Ayashe Ninetails

I don't think I've ever actually seen a Chromebook out in the wild. Phones, iPads/tablets, gaming laptops, MacBooks, portables (Nintendo Switch, etc.) - all over the place.

I totally get what you're saying. I don't think we're in danger of losing the knowledge of how to navigate a directory structure, though. Games and virtual worlds and platforms don't particularly need that feature. Think of it this way - people who work in any business whatsoever will likely have that skill. Most companies operate on Windows (and goodness knows businesses are slow as hell to update to current tech). Many people will be navigating directories and databases and files and whatnot at work. Mobile phone shenanigans didn't annihilate that knowledge and if anything could do it, it'd be that (though it is somewhat responsible for horrible typing and communication skills - just sayin').

I don't disagree with you often Solar (if at all, really!), but we all know SL is in the unique position of being 20+ years old. I'm not saying the inventory system or any other specific system is in dire need of a complete redo, BUT, there will come a point where SL will get lost in obscurity if it doesn't adapt at least in some way to current tech and make itself a bit more familiar. I'm a diehard fan of the C64/Atari gaming era (and DOS gaming, and Sierra, and and and), but I came to realize that nobody under the age of 35 knows what the hell I'm even on about if I try to get into all that in this here 2024, LOL. If I mention a game that's been released within the last 5 years, though, I'm no longer looked at like I have 3 heads. For the record, I hate modern consoles, so I'm in no way advocating SL adopt any of that mess. I'm not even a fan of the whole mobile craze. It could use a little polish for PC users in general, though. I say this, of course, well aware that the OG Everquest just hit its 25 year anniversary (omg, I'm old) and that game is STILL raking in a ton of cash and lots of players with those old wonky graphics and dated mechanics, so...maybe I'm just wrong about this. 😂

I believe you need it in order to see the order of prizes. Peek here: http://thearcadesl.com/how-to-play/

I haven't been to The Arcade in a long time, but assuming it's set up the same way, were you wearing the shopping HUD?

I don't think that description fits Marilyn Monroe too accurately. Her chest looked fairly average compared to the rest of her. I suspect there was a lot of shapewear shenanigans going on to emphasize different areas here and there, but she never seemed overly busty to me at all. I got a whole other vibe from that Legacy body. That chest was massive. Yay, an excuse to link some gifs/pics from my favorite Monroe films:

This is actually really, really challenging to pull off, even without getting into NPCs. So many games have tried to make living, breathing worlds with dynamic changes and it's just not quite there yet. There are always limitations (easier in solo games, but still...). Some games hit the illusion of change well enough to where they use phasing and other tricks to handle multiple people seeing the world differently, but it's not that convincing. Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen developers wanted to use a perception system to tie into something like that, where you could level your awareness independently and that would unlock changes in the world only you could see, but I'm not sure if they've been able to put many resources into that just yet. They're struggling in whole other areas of development at the moment. On the LLM side (and more related to SL), it can take up to several years of training to get a chatbot up to speed - even in a limited scope (like a game or virtual world would be, or something else like customer service for a single business). There are models that have millions (billions, prob) of dollars and numerous years of trainer hours invested into them that are still returning horrible outputs full of hallucinations and dangerous, unsafe content despite the very high training standards and ethics practices in use. That's not even touching the issues with cultural bias that AI suffers from in general. It is so hard to train that out (especially when many trainers are completely unaware that they're accidentally training it IN). And in SL's case, what about things like multiple languages and slang? We're an international audience, so it wouldn't feel right just to have chatbots communicate in only proper English. Sure, translation and whatnot, but that doesn't mean the bot will be able to handle subtle language and cultural references and nuance, casual slang and reclaimed speech (they suck at this), etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Lots of problems with very expensive solutions. I fail to see how it's worth it.

Well, there actually is. The majority of worlds/games/platforms/etc. I spend time in aren't adopting AI like this, thankfully. It's like the NFT craze - games tried it (they still try it, in fact) but players rejected it pretty vocally, and devs eventually gave it up. That seems to be happening with this new fad, somewhat. Games utilizing AI art/assets/bots/etc. haven't been too popular on the whole.

