Spiffy Voxel

I did a double-take here, for a moment I thought "Wow, Rowan's really letting it all hang out!" then I spotted the strapless bra... 😆

I'd do the same... not out of fear, but just not my thing anymore... 🤷‍♂️ (My days of running around with RLV enabled and Relay set to Auto are a long way behind me now... that itch is well & truly scratched.)

Ah yes, gotta love Second Life weirdness. 🤣

Found my way back to The Looking Glass for the first time in a long while, decided to take some photos. These are straight out of the latest Alchemy Viewer version, with only light editing in Apple's Photos app. Outfit I'm wearing is from The Original Black One. I ❤️ PBR!

It sounds to me like you're wearing an alpha layer that is masking out your head, if that's the case take the alpha off. You may also need to enable BOM on the Lelutka head — I'm not familiar with their HUD layout, but there should be a BOM button in the skin section.

ALM really changes how you see Second Life… and PBR even moreso! That's a great photo, love the face markings. ❤️

I think people don't understand how security orbs works, or that you can enforce security (usually) at the parcel level too. 🤷‍♂️ When I had a place over on a hillside in Sansara not far from the Snowlands, I had a security orb that just logged visitors to my plot. Most of those were flyers heading to or from one of the nearby airfields. Very occasionally someone would walk through, but that took some doing since I was well away from the nearest roads.

I was on the hunt for some new EEP settings the other day, and found a pack of UFO-themed ones including some day-cycles. So of course I had to buy! XD

Thankfully, my experiences with neighbours over the years have been mostly positive where we've had any interaction at all. (Many cases, they were probably online at different times to me or busy elsewhere and I never saw them.) While I might not have appreciated some of their design choices, most of the time they were out of direct sight. Different strokes for different folks. I've seen those kind of properties in my occasional travels around Zindra, which is fair enough since it is the Adult Continent after all. Honestly, I guess people must really like the novelty of being able to let it all hang out, so to speak. Definitely not the worst things I've seen in-world.

I took this at home the other day while doing an impromptu photoshoot to test out the latest Alchemy Viewer and PBR. The ground build is my own creation and the outfit is from Zaara. I'm using a fantasy AO from Body Language which I love, it really suits my alien character. ❤️

I'm currently running the latest Alchemy Viewer to check how PBR affects my home parcel. There are some noticeable glitches, particularly around water and some custom environments. Hopefully those can either be fixed in the code or worked around. Otherwise, I've been very impressed so far! The only real downside at the moment that I can see is that Firestorm won't support it any time soon, and that will undoubtedly slow down adoption.

For me, it was Firestorm's graphics performance improvements a year or so back, that meant I no longer had to turn off Advanced Lighting and crank down my draw distance on my 2017 iMac. My Second Life was never the same after that point. 🤯 Related to above: I was using Alchemy Viewer for a time prior to Firestorm's performance jump, and recently installed latest Alchemy to see what PBR looks like. That will change my Second Life again, but it's not quite there yet, particularly on Macs. 🫤 On a more positive note, joining Gorean Whip Radio in Second Life as a broadcaster (and later a manager handling advertising production) definitely changed my life. 📻🎙️ 🎶

Yes, purging removes stuff from the Trash folder forever. I'd suggest deleting and purging stuff in smaller batches in future, just to be on the safe side.

That's a lot of stuff you're deleting in one go! It could be a bug due to the size of the Trash folder. What viewer are you using?

I took this photo yesterday evening (my time) while waiting for a performance to start at Theatre On The Hill. (Rolling Stones tribute show, was very good!) Found a nice rainbow choli & saree from Good Fairy.

I finally worked out how to get my shine on with my Legacy body. \o/ Outfit is from R2 Fashion. Also, my eyes are the right colours now, I realised I'd put a pink overlay on them previously — d'oh!

I suspect some of the work on the mobile client will dovetail into the ongoing work around updating the graphical back-end (currently OpenGL) used by Linden Lab and most third-party viewers. But at the moment, there's no timescale set in stone for any of this. So we will just have to wait and see. (I'm currently using a 2017 iMac 27-inch system, which works great on Ultra graphics settings using the latest Firestorm Viewer, so it is more than a little disappointing to hear that an M1 Max machine can't handle that sort of load. Part of that, I think, is due to the way in which the unified memory is shared between the CPU and GPU parts of the chip, and Second Life perhaps being conservative in how much of that memory it uses?)

Lol, I get that a LOT! Especially the EvoX Horror as I call it...

I currently have a 'curse' of some kind when it comes to Animation Override HUDs and the Firestorm build-in AO system. Several AO HUDs I own have stopped working, as in no response from them. And the built-in AO will randomly stick on a walking animation or stop the animations on a seat or pose stand from working. Should I seek out an exorcist to remove whatever evil spirit is lurking in my computer and messing with my Second Life?

For me, it would be Freedom Continent, where I spent most of my first year in Second Life. That was my introduction to the adult side and D/s. Sadly it has shrunk away to a fraction of what it once was. Coghaven, another area I occasionally hung out at, is still going but has moved a few times and some areas have shut down and gone. I lost contact with a few friends from that time, no idea if they're still around in Second Life. I am, however, still filled with wonder and curiosity, and occasionally stumble onto hidden gems on my travels around the Grid. (Forgot to add: mastered working with prims and managing my inventory early on, thank goodness, and still make use of that knowledge today.)

Wore this to my performance at Second Pride 2023 Glitter & Gore yesterday 🏳️‍🌈

AMD doesn't appear to have any input into the graphics drivers that Apple put into macOS, and given that Apple have declared OpenGL 'deprecated' I'd say that they very much carry the bag as far as performance goes.

This is true, I will note though that the recent graphics performance enhancements to both the Second Life Viewer and Firestorm & other third-party viewers have made (for me) Second Life much more enjoyable on my Mac.

The most taxing places I've been to performance-wise in Second Life have been BURN2 and Second Pride, it drops down to single-digit FPS. And with 60+ avatars my settings would render most of those as low-rez imposters or even jellydolls if their complexity is above 350k. I have a graphic preset for huge events where the draw distance is cut down to 64 metres, so less stuff (usually) to render.

Those FPS rates under macOS don't match up with my experience here. I'm using a 2017 iMac 27-inch with these specs: CPU: 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 Graphics: Radeon Pro 575 4 GB, native 2560x1440 resolution Memory: 48 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 System Disk: external Samsung 2TB SSD connected via USB 3.1 USB-C Until a few years ago, frame rates weren't great so I'd turn off Advanced Lighting and reduce draw distance in Firestorm, or use an alternative viewer like Alchemy. But the last few versions of Firestorm have changed all that, I can now run Second Life in Ultra graphics (minus shadows) and only struggle in huge events with lots of people and effects around me.