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Nalates Urriah

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Posts posted by Nalates Urriah

  1. On 11/2/2023 at 11:50 PM, Bagnu said:

    I am not allowed to wear men's clothing until Caitlin says so.

    Cat and me in women's clothing.png

    Hummmmm... Now what does it say about one's preferences if a girl thinks you look hot?

    Nal-DoomedShip-FS_002.thumb.jpg.7d0e0dec0507ce594cf2e31f69cd0f9e.jpg

    This is on Doomed Ship. The ship has been around forever. It has changed. Now various controls work and it is a bit of a puzzle. Those of us who enjoyed Myst Online will likely find it intriguing.

    • Like 10
  2. 50521541771_1190b88108_z.jpg

    There are looks...

    Humans have an idea of what beauty is. Art students study what makes a human form 'beautiful'. Deviation from the basic range of appearance fitting the ideal usually denotes a health issue. Those ranges may move toward an extreme in some cultures where we would consider them 'fat' they would consider us unhealthily skinny.

    In SL we can experiment and create fantasy shapes too. SL has a range of tools to help you build an appearance. (Mine are: Face and Body) And there are numerous people who make custom shapes for faces and bodies. Typically all of these help people move toward the appearance most people consider beautiful. A random starting place would probably not help' Designers provide the shape that they think works best with the head they sculpted. Starting from there I consider the best starting place.

    Within the range of 'beauty,' there is an infinite variety of appearances. So, you may be reaching for a 'striking' or 'outstanding' look rather than just unique. The green witch is unique.

    There is an amazing range of skins in SL. I find it amazing how much look is tied to skin coloring. Without changing my shape settings adding a fantasy skin gives me a very different face.

    50026989571_1212640d21_z.jpg

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    Recognizing faces in SL is possible. While some people change their appearance often others retain a 'look'. I consider my look unique. I suppose some would class my look in the Barbie category. But I did go for pretty.

    • Like 3
  3. Nal-ShadowFell-Mist-FS_042.thumb.jpg.996ad7fc513aba1c6ccd12f0873660c4.jpg

    I dress up. Decorate my house (picture in another thread). And explore Halloween places. This is Shadowfell II in MIST from the boat tour. The place is three full regions and has areas at different elevations. The tour takes about 30 minutes. Exploring can take days.

    And the builders will scare you when you are exploring on foot. Monsters jump out and roar at unexpected times. 😈

    • Like 5
  4. This is a commonly encountered problem. The fix is poorly defined and depends on some seemingly unrelated things.

    The most common cause is a poorly made mesh body. Belliza is well made so, that is not the problem.

    The next most common problem is avatar location. Near 4000m altitude and above the fit of prims and mesh parts breaks down. It is a digital math thing. You see the breakdown as tiny gaps at the neck and waist. They often appear as a line. Zooming WAY in will show the gap.

    If you log in at or above 4000m and see the problem, can persist at lower altitudes. The fix can be moving to a lower altitude and logging in and out. If that is not fixing the problem, try several log-in and out cycles. Spread those out over time. Maybe a day or two. You are trying to get the viewer to download a new copy of the body to your cache. You might force this by using another copy of your body from inventory. Whether a copy will help or not depends on how you use SL.

    In Firestorm use: Avatar (top menu)->Avatar Health->[go through ALL the options here - start at the bottom. If it fixes using one of the options then skip the remaining choices.]

    As a last resort: Be someplace that is deserted and empty before starting this. Try Furball. Take off the body. Log out. Start the viewer and do NOT log in. Clear the cache. Use: Preferences (top menu)->Network & Files->Directories (tab)->Clear Cache (button). Log in. This is a horrible solution but it often is the only solution. Wear your body. Wait for it to rez.

    • Thanks 2
  5. I like Kuso. They provide animations in 3 sizes.

    I also like Akeyo animations but I've encountered problems with Akeyo's AOs that are promoted as everything in one AO. I tried to put my basic animations in along with dances and ran out of memory. Akeyo was good and refunded the cost of the AO when I complained and provided error notices from the AO.

    I've stuck with ZHAO because of the lite script load. There are newer more efficient AOs with better tech. It is just those newer ones I have seen are way script-heavy. When flying or sailing I want as little script weight as possible.

    I tend to buy individual animations and load them into Firestorm's built-in AO and a ZHAO-II HUD for use with other viewers.

    AOs are sold as sets of animations of related animations. So too I tend to have sets of animations in my Firestorm and ZHAO AOs. This requires I buy only Copy-OK animations.

    For special animations, various events will have poses and animations. The problem is animators do not consistently market at all of an event-presenters' events. So I think that route is hit-and-miss.

