Toysoldier Thor

So thanks to Sonya's "SL Merchant Group" email notice, this is the first I have heard of LL Commerce Team's latest glorious screw-up of Marketplace. As soon as I read the announcement from the Commerce Team and read this thread I had a cold feeling go through me that this might be why I have noticed sales lower than normal lately. Then I had to figure out how to easily determine how many of my sales since about June 21st had been affected. What I did was download all ORDER TXs from the ORDERS report into an excel spreadsheet from June 21 to today. I then went to the main SL Account TX History and downloaded all TXs from the same period and opened that up in another spreadsheet. With this spreadsheet I sorted by "Resident/Group" and deleted all row that were not from "Commerce Linden". I then placed the two spreadsheets side-by-side and copied over the TXs from one to the other when I found a match. When I went through this process I had a discrepancy of 5 TX out of a total of 50 Marketplace TXs that showed DELIVERED. There were THREE interesting observations: The 5 missing TXs were all $0L freebies! The first was on July 2nd and last one today. So I had no missing transactions for any order where I was owed actual $L. As far as my records shows, after Jun 24th LL has decided to no longer post $0L TX in the Merchant's main TX History record. I have attached an image that clearly shows that on and before June 24, LL used to post ALL Marketplace TXs even if they were $0L. Now they have stopped. WHY? They post every other TX inworld - like gifts of $0L. Why would they stop this important consistent posting of ALL Marketplace TX? The Marketplace and the Main SL TX History logs are exactly 7 hours apart when reporting TX time.

Thanks Bard.... Over the past couple months many of the popular live music venues sims where there are 50 plus... are crashing often. I was at a real popular one that it crashed twice in one 1hour show. LL even put the sim on another server and although the lag seemed to become less bearable... its still crashing a lot. So are many other. I don't know if its the newer sim code, or wide spread griefing, or what but its terrible. But LL Staff just has no clue how bad things are inworld. I am sure they think all is so stable. Many of us are dreading the July 9th SSB release as its likely only going to cause yet more sim instability. You cant even properly run live events without these frequent crashes. I have just given up posting about it as LL really is too focused on putting out new code and fixing lil things instead of getting their butts inworld and experiencing these crashes and finding out why these larger popular venues are crashing all the time.

Mine isnt on file. Every time I liquidate my $US account to paypal, I am asked what the paypal ID is that my $ should be transferred to. But even if it were - i.e. it would be my paypal - I would dispute the charge and paypal would simply reverse the transaction as it would have been done without my permission.

Well thank you !! A couple months ago I decided to update my avatar profile photo - the old one was long in the tooth.

.... and this is yet another BIG REASON that as an SL Merchant on MP as well as a resident of SL (with LL's well known history of poor shoot-from-the-hit decision making, shotty software development, poor QA testing, horrid customer service, and weak security measures) I have always followed a practice of Linden $ Account liquidation as soon as my account's value exceed a low trigger value. For me, I cash out all but $500L of my $L account to paypal as soon as my $L account reach $27000L (about $100US). For me this costs an insignificant amaount of overhead when I am charged the $1 US for cashing out to paypal at a more frequent basis (about every 2 weeks) but I am then better protected from my account being robbed by LL's rogue MP software that can remove $L from my account without my approval / permission as well as in the event that my SL Avatar account gets hacked (which has actually happened to my account once already thanks to a security loophole in SL's website that allowed for aphishing attack in what was supposed to be a secuted and authenticated area of their site.

That surely could be one of the factors. I also read back a few posts and it could also be a factor that Drongle pointed out... " ETA: Maybe also worth reminding people in this context that increasing the number of UV islands increases the download weight. " The single larger model had at minimum - 3 UV Islands from each of the three subtools that merged.

