. Should the music industry be allowed to insist (by manipulating law and protection methods) that we make a new purchase for each way we want to play music that we have bought? They think so, in their eyes they are protecting themselves and their income. In the eyes of many others (including now UK law) that is not right and we should be allowed to buy the music once, and use it how we will (for personal use, at least). It's a difference of opinion that needs to be regulated fairly somewhere. The comparison with this issue is, to me, direct and obvious. Yes, I'm a normal person, the same as (or at least similar to) you. I make my own animations. I sell my own creations on the MP and (when I have the room) in-world. I sell things in RL too. I have my opinions about where the balance of power should lie between merchants and consumers, and it is clearly not congruent with yours. I did not consider your manner to be 'greedy', as I said, I actually see your point to an extent. It's a shame you cannot seem to see anyone's but your own. Whether the issue was raised due to something you sold, or a free demo you gave away in an inappropriate way, is completely irrelevant to the discussion of what you propose to implement. It is similarly irrelevant that you say you would still package the animations directly in general products, so that people could use them. That does not change the shift in the balance of power that your proposal would bring. You see it your way, I see it mine. You've made your argument, I've made mine. Mostly to irihapeti: As to 'rage': Yeah, I'm raging so hard that I can state my opinions and debate my point by example rather than making personal attacks. When someone wants to restrict my freedom of choice, just like my freedom of speech, I will not stand by quietly and bow my head as that freedom is further restricted. That way lies bigger trouble in the long run. The OP has every right to be annoyed, but that annoyance should be directed inwards because of (to me) an obvious mistake in packaging a demo, and to the people who took out the animations if they were told not to. If they were not told that, welll, why not? (I certainly hope for the creator's sake the animations weren't full perm - I've missed if they were or not in the thread). The annoyance should not be taken out on everyone else by implementing a 'law' that curtails purchasers' freedom to use their purchases. That's my point, anyway. I agree, raising the issue is probably helpful for many people who might not have realised it existed, and might have made the same mistake. That's all I'll say on the matter since further debate would be pointless and is likely to degenerate further into unpleasantness. Good luck with your products.

I noticed some questionable advice in another thread, and thought I should say something on the matter without derailing that thread. Amongst other things, I've been a security consultant in the IT industry, for what saying that is worth. Note that the following largely refers to our use of online passwords. While the facts are no different for your work login, that's more difficult to deal with. Firstly, unless things have changed recently, the passwords we can generate to log in to SL are not as flexible as our website account passwords are allowed to be, stupidly. I bet I'm not the only one to create a password on the account page, then not be able to log in to SL because the password contains characters that aren't allowed in the actual SL login. I've done it twice, lol. If I recall correctly, the SL password only allows up to 16 characters of alphanumeric only. No symbols. That's a bit poor really (one of my banks is actually worse though!), but see further for why it doesn't really matter. ETA: I'm wrong, symbols are allowed, but not spaces. Password crackers these days are nothing like they used to be. By using statistical analysis on compromised and known password hash databases, tools have been developed that are very good at guessing the sort of passwords we all use. They are good enough to be able to crack 75% or so of an entire password database within a day. Why? Because we are predictable, and follow patterns picked up from (and told to use by) other people. Humans can be predicted, even more so when they are trying to be unpredictable. Think putting a few random characters in your password makes it safer? Nope. Odd capitalization or number/symbol replacement of letter? Useless. Shorter, truly random password cracking is getting faster, using optimised software with banks of Tesla cards (or just a couple of normal nVidia graphics cards in a normal PC). These can process hundreds to thousands of times faster than a normal PC cracking program. So we need to use longer passwords. With a demonstrated cracking machine that can do 350 billion guesses per second, a six character password (all standard ASCII characters and symbols) would take a maximum of 2.5 seconds to find. Eight characters would take up to six hours, assuming the password was the very last to be tried. Ten characters goes up to nearly 144 years, but the computers just keep getting faster. They are all falling prey to the newer, smart tools. The only secure password is a long, randomly-generated one, preferably one including all of the printable character set. That way, the smart guessing tools won't work and hopefully you've used enough characters to not be brute-forced in a useful timeframe. 16 characters should be considered the minimum, and is the maximum SL and some other places I've seen allow. I use 20+ everywhere else. Never use the same password for two places. Generate a unique password for every place you need one. Databases get compromised with alarming regularity. Even though your password should still be safe if you follow the abve advice, don't tempt fate. Changing your password regularly is not necessary, and is potentially detrimental for a few reasons. Provided, that is, that you made a good password in the first place. Only change it if you have reason to suspect it is compromised, or you discover it is potentially weak. Like now. The only way to achieve the above for most humans is to use a password manager program. I use KeePass; it's free and works perfectly. There are apps for iPhone and Android for it too. Make up a good password to protect that database. See below for that: If you must use a password you can remember and type manually (login at work, protecting your password database) without breaking your fingers, at least follow these guidelines: Make it as long as you can. Mine is around 25 characters, but I can type it quickly because I've got used to it. Don't use ANY words or number sequences (like dates), including 'clever' 'l33T words - every cracker knows them all and then some! Maybe make up something including the initial letters of a sentence that means something to you; not a known quote! Have a good mixture of symbols throughout it, not just at the beginning, end, or between words (which you AREN'T using). Don't think you have to keep changing it, do it right, do it once. If you do, then you will eventually remember it, even if it's tough. If you need to write it down, that's fine! Just don't pin it to your noticeboard in the office; use your common sense. This does not apply if you are in real, sensitive work. I've done some stuff in such installations and you really don't want to do that. My advice does not apply if you work in such a place where they will have their own, strict (but not necessarily wise) rules. I keep a printed list of all my passwords in a hidden safe, along with a couple of memory sticks with them on. Really. Do I really need to say this? ... Don't share your password. If you do, change it as quickly as you can. No, really, just don't do it. Never, ever, ever enter your password into a site without making sure it is what you think. Never, ever, use a link to a site then enter your password. If you think you have an email from SL or your bank, type the web address you know for them into the browser manually, don't go there from from some link in an email or webpage. I know, I'm paranoid. I actually am; I've been involved in a few ways in data security for years, and was always of that mindset anyway. Hope some of this helps.

