Juliana Lethdetter

Thank you, Henri, for that very detailed and complete explanation. Like bigmoe, I had often heard packet loss cited as the likely end result of setting any viewer in excess of the throttle, and simultaneously wondered how this could even be an issue 20 years down the road. Thank you also, Jenna, for your initial answer, and the link to the bitrate calculator. The particular calculator you cited contained no option for selecting Webm as the codec, but then, neither did any of the others I searched for thereafter; most of them seemed to be (logically) engineered with an eye towards determining bitrates for livestreaming on platforms like Twitch (a much more contemporary application!) They were useful nonetheless. I ultimately wound up encoding the new video to Webm using 2-pass VP9, variable bit-rate, with a target of 3000 kbps.

Is there any consensus as to the optimal bit rate for streaming video via display on in-world objects, other than "lower is probably better"? I've got an item that's been in-world for about five years now, which displays a looped Webm video file streaming at 375 kbps. I arrived at that particular rate after testing a variety of bit rates and resolutions, attempting to find the lowest-impact, quickest-loading clip I could use that wouldn't make the video so ugly I hated it. I was working off the assumption that whatever streaming rate media uses, it's eating up a portion of the 1500 kbps max available for the viewer's communication back and forth with the servers-- but truly, I've never known for sure if that's the case, or if it was once true, but is no longer so today. Just within the past year I've seen crystal-clear projections of high-resolution movie footage in-world that certainly don't appear as if they're subject to such limitations... I'm now in-progress on upgrading the item, and bumping the video in question up to say, even 750 kbps, would create a noticeable and satisfying increase in quality. But I don't want to do that at the expense of creating issues in the local environment.

That was an excellent reminder, Molly, thank you. I should have started there! (His earliest drafts of the NCI maps date to 2007, by the way. I wasn't aware of that, as the copies in the Maps of Second Life exhibit at the Lighthouse are the "final" versions, dating from 2009.) Let's get the map in question up here, for starters, so we can all see what's being discussed: Carl observed that the Jack Linden map appears to postdate almost all of the construction of Jeogeot. His personal copy of it, which he created himself from a screenshot he took of the original in Jack Linden's office, is dated to 1/3/2008, and is the earliest copy I know of. Given that, and the fact that the map also depicts Corsica, Nautilus and Satori (here labeled the "Japanese Continent", more on that in a minute), we can confidently date the original to around late 2007-- a date that fits the established timeline of the appearance of the continents. (That is, unless you want to believe that Jack released a map showing the outlines of multiple continents before they were actually finished on the Grid, which I can find no evidence for, and stretches credibility.) Carl's earliest version of the NCI map in 2007 already had "Jeogeot" identified as the primary name. But there's an even earlier map of the Grid, created in April 2006 by Dyne Telemasca, a detail of which is below. (It's actually in the same room as the Jack Linden map at the Lighthouse.) Here you can see that Dyne has captured the continent in mid-construction, with only the Northern tip extant-- and it's already labeled "Jeogeot". Given this as the case, there's simply no way the name Jeogeot can be related to or derivative of the Jack Linden map at all. It predates it. The contrary theory, that Jack somehow meant to put the Korean characters for "jeogeot" on his map and accidentally put "jigu" instead is (I suppose) theoretically possible-- but again, for me, it stretches credibility. The "Japanese Continent" got the name "Satori" as the result of a Resident survey in 2007, the same year the Jack Linden map was made; the characters next to that on his map are katakana, primarily used to spell out foreign words via phonetization, and say "ho-mu" (with a long O), presumably to mean "home". But no one is arguing he meant to put "satori" (or anything else), and accidentally wrote "home." He knew what he was doing. He used the "Korean Continent" and "Japanese Continent" designations because the opening of those continents corresponded to the localization of the Second Life client in those countries, and then, if I had to guess, threw in a snippet from each language for color. Or maybe to indicate what HE would have liked to have seen them called. If it makes anyone feel any better, he apparently confused everyone at the time, too. A copy of the map shown in Wizard Gynoid's Flickr account on March 27th, 2008 notes that, "The map appears to obfuscate two issues, i.e. the name of the southern continent and the name of the continent directly below nautilus". So it goes. I'm continuing to make inquiries.

