Rick Nightingale

Cue Gold Five: "Stay on target!" No that's not a reference to weapons FTGPZS! Well, it sort of is. We have a weapon here... I don't mean a script function or an estate management checkbox. I mean the momentum of the whole thing. When I started this, with a limited idea (although a genuinely useful one that we should have) it was to, let's say, encourage action in a way that we could get behind without falling foul of the rules. Just in case that wasn't obvious from the start It's great that there is now movement to add estate level controls to our tool bag (it needs whitelist capability too). Parcel level controls would be better, and hopefully something that will come with time if we keep it in the sights. And of course the script function to easily differentiate a bot from a 'human' (or whatever sentient (or not, I guess, it is SL) species one is today). Just for my own simple experience scripting on my land that will be useful to save resources. It's not perfect. It's not a solution in itself and is open to abuse. That though is LL's department to deal with, if/when it happens that unregistered bots or even fauxbots proliferate. I'm sure such things have been are are being considered now, along with how residents feel about it all (well, I am in an optimistic mood aren't I?). If LL needs a bladerunner, I'm available for hire for a nominal fee that includes noodles. Whatever... it's a start. It means someone out there is listening and acting on it. That was the whole point. Edit: That's the sort of waffly post I make after a full bottle of red and need a break from UV mapping in Blender.

You're not wrong.

This is the way! If you have the means of course. I've been very happy on my rented 1/3 slice (but with half the region's prims) of homestead, even with neighbours.

If you do not have ALM on, there is a low limit to the maximum number of light sources the viewer will render too. I don't recall what but it's not many. With ALM on I don't think there is a fixed limit, but what I said above still happens a lot. It's a pain in my own build. One way I get around it is to make sure that light sources can only just illuminate the room they are in, by setting the distance of them, or using projectors rather than all-round point sources. That stops lights shining into the floor above too. Whatever you can do to minimise the number of lights effecting a room like that will help. I wish point source lights would stop at walls naturally instead of shining right through. You could also try linking the light source (if possible) to the ceiling, which will make the whole object still in view as long as you can see the ceiling. Must admit I've not tried that myself as my builds don't have a simple ceiling to link to like that without complications.

Flickering textures sounds like you have prims/mesh faces overlapping, perhaps with one just a tiny fraction behind the other. Move away a bit and the viewer loses the ability to differentiate them so they alternate, and one face flickers in and out of the other. Does that sound like it? It's one of the annoyances trying to build stuff from parts; SL isn't all that accurate about placement. Or... do you mean illumination is flickering on surfaces? That's usually because you have turned away from the light source. Once the light source itself is out of your field of view, the viewer tends to forget about it and the illumination goes away. Yet another annoyance.

They'll just copy it 🤣. Sorry, couldn't resist. I can imagine the WTF level of frustration, but there's really nothing that can be done. Whatever reason they have for doing it, they likely won't respond usefully to any confrontation about it. Maybe learn to make mesh and make yourself something unique? Not an easy task from the beginning but perhaps it's a good excuse to take the plunge into creating. Turn the situation to the positive for you.

I've seen worse Besides, I took a look. If I ever get the flying bug again I'll try that sleek aluminium job that's on the runway; the Recruit was it? Looks right up my street that one.

Stand up. Although I guess after four hours you've probably relogged. That's another way.

Ahh... I wanted to call it something else but had no idea what; I'm not comfortable using the wrong terms for things. I think though if I say 'inverted hull method' to anyone else all I'll get is a blank stare until I say, "cell shading" with a defeated eye roll. Don't think I'll win that one now.

You can learn the way to do it with rezzed prims. Rez a sphere. Rez another in exactly the same spot, make that one a bit bigger (say 0.55 if the first is 0.5). Set the larger sphere maximum hollow and cam inside to give it a colour and a bit of glow on the inner face; the cell shading effect. Now set its outside transparent. A cell-shaded sphere!

LOL - Sorry, but blame the neighbours who are, once again, playing music next door so loud it's deafening in our house. I can't think straight. I didn't put my vertex in the right place. Simple. I'll PM you with a link to a blend file on my server in a minute. Just hide the phys model (because they overlap), edit the door, select Vertex selection mode and you'll see the extra, single vertex. Then you can check how I did the physics if you want although for an attachment that doesn't matter. Export it with SL presets and check it out. It works - pivot is right in the edge corner, where the hinge would be.

An original door uploads and works with the pivot exactly on the door hinge, as I expected. That's with a single vertex at the opposite bounding box corner. You can even see the pivot point in the mesh upload preview window if you rotate the preview. It rotates on the altered pivot point.

Attachment should not matter. Ignore all the following, I'm incompetent is all. Interestingly, I was going to send you a proof .blend and .dae... but when I uploaded it, instead of putting the pivot on the hinge edge, it put it in the centre of the edge. That's... very odd. I've checked an original door made just the same and it pivots exactly on the hinge. Just trying to figure out if I did anything different right now. Like I said though, I've been doing it just like this for years. I wonder if something changed, or I did something different this time. The LL Viewer and FS both did the same, and they did at least put the pivot on the edge of the visible mesh. Just not right on the corner, but in the middle of that edge. Hmmm... watch this space.

