[Self-Care September Promotion & SL Groups]

15 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I was talking to a former psychotherapist today about people who inhabit 2nd life, and she said there's a greater number in 2nd life with severe problems compared to 1st life.  I didn't want to believe it really, but perhaps it's true. She said those on the internet are, in general, having more problems with life, and that many in 2nd life are terribly isolated. She said lots of disabled people find comfort in being able to do things in 2nd life that they can't in 1st life anymore.

If that's true, it's great they have resources here to help them cope!  I'd like to see more of them get into meditation and the arts, become creative, find support in groups if they're comfortable with that.

2nd life is a great place, or can be if you're determined to find your place within it!

I often hear people talking about what people are like in SL. There are also those that say 'those on the Internet...' but in all these cases I find no actual hard data. Is the person you talked to expressing an opinion or do they actually have an analysis of the SL residents?

---------------------------------

I think the support versus therapy group confusion has been handled. Always good to define words early in a conversation.

---------------------------------

Trusting people on SL is always a risk. We have to make decisions based on what people say. There is no body language. Voice gives a bit more info but with AI that too is becoming questionable.

So self-care in SL requires we understand how human interaction works and how it changes in SL. Many people's assumptions are simply wrong.

Along with the Woke PC nature of gender these days, it becomes impossible to know much of anything for sure.

---------------------------------

Builder's Brewery is a great support group.

[How does your avatar look today ?]

43 minutes ago, angelaThespian said:

Hi All! I thought it would be fun to share my photo taken at the Rumpus Room 1 with reflections! 

Thx. Welcome to the thread.

[Changing contact email]

One of the Lab's security questions is to list 10 of the people in your friends-list, which you can only see when logged in. So it is a good idea to have a list of those people somewhere on your computer.

[Make Second Life Great Again.]

4 hours ago, P14Y3R said:

Ive returned to SL after almost 10 years of being absent. SL was such an outstanding atmosphere in 2010, it must be better and more beautiful right? It has been 10 years, surely Linden has done something with the creators and the creators have contributed to such an amazing economy, yeah? 

I am deeply disappointed in the outcome of this sim. The paths that could have been taken, the people and community that are surely missing, the lack of economy or control of it.

Lets acknowledge that the Linder Dollar is not even close to investable. There is no "buybacks" or "printing L" function from Linden Labs' federal reserve, just greedy avatars that control the economy. Buying land at auctions is a joke, people use bots to buy land now so even if you bid, there is a bot bidding over you. Good luck getting adult land as everyone seems to think that even though there are no avatars using SL, adult land is worth L$50-100/m2. The use of bots alone should be a terms violation, but I doubt Linden Labs will govern that as they prefer to govern nothing. 

As the world progresses, better and more efficient sims are produced and SL will fall further into this pit, leaving your investment at $0 USD when the plug is pulled. To all of you greedy land owners, make the change for SL or lose SL.

Aaah... another returnee that came in looked around and didn't find what THEY THOUGHT should be here. Let's see, how long have you been back? Yet you know what SL should be and how it should work... and which virtual world do you run?

Did you make it to the Content Creator's meetings? Did you explore the Bento armature and mesh prims that users had been asking for?

Control... yeah centralized control from the top down always works so well for creative types. Make sure everyone marches in step.

As to governing... Did you make it to even one of the Linden lead Governance Meetings in-world? Any of the Linden lead meetings?

Economy.... how many people took money out of SL this past year? And how much?

Bots... a violation? Yeah, keep those bots out. No AI is allowed here. That stuff is only for RL.

Sheeeesh...

 

[How do I turn it off]

If by turning it off you mean to have it stop extending your chat, no.

[Should ban lists be visible?]

Things are fine as is.

I think you are being overly paranoid. For most people who don't know you AND your Alt, it is just two people on a ban list.

[Real Life v Second Life, Skills brought into and skills taken out of]

...I've learned lots of fun new ways to handle bad come-on lines...

[Official or Firestorm?]

Things Change...

