Jo Yardley

It has just come a lot closer... http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2013/04/oculus-rift-coming-to-second-life.html

Coby Foden wrote: It would be really cool if there were some four or five different default views instead of the present two (the default and the mouse look). For example: 1. Mouse look 2. Real first person view 3. Building/rezzing view 4. Additional view (lower view for walking) 5. Additional view (another lower view for walking) All these views should be selectable with: Keyboard shortcuts and/or buttons. And naturally all those default views should be user configurable like the present default view is. In the present default view - without adjusting - the camera is way too high (for anything else than for newbies rezzing stuff perhaps) which leads to the common trend of making the rooms very tall; to avoid hitting the camera on the ceiling. And it leads also to distorted view of the avatar. People may think that their avatar is short due to this default view (I tend to call it "view from a tree top" :smileywink:). And thus they follow the so common practice of making their avatars very tall, so that they would look "normal" when looked from the top of a tree. I changed my camera view and now have the camera right behind me. But I'd love to have a mouselook view without losing all the buttons, option to chat, etc. A REAL first person view, like so many games have. Let me see trough my avatars eyes and still be able to build, chat, interact, etc.... Doesn't sound so complicated does it?

Sorry to add to this topic a few days after it seems to have calmed down. Just wanted to add a few things. 1920s Berlin is build on a 1:1 scale, thus letting me do more in a small space but also making it a lot easier to reproduce original buildings and items as I can just use the RL measurements, no math needed. Math melts my brain. I want to rebuild the Brandenburg Gate... so I find the RL measurements, copy them to SL and there you go. I want a table or chair to be the right height for my avatar... I measure the ones in my RL home and there you go. We do NOT require visitors to have a Prim Scale avatar (that is what I call realistically scaled avatars as we use the prim measurements), we just warn overly tall people that they may bump their heads now and then. I too would like it if the avatar build window used the Prim Scale (no idea why someone decided to measure a prim as 50x50x50 cm and then ignore that scale when they created the basic avatars) or would allow us to put actual RL measurements into the windows and see it recreated as an avatar. Want to be yourself in SL, just get a tape measurer, measure yourself, put the numbers in, done. And yes, of course, anyone can be as tall as they like, have the most amazing fantasy or animal or robot avatar. But I just like realism. That means that most of the buildings and apartments in 1920s Berlin are tiny, especially compared to most houses in SL. We have people living in just one 3 by 4 meter room that is often less then 3 meters high. So it is a good idea to adjust your camera, I have mine right behind the avatars head. This allows me to actually experience feeling like I'm in a small space and being relieved when I go outside for a walk Of course, if everything in your sim is "small", you do have to readjust many of your items, luckily good creators make this easy. I also had to build a lot of stuff myself, but because there aren't very much 1920s european things for poor people out there, I had to do that anyway. Oh and to finally go back to the main topic of this discussion... yes SL is expensive, yes Tier could go down a little. But sometimes not being able to be able to afford SL is a matter of management. I started 1920s Berlin on a tiny rented parcel and promised myself never to spend any RL money on it. I did break that promise but over the last almost 4 years, Berlin has been paying for itself. Start small, get a community behind it, find supporters, get shopkeepers, get tenants. Don't grow unless you can afford it. Of course this may not work exactly in the same way for you, but it might be worth trying to look at the financial side before you run a sim. I've seen sims that I loved so much, vanish because the owner couldn't pay the rent even though I would have gladly helped pay for it if I had known! Anyway, sorry for adding on to a discussion if it has already run its course. Move along, nothing to see here.

I'm 6ft in RL and in SL and I went to... Film School! I think that means I just won this discussion. Keep up the good fight Penny.

So I was just wondering if there was a way to also hear the sound that is part of media on a prim. Yes of coure you can, but you have to zoom in very close unless you change your sound settings in your viewer for all sounds. It probably has something to do with 'listen from camera or avatar position'. Either way, when I want to watch a video on a prim, I don't hear the sound unless I get really close. That is annoying. So I wonder if there is a way to watch media on a prim and just hear the sound on the stream or loud in another way.? Do I perhaps have to hide other prims with the same media playing on it elsewhere in the room, like speakers? Any suggestions? I have youtube playing in a cinema and you can't hear it from the chairs.