So an important update and discovery I had today related to my own thread OP topic of how in Zbrush to take advantage of as much of the UV Texture Map as possible. EXCITING FIND for all you Zbrush users making content and texturing it in Zbrush for SecondLife. Today I accidently discovered a feature that makes creating extremely efficient UV Maps for models and that has been a part of Zbrush for some time but I was not sure how to use it. This feature was also not mentioned by others in the thread as a way to get most efficiency of texture maps. This feature as well as the process to use the feature dramatically reduces the process of creating UV Maps for Zbrush Models while at the same time creates UV Maps with greater than 90% efficiency vs the complex use of creating UV ISLANDs with polygroups!! It is called "CREATING PUVTILES" (PUVTILES = "Packed UV Tiling") How do you use it? Well its very flexible and very easy to use. Any the time in your model development in Zbrush when you want to generate a UV Texture from your painted model (or you can even perform this step before you paint as it doesn't matter), you simply perform the following steps: Set your model to its lowest LOD Call up the TOOL--> UV MAP subtool menu (I inserted an image for you to see it) Click "1024" to set the UV Map size to a 1024x1024 texture map Click the "PUVTiles" button under the CREATE subsection DONE ! Your model has a UV Map that leverages 90+ % of the Texture map. No UV Islands to create via polygroups. No needing to use UV Master. etc. When you finish polypainting, you simply go to the TEXTURE sub menu under Tool and create texture map from PolyPaint. I did a few tests quickly and brought into SL. I could not see ANY seams at all. Here is an image of the test: It shows the model in SL as well as what the UV Map looks like for the model. I would think that a possible drawback if this is an issue for what you might be creating models for is that the UV MAP is extremely efficient but it is not an intuitive UV Map that any human could understand if they decided to bring the map into an external program like photoshop to touch up the map further. But if you are happy with the painting, texturing, material baking, etc. you created in ZBrush and have no need to use the map outside of what was generated in Zbrush for SL import, then this function is a dream. I also discovered another interesting side-benefit related to another topic in this thread as well as another thread on how to create UV Maps for each subtool so that you can get multiple 1024x1024 maps for a model in SL. I created a 3 SUBTOOL model and quickly high-rez textured each of the subtools and then used the PUVTILES method to create a map for each subtool. Quick and Dirty... I then made ZBrush create 3 DAE Exports for SL (base, male, female). Each had its own full 1024x1024 map. Then I told Zbrush to model the 3 Subtools and created a merged DAE for the entire model for SL. (this only tool a few seconds to create each). You can see the difference in the image below... I went into SL Beta Grid and I imported the 3 subtool models as well as the merged model using the same import steps. For the merged model I rezzed it and set it to a general size. I then rezzed each of the three subtool models and match each of their component sizes to that of the merged model (so they were almost identical in actual rez size in SL. I manually positioned and aligned the three to match the merged model. I then LINKED the three to become one linked set. The obvious results right away was that the texture quality / clarity of the linked model was much better than the merged model. That's obvious because the linked model has 3 x 1024x1024 textures vs the merged model must provide all the texture information from 1 x 1024x1024 map. You can see that in the maps above. What I found shocking was that although the LINKED model uses 3 large texture maps and is 3 physical prims vs the merged model, the Land Impact for the Linked model was only 1/2 that of the Merged model !! I have provided an image that compares the two as well as both their metrics: So by linking the subtools in SL, not only do you get a model that has better texture resolution and quality, it also does this at a much lower Land Impact. I am not sure why. I suspect is because of how the sim interprets the size of the object. Even though both models are effectively identical in size in front of me, you can see the reported object size of the Merged model is larger than the Linked model. Anyway.... I hope this helps some of you ZBRUSH 3D creators. Cheers!

Rucy Byron wrote: Thanks for your reply, i added a adit to the post above. I made the subtools seperate poly groups individually then merged visible with UV highlighted. The undershirt takes its texture fine, and seperate from the cardigan. I didnt want the seperate textures combined onto one map, each part has a seperate texture map that i want to assign to the faces. I can great a new UV layout for the whole piece with seperate islands, but wanted to get higher resolution textures for each piece. When i combine them all on to one map the buttons are not on top of each other, but like i said, I would prefere each face to have its own 1024 texture map. edit - in reply yo your PS: all the groups are merged into one model for the reasons you describe, I will be rigging it as one piece. Rucy.... How did you make seperate textures for the sub-tools of the model? I would like to do the same thing for my more complex models so that I can get more texture information on the overall model. i.e. if I have a model with a male and female subtool and each of the polypainted and even material system baked.... how do I create a 1024x1024 Texture map for each subtool in the model to apply to the model in SL?