    • Like 4
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  6. On 10/20/2023 at 4:15 PM, Arielle Popstar said:

    Yes there are plenty of hacks, tutorials and workarounds to make up for what the Lab failed to make more intuitive to begin with. Why does every folder and file just get dumped to the bottom of the inventory rather than being given a choice to where it goes as opposed to relying on the drag and drop method used? Might have been fine in early days but surely they could use a little better methodology in 2023. 

    Sure one should start doing it immediately but fact is many don't know how to start with it at the beginning and neither realize this isn't being done by default as is common in other worlds. Whether one does it piecemeal or in a long drawn out session of organizing, there is a considerable amount of time one has to spend sorting it all. Operating systems nowadays have a "move to" function allowing one to dictate where a new item or folder should go if not by default, rather then having to search the inventory for the file or folder and then drag and drop it to its desired location.

     

    You been here a long time and had the advantage of learning the inventory system when it was much simpler then it is today plus had the time to read up and experiment with different tutorials and workarounds. How about those of us who simply don't have the time to spend on all of this and treat it like a full time job?  Why would you object if they made it easier? I would venture you would have many more ideas on what could be done to make it simpler. Surely there is better workflows to not make inventory management such a tedious and frustrating experience.

    Then why have these ideas not been incorporated because I am not seeing any overall increase in concurrency. Is it possible the experts are wrong?

    What would be a better methodology? The current methodology is: "Put stuff where you want it. Or leave it all in one lump. Your choice." We are free to do whatever we want. How does it get any better? Seems any other plan is more regressive.

    What did the Lab fail to provide in the current inventory system?

    Folders are sorted by their alpha-numerics name. We have control over what goes where. It seems drag-and-drop sorting would mean one has to do MORE work. I wouldn't object. But at this point, I also wouldn't use it. Moving folders to special places would mean I have to REMEMBER where I put folders to find things. Using the built-in sorting I don't have to remember where things are in any more than a general sense. They are always in sorted order.

    As to when to sort things... I think most people realize in the 2nd or 3rd month after they start buying stuff that they need to do some organizing. Sure some will be slow to realize this isn't the rigid, limited inventory system in other games. Whether people do it a bit at a time or save it up for later or ever do it is a personal choice.

    In everyday life, we are sorting/filing, organizing; papers. clothes, food, dishes, toys... This isn't something people need to figure out. Once one realizes this game has an infinite inventory the need to organize is rather obvious. But it is NOT required.

    We have default folders for purchased things and other types of incoming stuff. We can set where stuff goes when we bring it in. I find the defaults a bit limited. With the variety of things available in SL, I don't see how default locations will help that much. I want my boats over here, my dresses over there separated by long, medium, short, and wow, shoes over here...

    Once upon a time, everything came into "Objects". Now we have "Received Items" and we can set up default locations.

    There are several ways to arrange and sort inventory. It sounds like you are missing even the basic tools already available.

    Treating inventory management as a full-time thing is silly. I didn't have to go to college to figure out how to manage my inventory. My experience is people ask questions and look for better ways to handle inventory when their ideas are not working well. If I have my way of organizing and most of the people I know have different ways, why would anyone want the Lab to force us into some automated system that may not suit us? Why would anyone think the Lab could come up with a better way?

    Catznip has some handy additional features for working with inventory. Have you tried those?

    Every system I've seen still has one MAJOR problem: I have to do something.

    Can you come up with a better methodology that works for even 50% of the people in SL? And then do we all have to learn how to use it? Will new people have to learn it?

    The current system is about as intuitive as it gets... at least for people who use computers... and there is no one in SL that is not using a computer.

    I think the answer is obvious to the last one. The Lab does not control user interaction.

    • Like 3
  7. Reading through the forum and searching the blogosphere you'll find numerous tutorials and recommendations for organizing inventory. Some are good ideas and some are INCREDIBLY tedious.

    SL inventory is essentially unlimited. However, there is a technical limit that depends on the computer and connection speeds. On average with current speeds, we are limited to about 5,000+/- items per folder. But you can put 5 folders in a folder allowing the top folder to sort of contain 25,000 items. So there is never a hard limit on the total number of items. So I see no point in cleaning out inventory just to keep the numbers down.

    A large inventory has an impact on startup time and a minor effect on memory use. Both are small enough that it just is not an issue. See how long it takes your main AV with all their stuff to log in, 80k in my case. Then try with a poor neglected Alt with a bare inventory (6k). For me, it is a VERY small difference. I am not going to spend a day to save maybe 10 seconds at log-in.

    That soft 5k limit per folder does mean we must organize to stay within the limit. Discarding things we know we'll never use is reasonable. But taking a day to find those items I consider a waste of a day. I also think it silly to put off organizing and letting things pile up. So when I buy something it goes in a "New Stuff" folder. When I open an item to use it, I file the box and item in places for those types of items. I stay well organized and generally know where to look for things.