I usually use Firestorm. I have the Linden viewer installed for troubleshooting and for checking out the latest features. And I generally have one of the Linden RC viewers installed. I also have Black Dragon installed for when I want to do some serious photography in SL.

At one time I had every viewer made installed. I did performance tests tracked crash rates and wrote reviews and how-tos for my blog. I learned that the performance leader often changes with each new release. Also, that performance is a combination of which viewer, which settings, and which computer one is using. The region one is in may throw everything off. A change in Draw Distance can change all the performance stats.

I consistently found Cool VL Viewer faster on old hardware. I don't compete in combat games like I once did. If I were to get into that again, Cool would be my likely choice. But I would be testing viewers to make sure it was still the best choice.

We don't hear much about crash rates or performance these days. Not sure where all the techies have gone.

Once upon a time.... combat games were a BIG part of SL. There were many different types. So weapons makers were big and many players were interested in performance. We don't see that now. More people seem to be interested in viewer features. That may explain the lack of tech articles appearing about SL.

 

[Raytracing]

When asking a question about SL it is always essential to understand whether "can" or "does" is the proper word.

CAN - Yes, someday.

DOES - No.

The Lab used to tell us about their near-term (1 yr) and long-term (5 yr) plans. It helps people decide how to upgrade their computers.

Tell as in they published the info on the SL Blog.

[Second Life as a combat game]

When I was playing combat games like NOR, which was ~14 regions in its heyday, the lag was horrible when firefights broke out. At the time bullets were rezzed and sent on their way. So the rate of fire was limited. But even with the limits when 20+ people had their triggers pulled on full automatic, the lag was so bad a common tactic for players was to walk on the builets using them like a ladder.

Things have gotten better, the viewer, the servers, and the network speed (well for some of us the networks are better). But just 20 people dancing in a region slows a region. In the SL places where numerous people are using their animated genitals and furniture animations, the region lags. 20 people firing weapons requires the servers to distribute information on what each of the 'ray trace bullets' is doing. The physics engine trying to keep up and calculate impacts is way beyond the load from dancers in a crowded club.

Sailing with the Topless Cruise crowd on Tuesdays reveals regions where 5 or 6 boats have trouble sailing. Mix in some land with a navigable area and the scripts associated with dwellings and other stuff cripples boats.

I don't see the generic general-purpose nature of SL will ever allow specific high performance for combat. I don't see Twitch Gaming in SL's future.

I do think those who enjoy the laggy combat gaming of SL will find things getting better. But people coming from other games are going to think SL is WAY WAY too slow for combat.

[Aditi failing to load character, keep being a cloud.]

Check to see if your inventory in Aditi is updating.

To do that, you can make a new folder and put something in it. Visit Aditi. The change will not be there. That is expected. Try again in  24+ hours and again at 48+ hours. The change should be there in less than 48 hours if things are working.

The system used to resync at 6 AM SLT. I haven't checked lately to see when it resyncs now.

Also, dump your trash and clean out the folders in Aditi that you have deleted in Agni.

As weird as it may sound, change your group in Aditi.

Otherwise, you have eliminated the likely possibilities. Ask the Lab for help.

[How does your avatar look today ?]

28 minutes ago, BelindaN said:

 

Wow! The top image is awesome!

[How Does Your SL Look Today?]

On 8/24/2023 at 10:52 PM, Bagnu said:

Now I'm curious. Does anyone else here use shared environment as their main visual setting?

 

Typically I use shared. If I start tweaking the environment for a picture I start from the region's 'shared'. I mostly move the sun to adjust shadows. But if things get too messed up I click into the default enviro and then make my own.

This is the shared enviro for the Server & Scripting UG in Denby. I think Whirly made this one in the early days of the EEP dev.

[Weird Friend Requests]

On 8/25/2023 at 4:53 PM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Horny guys 😂

So... is there another kind?

[BENTO armature rigging bone with SecondLife]

1 hour ago, KentDavis Edman said:

Ameria, I see and I got download and I can tell there is too old out of date version. Download still Blender 2.79b and I delete it.

