Nalates Urriah

Change httpMaxRequests to 16 or 8. Phoenix Viewer has a section that discussses the setting. Search their wiki. I'm being lazy and not looking to see if Singularity has a wiki... and I don;t remember... so you might check. There have been problems with the routing to SL's utility servers. I think they have that fixed. But, we could still see problems during heavy load. So, you might try setting ImagePipelineUseHTTP to false. I think this is the typical HTTP Texture Get in most viewers. Turning it off reverts you to the older UDP texture fetch process and a different router path to those assets. Singularity is a good viewer. So, it is unlikly it is the problem. You can ask in the in-world group for Singularity. I'm not logged in right now so I can't give you the name. Search groups using Singularity. You'll find it. Jump in chat and ask. Someone will probably answer. Also, if your polite and avoid slamming Phoenix, you can ask in the Phoenix group and someone there will likely help. The majority of people there are helpful. Some viewers crash on exit and leave processes running. You won't notice a problem until you next login. Try restarting the computer and then login. The Region Logout process means that SL thinks you are still logged in. Since you are now trying to login they realize there is a problem. So, they log you out. Give it 30 to 60 and try again. If you want to know more about these problems read: I Can’t Login. You'll learn about some of the more complex problems that popup and prevent your logging in. Fortunately they are rare.

It sounds like your computer is having problems resolving server names. Try restarting the computer. Shut it down and restart your modem and/or router. Let them completely restart before starting your computer. Start the viewer and before logging in click Help->About and copy-paste the info whenever you ask a tech question. Wireless connections are often a problem. Try using a cable to connect and see if that fixes the problem. You can test your connection at SpeedTest.net. There is a server name and IP address in the About Info. You can use that for the destination of the test for better relevancy. Plus of you do file a support ticket, it will help to give support the results. For checking packet loss you should be able to press Ctrl-Shift-1 (a toggle) to get the viewer statistics. Packet loss will be shown. You may be in Basic Mode. If so, you may not be able to find some of the controls we are suggesting to you. Placing the About info in with your question means we do not have to guess.

When you ask a technical question please click Help->About and copy-past the information into your post. That tells us everything we need to know to make intelligent answers. Otherwise we have to guess. The type of problem you have is often a connection problem. While logged in press Ctrl-Shift-1 (a toggle) to open the viewer statistics. If you have Packet Loss over 2 or 3% and Ping time is more than 250ms, the problem is probably your connction. You can test your connection at SpeedTest.net. In the About Info there is an IP and server name. You can test using those if you want high relavance results. Your problem can also be from a server problem. Look for Time Dilation and Physics FPS. Values be low 1 and 40, respectively, suggest a server problem. Log into another region. Be sure you restart your computer after you have problems with a viewer. Since you are using multiple viewers, you need to read through my Second Life Clean Install to see if there is anything there that will help.

For technical questions it is often easier to copy-paste the info from the viewer's Help-> About. It gives versions of several important components installed on your system. The 560 is not the only nVidia card having problems. The Lindens are aware of the problem. The problem is not so much the nVidia cards as it is how the Lab uses OpenGL and changes in OpenGL. The work-a-round is to roll the card back to an older nVisia driver. Several people are using 260.99. Search this forum on nVidia or nVisia 560 to find what people are trying. There is all some information here: [#SH-2240] As OpenGL, I want applications to not use the fixed function, because it is deprecated. - Second Life Bug Tracker and nVidia Driver GTX 460 Problems

The simple answer is the files your viewer needs to render the avatar have not downloaded. So, the viewer shows a particle cloud. This can be because of your connection or because the region you are in is having problems. You can tell which by pressing Ctrl-Shift-1 (its a toggle). This will open the viewer's detail stats panel. Look for PING and PACKET LOSS. These tell you if it is the connection. Ping should be less than 250ms. Packet loss should be 0%. You can get by with 2 or 3% packer loss. But loosing a key packet can cause a problem. Look at Time Dialtion and Physics FPS. Time Dilation (TD) should be 1.00. It is common to see 0.9 to 1.0 in practice. Physics FPS should be in the 40's. Lower values are worse. If you are seeng low values the problem is on the server side. Try another region. They one of the deserted regions, like; Grasmere, Seascale, or Brampton. I am guessing you are using Basic Mode. So, I'm unsure exactly how to do this. But, once there log out of SL. Log back in and you should be in the region you logged out from. Give it five minutes and see if your avatar renders. Press Ctrl-Alt-R to force a rebake. You may have to rebake 3 or 4 times. Giver it a minute between bakes. If that is not working, come back and tell us the results. Also, click Help->About and copy paste that info here. Best to do that while you are still logged in.

