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Dana Hickman

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Everything posted by Dana Hickman

  1. For me, 9 times out of 10 any hair that comes with a hat isn't all that great, or if it looks good it's all sculpted junk that gives you the helmet head look. I always buy seperate hat hair that has a low profile and lots of flexi flow to it, but I've only been really happy with the stock ones I've gotten from Tukinowaguma, even though I do edit them. In fact that's the only place I buy hair at all now.. even the hair in my forum badge is from there.
  2. Pussycat Catnap wrote: Dana Hickman wrote: People need to forget the false numbers and use proportion as their guide. And yet if you use proportion as your guide you will end up with an avatar under 6 feet tall. You can't do humanistic proportions otherwise. The quote of mine you're talking about is taken out of context. I was referring to AV size in proportion to the world of SL and the other people in it, NOT AV shape proportion. How people shape and balance the parts of their AV is unrelated to what I was saying about scale.
  3. Verena Vuckovic wrote: "Part of the problem is that many are hung up about the numbers of their height, and still think they have some relation to real world measurements.. they do not. They are for game use only, and only as an internal reference. The true measurement of ones height is in relation, and proportion to the averages found in SL." This is nonsense. Things DO actually have specific sizes in SL There are no relative sizes.....a sim is specifically 256 meters by 256 meters. Rez a block and it will specifically say 1 meter. If your height says 8 fot 2 inches...it is because you ARE 8 foot 2 inches ! Reread.. i said the NUMBERS are not related to real world measurements, as in they are not a 1 to 1 ratio. NOwhere did I say a flippin thing about anything not having specific sizes in SL. In fact, I even validated that by specifically saying they're an internal game reference..which means I can NOT have said they don't exist. So what's the real reason you called nonsense on 3 consecutive opinions on the subject? They are, after all, opinions.. and not yours to correct tyvm.
  4. Part of the problem is that many are hung up about the numbers of their height, and still think they have some relation to real world measurements.. they do not. They are for game use only, and only as an internal reference. The true measurement of ones height is in relation, and proportion to the averages found in SL. Average default shoe size, average door height, etc.. If one sits on 10 couches from various makers and your knees do not make the edge of the cushion on 8 of them, your height could say 15 feet tall and it doesn't matter, you are a child-sized AV. The same goes in reverse.. if you bury your ankles in the floor on 8 of them, it could say 5'2" and it really means jack crap, you are an amazon. People need to forget the false numbers and use proportion as their guide. Another part of the problem is that the shape adjustments allow people to be much shorter or much taller than you'll see in real life. This spreads the spectrum of the sizes you'll see and will highlight the differences much more so than in RL.
  5. LSChicky Fredericks wrote: I am having this same problem. I have tried everything listed above, sometimes it works for a minute or two, but then it goes back. Could this have something to do with the massive amounts of server restarts they seem to be doing? (or are those a normal amount?) This almost sounds like the cache hasn't been cleared, but if you have then it wouldn't be that. There is another bug relating to fuzzy looking AV textures but I don't think it involves the viewer *not getting* all of the texture like the above issues. It acts like the viewer just doesn't know that the new texture is available and so it never tries to update what you see to the new one. The fix is to just go into appearance mode, then click on the clothing layer tab you're having the problem with. On modify clothing you should see the layer texture in the texture box, and if it *is* the issue I'm talking about then that texture will look clear and crisp. Simply exit out of appearance mode without saving anything and your AV *should* do a rebake and display the proper clear texture. Think of it as kicking the viewer in the rear end to get its attention. Sometimes it only takes going into appearance mode, but I've definitely seen it where you *must* click the tab for the specific layer of clothing that's fuzzy or it won't work, and you can sit there and rebake all day and that particular layer will still remain fuzzy.
  6. JeanneAnne wrote: I turned HTTP textures off on both Viewer 2 and Firestorm. Then yesterday I noticed that the pattern on my blouse looked a little fuzzy so I checked again, and they were back on! I hadn't changed it. Do HTTP textures come back on after you've unclicked them, when you log back in (with Firestorm)? Or did I do something else inadvertantly to turn them back on? Thanks, Jeanne I haven't seen this particular setting get reset, but I have seen similar ones that i know were unchecked become checked after a crash. I think some of them like to revert to their default state after a crash, or possibly a dodgy or incomplete logout, and i know http texture is ON by default in firestorm. Other than that I really can't say.
