Madeliefste Oh

Cerise Sorbet wrote: They are not just zoom, but you will need to pull your camera back after you change the FOV, because the camera is covering a different sized slice of the world. Oh, that might be the case, Cerise. I don't remember for sure if pulled the camera back or not. I think I did not.

Finetuning both view angle and distance in 'preferences' does the trick! Thanks all for the photography lesson.

Thanks for your replies. I tried the ctrl functions first. To me it seems that is just a zoom function. At least the angle doesn't seem to change. I will give it a try with the tips of changing view angle.

VonGklugelstein Alter wrote: But I was not really thinking about my own sales. If this were a real economy with real people there would already have been bloody wars started over what some people get away with on here. I just want to say: be carefull what you wish for. In a real economy I never hear merchants ask the government for measures that undermine the purchasing power of potential customers. Especially not in poor economic times...

While making product pictures, I always experience that the perspective is too strong when I shoot smaller objects. This looks rather unnatural, so I do correct it with the perspective option in Photoshop. In next picture nr 1 shows how the snapshot looks, nr 2 is after correction in Photoshop. Now my question is: is there a way to manipulate the angle of perspective in SL? So that I do not need to correct the perspective in Photoshop all the time? Anybody who experienced with perspective in SL photography?

My guess is that the you accidently mirrored the UV map, at least the top of the floor, but maybe the complete uv map. When you flip that back and reupload the model, big chance that the shadow will be in the right spot.

You have to assign a material and a selection to your model before uploading. DracoTech wrote: IAlso, I'd appreciate it if someone could show me a tutorial that covers all the aspects of uploading mesh models so I don't screw this up again. :smileytongue: To test your model you can go the testgrid Aditi, you won't have upload costs there.

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: A merchant that never leaves ther land, never buys anything and cashes out hundreds of $L every month should be charged fees. That is taken care of already, the fee for transfering L$ into USD is 3,5%

VonGklugelstein Alter wrote: This is where the breakdown of the concept of reality originates. Who in their right mind could possibly insist that anyone is entitled to anything for free? I was one of those disadvantaged people who had to budget my upload costs and load up with some L bucks that I purchased with real Dollars before sales covered the upload fees. When SL was popular and cool it was mostly patronized by people who could invest a few bucks a month to play an online game. What I am hearing over and over is that people who are not contributing anything should be allowed to reap the same benefit that people who invest heavily. The downward spiral of the value of this game is direct proof that this concept does not work, yet people do not realize it. I'm not saying that anyone is entitled to anything for free. I think that putting listing fees on marketplace items, not only will take out the fun for a lot of small merchants, but also will hurt your business. There is only a small percentage from all merchants who are cashing out money from SL. The vast majority of merchants makes less then 10 usd a month and is never cashing out that money. This money is used to cover their own needs in SL. The money can be spent on owning land, or on buying virtual goods. The more LL takes from the amount that people have to spend, the less is left to buy virtual goods. You are at risk of loosing a lot of customers who now can afford to buy some of your builders' packages, when they have to choose between paying for your builders supplies or paying for their listing fees.

Damien Cygnet wrote: The challenge in SL is to show you have estate - if you have none - you can not risk - as a challenger we would we figure out there is not any risk with you : - you are not an investor nor a studio deisgn, you look rather a very smallcap. For me is having estate not the challenge. But I don't buy land to show others my status. Land is to me nothing more then a necessairy cost for my business, I have land to show my products. My challenge in SL tolet out the creativity and to improve my skills. I know many people for whom having estate is not the challenge either. For this person it's a challenge to find a new rl partner, for the next it is practicing his English and for the third to live out his sexual fantasies.

VonGklugelstein Alter wrote: Easy solution: Monthly listing fees.. if merchants do not want to pay listing fees they can sell their products in world for no extra charges or commissions.. When you are a starting merchant who can hardly find the money to pay for the upload costs, you have as much chance to be an active merchant then someone who makes a rl income from his sales. Both have as much chance to be around to support their products. This is not the case with listings fees. That is a system that disadventage starters and merchants with litte turnover compared to merchants who are selling well.

I think the experience for buyers can be improved, when merchants are available for support. Activity is not necessairy an indicator that a merchant offers support, but the chance to get support is many times bigger when you buy something from an active merchant, then from an inactive merchant. Now and then you hear buyers that bought something that does not work as aspected. They contact the merchant, who does not reply, they wait a few days, contact again, no answer. They get irritated, send several messages again or are checking to see if they can catch him online. While the conclusion 'I just spoiled xxx L$' is becoming clear, the frustration is high. The buyer feels treated unfairly, and seeks justice. Often they expect that LL will take measures against such merchant and/or will compensate for the loss. They start to send in tickets and AR's. And the frustration climbs to the top when they hear: We don't step into resident-to-resident issues, you must solve this with the merchant himself. But there is no merchant to solve anything with. So with more then 100% frustration, the buyer is thrown back upon himself. That is not a healthy situation, nor for the buyer, nor for other merchants, nor for Linden Lab. A customer should be treated with repect, in stead of with indifference. Since Linden Lab is not prepared to step into these conflicts, they should, when possible, build in measures that help to avoid these conflicts. In the marketplace this can be done by giving unsupported products a lower place in ranking then supported products. One way this can be done is by taking the last date of login from the merchant in account when the order is calculated, how further that day in the past, how lower the ranking of the product. But the idea that Darius brings up is good as well. Anything that can be done avoid these frustrations that people can get from buying unsupported products should be seized.

