Jennifer Boyle

I have alts as co-owners of my group as insurance against such mishaps.

I remember reading that LL offers short-term rentals of sims for one-time events. I searched and could not find any information about it. I am thinking about hosting a large event for which it would be desireable to have as many avatars as possible in a sim. What kind of short-term (a few hours to a few days) rentals are available from LL? Where do I find info? Are such rentals available from third parties? Thanks to any who can help.

Great idea!

Exactly what I was looking for leads to when I posted.

Right. I overlooked that when I was posting because the overwhelming majority of my autohiders were made by me, but I do have some of those annoying no-mod clothes with obsolete versions (that don't unhide when the garment is removed)

What would be the advantage of adding the option to turn off or ignore autohide to the HUD over just not using autohider scripts?

I always wear panties except when I'm being intentionally *****ty. I wear a bra unless I'm wearing a top that isn't designed to be worn with one, e.g., very low-cut. I wear fitmesh when it works and BOM or Maitreya underwear layers when it doesn't. I wish someone made sets that included the same underwear design in fitmesh and BOM/applier versions.

I really like to layer clothing, for example, bra, blouse, and jacket or sweater, and I much prefer fitmesh to BOM. I have not managed to do it with all three layers. I have a few bra-top combinations that work, and a number of top-jacket or coat combinations that work. Surely there is some designer that is making combinations that are designed to layer together, and I just haven't found them. It seems, to this entirely ignorant person, that it should not be insurmountably hard for a designer to make layered fitmesh that would work together.

I am prompted to post this because my expectations about BOM have evolved since I started using it. When I started, I expected to eventually replace all my applied BOM Maitreya clothing layers (almost all underwear and hosiery) with BOM and to replace all my Maitreya autohiders with alpha masks. However, I have discovered that each has strengths and weaknesses, and, now, I expect to be using both BOM and layer and autohider attachments until there is some further development that changes things. BOM alpha masks have the advantage that their shape is not limited by predetermined alpha cuts but can be tailored to be exactly what is needed for a particular garment, unlike autohiders. BOM clothing has the advantage that it can be hidden by alpha masks. All BOM items have the disadvantage that there is a several-second delay and visual disruption while the avatar rebakes when they are added or removed. The effect is instantaneous when autohiders or clothing layers are added or removed, but clothing layers are not hidden by alpha masks. In addition, if mesh clothing is modifiable, the autohider script can be in the clothing itself, which simplifies things. What are others' thoughts and observations? Is it different with other bodies? ETA: Another advantage of alpha masks over autohiders is that, if the autohider is attached before the body, it doesn't; this sometimes happens when changing outfits when the new outfit containa different copy of the body from the old outfit. Alpha masks always work.

I just mark all my photos on Flickr as "Restricted" and don't worry. Everyone whom I want to see them will see them.

Thinking more about the issues discussed in this thread gave me some additional ideas. It definitely would be better if the starter Linden avatars were better quality, i.e., simplified versions of popular commercial mesh avatars that came with a small wardrobe of good-quality fitmesh clothing. LL could do it. They could offer creators of popular bodies the opportunity to have their body used. It could only be good for business for people to become immediately familiar with their products; many would eventually upgrade to the full version. The same would be true for the clothing creators. Should my supposition that creators would be eager to participate be wrong, LL could still do it because the TOS gives LL an unlimited license to do anything they want with anything that is uploaded. If LL took that route, creators might be unhappy, but they'd be unlikely to shut down a lucrative business. The simplified avatar should be BOM and mesh only, no appliers and no non-BOM option. All of the clothing coming with it should be weell-fitting fitmesh, making alpha masks unnecessary. Newcomers should receive prominent direction to a well-produced, entertaining video covering the basics of avatars, movement, and navigating SL.

Mine, too, but I have had 14 years to gradually learn how to use the current SL. I think I would give up in despair if I tried SL for the first time today. There have been some good ideas posted in this thread for making it easier to get started.

It may, or may not, give longtime users something better, but it certainly doesn't give new users a better experience. Free markets are great much of the time, but one circumstance in which to don't work very well is when there's a tradeoff between immediate rewards and rewards in the distant future. Creators focus on near-term rewards, which mostly come from established users, instead of the distant rewards that could come from expanding the market by attracting more new residents. YES!!! Years ago, LL had a great idea for making the new user experience better---multiple levels of viewer complexity, but they totally botched the execution because they didn't understand what most people want to do immediately, which is customize their avatars. I think they had only two levels,, which was too few. The basic level was too basic, so people usually changed to the advanced level right away. At the time, I was a volunteer helper at Help People Island, and we had a constant stream of very new visitors who wanted to know how they could customize their avatars. I still think the idea was a good one and could be valuable if input from users were taken into account during development, and if there were several levels. One complicating issue now is that practically everyone uses Firestorm, so it's hard to get much help with the LL viewer from experienced friends.

I wonder if the problems couldn't be addressed by limiting how long an object could be rezzed and not sat on (by two avatars?) to, for example, one minute.

Thank you! That is a lot more than I ever knew before.

For years, I've been making simple things like stairs, building foundations, fences, etc. from prims for my own use. Mesh seemed completely out of reach for me. However, I recently discovered a device, "Mesh Generator," that makes it possible to convert prim linksets to mesh inworld. Since the things I want to convert to mesh are simple shapes, I presume that that charateristics can be chosen in a way that will minimize land impact and rendering cost, and I want to do that, but have no idea how. Can someone suggest something I could read that would tell me what I need to know? Thanks.

It absolutely is.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!

I had fun with Artbreeder:

Thanks for posting. I can't wait to try it.

For some time, I have had a concept in mind of software that could make it much easier to manage inventory. Many of us have large inventories that are very laborious and inefficient to manage with only the tools we have inworld. I think it would be possible for someone with the right skillset to write a program that could make it much easier. I would pay a significant amount for such software, and I think many others would. What I have in mind is an app that would run on a computer, and would connect to the SL servers the same way a viewer does, and would look to the server like a viewer. It would download all information about items in inventory that is accessible to viewers, i.e., all data that can be displayed by opening properties for each item. It would have a spreadsheet-like user interface, and would have powerful tools for both accessing information and manipulating it. For example, filters and boolean search using any properties, the ability to find folders based on combinations of contents, such as "Item 1 AND Item 2", etc. It would allow batch operations, such as renaming all folders or items that have names containing specified strings, and conditional operations, such as deleting all links to an item from Outfit folders that contain links to (an)other specified item(s). I'm sure that many more useful functions that would be possible. After a user had made changes in the inventory data offline, the app would be able to connect to the SL servers and apply the changes to the inventory.

Sounds like a business opportunity to me for somebody, maybe you.

I read the whole thread and didn't see what I consider the crucial issue addressed. It is, did the creator, having been given a year's notice that user name changes were coming, warn the owners of his products that, if they changed their names, the products would break, and that he would not replace them? If he didn't, that the products broke when customers used a new feature of SL that he hadn't warned them would break his products is on him, and it is on him to make them whole. If he did, it is on the customers that they chose to use a new feature that they had been warned would break the products, and he has no obligation to fix anything.

Sounds good to me. Where can I buy one that does that?

The contest boards that I know about display user names. That isn't very satisfactory because the board my list someone I know as Johnny Appleseed as gig50893, and I have to look up who that is, if I want to know. Scripts can access and display display names. Surely someone makes a contest board that does that, but I've been unable to find one. Any suggestions?