This all feels like it's missing the mark in a very big way. Between the influx of AI in SL's fashion advertising in the shopping realm, AI "paintings" and "art" infiltrating my favorite home decor shops, and now this, I'm starting to feel like I'm living in a cruel meme. 😂 I'm remote self-employed and my current gig involves...training LLMs/AI (!!!). The absolute last thing I want to do is spend my off-time around it. Working at home is isolating - I want to converse with PEOPLE on the innerwebz (yes, I could drag my butt outside, but that means going to NYC to be where the fun's at, and that's expensive yo - I'm in the process of saving monies). I favor massively multiplayer games and platforms for a reason - cuz people. I want peoples. GIMME PEOPLES. I know other freelancers and remote employees and they're generally similar in that games and social platforms are their preferred method of socialization while everything else is so expensive. There's definitely a trend whenever something new releases - the very first question asked of the developers is "Is it multiplayer/co-op?" People generally love stuff like that, so the thought of logging in to a place like SL for the very first time and being surrounded by bots...welll...I'd log right out, personally, and assume the game is suffering from a lack of users/players. Bots aren't generally seen as a good thing, and NPCs aren't exactly something I'd associate with a thriving social virtual world. They're there as filler characters in RPGs to give players an excuse to team up and raid some random village somewhere. 😂 I have other concerns relating to the training, but that's a whole separate can of worms I'm not touching. Not my models, not my problem.

The skin is applier? Yeah, I wouldn't use that at all. BOM all the way. Tons easier to work with. Stray Dog still sells SLUV skins for OG Catwa and Lel Evo - or they did, last I checked. Vendetta might, also.

Apparently, they can teleport you to places like clubs, introduce you to the club host, and hang around and dance. Problem is, I had no idea whether or not the other people in the club were real or NPCs, which really creeped me out to be honest. Wait, just rewatched - all the other people he's dancing with are NPCs, too. Same names as seen in the Welcome Hub earlier in the video. 😳

I just took a look at the SL section of that video, btw. I didn't see any actual indicator that they were bots, except for the one named "Greeter Bot." The others he spawned in had random-looking names like "fineartdruid" and "thisisnitehawk," so I guess you could go by that? 👀 They weren't all lower-case, though. One had proper capitalization.

Yep, much better. As for the neck line, uhhhhhhh...it depends. I don't remember if the old pre-HDPro heads use the universal neck or not. Could be the skin or materials on the body, too.

I don't see a single thing. You're right - it's very subtle! I don't use much facial hair at all, but if I do, it's on the skin itself or I'd just use BOM. I would imagine applier stuff might cause alpha clashes with hair, but I have no clue to be honest, since I've never tried it (my applier makeup and eyebrows do clash, though, hence why I always favor BOM whenever possible). As to whether you should get more or not, I have no idea, since it's so difficult to see it to begin with. I'd say no and opt for something more visible, but that's just me!

I'm not chatting with AI for free. Also...who??? "Convai has joined forces with industry giants such as Frost Giant Studios, Linden Lab, and Carbonated to integrate AI NPCs into their games." I had to Google. Former Blizzard and EA devs and RTS guys and mobile devs. Interesting. Hope that works out.

Most short stubble would be BOM or include a BOM layer in addition to any mesh. Most BOM on the market now would require Evo X. You can check for older stock at places like Okara, Fuoey, Stray Dog, Hype, Volkstone, Mister Razzor, or Not Found to see if they've still got any pre-Evo X BOM layers for sale. They may on the MP, or perhaps in-world.

Ask them where they're coming from. If they happen to be coming to SL from other games, their confusion would likely stem from character customization being so different in almost all of them. SL's basic inventory management is one thing (anyone on Windows should be familiar with that and how it works), but you very rarely ever see that kind of system in connection to creating an avatar/character, or building a house, or whatever else. Random examples - many inventories are visual, clothing and body parts are not stored there, some games have entire wardrobe systems (like Guild Wars 2) that make swapping clothes and armor effortless, there's no rezzing and unpacking required in almost any other system I've seen, HUDs don't work quite the same way at all, color pickers and basic style presets are frequently used, sliders behave much differently, clothing just fits no matter what shape you are, you can change your entire look from head to toe with a randomizer if you really don't feel like being bothered with it, etc.

