LillyBeth Filth

dick.

Phil, When I set up my graphic content on 3rd party websites such as contentparadise.com, renderosity.com turbosquid.com etc they all send me a W-8BEN form and won't allow me or indeed anyone to sell on their platform until you complete and return. Some such as turbosquid.com will allow you to sell on their platform but they take 30% of your royalities as USA Tax until such time you can verify you do not need to pay TAX in the USA because you are aready paying it in your own country. It is a legal requirement for any US online business e-commerce website who have people making money through their business platform to ensure people are tax registered and this is why Linden Labs are doing this. They have to by law. The threshold for US citizens is $600 a year i believe but don't quote me on that so as long as people are not cashing out more than $600 a year and they live in the USA then, no they probably won't need to complete this form. Time will tell but I really don't think this is aimed at just a select few people. I make a part time income from my SL sales...

Yes that's a good idea I have offered them my business registration number and the name, address and contact details of my accountant who can verify my ID and the fact he files my tax returns each year. But your idea might be better. Thanks

Yea I can and I will but as I say, my photo ID (Which they need my address to be visible on) needs updating with the issuing offices as I have moved recently and this will take a minimum of three weeks according to the passport application website. As I got zero notice from LL about them needing this information and as they already owe me a credit I filed on the 11th Jan this months income is going to be a month late which is a nightmare. They SHOULD have given people 30 days notice so they have time to get the paperwork in order without it causing delays in money earned and due before they declared pending credits will be put on hold.

Hi Could you tell me whether you provided the photo ID they asked for and if not, did they take the hold off your process credit ? I ask because I filled the form and sent it back but the instructions said I would be sent an email and I had to attach the Passport/Driving License scan etc but it did not ask for it within the final confirmation. My wage (credit) was due today and I got this email about the W-8BEN form but my address needs updating on my passport and driving licsense since I moved fairly recently. This is going to take three weeks from the offices in the UK to update and get it to me which means my income is going to be at least a month late! Some notice would have been nice! ie: "You have 30 days to provide ABC and if you do not provide ABC any credits due after that date will be put on hold" To give me zero notice on money a process credit that was placed on the 11th Jan is a nightmare. I am going to be left with unpaid bills and bank charges and it's not my fault. As I say, I have completed the form and apparently everything has been recieved but I was under the impression until they got my photo ID, I can't have the money they have placed on hold....

I noticed a few people asking about the delay in their process credits and I was about to contact LL myself too but as it happened, I got the email at the bottom of this post today. (Scroll to bottom) Linden Labs are now putting a hold on all pending process credits until a W-8BEN (TAX) form has been completed and returned by to them. They also require photograph evidence of your ID such as a passport or driving license. (See Below) The W-8BEN form is a standard TAX form required by all third party websites who allow merchants to sell through or on their platform. Such as contentparadise.com and Renderosity.com to name a couple of examples. For Secondlife.com, this has been long overdue IMO and will cause all kinds of stress and worry for those who have been cashing out but not declaring it to their countries TAX department and for those who for what ever reason, do not want their real ID to be made official and have income tied up in Linden Labs. Furthermore, all previous Process Credits remain on record so if you do provide this information, there is a possibility that the TAX will be checking how much income has been withdrawn in your name over the months, years and how long you have been paying TAX. I wish they had given us some notice as now my money will be locked until I can renew my passport and that can take a minimum of three weeks. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Case: 01844731 Avatar: LillyBeth Filth Type: Unable to determine Status: Information Requested Dear LillyBeth Filth, Linden Lab is required by applicable law to obtain, verify and maintain information identifying each person or legal entity who maintains an account which meets certain minimum standards. Due to the volume and/or amount of Process Credit Requests you have submitted this year, Linden Lab is now required to collect and confirm the following account information from you: • Name • Date of birth • Address • Identification number We are using EchoSign to facilitate the collection of this information. Please use the relevant link below to provide the above-requested information. • U.S. - https://secure.echosign.com/public/hostedForm?formid=7X8TPB4E4U4I5C • Non-U.S. - https://secure.echosign.com/public/hostedForm?formid=7XBB3LN2WIXD4M Please complete and submit the form. You should then receive an email from EchoSign containing a confirmation link. You must click the link in that confirmation e-mail in order to complete the process. If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail, please check your spam/junk filters. In addition to the form itself, we are required to obtain a copy of your government-issued photo identification (ID). The information on the ID must be current (i.e. not expired) and must match the information your submitted on the form. IMPORTANT: 1. Please be certain to include the Avatar Name where it is requested on the form. If you are not certain which account needs to provide the information, please look above at the beginning of this email/case; it is addressed to your Avatar Name. 2. You must enter your name exactly as it appears on your tax forms. The following are acceptable forms of photo ID: • Driver's license • Military ID card • Passport • Any other form of government-issued photo ID If your photo ID does not display your address, you must also provide us with a copy of a current utility or telephone bill. The name and address to which the bill is addressed must match the photo ID. In the meantime, it is necessary for us to place a hold on any and all Process Credit Requests for your account until we receive your form and supporting documentation. You must submit the form and identification within thirty (30) days of the date of this request. If you have not complied with this request within such time, we will place your account(s) on Administrative Hold until we receive such information. You may or may not receive a reminder; we recommend that you promptly submit the requested information to avoid any adverse effect to your Second Life account. If you have additional accounts under which you transact with Linden Lab, we encourage you to provide the names of those avatars at this time to receiving duplicate information requests. You should include those Avatar Names on the EchoSign form in the appropriate place. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation. Kind Regards, Linden Lab