Need to find recent like 2022 not 2017. That why SL lot change update.

There is no 2022 or 2023 version because the SL system avatar and armature have not changed since these 2017 files were created.

I am not sure what you think is out of date. I SUSPECT you are downloading the "plain" workbench files, which do not have the Bento bones i.e., wings, hind legs, etc. Scroll down the page and download the Bento Meshes versions that AmeliaJ08 is pointing you to.

There is nothing else that is newer. You can chase down the Lab's versions of these files, also 2017. But last time I used those files I had to piece the avatar together. Take our word for it. The Workbench files are a better choice and contain everything there is.

The avatar has NOT changed since 2017. So there are no newer files.

If you are thinking there are Lab files with the other bodies, (Maitreya, Reborn, etc.) there are not. All other bodies are proprietary and you get those from the body designers. But, they ALL use the same 2017 armature.

There is hope that the latest bodies for new users will be released by the Lab. But I don't recall that having happened yet. And they WILL/DO USE the 2017 armature.

Or... you can keep looking for something that does not exist.

[Head shape conflicting body shape]

On 8/25/2023 at 9:12 AM, Clarke Millar said:

So when you put on your Legacy body and add the shape it looks great, but when you put on your lelutka head, and add the shape included with that , so that your head looks right, your body loses its nice shape. How can you have the right shape for your body and at the same time have the right shape for your head? HEELLP?

You have the simple answer, make your own shape. If that answer seems incomplete... that's because it is.

Shape files contain all the avatar's shape. So when you load/wear the head shape you are replacing the body's shape with whatever is in the head's shape file. There is a workaround.

Shape files are XML files when exported. XML is a type of text file for computers and humans and is easily edited. I think all viewers can export shapes. I know the Firestorm viewer can IMPORT shape files. So the workaround is:

• Export the shapes you want, maybe one for the head and one for the body
• Edit the XML files
  • Remove the lines of XML for the body to have just the head and save as your head shape.
  • Remove the lines of XML for the head to have just the body's values and save as a body shape.
• Wear a new shape in SL that you create - AKA blank or system shape
• Import the head shape's XML file.
• Import the body shapes's XML file - they will combine
• Save the combined shape.

I have an XML shape file for each of my heads. When I get a new body I import the head file to combine with the body's new shape.

Initially, this is tedious. But it only has to be done once. You then have the files on your computer and can modify your shape for any new head or body.

You can find the gory details of the step-by-step somewhere in this forum...

[BENTO armature rigging bone with SecondLife]

17 hours ago, KentDavis Edman said:

I don't know where find one.

The workbench files are what you are looking for. The link in AmeliaJ08's post above takes you to the files.

The AvaStar people assembled the pieces available from the Lab's files. They assembled them and distributed them as Workbench files.

To get just the armature (aka bones) you'll need to remove the avatar body. The armature in the Workbench files is the ONLY armature used in SL.

[Hi me again...eep,,can anyone explain this to me like Im five?]

I am not sure which part is tripping you up. Persephone and MissSweetViolet give good explanations. But they rely on SL jargon. I'll try saying what they said using different words and ideas.

First, we have the "SYSTEM AVATAR", which is the avatar called Ruth or Roth and it is built into the viewers (thus system). If you detach everything that can be detached, you will see the system avatar. If you press Ctrl-Shift-R you'll see the avatar and everything in the world is MESH. (Press again to return to normal view)  But until 2011 or 12 we could not access the mesh of the avatar or the mesh of anything. It was then that the Lab created a Mesh type of Primitive. If you have NOT done any building, you've missed out on a lot and that is likely why this seems so complicated.

All the system layers were designed for the system avatar when we could not work with the avatar as we did with other prims. A system shirt is basically like a decal being stuck on a doll. The jacket was a LAYER above the shirt. These system layers could only be used on the avatar. There are 5 or 6  layers each stacking in order on top of the system skin.