I do this from time to time using a combination of built-in face AOs (for that, you'll need a rather expressive head with a good range of facial animations), a separate face mood/expression HUD (I use the Happy Dispatch Bento Facial Expression HUD) to pose the eyes and mouth separately, and for fine tuning of features, I use the built-in pose tools in Black Dragon. I don't edit anything outside of SL. For tears, I just work with my head's materials to increase wet and shine. I also use smudged makeup on occasion. Eye choice also makes a huge difference. I pick a set with a lot of shine and reflection, and with some (most?) heads, you can tweak your eye materials to add more/less gloss and tinker with other options as well. Catwa's heads are pretty good at the whole teary-eyed thing. I've also gotten good results with Akeruka when I'm working with a more plastic doll-like avatar as I think AK's eyes can often hit that "faraway stare" I sometimes go for (last two photos below) with the right amount of fiddling. Lastly - I play with the setting, lighting, shadows, poses, props, mood, etc. This helps especially if my face isn't fully visible for whatever reason. Edit: I'll also add that there are some eye effect layers you could buy - puffy eyes, dark circles, tears, etc. I don't typically go that far, though. Here's a tear set by Izzie's, for example - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Izzies-Tears-Evo-X/25755214 . That could be combined with their other BOM effects like "flu face" or "hangover face" and things like that, if you really wanted to get into it. Other stores sell other options, too. Jack Spoon might, for example. Some results of putting all that together:

Peeve: I just saw "viva la gyatt!" posted into my timeline, and this might be the start of my villain origin story.

You're noticing a lot more than I did. I didn't even see that, lol. I demoed the included shapes, took a quick look at the skin, and took a quick peek at the face. Considered playing with the sliders and current skins I own, said nah, and put my original avatar back on. It'd take a really, really natural-looking body (in any shape - I'll take anything at this point) to make me switch to something new. I'm not loving the trend of exaggerated shapes that keep showing up all over the place.

Yeah, that's the way to go. From what I saw, there's no matching head skin, so you get the stark contrast between the smooth face and heavily textured body, especially around the neck fade, if you try them with the skins included with the head. Demo it and you'll see what I mean. More noticeable with the darker tones, from what I saw. I didn't look too hard, though. It was just not for me overall.

Just FYI, unless my memory is wrong (which is 100% possible, mind you!), the skins will look very different to the ones we tried that one time. The older ones are way better IMO. Also, the issue we had with the confusing naming - still present.

I couldn't get past the texture and details to even notice the knees, unfortunately.

Re: this collab set - there are problems. I won't go deep into that, though. I was curious, since the fantasy avatar in my forum pic is loosely inspired by Marilyn, so of COURSE I had to demo. Unfortunately, everything put together just feels really off. The thing is, I usually like all of these brands separately and wear some of them regularly. Together, though - it's not working for me. Also, the separate hands and feet feel really odd, since my male Legacy has everything together (with the new high/ballet/etc. feet available in the pack as addons).

Fantastic point! This does remind me that I still do see plenty of remote offers for teachers and tutors and coaches for online learning (and yes, COVID had a big impact on that) - everything from full-on K-12 grade school/high school courses to specific career and language training (40-something pages on FlexJobs alone). That's very different from brick-and-mortar schools and universities of course, and they certainly have challenges in this here 2024, but it's still good to see a demand. I guessssssssss we'll be okay. I guesssssssssssss. I'll defer to the teachers on this, but Sid makes a great point, too. Much of my learning occurred long after class was over. I used to stay behind to chat with my teachers a lot and sometimes we'd have some of the most insightful conversations - just about life in general. One had me shook for days because of something she brought up that hit me like a ton of bricks. She taught modern art, but her own field outside of the classroom was far different (she studied the cirrrrrrrcle of liiiiiiiife, basically, lol) and the discussion went in a whoooole other direction. Damn near brought me to tears, I was so moved. Educators do so, so much that AI cannot replicate. Peeve: We don't hug our teachers enough. *hugs all the teachers*