Hey, all-- I wanted to take a moment to chime in on this topic, since it came up last year when I was interviewed via voice for an SL web program, and had to say all these names out loud. (Full Disclosure: I'm the Curator of New Kadath Lighthouse Art Gallery, the place with the maps exhibit kindly mentioned by the OP.) I ran these images and names past a native Korean speaker who is not a member of Second Life, without prior explanation of the context. Shown the Jack Linden "Map o' the Gridde" image captured above, he immediately identified the Hangul characters as 지구, meaning "earth", which he said he would romanize as "Jeejoo", and which he pronounced "chee-goo". (After flatly observing that the outline of Jeogeot shown on the map was not Korea. 😄 ) "Jigu" is a similar romanization, and his pronunciation matches what SarahKB7 describes well enough, so I would concur with her assessment on those points. However, the following theory, that a creative Linden romanization of "jigu" or similar lead to "Jeogeot" is less plausible to me-- or at least, lacks any evidence I know of. Shown the word "Jeogeot", the Korean speaker (again, immediately) translated it as 저것, which he said he personally would romanize as "Juhgut" instead, and which he pronounced as "Chuh-gutt". He defined it as meaning "that thing". A (sadly uncited) Wiktionary article breaks it down identically, translating it as a compilation of 저 (jeo, “that”) + 것 (geot, “thing”), and noting that it indicates a thing that is "far away from the speaker and listener", a qualification one can easily imagine as relevant to a previously unexplored continent. I ran that more specific qualification past him as well, and he agreed with it also. A name which translates as "that thing" isn't as romantic or sensical as a variation on "earth", but ArgontheDevil's observation notwithstanding, features in SL have been named equally strange things. Either way, if the issue is the correct Korean vocal pronunciation of "Jeogeot", 지구 / "tzchig-oo" is not correct. 저것 / "chuh-gutt" is. I find the absence of common-knowledge information or references on these points perplexing, as the SL community is both robust and long-standing, and the events in question occurred within living memory. There simply have to be Residents (or Lindens!) who were present at the time of the continent's creation, and are still, and who remember the circumstances and rationale behind its naming. I'd welcome having some of them chime in here.

I was able to contact Alberto Forero (the former Alberto Linden) through his account on Flickr, and he verified that he is the author of that map in particular, and all the maps in that similar style that were distributed by the Lab during that period. Cool tidbit about Eric's role versus Ryan's in the creation of the telehubs. I wonder about the version that Daniel encountered at SL10B, though-- in his picture, the map is clearly visible on the OUTSIDE of the hub, not hidden inside. So that one was different in some fashion, or whomever placed it found the map inside and moved it out...

There doesn't seem to be a way to edit my previous post, so just wanted to add: Marianne McCann (on SLU forum) wrote: Just because a prim was made by someone does not mean that the textures on the prim were created by the same person. Else I'm sure many can send you some TOS Violating LOLcubes "made" by Philip Linden... She's right, of course. Given the context of what we're describing, the distribution of a map that everyone seems to be able to agree was official, I'm sure she means the griefer angle as anecdotal. But Alberto Forero/ Alberto Linden was cited in that discussion as one likely author of the documents. There's no foolproof way of determining (for example) whether he or someone else might have done the texture, or whether it was Ryan Linden himself who placed it on Ryan Linden's prim! edit: Whoops! Cross post. Got it! Thank you!

ChinRey wrote: Juliana Lethdetter wrote: Anyone remember first-hand where these came from or specifically who made them? The one you could find at Yadni's was on a prim created by Ryan Linden so it's definitely an authentic, official LL map. It's likely Ryan made the texture too but hard to say for sure. Interesting! I've never seen or heard of any copies created by Ryan Linden; the specific one I cited was made by me from the Oz Spade textures, and the other ones in the collection that come from the Junkyard were created by YadNi Monde himself. That's a pretty good confirmation of provenance as far as I'm concerned. Bino Arbuckle is a friend; I've spoken to him a few times over the past 3 years, and he's graciously shared such information and maps with me as he possessed at the time. He's also a member of that self-same SL Historical Society. I can't vouch for his whereabouts or the presence or absence of his website, though. And you're right: I should go look at his map museum in Boardman. I'm interested in getting some clarification re: your remarks about "a forgotten rim inside one of the Telehubs." I've got a parallel thread about this running over at SLUniverse, where Essence Lumin cites Daniel Voyager as having photographed this specific map at a copy of the Clanis Telehub in SL10B, citing a Nov/Dec 2003 date. (I've also engaged in a discussion about why I think that date he cites is likely wrong-- but either way, it seems like what you're saying could be related.) @Magnus Brody: It's my pleasure! You're very welcome.