Once mesh prims could be created, which we just call mesh, people started making mesh clothes and bodies. First feet then hands then whole bodies and heads. But the avatar and prims use different pipelines in the viewer to render. So, we could put materials on a prim but not on a system avatar.  And avatars had layers but not prims. If you have played with prims and textured them and added materials you understand. Otherwise... I hope you have a good imagination.

The creatives solved the problem of no layers on prims (mesh) by creating multiple copies of the body each just slightly larger than the previous layer. The Russian doll thing. We call these onionskin bodies when we talk tech.

This was making for huge models (lots of vertices and faces). Instead of one body, there were 5 or 6 copies of the body wrapped around a single mesh body. Each had its own textures and materials. This created a huge render load.

These body copies within copies made it nearly impossible to select a single layer to put skin on another for underwear and another for tats... The solution was appliers. An applier is a HUD programmed to place a texture and materials on a specific copy (aka layer) of the stacked mesh body copies.

These mesh bodies were like a glove fitted over the system avatar. Rather than use the System Layers to dress as we once did, we used appliers and hid the system avatar with a system alpha layer.

This was turning into a royal mess eating up bandwidth and degrading viewer performance. So the Lab created BOM = Bakes On Mesh, meaning we bake all the layers we find on the System Avatar and paste them as a single texture on a single copy of the mesh body. Bye-bye onionskin and dozens of additional textures. Way more efficient.

Now we dress our avatars using BOM... aka System Layers just as we did in the beginning. No need for appliers. Except...

There are some advantages to using the onionskin multiple copies/layers type head or body. So, those are still around and some designers still design their products to use multiple layers of mesh and appliers. Some people like the advantages of them and so they buy them. So, we'll likely never get away from appliers.

Hopefully, this helps...

[What is there to do in SL?]

Things to do… thanks @Orwar. Decent idea.

Vehicles at noob landing zones… I have mixed thoughts about that one. SL vehicles are way lame compared to vehicles in other games.

I also think horses are lame in SL. I find them way stiff, like a plastic model. I have a couple and they are fun. But they are VERY fake horses.

I think these hokey things are likely to discourage new visitors to SL more than intrigue.

Boats, blimps, and bumper cars in SL are way more realistic in that they work as I think most people expect. I think these would serve to attract more than the vehicles and horses. I would leave the horses and cars for when they are more experienced and accepting of SL’s limitations.

There are SL Historic sights/places. The builds that people made and then the Lab decided to restore after they left. I was looking for a couple of those and can’t find them listed in the Guide. Svarga is one. While not well maintained it was built to simulate an ecological system. There were birds you could feed and bees with flowers. Very complicated.

Historic places are of course part of exploration in SL. So may be providing better ways to explore SL. We have things that tour a region. But what about having places where one could board a fun vehicle and go flying and teleporting through SL? How does one impress on a new person the scale of this virtual world?

Coming from Myst Online I had a friend that thought SL was just a collection of shopping malls. He was blown away when I provided a set of LMs that took him all over SL. I think we still suffer from the problem of it being difficult to discover SL.

[How Does Your SL Look Today?]

On 8/20/2023 at 9:21 PM, Istelathis said:

So, I managed to make it to my final destination without hitting a single security orb.  Kudos to our moles for keeping Bellisseria as free as possible from those skymines 🤗

....

Now I'm off to wander the coasts and take in the scenes, while carefully avoiding people's property.

Orbs are a problem when flying. The covenants in the new gigantic contiguous lands restrict orbs and skyboxes. Orbs are not supposed to reach above 400m and must provide a minimum of 15 seconds warning. Skyboxes are not allowed below 2000m.

Fortunately, most people in the new areas read the rules.

If you run into violations, help by reporting them. You can IM/DM the owner and point them to the Land Covenants. Or just Abuse Report them.

Taxiing in Eden...

I love flying at about 40 or 50 knots and an altitude of ~100m with Draw Distance set at 512m. That is fast enough to clear a parcel before it can eject you. The 512 lets you see ahead in the minimap and see offline regions or people piling up on a region crossing.