Yes, I will do that. Just annoying that you can't use it without using that trick.

Just bought a nice mesh object, it has no transfer rights but I can modify and copy it. Now I would like to use it as a vendor, put something else inside it and sell that. So, for example, my nice mesh box is there to sell a t-shirt I put inside it. But SL won't let me. Somehow the 'for sale' button remains grey, because of course I can't sell the object itself, but it won't even let me sell something inside it? That is stupid. Sorry, just needed to share annoyance.

Nice blog about OR and SL; http://archvirtual.com/2013/04/11/10-reasons-second-life-is-a-killer-app-for-oculus-rift-and-why-opensim-will-get-there-first/

Well I've been busy, build so much... A few examples; Old fashioned newspaper kiosk, it is outside of 1920s Berlin so you can have a look without worrying about our dresscode; http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Old%20Time%20Prims/171/217/751 Kiosk is mesh but so are the magazines and newspapers. Best of all, they can be opened up to the centerfold but still only have a land impact of 1! Kiosk is my own mesh, newspapers and magazines arent. Old fashioned mesh sink for poor people like myself, with running water, washing animation, opening door and curtain, but only landimpact of 3; Small house in the poor part of 1920s Berlin, realistic scale, some of the smallest apartments in SL There are two apartments above the now boarded up shop; A big Bauhaus (the German version of Art Deco) apartment block from the 1920s, 4 big apartments inside, overlooking Unter den Linden; Almost done, bear with, bear with. I didn't make these lovely mesh sofa's but I put the animations inside and spend ages researching and reproducing original 1920s fabric upholstery for them; I made this mesh stove as well, authentic reproduction of an 1920s one, only 1 prim landimpact; And finally, a big turn of the century villa for the rich and famous of 1920s Berlin; There, now you're up to date

If banning and muting them doesn't work, just go out for a while. Great excuse to go do some exploring, see what is out there. It is a dedicated griefer who can stare at a house for a few hours when nobody is there.

Oh what also works is simply putting the same mesh floor inside the mesh floor, making the top one phantom and then loverling the second one a little till you feel the physics are perfect. The same mesh floors can be less LI then if you did this with prims. Problem of course is that you cant neatly link everything together, but for now, it will do.

Interesting stuff, thank you all. Still experimenting. I think I will have to use prims inside the mesh to solve this, mostly because I have a lot of tenants and I don't want them to call me everytime they have trouble rezzing stuff because their floor is mesh. So that will solve 2 problems at once. But I still want to figure out how we can solve this so I will keep trying your suggestions and a few techniques to see what happens. But for now, the invisible prim inside a mesh floor will have to do.

No the pictures show me standing on the mesh floors, not the prims.

Thanks for the information so far, I'll be looking into a few things. But first, here is the physics shape. As you can see it is pretty spot on, I cant see a reason there why I'm floating. At least, if I'm interpreting the image properly. I would think it had to do with my avatar, if I had not tested it on normal prims and seen that there is no problem there.

I know this has been mentioned before, but can't find an answer. I've been making a very very basic mesh floor with Mesh Studio. I've used it a lot, made lots of things before. So for this floor, I just stick a few prims together and turn them to mesh. But when I walk on it, I float above it, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, always more then with regular prims. I've tried a few things, like making a custom physics model, invreasing the triangle limit, the highest LOD the viewer offers, etc. It still happens. What am I doing wrong? The floor is very simple, just blocks with textures on top, bottom and side. Picture 1: Here the floating is minimal, something I could live with if I had to. Picture 2: This is getting ridicilous floaty, I've build it with the same exact technique as the floor above. But this floor is higher up and a little thinner. Picture 3; another floor test, feeling like a ghost.

You and I have the same dreams. Seen this?