  7. Griffin Ceawlin wrote: In any case, if you're so "fed up with meeroos," why do you care? Probably because it's not about the breedable itself so much as the fact that creators are allowed to script in ways to return, delete, or cripple a valid purchased product at their own whim, without having to clearly and blatantly notify the customer before purchase. For whatever reason this kind of functionality is included, it amounts to nothing more than a "bait and switch" when it's used for ANY single thing other than post-copy (copybot) protection. Best advice is to research more before purchasing these kind of heavily scripted items, and to never purchase any ones that include a hidden recall, cripple, or delete function that the creator can mess with. OPs like this one are how others find out about these things, and because the creator's certainly not going to tip his hand on stuff like this.
  8. However, what I noticed was that other avatars stayed gray for a loooooooooongtime. I hadn't typically had this problem before. Could unchecking HTTP textures cause a delay in me being able to see other avs as anything more than gray outlines for like 15 or 20 minutes? Did fixing one problem create a new one? Jeanne The choice of using HTTP or UDP textures is not part of your account settings and it doesn't get carried over from one viewer to another. It's specific to each individual program you use to connect to the grid with. What you probably saw is Firestorm "cache sharing" with viewer2 and using some of its previously downloaded textures. They both use the same cache location by default IIRC, and thus the same downloaded textures that are already in it. The gray AVs I'm guessing was Firestorm still trying to use http to get the textures, combined with what sounds like could be primetime and busy sim symptoms, and not doing a very good job at it. You'll need to find and disable http textures in firestorm to make that work in firestorm.
  9. Tristizia Demonista wrote: This could be a prob with the HTTP Textures. Have you tried to disable them ? You can do that in the Developer Menu (ctrl+alt+Q) BINGO!!! We have a winner! The issue's usually the result of HTTP textures prematurely terminating their download (as in the request gets dropped mid-download) under certain conditions. This does not happen when the textures are sent to you using UDP protocol, and UDP is what you get when you disable HTTP textures in the viewer. I myself have had this same issue before and the fix was most definitely disabling http textures, AND clearing your cache at the same time, then relogging. Using UDP makes all of your textures take a little longer to fully download, but they don't get stuck unfinished like they can with HTTP.
  10. No story at all behind my AV name and picking it was as easy as it gets... it's my RL first name and the last name sounded like it went with it.
  11. Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Because there are more emotionally baggaged, neurotic, or outright crazy individuals in places like SL than in any RL environment save for a psychiatry ward (I'm one of those crazies myself, so I'm allowed to say that ). And one can't really gauge people and their behavioral oddities unless one meets them eye to eye, supposing that they're capable of looking you in the eye and don't just stare at their shoes or at the wall behind you while they feverishly scratch their arms to get rid of all those imaginary spiders. The guy who mutters to himself in the streets, wears a bobble hat lined with aluminum foil and collects dead pigeons in his freezer can appear completely normal in a text-based environment. That makes meeting an SL acquaintance a much higher risk than going on a date with someone who you've already met in person, lives in the same town or is acquainted with one of your friends, and has a known history of taking regular showers and not trying to strangle people with a toaster extension cord. I like this reply. Not only because it's so very true about SL, but also because it shows off the attitude one has to have to survive wading though SLs high percentage of wierdos and freaks. As for the OP, my SL friends are as real as RL friends get, but they are not as real life as RL friends get. I cherish them both in exactly the same ways, but I keep my SL friends (as well as many other things I'm involved with in SL) apart from my RL.
  12. And I agree with Venus.. using any old freebie facelight is not good enough. For someone to use one and *not* instantly piss-off entire crowds of people in public places, it *has* to have a light radius of 2m or less... 2m is roughly 6 feet in all directions, 12 feet from edge to edge, and is more than enough to light yourself up to your hearts content without bleeding light onto everyone else around you. It's no big deal to wear a respectable facelight if you're concerned about how others see you, but it becomes laughably ironic how if you wear a bad one with too large a radius, people will just DeRender you and you'll not be seen at all...
  13. Far too many people have more than one viewer installed, and are constantly running into issues *because* of that, and end up blaming SL or a viewer for *user* error. I know because I was one of them, and had lots of issues *until* I removed all the installed viewers and only reinstalled one. It's worth a try.
  14. Penny Patton wrote: Every single one of the avatars from this image is in the bottom 20% or so of the height slider. My own avatar, in the middle, has a height slider setting of exactly 15. Correct, and every single one of those avatars, including your own, suffer from mesh issues relating to size. This pic is a poor example due to deliberate hiding of the bad thighs, arms, and hips by prim or baggy setting on the clothing. Of those you can actually see, the sharp angles created in mid-thigh, the sunken-in and skewed upper arms, the double hip folds on one of them, as well as the extended joint stretch area in the groin of your own AV (no it's not only the pose) are just a few examples that are clear and obvious. These are things you do NOT get if the AV was sized above the minimal thickness threshold, and you would NOT have to jump through tons of hoops to try hiding the over-compressed mesh deformations with baggy clothing, prim addons, or unnaturally inflating an adjacent body part to blend it in. Of the issues that are inherant in the mesh itself and that do show up on taller AVs as well, those issues are worse.. and sometimes hideously worse on very short AV's. There's no argument here, it is fact.