[How Does Your SL Look Today?]

13 hours ago, AshleighRiley said:

She looks as annoyed as I feel right now.  Can anyone tell me how to remove the dark shadow on the legs.  It's on the tummy as well.  Thank you.

https://gyazo.com/04aefedee6a6ecaa4b7688be8fcf11d1

I use the lelutka evox head, maitreya lara body and mila skins.  I think its a lighting issue, but I'm not sure what I changed. Thanks!

I say it is s lighting issue. Sandor's thinking it is the dress... naw.

I didn't catch which viewer you are using. Assuming it is Firestorm... Click through to Personal Lighting.

You can see part of the Personal Lighting panel behind the menus Slide that yellow dot/ball around and see if the shadows move. If they do it is a lighting issue.

You can also click one the 5 options; Sunrise, Midday, ... etc. and see if the change. Also, notice the shortcut keys. It is possible to mistype something and change your environment.

13 hours ago, BillFletcher said:

Yes I know it happens in all viewers but it seems several people were not ever rendering at all and staying as a cloud, During this time I have been having no trouble using the SL viewer.

It may be a viewer issue. Go through the wiki's recommended fixes. Since it is only you and your viewer that are having the problem it is likely your computer, connection, or viewer settings.

If it were the viewer, we would all be having the problem.

[How Does Your SL Look Today?]

On 8/17/2023 at 12:15 PM, BillFletcher said:

Is this still happening is it on all viewers or just Firestorm

There is a version of this in all viewers. If the viewer cannot render your avatar then it renders a particle cloud. The specs for the cloud vary from viewer to viewer.

There are many reasons an avatar doesn't render. There are troubleshooting guides for bake fail that describe possible fixes.  The Firestorm Team has a very good article in their wiki. LINK

[Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?]

So... we know who values their investment in SL above their friendships.

Rules... few people think this through, as I previously pointed out. Did it occur to you that Abuse Reports violate the TOS & CS? There is no cut-out for Abuse Reports in the rules. Really!?!   There is the rule and there is the intent of the rule. The idea is to promote privacy not cover for bad behavior.

Also, sharing and posting per TOS and CS is only a matter of what happens or is permissible when using SL facilities.

 

[Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?]

21 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

I'm more in the line of "Mileages vary".  I don't like to generalize.
There are a lot of different people out there. From all sorts, believes, genders, races, age, with all kind of different expectations about SL, different (hidden) agendas, goals, achievements, taste, ethics, morals, cultural backgrounds.

The ones that walk like an elephant through a china shop (like the one you described) can go and f*** themselves.
But I'm convinced that there are tons of good people worth meeting out there too.

There are good people that have good ethics and morals. But, I have found very few that know where they got their ideas or have examined them.

6 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

I'm sure you know this and probably don't care but for new people that read the forums this is against the TOS and you could get an AR filed against you and banned for doing this.  Frankly, I'd be angry too that you did this so I don't blame him.

I think you miss understand the TOS and the scenario.

I also wonder if following rules is more important than your ethics, concern for friends, and honesty.

Interesting that you too would be angry at someone ratting out your bad behavior.

[Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?]

2 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

To be honest, I never pursue anyone, but if someone pursues me, I let them.

Oh and I have no idea how many times people have declared their undying love for me after 24 hours… mm yes baby, i love you too.

seriously? then whatever

Wow... it took that long?

Seems many have confused the feeling of love with the sensation of climaxing.

In SL the idea of forever love is HIGHLY questionable. Early on a girlfriend and I were bouncing through clubs picking up guys. One was making out with her professing how she was the only one for him, forever while in another IM was hitting on me. I wonder about such a person's ethics.

Mine are such that I sent my friend a copy of his chat thread with me... including time stamps. He was all mad at me thinking I was doing something wrong by taking care of my friend.

I am convinced few people ever think about their ethics or even wonder where theirs came from.