Conifer Dada wrote: There is so much accidental nudity in SL these days - like when you turn up at a busy place there are sections of unclothed mesh bodies waving about in random directions and after they snap into place you see complete naked people until their clothes rez. Ahh - one of the few benefits of laggy sims!

I'm not acting like anything, I'm just commenting from the point of view of a consumer, not a seller. To an extent I understand your concerns, and certainly agree that if you want to sell something with the T&C's to exclude someone taking out your animations (or whatever) then that is your right to do so. You already can, and are (supposedly) protected legally from IP theft already. I might not like you selling something that way, but that's irrelevant except for the fact that I would shop elsewhere, given the choice. Which is probably highly relevant in fact. I really believe enforcing this would hurt sales more than benefit sellers. The issue I have is that I think sellers (in RL and SL, I see no difference) are often given (or try to get) too much power to control their consumers. Apple does it with all of their products; that's why you will never find an Apple product in my home. The software industry has tried to do it; I've even bought expensive commercial software that was licenced only to be used on the specific computer on which it was first installed to the preclusion of moving it to another even in the event of hardware failure. Ridiculous, but they tried it. The music/movie industry is the obvious example of control forced on people because the music gods are simply rich enough to pay the politicians. Many countries charge additional tax on things like blank CDs and DVDs, and this might now be coming to the UK. I use a lot of DVDs for computer data archiving. I've never copied a movie to one in my life (expect some of my own making), but if this desire of the powerful music/movie industry goes ahead, I will have to pay them a tax for every disk (and storage medium) I buy. It's outrageous and wrong. It punishes everyone for the crimes (in this case, illicit copying) of the few. I hate that more than I can express in mere words; punishing/restricting me for what others do is absolutely unacceptable, and happens every single day. In contrast to that, the UK very recently passed a law specifically allowing the copying of purchased music etc* for personal use. Until that a large proportion of the UK population was breaking the law. Me included. It's a really positive change (I'm actually amazed), but is being used now by our music gods to insist that the UK adds this recordable media tax on blank CDs, DVDs, Hard Disks, Memory Sticks, MP3 players, mobile phones, you name it. Just because someone breaks the law and copies something, doesn't mean that everyone else must suffer a reduction of their 'rights' to use a product they have purchased as they wish, at least within the T&C's they were made aware of before purchase. /Soapbox. *I wonder, how that would apply to 'virtual' goods in SL... not really, life's too short,

Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut here, but I just can't... To me, what is being proposed is akin to allowing a music company to sell me a CD for use in my home system, and refuse to allow it to work if I want to play it in my car, or copy it to my MP3 player. Yes, I'm sure the music industry would love to be able to do that (and they try), but that does not make it right. I routinely move animations out of whatever they came in and rebuild them into my own HUDs or objects, and add additional animations into a product to personalise it. Why on earth should I not? It does not harm the creator of the product if I use the animations in a different HUD, or put them in a piece of furniture that I've made myself, instead of theirs (which I have purchased to get the animations - the seller hasn't lost a sale). I've often bought things purely for the animations, which I would certainly not have bought if I could not have moved the animations out. The fact that I can do this means I buy a lot more than I otherwise would. It sounds to me like the OP has made a mistake in packaging a demo product with a valuable animation. That's a failing to understand the system, and perhaps a case of theft by those taking the animations if they agreed to T&C in some way not to do so, but it is not a failure in the system or a reason to restrict everyone's freedom to use the animations they have paid for in the way they want. Take away my ability to move animations around and believe me, I'll stop buying them. I cannot imagine that I am the only person to do this. Just my two cents,

So, at least it isn't just me then. LL must have a few hundred extra 0s now thanks to me. I thought I was losing the plot last night when it kept renaming my folders. Oh well, such is (second) life.

Thanks for checking. Yes, I've started all the folders with a letter instead, which I've always done before so never noticed this. I might open a JIRA if I can't find one already, but like you say, it'll probably sit on the back burner. Easy to work around, anyway.

I keep trying to create a set of folders (for script access) called 00, 01, 02 etc up to 40. Note the leading zeros on the numbers less than 10. Every time, some time later I find they have been renamed to remove the leading zeros. Not by me! So, 01 becomes 1, 02 becomes 2 etc. If I rename them back to what I want, some time later they are back to losing the zeros again. Is this a known thing? I am not going mad...

Nope - creating new folders called 00, 01 etc did not work. Guess what... When I relogged, they had been renamed to 0, 1, 2 etc. So, now I have two of each incorrectly-named folder To be specific, these were new folders, created with a leading zero. They have been renamed by something to remove that leading zero on every folder. This is stupid. Ticket time!

Thanks for that - that's exactly what I did ten minutes ago. Nice to have it confirmed, hopefully it should stick now. I'll try deleting the others tomorrow, if things seem to be OK. There's always some glitch to work around here, lol.

I think there might be a glitch going on with the inventory system/servers...? I created a set of folders in my inventory, simply numbered 1 to 40. By mistake I didn't number the <10 folders with a leading zero (which I wanted for RLV script purposes). So, I renamed those to 00, 01, 02 etc. Then, they went back to 0, 1, 2.. well, some of them did. So, I renamed them again. My script worked for a while, then stopped. The folders had lost their zeros again. I renamed them, again, thinking I was going mad. Things worked. I had to rename them again a few more times. I've just logged back in after a couple of hours and all the folders are back to 0, 1, 2 etc. If it keeps up, obviously I'll raise a ticket. I've just renamed them again. Let's see...

@Phil Deakins: I was mostly trying to make the point that it's hard work for LL to get age ratings to work for everyone; impossible, in fact. I'm generally more interested in censorship and the law in themselves, than the actual content they pertain to, although that interest started because I like some classic fantasy and furry artwork. Perhaps there have been case laws or amendments of the acts since I last looked, but not that long ago 'making an image' of certain content, which included simply displaying it on a monitor, was itself sufficient for prosecution in the UK. No proof of intent required. It was written this way specifically to avoid the defence of 'I didn't intend to look'. I hope that has changed to something more reasonable to redress the balance of power. I certainly do not trust a political statement along the lines of saying that the law will be applied sensibly, when the law is specifically worded to be damning. I deliberately tried to make the point that it was not just age-related stuff that is illegal (in the UK). The Sex Offender's Register is not restriicted to child-related offences, btw. The other day I was searching for something innocent (honestly!) in the MP and in the search results was an image for an item, and another image for an animation. Those images themselves are illegal to possess in the UK and (I would logically conclude) that using the items to create similar images on your monitor would be similarly illegal, or watching someone else doing so. Nothing to do with children whatsoever. I've seen other similar stuff on the MP before. I really don't want to go into public detail as to what, because frankly I think a lot of the law is stupid and I don't want to cause issues for people. If you want to know what I'm talking about, PM me, but it's not really worth the effort. Oh. and for the record: no, none of this sort of stuff floats my boat. I'm quite 'vanilla' in my perversions. Like I started with, my intent was more to highlight that it's a complex subject. The law itself is far from up to speed with stuff like this, and I trust the law and its enforcers to be 'sensible' as far as I can throw the average courthouse. ymmv.

Thank you all for the informative comments and suggestions. I'll give them a try when I get back to my main PC tomorrow. ETA: Got back today... Making the grating from three prims, linked with with the surrounding arch which is set to physics=none, works nicely. Same 2 LI as I started with (I incorrectly said it was 1 LI in my OP), but with alpha masking. Great! Thanks for the education