Linden Labs are now putting a hold on all pending process credits until a W-8BEN (TAX) form has been completed and returned by to them. They also require photograph evidence of your ID such as a passport or driving license. (See Below) The W-8BEN form is a standard TAX form required by all third party websites who allow merchants to sell through or on their platform. Such as contentparadis.com and Renderosity.com to name a couple of examples. For Secondlife.com, this has been long overdue IMO and will cause all kinds of stress and worry for those who have been cashing out but not declaring it to their countries TAX departmemnt and for those who for what ever reason, do not want their real ID to be made official and have income tied up in Linden Labs. Furthermore, all previous Process Credits remain on record so if you do provide this information, there is a possibility that the TAX will be checking how much income has been withdrawn in your name over the months, years and how long you have been paying TAX. I wish they had given us some notice as now my money will be locked until I can renew my passport and that can take a minimum of three weeks. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Case: 01844731 Avatar: LillyBeth Filth Type: Unable to determine Status: Information Requested Dear LillyBeth Filth, Linden Lab is required by applicable law to obtain, verify and maintain information identifying each person or legal entity who maintains an account which meets certain minimum standards. Due to the volume and/or amount of Process Credit Requests you have submitted this year, Linden Lab is now required to collect and confirm the following account information from you: • Name • Date of birth • Address • Identification number We are using EchoSign to facilitate the collection of this information. Please use the relevant link below to provide the above-requested information. • U.S. - https://secure.echosign.com/public/hostedForm?formid=7X8TPB4E4U4I5C • Non-U.S. - https://secure.echosign.com/public/hostedForm?formid=7XBB3LN2WIXD4M Please complete and submit the form. You should then receive an email from EchoSign containing a confirmation link. You must click the link in that confirmation e-mail in order to complete the process. If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail, please check your spam/junk filters. In addition to the form itself, we are required to obtain a copy of your government-issued photo identification (ID). The information on the ID must be current (i.e. not expired) and must match the information your submitted on the form. IMPORTANT: 1. Please be certain to include the Avatar Name where it is requested on the form. If you are not certain which account needs to provide the information, please look above at the beginning of this email/case; it is addressed to your Avatar Name. 2. You must enter your name exactly as it appears on your tax forms. The following are acceptable forms of photo ID: • Driver's license • Military ID card • Passport • Any other form of government-issued photo ID If your photo ID does not display your address, you must also provide us with a copy of a current utility or telephone bill. The name and address to which the bill is addressed must match the photo ID. In the meantime, it is necessary for us to place a hold on any and all Process Credit Requests for your account until we receive your form and supporting documentation. You must submit the form and identification within thirty (30) days of the date of this request. If you have not complied with this request within such time, we will place your account(s) on Administrative Hold until we receive such information. You may or may not receive a reminder; we recommend that you promptly submit the requested information to avoid any adverse effect to your Second Life account. If you have additional accounts under which you transact with Linden Lab, we encourage you to provide the names of those avatars at this time to receiving duplicate information requests. You should include those Avatar Names on the EchoSign form in the appropriate place. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation. Kind Regards, Linden Lab

Superb! Looks amazing! Lot of work though!