  15. Penny Patton wrote: Dana Hickman wrote: and the height slider allows AV's to be shorter than that minimal thickness dictates. That results in midget or troll arms/lower legs, as well as hips with the thighs pushed too far up into them. Also ,this isn't entirely true. You run into issues with the torso and height of the hips when going for extreme shortness before you run into minimal thickness issues. You run into all those scaling issues specifically *because* minimal thickness has already been passed and the mesh management has to compensate by skewing the body part. Below a certain point the joints and their protected areas on either side of the joint cannot become smaller, so the program has to merely keep shortening the bone length as you go shorter without also scaling down the joint areas. Below the bottom 15, maybe 20% on the height slider (depending also on the limb length / thickness settings), it's only about the middle third of each body section that actually changes shape any more. The protected areas adjacent to the joints do not and so the middle part away from the joints gets compressed, bulged, and in cases like the lower legs and forearms, skewed and bent offcenter. That is where troll arms and legs, as well as the little boy hips and the "holding your breath" look come from. It's the fact that you are allowed to pass that point and go even shorter that creates those issues in the first place. You have to remember I'm talking about minimal joint thickness put in place to preserve proper joint folding during animation, NOT "minimal thickness" in terms of a standard 3D object. They are 2 totally different things.
  16. We've been asking for a better AV mesh for years, but implementing such a thing isn't quite as easy as it seems. The problem isn't adding a new AV mesh as a viewer option, so that users could choose and current AV content would not be broken in the process.. that's the easy part. It's that making a new AV option at all is an incredible amount of 3D work and probably something LL doesn't want to devote manpower to. Many don't realize that there's a complete 3D mesh part for every default, minimum, and maximum slider setting, for every shape slider in every catagory, including every clothing appearance slider that uses mesh or deformation.. as well as at least 2 complete model parts for every hardcoded hand and facial gesture, and there are a lot of those. Just making the 3D parts and all the hundreds of morph point variations is a major undertaking, even for a team of people. That also doesn't address the problem of how to make UV texture wrapping for the new AV compatible with the current shape and appearance system, which is a whole different headache. I agree it would be completely awesome, and nobody more than I would love to hear that LL has secretly had people squirreled away in a basement somewhere working on this for the last 2 years and it'll be ready for us later today. I just can't deny that the logistics of making such a thing happen might be a bit much to think feasible at this point, but I can still hope.
  17. Pussycat Catnap wrote: The taller you are the more impossible it becomes to have proper proportions. It would help if you include the whole truth, not just part of it. The farther away your AV is from starting default height in ANY direction, the more impossible it becomes to have proper proportions. The morph points for slider adjustments do not allow very tall AVs enough adjustment room on specific areas like hand and head size, as well as hip and arm length.. and so one can throw off proper proportion by electing to be too tall. The morph points also do not allow very short AVs any sense of proper proportion either, and that is due to the fact that the forearm, lower leg, and hip flex areas need to maintain a minimal thickness to be able to fold properly during animation.. and the height slider allows AV's to be shorter than that minimal thickness dictates. That results in midget or troll arms/lower legs, as well as hips with the thighs pushed too far up into them. It only need be said that the height slider is not a full scale "grow or shrink" adjustment, so it's best not to think of it as one. It can only excessively lengthen or compact the neck, torso, leg, and arm lengths, and nothing else, and there is such a thing as too much in either direction for the mesh to handle properly.
  18. Mayalily wrote: I never modify my shape to fit the clothes; I modify the clothes to fit my shape. I agree, and I'm sort of in the same boat. For me, mesh clothing is no more useful then no modify prim skirts or belts with a scripted resize in them. Every single one of them is purposely made to fit the standard pasty white chick with an unnaturally large bubble butt. One can easily get the hip width correct on the item, then look from the side and the stupid thing is 1/3 (one third!) too large front to back, and no way to fix it. The exact same thing happens with mesh clothing.. no options to adjust for individuality.. and so I'm absolutely not wasting any money on someone elses mesh clothing creations. It's not just about the shape, it's also about what one conveys when using these supposedly "form fitting" mesh clothing items. Yeah sure, I could probably get items like popular name mesh pants to contain my lower half, but then I too would be a white chick walking around with an unrealistic, and quite laughable wannabe ghetto booty... because it's built into the clothing. I'll pass and instead not settle for mediocrity, thanks anyway. Boots and shoes? you bet.. Clothing? not even a chance...
