Rachel Darling

Why is there now a resident named "Gowns Resident," with account created on 11/19/2010, who shows up first in Search All under a search for "gowns?" Profile is blank but for the name. Search is performed in a TPV 1.x-based viewer. Is this an LL cludge of some sort, or a new way to use display names or avatars to game the Search system? (Also now taken/unavailable in account signup: Skin, Skins, dresses, makeup.... do we see a trend here?)

All things considered, that was a nice thing to say about the merchants, Grant. Glad to hear you'll be migrating the Favorites list...strangely, that was one of the major pieces of functionality I was missing most, as a shopper. In amongst a number of concerns about whether the new Marketplace is ready for prime time as yet, the thing I would most wish for is a resumption of the communication that we used to have between merchants and the Commerce Team, once upon a time. I know the seat is a hot one, especially right now...but I expect you'd find that over time it would cool down quite a lot, and might even become comfortable. That being said, good work on the cleanliness of the site, as well as a number of the new features, and I will keep my fingers crossed that the go-live is a successful one for all of us.

Let's summarize the big LL events of the past few months: Layoff of +30% of staff, including Enterprise & Education evangelist/coordinators, and closure all International offices Layoff of Commerce Director just before a scheduled release of a new online Marketplace Elimination of the Enterprise business product Reduction of both premium and standard support to US business hours, outsourcing of helpdesk staffing, increase in wait times for live support to 1/2 hour or more, and handling of tickets to 8+ weeks Elimination of the Teen Grid, with plans to bring minors to the main grid Termination of Community Gateways without notice and now...elimination of discounted pricing for Universities and non-profits, with insufficient notice for budget planning Surreal. Since we've also eliminated gamblers and other "unsavories," who exactly do we think is going to be left to pay the tier, exactly?

Using the lower body template, you'll need to create a second texture that will be the "lower half" of the Tshirt -- unfortunately, the upper body template ends at precisely the point where the lower body template begins -- ie pants, underwear, etc. Once you've created the lower part of the Tshirt on that template, you can upload it and apply it in one of several ways: 1. Create your Tshirt using the "Jacket" clothing layer, applying your upper body texture to the top half and your lower body texture to the bottom half of the Jacket. In this case, the bottom of the Tshirt will drape over top of your pants layer when you wear it. Unfortunately you won't be able to wear anything over top of the Shirt on the upper body in this case. 2. Create two separate clothing pieces using the two Tshirt textures, applying them to the tshirt & underwear layers or the shirt & underwear layers. In this case the Tshirt will appear to be "tucked" into your pants when you wear it, but it will not contain a gap at the midriff.

Defining the "best" tool is a difficult thing to do, as it can be very subjective. However, there are a number of options: 1. If you have the sculpt map files already (ie you're purchasing sculpts and just want to paint on them in 3d), I'd suggest Photoshop CS4 Extended. The Extended version lets you work in 3d using with many of the same tools you already know from working in 2d. You'd need to learn how to import the sculpt into Photoshop (using some other 3d tool or plugin to convert it to an .obj file, I believe), and then you'd need to familiarize yourself with the 3d portion of Photoshop CS4E's interface, but that would let you paint in 3d using much of the knowledge you already have. There are tutorials on Adobe's website about the 3d interface, as well as some excellent info in the Content Creation/Texture forums on the main SL website. 2. If you also want to create the sculpts, you could use Blender. Pros: It's free and it allows you to paint as well as make the sculpt. Cons: I understand the interface is very different than the norm, giving it a bit of a learning curve. Other than that, I suggest you check out the SL Wiki, and search for sculpts or sculpties. There's a page listing all of the available 3d modeling tools, their costs and a comparison that might give you a better idea on which of them would best meet your needs.