Madeliefste Oh wrote: LillyBeth Filth wrote: Sadly, I have never been much of a builder in SL I focus on textures and with my recent issue of not actually being able to see them with ALM turned on, on my iMac makes it impossible to create previews "in world" Great pics from Jenni, indeed. What you see here is the effect of local lights. This works so much stronger in SL for materials then the light of the sun or the moon. You might be able to see the effects as well when you rez a few local lights, and turn on local lights in your preferences. What makes me wonder... this new project 'Sunshine' is that changing something about the influence from the sun on materials, does any of you know? No idea. I downloaded the viewer tonight as it said it was compulsary (Or words to that effect) but I would imagine adding Material Maps is the the first phase and I hope there will be many more to follow that will build on that.

Ahh ok Fair enough

Jenni Darkwatch wrote: Edited to add: The door bugs the heck out of me btw and is a good example just why I prefer pre-made normal/specular maps. The texture is low contrast, which makes masking the metal parts a lengthy procedure. Essentially I end up doing 3 normal/specular maps and combining them in the end: One for the wood grain, one for the gaps between the wood slats and one for the metal parts. And I'm simply not that good with textures You want specular light on the metal hinges and wood plank edges? I can see how that be long winded as if done procedurally the black in the Diffuse would translate to no shine in a Specular Map. Try inverting the diffuse in Photoshop:. Grey scale the Diffuse, then invert it (Image Adjustments Invert) The black becomes white and vise versa... Then you have something at least closer to work with. Adjust the Levels and Contrast and Brightness until the correct black white grey levels are achieved. OR send it me and I would be happy to play with it for you for free.

It's the light/lamp that captures the shine and bump... really adds depth

Jenni Darkwatch wrote: As far as I know no, it doesn't have material support. Would be great if it did Btw, I did purchase a set of your textures yesterday with normal/specular maps. They work great, and adding the environment mask was dead easy. Certainly saves a lot of time even with having to download and edit the maps. Here is what it looks like. None of the pictures used shadow, then only difference is "Advanced Lighting Model" off in the first pic and on in the second pic. OMG Jenny. Thank you for giving me the reason to continue making them! They look exactly like I hoped and I am ever so grateful that someone has done them justice By Environmental Mask, I assume you mean the Alpha Channel transparent editing "bit" that Drongle explained about in this thread? Sadly, I have never been much of a builder in SL I focus on textures and with my recent issue of not actually being able to see them with ALM turned on, on my iMac makes it impossible to create previews "in world" Mind if I use these screenshots on my Facebook page? I will credit your SL name of course. \ Thanks again! They look great !

Jenni Darkwatch wrote: To chime in with "no materials" vs "materials": I feel it's a matter of impact. Materials make relatively little impact with small or generally little-noticed items. On the other hand, a road or even large patches of snow (or water/glass as seen in other threads) benefits greatly from materials. As far as I'm concerned, I'd totally prefer a vendor which has _good_ normal/specular maps for their products, since I waste way too much tme making those myself. I am assuming the SL Terrain Editor does not accept Materials (?) I have made tons of Photorealistic snow and ice terrain materials, again mostly for people using external software as at the time of making them, SL did not accept Materials.

Yea. My graphics card is old by todays requirements I have an iMac 2011 model it's something I need to upgrade Thanks Drongle !

I give up. AML switched on and I now get this. Think I will stick to creating the material maps that are more commonly used (No Alpha channels) for people who wish to use them externally. They can then edit themselves for SL if they wish.. lol

Yea I can see why heavy shadow and light on textures conflicts in 3D and especially SL. Strange how it looks great in my external software (No fancy Mental Ray renders just a Shader that displays all Material Maps) ) because it just adds depth and bump to the relief areas. I never wanted too much shine on this, just a bumpy relief. After I created the diffuse I ran it through a filter which had it own HDR lighting and clearly for this specific texture its too 2D. My 3D application has some superb features for all types of maps, but for Diffuse is has adjustments for Light Equalizer, Shadows Cancel, Highlights Cancel Diffuse Albedo which appears to cancel shine. These are all great for making a 2D texture with baked lighting more flat, in preparation for a good Diffuse for 3D materials. There is an option to add a secondary height/relief map which is specific to either the Normal or Height Map (You choose which) and this adds even more control and power to pump up the relief. Lesson learnt I guess. These kind of materials are probably better suited:

Thanks Drongle! I like the top left version in the third image illustrations the best. It is the look I was aiming for. I will be experimenting with your findings very soon. It is a tad frustrating that I have to create alpha channels in the Normal and Specular Maps fot people who wish to use them solely within the SL environment as from my experience, this is not common practice for people using these maps in various external software. But I am ever so grateful for your feedback and information, so thanks again.