  19. Vladi Hazelnut wrote: Men simply are not that complicated. I don't like pizza with everything, you know why? Because I don't like pizza with everything. Extra cheese and pepperoni for me please. I like dr pepper and hate pepsi. Why? Because dr pepper taste good and pepsi taste like crap. I don't know why, that is just how it is. Women are thinkers, the wheels in their minds are always turning. Thoughts run frantically through their heads and they are always trying to make sense of things. Men not so much. If you ask us what we are thinking and we say "nothing" We are not trying to hide anything. We probably were thinking of nothing, it happens, and you ruined the perfectly thoughtless moment lol. And if you ask again, what we will be thinking is "why does this girl keep asking me dumb questions? I told her already. I wonder if I could get her take her shirt off? Man I could really use a beer. OMG, she is asking me another question!" ok, I just wanted to mention that I laughed so *bleep*ing hard at this comparison! It's so true! :smileyhappy:
  20. Ceka Cianci wrote: if you are spending way too much time on SL then you may want to curb it some..if sl starts to hurt your RL at all then it's becoming a problem.. if it is that she just doesn't like you on it because she just doesn't like you on it.. then make her put something on the table that she loves to do to give up as well.if she doesn't like it.. my fiance knows i spend lots of money on SL..but..he also knows i earn part of our money as well..he has his kabillion sports channles and his things as well..so that argument last all of 60 seconds.. I like this answer ^^^^ a lot ! Nobody likes competing with SL or the machine it runs on for quality time with the one they care about. Resentment happens easy in that case and has been known to be the cause of the grouchy in the first place.
  21. That's proof right there... EVERYbody likes inflatable playthings :smileytongue: well, everybody except kids and cats.. but that's a good thing
  22. What I find true many, many more times than not is that how someone views the gender they're attracted to is a direct reflection of how they view themselves. Timid or demure people often like images portraying that of power, dominance, and authority, while very confident or egotistical types often prefer images depicting innocence, submissiveness, and helplessness. At the ends of the scale it's polar opposites that attract. When talking about the gender they're not attracted to, it's often depictions that highlight traits or features the person respects or wishes they had for themselves that's attractive. It may or may not be in opposite to what they already have, so it might be something they like about themselves that they see in it that draws them in, or again it may be something they themselves lack that's become enticing. For both, it's not about the weapons, it's what having and displaying the weapon says about the person holding it that ultimately becomes either more or less attractive to someone. The "why" answer to most of these kinds of questions almost always lies inside the person asking.
  23. Kolby Nissondorf wrote: Okay, so, here is my question. Is it bad to only 'own' one outfit on your avatar? From an SL standpoint, no..not bad. You do what you want and be happy with it. From a strictly superficial female standpoint, bad.. very very bad. Most women like it when a man can express himself in ways we're accustomed to, like through style and fashion, and visual changes add to whatever mental image we have of you. Nobody needs to be a "one trick pony" or "one hit wonder", so why be one if you don't have to?
  24. I've never seen the point of these things, but have seen people wearing them a lot. To me, in a digital world where so many of the senses and subtleties are lost already, I don't really understand why someone would set one of the few emotives we do have to run automatically regardless of what's goin on. I use a set of gestures for smiling/emotion because i prefer to convey such things when the situation actually calls for it, not just when a scripted timer says it's time to smile now. All Smiler / emotive attachments use the same default set of "animations" that are hardcoded into the viewers. I say animations in quotes because they are not really animations, they are mesh morph point sequences. They don't move the individual mesh parts from point A to point B like a standard animation does, they actually alter (morph,change) the head shape (just like editing your appearance) to create the effect of smiling. Nothing else in SL can animate your face except these hardcoded morphs, and they are the same ones found in the gestures menu .
  25. Kascha Matova wrote: Hey Dana! Would that also account for why the instanced copy of my yacht, which I have perma-rezzed in the inlet dock I created next to my house, sometimes is wearing the text from some miscellaneous notecard as a paint job?! That almost sounds like a mixture of both the window bug and what Pussycat says about cache locations. If it's only the window bug, then clearing cache and a relog should fix it. i've had SL menus on my house, AND me so I know it's a form of cache texture corruption, and clearing the cache has always worked first time. Something residual and reappearing at random times like your boat textures I would think may have started from the window bug initially, but may be still hanging around because you possibly have more than one viewer installed on your machine and they use the same folder for cache. I would uninstall all your viewers, delete their hidden folders completely, and only reinstall the one you want to use.
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