For any single specific task, there may well be a best. For general purpose modeling, I suspect it is more about personal prefference than the software. In which case the better modeling program depends on what you plan to do. Maya and 3DS are good professional tools. They have about every tool one can imagine. So, it you plan to do professional level production, go with them. Sketchup and similar programs are a novice's tool. Professionals can use them but will find them limiting. If you are a beginner and just want to learn some basics, they are not a bad place to start. Blender, TrueSpace, and similat tools are some where between being a professional's and a hobbyist's tool. One can do most of the things in them that one can do in Maya or 3DS, but things are not as polished. One skilled with Blender can do impressive work. Since both of these are free, they are good starting places for beginners yet to decide how deep they want to get into modeling. Blender has a reputation for being hard to learn. However most people using it learn it on their own. I don't have numbers, but I suspect more people go to school to learn 3DS than are self taught. I'm not sure my assumptions about which is actually more complex or difficult to learn are valid. But, I can say from personal experience that Blender 2.5x is far easier to learn than 2.4x and prior. For building regged mesh, what you would use to build an avatar, most modeling programs' export is a problem for SL import. The Lindens are working on fixes. Do not expect any program to work perfectly with SL. I'm not sure if the recent 2.59 release of Blender has rigged mesh working well with SL. Most people working with rigged mesh use 2.49b or 2.5x to make the model then export their .dae files of rigged mesh items with Blender 2.49b. So, working 2.5x requires the additional step of moving the rigged mesh to 2.49b for export. But, they may have been fixed.

You need to give us more information. We are having to guess. Open the viewer and before attempting a login click Help-About and copy paste that information here. As suggested, use SpeedTest.net to test your connection. Target San Francisco, California or here is one of the SL region servers: sim9930.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.46.72:13004) This is a mainland region server... today. The important numbers for making a connection are Ping and Packer Loss. Ping needs to be something less than 500ms to login. I'm not sure where the actual fail point is. Once on you can see 3,000 to 6,000ms and sometimes remain connected. Anything over 250 make the controls sluggish. Packet loss over 0% is a problem. You may be able to survive 3 or 4% packet loss. The higher it gets the more problems you'll have. Also, if you ISP has started blocking ports for some reason you may see problems. You can get port information from Configuring your firewall

If you can get a place for free, just go for it. SL is recreational unless you want to make RL money. Either way I suggest putting up your goods and selling what you can. You can fix your display images and packaging as you get to it. If you really plan to run a business, start taking steps and move forward. If you want to play, play and don't worry too much about appearance.

Mesh is not really going to affect tats, as far as I can tell. When someone decides to wear a mesh as an avatar replacement, that will change things. But, then it is a language syntax thing. A mesh replacement avatar is sort of a clothing item and the avatar is hidden by an alpha layer. The tat texture you provide to be worn on a layer of the avatar will not appear on the replacement mesh. It will still go on the avatar and be hidden, just as it would be by anyother clothing. Tats for mesh replacement avatars will be something the one making the replacement mesh will have to build. If they sell a template (UVMap) for the mesh you['ll be able to make textures to apply to the mesh. But there are no layers on prims and meshes are eight face prim like objects in SL. So, no layers. I could have this wrong, but I think that is right.

Even before you login you can open Help -> About and get the video card model and driver versions. Paste that info in any technical question you ask. Also, if you have a grpahics related problem search on the card name and model in the forum. It can save you having to wait for an answer. I find 20 threads dealing with problems related to Intel® HD Graphics.

When your viewer is suddenly doing someting odd, chances are you have accidentally miskeyed one of the shortcut key combinations. There is a wiki page that lists them: All keyboard shortcut keys. There used to be some lists of keys out as PDF files. All of those seem to be offline. If anyone knows of some working ones, please add them. The keys for Windows and Mac seem to have some differences. The wiki has infromation on the differences. See: PC and Mac shortcut key differences

There is a large number of shortcut keys. I doubt anyone knows tham all. But, there is a wiki page that lists them: All keyboard shortcut keys. There used to be some lists of keys out as PDF files. All of those seem to be offline. The keys for Windows and Mac seem to have some differences. The wiki has infromation on the differences. See: PC and Mac shortcut key differences When your viewer is suddenly doing someting odd, chances are you have accidentally miskeyed one of the shortcut combinations.

I have a long summary of that meeting at: Second Life Rod Humble 2011 Keynote It is not a transcript but you'll get the jest of it.