I just wanted to say that I have just noticed the stickie thread on Material Maps and am learning about Alpha Blending and 24 BIT TGA which was new to me. I am sorry I did not read this before I made this thread and I hope to learn what I am apparently missing from that thread, I will come back and post my updated screenshots of my own and friends from maps I created and hopefully be able to demonstrate something positive!

In short, are you saying that the 3D engine for SL currently sucks? lol By Blender etc do you mean maps made with UVs etc? I don't "generate" them. They are created in an external 3D application with a relief and materials shader and tweaked in real time as they're displayed in 3D and 2D (seperate windows) I am waiting for the screenshots from the people I sent the my maps to. Two people claim they look brilliant and can see them well. And of course someone from this thread has a bunch he said he would test for me just to see if I am applying them wrong or my graphics card isn't up to the job. As soon as I get them I wll post them.

Thanks LepreKhaun, Not here for Kudos lol But appreciate the appreciation

Thanks Drongle! I'll log in and send them over. As well as some Volcanic Terrain I have made too with spec and normal..have a play and tell your opinion. Someone purchased the Volcanic Terrain Materials and claimed they look great but I am unsure whether they're used in SL or externally at this point. PS You can keep the textures if you want them no need to delete, use them as if you purchased them

I wonder. If I sent you the Diffuse texture displayed in my post could you make a Spec and Normal map and screenshot them in SL and do as I have include the maps so I (and others) can see the difference in these maps? I know its a lot to ask but as we're discussing what should be etc... it would be a whole lot easier to demonstrate by visual aid rather then "should be" text Anyway, let me know and I can send it over to you

Drongle McMahon wrote: A couple of things that may help. First, your specular maps (especially the wall) look more like baked highlights under a particular combination of lighting and camera position. In that case, they will only produce highlights from exactly those lighting and camera angles, which will almost never show anything. All the areas representing reflective material need to be bright in these maps (see below). Second. I don't know but suspect it's not standard how the alpha channels of the normal and specular maps are used. The alpha channel of the normal map contains spatial variation in the specular exponent (sharpness of highlights). So if you have different materials in the image, you need to have that information in the alpha channel. That makes the normal map look transparent, of course. If that is indeed not standard, then it may mean you can'y use the same normal maps inside and outside SL. The same is true for the environmental reflection intensity, which is encoded in the alpha channel of the specular map. The environmental reflection is the old shiny. It approximates indirect reflection of the whole sky. Unlike the specular reflection, which reflects only direct light from light sources, it reduces the diffuse intensity as it gets stronger, This makes it good for metallic reflections, which bahave that way, but very bad for just about everything else. So once again, if you have mixed metallic and non-metallic parts in one map, you need the data in the specular alpha channel. Your normal and specular maps appear to be completely opaque, showing that they have either no alpha channel or one that is uniformly white. In that case, the "glossiness" and "environment", controlled by the spinners, has to be uniform over the whole area. That is a serious limitation if you have different surfaces in the material. It more or less precludes the use of environmental reflection except on wholly reflective materials. If you do have the maps, then the spinners act as multipliers for the values in the maps, allowing accurate adjustment. Putting a suitable grey in the colour selector below them affects the intensity of the specular highlights, which can otherwise be oversaturated if the exponent is high. So that is another essential adjustment. Third, your diffuse texture contains a great deal of lighting. I can even see a precise dark shadow of the spear. This is only consistent with that lighting and will conflict with any different lighting in SL. This is, of course the major dilemma for materials. You need that baked in (or phtographed or painted) lighting for the textures to be any good for people without ALM. So this kind of conflict is very difficult to avoid. I am sure its presence is another reason the ALM lighting effects are obscured. By the way, it is worth noting that pseudo-relief from normal maps does not contribute ambient occlusion. So you still need baked/painted AO to get the full depth effect. Fortunately it is non-directional and does not suffer from conflict with the SL AO. It just adds to it. So basically, the real time preview I have been working with in my external 3D application means nothing? I don't understand the point of having a preview if it does not translate anywhere else. Also, why do or rather when did Normal and Specular maps need an alpha channel? This is totally new to me. I am baffled why they need them. I have never have I been asked for alpha channels or partial transparency in Normal and Specular maps I have made for game devs or people who buy them outside of SL. Is this particular to SL? Wall Material is stone. I don't want it to have a high shine on it , I just want to highlight areas where light would catch such as the ledges, hence it's mainly black. A specular map with grey or too much white would make for a shiny wall which would look unrealtsic or so I have been taught. Anyway, I am interested in why I need to make alpha channels for Normal and Specular please And thanks !

Thanks Black