Thought I'd crowd-source this one out to our Residents of a Certain Age: Below is an example of a VERY early map of Second Life, dating from June 2003 (though not the earliest):  There are a handful of others like it, all dating to around the same period. Because they are some of the first maps ever made of SL geography at the regional level, and because they bear the Lab logo and font, I have always assumed that they were made by the Lab, and authored by a Linden. But it has been called to my attention recently that this IS an assumption; I don't actually know for sure. I acquired the map in the picture as an in-world object from YadNe Monde's Junkyard in Sansara. I also have copies of these maps as textures, uploaded by Oz Spade, who is the founder of the Second Life Historical Society group and the Second Life Historical Museum in Phobos region; given that provenance, it seems likelier that he uploaded them to preserve them for posterity than that he was their author. Anyone remember first-hand where these came from or specifically who made them?

I do have SSR turned on, Coby-- I activated it intentionally at some point in the past, because I liked the effect it gave during photo shoots, then never turned it off again because there didn't seem to be a need to. Now that I know it's what creates the issue, I'll be turning it off for sure. I might have discovered all this sooner, except that outside of those photo shoots, I normally wander around with ALM on, Shadows off and CalWL windlight, conditions under which I don't see many Material reflections. (In fact, I started experimenting with specular maps in the first place because I have a favorite leather steampunk jacket that becomes bizarrely and unfortunately reflective under normal Windlights due to the bug, and was trying to figure out how to fix it! :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:) Thank you again, everyone, for your assistance and quick replies!

Drongle: I thought that some degree of specular reflections on the sides of the cube and the bottom of the sphere were to be expected when things were working correctly, provided that the environmental light was coming from any direction except straight down. I don't know where it's coming from, if that's not the case; I'm sure there were no light sources in the environment except the sun. I also didn't notice that the alignment of the "correct" and bright highlights were significantly misaligned-- but then, it's hard for me to determine what's normal or expected, as I've never tried working with this aspect of Materials before. As I described for Arton above, my viewer is Firestorm, and the bright highlight and its associated issues seem to be a previously reported bug. The normal map for all surfaces of the objects in question was the "Blank" normal map, created when you click in the texture window, and then push the Blank button in the following sub-menu.

You're absolutely correct, Arton. I'm not using the official viewer; I'm using Firestorm x64 4.6.9.42969, and it never occured to me that it could be a Firestorm-specific bug. I checked their Jira, and it's been reported by other users, in association with a feature called Screen Space Reflections. It's unresolvable, and will be "fixed" by the elimination of that feature in a future release. http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-13180 Thank you for the help!

I'm trying to understand the nuances of specular maps, and was curious: are there occasions where unavoidably, the SL sun overrides the level of reflectivity dictated by the maps? Take a look the objects shown below. All of them have a flat black diffuse texture, a blank normal map, and a checkerboard specular map consisting of alternating black and white squares. All have Glossiness set to 51, and Environment to 0. The lighting is region default SL lighting, approximating Midday, with Advanced Lighting Model and all shadows on. There are no local light sources. The reflections seem to work as intended as long as one is viewing the surfaces at oblique angles-- but that bright highlight reflection from the sun visible on the sphere is smack in the middle of a "black" zone where the specular map specifies zero reflectivity. It starts to happen on the cylinder and cube, too, as you change the camera angle: As camera angle shifts, the reflection from the SL sun begins to overtake the map-designated reflectivity, and then replaces it. I would understand why this was the case if the Environment setting on the objects was set to any positive value-- but as I mentioned above, it's firmly at Zero. Lowering the Glossiness just makes the objects look awful, without solving the problem: Changing the reflected light to grey dims out the specular map reflections, but doesn't affect the sun highlight: Is there some aspect of Materials or setting I'm unaware of that's causing this effect? Is there a way to eliminate the issue, short of using two different textures and turning reflectivity off altogether on one of them? I can't figure it out...