    Basically, I spend a few minutes organizing when and after shopping. So I no longer spend days or hours dealing with inventory management. Small doses.

    Having the Lab change how inventory works would likely mess me up. So I like things as they are. 😳

    One can get more inventory management tools by using the Catznip Viewer.

    As to user retention... that has been studied by numerous researchers in various fields. The primary factor in retention is user interaction with other users. That single factor is far ahead of any other factor.

    • Like 2
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  8. @LegitBonzai  Well... your first step is to make a bunch of cheap mistakes. SL is very "mistake-forgiving". Decide to deliberately make mistakes as a way to learn. It is a "wonder what this will do?" type of learning. Be brave. Experiment.

    The avatar body and head you currently have and its looks and clothes can all be saved as an Outfit. All viewers have this ability. Once you have your look saved as an outfit you can experiment and make all kinds of mistakes. One click and you are back to your saved look.

    You can get lots of demos and play with them. Most are free and those that charge L$1 usually immediately refund it. I am currently experimenting with about 10 bodies and looking at a couple of heads. I save the experiments as outfits. I come back to individual experiments and tweak and play with them. Each iteration gets better... or so I think.

    There are many things to learn about SL and how the viewers work. You'll have the most fun if you jump in and learn. There are some hilarious mistakes awaiting you. Been there and done many of them.

    Start with the camera, if you have not already learned about it.

    Example-1.jpg.3f0c532c2a014fb6c76248572f99d49e.jpg

    The ONLY difference in the two images is how the camera was set. Your avatar can look very different depending on the camera and lighting settings. Experiment. Otherwise, you'll get surprises as you try to work with your avatar looks.

    • Like 1
  9. On 10/14/2023 at 12:42 PM, FaintOutline said:

    Perhaps SL has not lost interest in Aeros?  There is no way to measure interest or sales. Only Ray Silent knows --- Ray has enough interest to put the product on MP, all I know.

    Several people who have left SL still have stuff up on the MP.

    I'm not sure why you think SL residents interested in Aeros make a difference to the owner of Aeros who appears to be absent.

    While we can't know the details of Aeros sales, we can know how well customer support works or doesn't. We can also know how quickly updates come or don't. A good example is Xcite!. First, updates stopped. Then customer support dropped off. And a couple of YEARS later the home region disappeared. BUT... the items are still on the marketplace about 7 years later. Javier Puff is still shown as a resident. But I don't know anyone who has talked to Javier in forever. As best I can tell Javier Puff has not logged in since 2016 or so. But the MP looks like an active product is being sold.

    So your sentence "Ray has enough..." should have been "Ray had enough...". Have you looked at the MP lately?

    image.png.5102424fee856489aa32486c00dc11e8.png

  10. 11 hours ago, FaintOutline said:

    Currently it would seem the Aeros offerings are directed at those who have aeros experience and want a redelivery or an aeros for a new Avi.   The Aeros is as simple as a Hugsie, so not much support is really needed, but there is no group and no demos.  I am not really sure what the "save" function that is missing was, since I always saved Huds locally.  Does anyone know?  Currently you can only get a redelivery if you bought on MP.   All the items are listed, but unless you know the line,  X{S} will not mean  Xerxes{smooth}. 

    Directed... not sure there is any direction remaining. Aeros appears to have lost interest in SL.

  11. With all add-on AOs removed your viewer will use the SL default animations.

    If the viewer is confused about what your avatar is doing, it can play the wrong animation. Often a walk animation will play after standing up or crossing a region boundary when you have stopped walking. You may have to take a step or turn to get the avatar and animations back in sync. In the Firestorm Viewer you can press Ctrl-S to resync animations.

    Some Experiences will impose odd behavior.

    Some terrain or mesh floors will cause problems.

    You haven't given us enough information to figure out the actual problem. So... we are all guessing.

    • Thanks 1
  12. 12 hours ago, Bagnu said:

    Had no one said anything, I wouldn't have said anything.  Simply from my pics it could have seen purely as a sci-fi healing device. I get called out, I answer honestly. And yes, it CAN be used for healing. That IS a part of it's function.

    Could you stop it? Take the debate to DM.

    Whether Scylla is right, wrong, or off base, makes no difference. While it may be more Zalificent Corvinus' comment that took this sideways Scylla and others are uncomfortable with that type of sharing. You don't get it because you are into some measure of pain-kink, but it should be obvious the subject is inflicting what Zalificent and you find acceptable on those who don't. Chopping up human bodies is an unpleasant thought for many of us.

    H-160_006.thumb.jpg.c8f35a2dc7dae1dbb7355ab71cd54b90.jpg

    Taxing this Shergood Air Bus is surprisingly difficult.

    • Like 4
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