CUTE! Long time ago, Hikaru :smileyhappy: I agree with the texturing suggestion, the hair now gives the idea of being too very long. Like he has fallen in a pool or such, and all the hair dried put close to his body. Nose and eyes are okay. I would like to see a bit more of hands and feet. Probably it can do with just a some patches suggesting the palm of the hand and soles of the feet.

Medhue Simoni wrote: If the search engine actually displayed the best products first, instead of the cheapest, then this would hardly be an issue. And that is not a form of regulation? Is a painting by van Gogh a better product then a painting by Rembrand? A diamond skull by Damien Hirst is definititely more expensive then an artwork by Banksy, that he sprays on public walls in London. But does this make Hirst a better artist then Banksy? It's a different style, a different choice of material, different subjects and a different audience they seek to work for. It is hard to compare, because you have no objective standards. A lot comes to personal taste when you have to decide which artwork is better then the other. When 'the best' for a big part depends on personal taste, how can a search engine know what the best products are?

Mitsuko Kytori wrote: But, I can forget how LL play with vendor. But not the fact they never answer to my email and ticket. Because I translate this by "Mitsuko for us you are nothing" it is an unbearable lack of courtesy. I completely agree. Tickets should be answered, within a reasonable time. Just ignoring is the worst you can do to your customers.

Mitsuko Kytori wrote: So, I just need put my avatar log on and ... I hope second life is not only for people not work in real life .. It should not be that a merchant who is in SL 24/7 gains visibility above a merchant who is logs in daily for a few hours. But these both merchants who log in on daily base should gain visibily above merchants who only login twice a month. And those who just login twice a month should have still more visibility then merchants who didn't show up at all during last three months.

Medhue Simoni wrote: They have told me that the issue they see the most is that the newbie comes in and tries some freebies, and wants something better, but when they actually spend their money, they don't like the product, or get really bad service or no service. When it comes to service, yes, there should be more regulation in the marketplace. I think customer satisfaction will increase when supported products gain visibility above unsupported products. In my opinion should 'Is the merchant still active in SL' be a criterium for ranking in the marketplace. The last date the merchant logged into SL should play a role in ranking. The longer ago the merchant entered SL, the lower his visibility of his products on marketplace should get.

Dartagan Shepherd wrote: An ironic little twist is that now Phil Rosedale himself is investing and partnering with Ozimals to bring breedables outside of SL (as if breedables didn't exist outside of SL before one was ever spawned in SL), so now we've got the chairman of the board using Strangelings from within SL to upsell a venture outside of LL. Right, that is thebig joke of 2012: Pip embraces the breedables. Maybe it's just that people who seem to be great visionairs for a period are at risk to get demented at young age. I guess he had a Tamagotchi when he was young.

Medhue Simoni wrote: Yes, technically, we are all artists, but we have 2 major categories. Those are the professionals, that lives off their sales of their art, and then we have those that simply create purely for attention or pleasure. This is not the mideval times when artists has benefactors. Every1 must earn their livings and this is a big part of how and economy functions, and why prices are what they are. The professionals do not create strictly for profit, but also for pleasure. If we did things strictly for profit, we would likely be in a different industry. Yep, this difference in categories of merchants is a given. Everyone must earn their livings, and most don't have the time, the patience or the talent to do that in SL. Most professional merchants recognise the importance for a certain bottum price for virtual goods. But the majority of the SL merchants earn their livings outside SL, what makes them independent from their income in SL. Since hobby merchants don't have to live from their sales in SL, they can afford to sell their creations for what a professional might consider ridiculous low prices. So professionals must realise they are working on a market with a lot of competitors who have the urge to be seen, above a financial need. Medhue Simoni wrote: The demand in SL drops because consumers can't find the best products That is an assumption... and I don't believe it in it. In 2007 every single merchant could find buyers, for good products and for bad products, for beautiful and for ugly products. The market of virtual goods was still limited, and there still were enough holes to jump in for new merchants, while the population was rapidly growing. A big number of (new) residents brings a big demand. People tend to have budgets that they can spend, and most people stick to that budget for years when nothing changes in their situation. On the one hand we see less new residents come in, year after year, and on the other hand we see a world wide RL economical crisis that has a lot of influence on peoples budgets. A percentage of longstay residents and a percentage of newcomers have simply less to spend then in 2007. I see those factors as much more important to declare the sink in the SL economy, then that people cannot find the best products. When people have money in the pocket that is longing to be spend, they will always find the best product. Because that is simply the product that makes the heart jump at the right moment. This can be pure impulsive, or it can be well considered after a solid product comparison, people will simply buy what is best (in the range of the budget their are prepared to spend).