There are some tradeoffs no one has mentioned. If we add bump/normal maps we have one more texture to pay to upload and store at the Lab. The viewer then needs to handle the download and calculations for the mapping. For now we can build the final baked texture to include the bump/normal render shading in Blender or whatever. The result is almost the same as having a bump map active. I've seen some textures in SL that I have look at twice to decide whether they were using a bump map or not. If one locks the camera on the object and cams around it one can tell it is not a real bump. But for general use it is adequate. Good baked textures make a realistic look. Having them would be nice. But, we have lots of amateurs building in SL. I think much of the time taken with mesh has been in working out how to charge a penalty for poorly made mesh and reward well made mesh with lower costs. If people adapt to well to mesh, may be the Lindens will consider adding bump/normal maps.

Rather than take 30 pictures... make a white or light grey top and photogrpah it. In your image editor select the top and change the color. I've seen tutorials online showing how it is done. In Photoshop I use a color gradiant. Kirsten's viewer has some options for the camera that are not in the SL Viewer. One of them will give you an image you can use as a mask for clipping the avatar out of the image.

I'm certainly not happy with relevancy in SL Search. At the SLCC Thor Linden explained the why they changed away from the Google Search Application (GSA). Thor said it was unreasonable to consider incoming links as a criteria in SL. I would think Picks and Landmarks in inventory would be a pretty good criteria for incoming links. Another problem with GSA is it uses frequency of updates as a criteria. Rebuilding a region to get placement seems drastic. Churning objects in a region each month for placement also seems inefficient. So, I'll have concede frequency of update is a poor criteria for SL Search. They won't tell us what the new criteria are for fear we will game the system. It is amazing that someone still things obfuscation will keep things working or stop those that choose to game search. Whatever the case DGP4SL Blog has good information on how to change your region and product descriptions for good placement. He also sells tools for helping you with your SEO work.

Excellant point Boaz. Display Names are creating problems for SL users. Avril's article is very good . Enough so that ask my blog readers to read it and visit the JIRA and click WATCH, not just vote. The Lindens do not take VOTE seriously. WATCH carries much more weight with the Lindens. The article is well worth the time to read. The merchange problem is not even considered. It is another aspect of the name confusion that DN's cause. Please click WATCH on the JIRA.

TY Hit0mi. I apprecaite the kind words. Server stuff is an out of sync section of my blog. Changes happen to the servers on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday they tells us what was happening the week before the recent roll outs. Plus they mix in news that is current as of Thursday afternoon. It don't blame the Lindens for poor communiation in this regard. They are dealing with a complex real time process. An hour after the meeting everything may change. Oskar may or may not post information about changes, problems, or new plans depending on how pressed he is to get something working. Plus an emergency or screw up by another team may force a complete change in plans or even force a roll back, which they can't possibly have foreseen. So, it is hard to get accurate information on what is happening at any given moment. The SL Blogs and forum are good sources of information. In regard to SL servers my articles are a combination of the information I find on SL Blogs, SL Forum, the Linden profile feeds, Twitter, and some third party developers... and some personal experience. While the communication could be better, considering that these are production people doing the communicating it is pretty good in general.

A large part of the information comes from the Office hours meetings. There are 10 to 30 people that will attend a meeting. They start to spread the word. Things get lost in translation. Plus things change over time. For instance the Lindens said in one meeting that after roll out mesh upload would go to L$150 plus complexity. A couple of weeks later things had changed and now it will be something less than L$150 and something more than L$10. I attend several office hours (user groups now) meetings and post a summary if I think it is of general interst to those readng my blog. I must be doing something right as my daily reader count is growing. For the server related things I have page devoted to that. You'll find it in the menu. SL Server Related. Mega Prims I think we need to redefine mega-prims. Mega-prims are those prims that are larger than anything we can build in SL. Previously that was anything with a dimension larger than 10m in X, Y, or Z. Now the limit is becoming 64m. I consider mega-prims anything over 64m. Anything under 64m is just a prim... or a large prim if your trying to distingish between and old and new prim size.

An easy way to get an answer is to post the question as an agenda item in the Beta Server Group. If your at the meeting you will likely get an answer. Otherwise you will have to wait for them to post the meeting minutes. You can also try Oskar Linden's feed and see if he responds.