How often have you seen something on tv about a couple who met via the internet and who's lovestory had a happy ending? Nice people, the kind the average tv viewer would clasify as normal, who met, fell in love and lived happily after? And how many stories have you seen where you as a viewer can judge the people in the item as weirdos, geeks, freaks, sad people, socially isolated, who do silly and weird things on the internet, stuff everyone else can laugh at, who then are silly enough to believe that the person they are talking to really is a pretty young charming highly educated cheerleader or handsome young lawyer... Oh and how we laugh and poke fun of them when they finally meet in front of the camera and we can all laugh at them when they can't manage to hide their disapointment. How often do you see the first story on tv and how often the second? And what do you think tv people think is more entertaining and gets more viewers? I work in the tv business and am an official village idiot who gets to be mentioned in newspapers and on tv now and then, the media is a tricky game. I wouldn't play it if I didn't have much media experience. So if you're considering playing this game... make sure you know the rules and only play it if you think you can win it. If you lose, you lose a lot and so does SL.

Yes SL has some celebreties but not on a RL scale. For isntance everyone who is interested in the vintage scene in SL knows Sonatta Morales who makes stunning vintage clothes. Lots of people who have been following the mesh videos know who Flufee is. If you are into machinima, you probably know Pooky Amsterdam. If you care about SL fashion you probably know Strawberry Singh. Etc, etc. So these people may not be famous gridwide, you may not have heard of any of them, but they are very well known to a large part of SL, even if it is just in their own little field of expertise.

We all sat in your chair while you were out shopping!

With many shows and especially with certain kinds of subjects, it is really easy to not realise what you're getting yourself into and end up on tv as the local village idiot. In this case I would like those who are tempted to sign in, to consider it, a lot. Please remember that you're not just risking your own reputation but also the already bad reputation of SL. Does the world really need to know that people who in RL may appear unusual and odd spend most of their times in a virtual world doing online hanky panky? That is what most people think SL is all about already. Do we want to see another show where someone expects to meet someone really pretty who they met over the internet only to discover that the love of their life is not? Try and imagine how it will look for people who have never seen or been in SL. Or would we like the world to see that there are also people in SL who don't fit that stereo type? Do we want viewers to think "hey SL is actually cool and some interesting people use it" or "Ah yes, its all weirdos and loners who play dirty things in a virtual world"?

As an owner of a region with some (some say strict) rules, we often are confronted with people who don't follow our rules. But I feel that in most cases these people at least deserve a friendly warning or reminder before banning them. They may have missed the 4(!) warning notes and messages they encounter on their way into the sim after all. So we always say hello and friendly yet firmly remind them that we have a dresscode and that they should change if they want to stay. The only people we ban on sight are the ones who arrive clearly to just cause trouble or those who break the SL TOS. Even when it is pretty obvious that guests are simply too lazy to follow our rules or when they just don't care, we give them the benevit of the doubt and confont them as if they may not know about our rules. It's just the polite thing to do. But I can understand that if you're hosting an event or have a much busier sim then I do and there are people teleporting in and out, you don't have time to talk to every single person and eventually get sick and tired of it. Sim rules are there for a reason, follow them. If you're lucky, the sim owner or managers are patient and have time to explain the problem to you. But if they don't, don't blame them. If you get banned without any warning, ask why, always remain polite (whatever you do) and perhaps when there is a big event, ask again a few days later. If you have never managed a (busy) sim, it is hard to even imagine how much work can get into that. Try and keep that in mind.

Yes and no. I try to make SL as realistic as possible. If you die in my sim, you run the risk that your avatar will not be allowed to return. Although in some cases, you are given the chance to return as wounded and have to spend time in the hospital. We have stuff that can be "stolen", it isn't really, but you can roleplay coming home and finding your stuff gone. I would like to add more realism, for instance, it annoys me a lot that my avatar can jump 6 ft high and that when I fall off a roof, I am fine. It would be great that if damage is on in a sim, you get 'wounded' when you fall off soemthing high, get hit by a car, etc, without having to wear a hud for this sort of thing. I like the idea of lindens being stolen... but not huge amounts. For instance something that would allow you to put an ammount YOU decide in your safe, and when someone manages to crack that safe, they get the money. Sounds like fun.

I can't believe they didn't make it available INWORLD!!! Get a nice cinema, perhaps even get people to pay to enter the sim and put up a big tip jar. I would have LOVED to have seen this in Second Life with my friends and it would also be a good PR stunt; Login 2 Life, the documentary about a virtual world, premiered in a virtual cinema.

Nope. Just old fashioned.

Really? I've never gotten bored with the person I love and I've been happy with almost all my posessions, even if most of them are at least 70 years old.