Strange because I've been using that for years, and it most certainly works. I can show you the doors! Lots of them. Perhaps it needs to be uploaded with Firestorm... I never use the LL viewer so perhaps there is some different behaviour. Which viewer do you upload mesh with?

Does anyone have any inside information on when PBR might go live? I'm not particularly waiting to buy things, but I do have some projects in Blender that would really benefit from PBR. Not sure if I should spend days/weeks texturing them 'traditionally' (my weak point - takes me ages of hard work to be content) if PBR might be just around the corner.

May I add one little trick to the 'extend the geometry' that I've used for years to make doors etc.? When you put that extra vertex at the opposite corner to where you want the pivot (to extend the bounding box), instead of making it a triangle, do this: When you've finished making the object, select that vertex you added, and go to the menu: Mesh/Sort Elements/Selected. Make sure Vertex is selected in the tool pop-up. Now, that vertex is the very first vertex in the database. While it will not be rendered in SL because it is a single vertex and gets optimised out, it still gets used when setting the bounding box because the first vertex cannot just be gotten rid of. Or something like that. It works, anyway. The benefits are there is not even a miniscule triangle to hopefully not see (or have to have a material for it so it can be made transparent) and it saves two vertices. Extra: If actually making a door, you also need to extend the physics model to the bounding box size of course. For physics, you can't use the single vertex trick so my physics model does have a tiny triangle ending at the same location as that vertex above (just for simplicity - doesn't actually have to be in the same place, it's just that I copy that vertex into the physics model to get the position right for the physics triangle). The door's own physics is a simple cube stretched to fit the visible door size. When uploading, Use Analyze with method set to Solid. That will eliminate the tiny triangle from the physics completely but leave the door's physics intact as per your physics model. If my door has knobs that project and I don't need physics for those, I'll make that tiny, extra physics triangle long enough to extend the bounding box 'thickness' to account for the extent of the knobs too. again it gets optimized out of the physics, leaves the door's actual physics as I want while extending the physics bounding box appropriately.

-

Leave my little guardian alone... or she'll chop you to pieces!

Sorted.

I've been trying to keep politics out of my comments, but the very same thing has been happening in the UK for years and over the last two to three has been rampant, blatant and unchallenged. It redoubled with the changes of prime minister as everyone knew it would; practically the first official act was another big tax break for the rich while the less well offs had cuts to income, benefits, health and welfare support, etc.. We keep beng told we have to endure austerity, and watch prices of everything double, yet here, all the big companies, supermarkets, energy/fuel suppliers and generally super-wealthy are showing record profits (literally record-breaking profits!) Perhaps that's why this annoys me so much too.

Perhaps one or other of us (probably both, since you thought I was blaming you and region owners earlier when I said nothing of the sort) is getting our wires crossed a bit. Best leave it there

Why do you seem to have a bone to pick with me? I don't want to have to pay extra to give region owners cheaper regions. Is that wrong of me? It's not even my opinion that that is what is happening... LL states it! How do region owners literally make SL? Sounds like you feel entitled to special treatment for being a region owner now. This is getting silly, isn't it?

@Phil Deakins Thank you for the unnecessary lecture. Perhaps to your surprise, I do have some experience of large companies up to middle management level and I have never, in four decades, seen one that does not operate with greed as the primary driving force. As to pay rises... I haven't had one that has kept up with inflation for twenty years. Neither has my wife. Both of us in highly professional areas. Yet the company high-ups and shareholders still get richer and richer. That's life. Doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about it. @Rowan Amore Saving US$240 a year is significant... they would have to spend US$4800 on L$ to pay that in increased fees.

@Charolotte CaxtonI don't think I said that you were taking my money - I know you aren't the one doing this and have nothing whatsoever against you. It's LL's doing, but the effect is still the same that region owners are saving money and others are paying for that - LL says that quite clearly. And I know LL isn't struggling... so why the need to increase prices... greed! It even gave me the thought, long before this conversation, that LL was trying to set region owners and non-owners against each other when I read the announcement.

@Charolotte Caxton The anouncement says (my highlighting): You are getting a cut - reduced region prices. LL has chosen to drop the price to people paying for regions, while increasing the costs of converting L$ to us to fund that. They have also said that regions can be paid for using L$ without the need to convert it to US$ first, saving the transactions fees. I don't know what cut of that is LL's vs Tilia's, but it's another 'loss' to be clawed back. It just seems unfair to give to one lot, while taking from another to pay for it. If LL is struggling to make ends meet... just raise prices across the board. I would complain a lot less about that. Edit: Region costs have been dropped U$20 per month. The change to conversion costs means my annual cost is going from US$15 to US$30. Only (another) $15 increase per year - but that increase (and more for buying L$) is going to hit a lot more people.