I seem to remember Charlar or Nyx saying the typical scene in SL has something like 250,000 to 350,000 polygons visible to an avatar. Draw distance is a controlling factor in the count. The Avatar has 7,000+ polygons. I consider an extremely complex mesh. But just polygon counting is not an answer. When you calc your upload cost you get a PE value. It was named Prim Equivalency. I suspect the Lindens regret that choice. But they are sort of locked in on several fronts. PE is more a measure of resource consumption. Obviously you want the PE as low as possible. Balancing that with appearance is what we are all learning right now. Some of us are waiting for Gaia to complete her learning process and post videos. TY Gaia. I'm considering a video tutorial on simplifying processes for LoD levels, as I find that tedious. I had no clue how to do it. I just built my high detail model as simply as I could. Now I have to simplify my 'simplified' high detail model 3 more times. And there as to be an easier way to deal with UVMap unwraps than what I'm doing. As we figure out these things there will be more tutorials appearing. My experience so far is that I can get nicer shapes and bake better textures with mesh a lower prim count than with pure prims. If I can build a mesh that reduces prim count then I think it is worth the effort. If not, that model is not a candidate for mesh. The link-sets have some interesting efficiencies. In some cases mixing mesh and prim is a good idea. In other cases it is a really bad idea.

Yours is unique... Give us the tech details of your system, HELP -> ABOUT and paste info here. Also, check your connection at SpeedTest.net, which will test to Dallas. If you want a really accurate test, use the IP or server name from the ABOUT info. Also check your connection while on line, Ctrl-Shift-1 (a toggle). Ping should be less than 250ms and Packet Loss should be 0%. You can get by with some packet loss but any loss can create a problem. There is a known problem with the asset servers overloading for HTTP Texture Get. There is some complication in the Utility Servers that the Lindens were trying to chase down. I'm unsure of its status. I suspect mesh streaming gets caught in the same problems. To get around this try visiting the Release Channel sandboxes and the Mesh Sandboxes. THey roll those over mare than do the regular release channels. Also, check you texture download, Crtl-Shift-3 (a toggle). If some textures are hanging, it is possible mesh is hanging too. You'll see hung textures float to the top of the list and just sit there. Mesh downloads in degrees (LoD). There are 4 levels of detail. Recently textures have been failing. You may see avatars that never rez their skin and clothes. Some versions of the viewer are worse. My 3.0.1 Dev build (238388) is better, but I wouldn't give it any prizes. When you are having problems, restart the computer before restarting the viewer. I believe several processes fail to stop and clear memory, especially when something hangs. You can also search through the session or crash logs for possible causes. The logs are in AppData\Roaming\Secondlife\logs. Search for warning and error in the log text. This may give you a clue. Logs are replaced with each viewer start. So, check immediately after you have a problem. I have a blog post on clean install for multiple viewer installs. You may want to look through it and see if you missed anything or there may be something there you didn't think of. See: Second Life Clean Install Also, with separate caches that still leaves the settings files for most viewers in the same SL folder in Roaming. You may want to try blowing out the settings. Pay attention to the settings file names. Once the file is deleted, the viewer reverts to the defaults and make a new file.

People have given you the basic answer, Second Life is only for online. There is no offline version. Theoretically, I suppose one could change a viewer to work from the cache as browsers can. Since the viewer is mostly open source you could make a viewer that works offline. OpenSim allows a mix of 100% local, mixed local and online and assets online with sim hosted locally with online access. I have 9 regions in OSGrid a donation funded grid. I host them on my workstation. In OpenSim one can build objects, say a house, and export them. You are restricted to things and textures that you which are full permissions. You can then import those things into SL. TPV's have more import and export options than the main SL Viewers. Many of the same resources are available on OpenSim and SL grids. If you carefully select textures you can reduce your upload costs. Also, sculpties, mesh, and clothes can be made offline for all grids. You can then upload them to the Beta or Preview grid (ADITI) for free and test them. To get them on the main grid you have upload them again and pay the upload fees.

Since you cannot login from your computer and your iPod, I would assume it is your connection. We have made suggestions. I don't see where you have tried those and provided the results. So, there is not much we can do to help you. Whenever you have technical problems it helps to give us the technical specs of your system. In the viewer click HELP -> ABOUT. Copy and paste the infromation here. Also, give us the information from SpeedTest.net or whatever site you use to test the connection. Then we may have more suggestions for you to try.

You’ll want to follow the progress on this problem in the JIRA https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-2240. The JIRA item explains the problem. Runitai Linden is working on the problem. You’ll be happy to know both ATI and nVidia are having problems with OpenGL. So, even with another brand of card you can enjoy the same problems. You might be able to get around the problem with an older copy of OpenGL from and older viewer... For now it seems the solution is to use the 260.99 version of nVidia drivers. See nVidia Driver GTX 460 Problems.