Medhue Simoni wrote: This is a direct result of LL's socialist central planning. It didn't used to be this way. As long as LL continues down this path, the value of products will continue to decline, and so will LL's profits. I see this different, Medhue. Ofcourse a change like in world search has a big influency on the economy. It shifts the visibility of shops. But I doubt it has much influence on the demand site. The same amount of money is going around, but it is spend in different shops, because those gained visibility above others. The value of products declines when de demand is declining, and that is going on for some years now. In rl there exists no economy where producers keep on producing while the demand is on return, or where sellers keep filling their shop with more and more stuf when the demand is declining, because that is just asking for a bankruptcy. In SL though, the economy is of a different nature then we know in rl. The SL economy is an artists economy. Artists are problably the only occupational group in rl that keeps producing there is no demand for their work. They are not driven by economical impulses in the first place, but the need to produce comes from inside. (I state it all very black and white now, ofcourse there are individual nuances and exceptions among artists). What artists want, even more then money, is recognition. To get this recognition your work must be seen first. In SL is 'being seen' connected with 'being bought'. The more people buy your stuf, the more recognition you get. So, when people don't buy their stuf (anymore) at a market conform price, SL artists will sell below the average price. That gives them (back) the attention they are looking for. That is to say, for as long as it last... because it won't take long before another artist arrives who needs even more recognition and starts selling under the lowest price, or decides to give his stuf away for free. Besides of that there are other aspects make it hard to gain visibility, for exemple cluthering. You will never tear your pants in SL, even after years your jeans will look brand new, as if it was just bought yesterday. Hair doesn't need to be cut, a storm won't ruine your garden, your car will never get rusty and so on. The time that people dropped in in droves with empty inventories is long past. The demand is declining since 2008, but the pile of products keeps growing. So there are more and more products for people to spend their money on, while there are less people willing to spend their money on virtual goods. It is predictable that this will lead to less turnover per merchant. The whole point is: the grow model doesn't work any more. But we have no alternatives. At that point there is a parallel with the rl economy again.

Pamela Galli wrote: Really smart people skip the whole time-wasting business of coming out with innovative products first, and just copy what others do, at half the price. (I am not one of those really smart ppl.) The smartest ones stop putting thier time in this blind alley at all, and move on to greener coasts. (I'm not that smart either)

Mitsuko Kytori wrote: Photoshop : 1000 $ 3D Max : more than 3500 $ Maya : 3500 $ ICAD : more than 5000$ The Gimp is a good alternative for Photoshop and free. Blender can do the same as 3D Max and Maya. Price: 0 $

I don't understand a bit of the technology behind server side baking. What I understand from it, after a quick read here and there, is that processes that first took place in the viewer, in the future will take place on the server. What I am actually curious about is: will it have any influence on how easy it is to rip content from creators? Will this new way improve things for us merchants, when it comes to content ripping? Or does it not make any difference at all?

Medhue Simoni wrote: Madeliefste Oh wrote: I started to use my profile to post new products away back, not long after the social network option was released. But in march my webprofile suddenly stopped working. As a result my profile is not visible anymore for customers, friends or anyone who is interested to check me. I've send in tickets, filed a jira (https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-4537), and learned that I'm not a only one with a broken profile. But LL doesn't seem to care at all. I do remember you mentioning this before. I does make me sad that it seems like LL neglects everything, no matter what we do to try and help them. LL almost seems like a bunch of irratic kids that can't be bothered enough to fix anything. It's like all they want to do is work on the next new shiny thing, and don't care that their last project has major bugs. We can always hope for LL to change their reputation. w00000t! I have my profile back. There was a comment on the jira from someone who mentioned he had deleted all this pictures from his profile, to get it working again. I had no idea how I could enter my profile, since it was stuck. So I contacted the guy, he explained, and it's very easy. I just went to my.secondlife.com/madeliefste.oh/snapshots. Delete all snapshots there, and that did the thing. I just cannot understand that LL could not give this support but a resident had to find out about it and help me to fix it.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: This is an utterly stupid setup (as are so many other parts about MP Merchant Management in MP). If I am changing my store location under the MP Store setup... it should automatically change all my listings SLURL inworld store locations. It seems that you think that all merchants always just need one store location. I definitely don't want all my lisings updated when I change a store location. I need minimum 4 different store locations at the moment. There are also merchants who need even more. They use a different store location for each single product, to bring the customer to the exact right spot where the item is.