Thanks for all your thoughts and opinions. Thanks again for the advice of breaking model into more polygroups to use up more of the UV map,

Tell me how your rigging experience goes.

thanks Code for your ideas on process within Zbrush. I actually do follow a process similar to what you mentioned. Most of my initial focus on creating a new model is to create the LOD0 shape to as low a polycount as is feasible and that will be the base LOD that will be exported to SL. I use different methods to attain this LOD base model approach. Some times I create the model from scratch in its lowest form - like the Spool of Thread. Other times I use the cool DynaMesh tool to created the desired advanced model and then use a couple different techniques to re-topologize back down to the lowest poly count I want to attain as my base LOD0. Often this involves the use of the easy to use Decimation Master plugin. The models can be manually re-topologized to a much lower polycount as well but I am far to impatient to go thru the manual process when the decimation master does an acceptable job at decimating in most cases. I even take this LOD0 base model into SL by itself to see how it looks on the grid and then make fine-tuning adjustments to it. At this point I divid the model so that it reaching a polycount exceeding 1 million. Sometimes I allow the divids to smooth and other times I dont if I want to maintain strong edges. Sometimes I mix the smooth or non-smooth between devids to control the softening of the edges. But, as all your fellow Zbrusher's know, the high polycount is needed since textures on Zbrush models are literally painted onto the polygons of the model (outside of any UVmap structure). This is one of the most beloved function in Zbrush for me. To be able to hand paint and even image project colorization onto the model knowing that the UV maps for what I paint is completely independant. I then go back to the LOD0 and use UVMaster to create a UV Map. Set the UV Maps size to 1024. And then set the LOD to high and tell the Tool Texture to create a Texture UV map from PolyPaint. Poof - the painted model is perfectly super imposed onto the UV Map. So it doesnt matter how many islands the map has, the painted texture will fit perfectly onto them. I then use the Materials system to create the desired look I want the texture to have on the model (since the look of the materials system is influenced by the Z elevations on the surface of the highest LOD, I also Z Paint elevations on the highest LOD to further accent the materials system results. Then I use an image plane method to bake the texture and its materials system onto the texture. I export this resulting baked UV texture and re-apply it to the model's texture UV. Finally I set the model back to LOD0 and use Zsculpty plugin to create the Collada output (with its UV baked texture) for import to SL. Done. I will admit with all the latest new features in 4R5, I am re-learning several new, faster, more efficient, and more accurate modeling and texturing. 4R4 & 4R5 have been revolutionary improvements to Zbrush than the old 4R0 I was using for a long time. Its forcing me to relearn a lot of new techniques to my processes. But well worth the re-learning.

All your points that many of you are pointing out many times is well taken and AGAIN... if you are a serious career minded 3D model creator for content that you plan on using outside the bounds of virtual worlds like SECONDLIFE and/or you are creating mesh content that requires rigging within SL, then extending your skillsets to a wide range of 3D modeling tools and placing a large investment in many advanced tools would have great value for the SERIOUS MESH CREATOR. But I will say it again, with the exception of those the small population of serious professional mesh creators developing content for SecondLife and several other target environments (most of whom are likely the frequent contributors on this forum), I am pretty sure the vast majority of mesh creators for SecondLife content are ameteur hobbyists that will either use Blender (beacuse is zero cost investment) or select ONE 3D modeling tool of choice to create content for SL. I started with Blender and after a ton of frustration with it and after getting advice from an IBM sculpty creator, I made the decision to evolve to ZBrush as my primary tool of choice for creating the static sculpty / mesh content for SecondLife. When I first moved to Zbrush in the 4R0 era, I will admit that even Zbrush had a lot of limitations and complexities that frustrated me. Being very artistic minded and a loving of free form model creation, I really fell in love with voxel modeling tools like Sculptris. Unfortunately at the time Sculptris was moreso just a fun isolated 3D model sculpting tool with none of the critical exports to make the process of moving it to SL cleanly. I even experimented with 3DCoat as a Voxel modeling option but it did not have a Collada export to SL either and it cost $ too. But thankfully Pixelogic bought Sculptris and about a year later in I believe 4R4, they introduced major functional enhancements to Zbrush that not only fully incorporated Sculptris functions but integrated it with Zbrush's other advanced functions. With 4R5's intro of Panel loops and Qremesher and several other new advanced functions, plus the fact that Zbrush has a direct ZSculpty plugin to SecondLife mesh, I now have all I need in Zbrush to create acceptable low poly count (i.e. low LI costing) models for SecondLife whereby my mesh content is selling well. Could the UV maps technically more accurate and deemed more clean and efficient, or the decimation / retopologizing of the model be even lower and more cleanly structured in the eyes of an advanced professional 3D model creator? I AM VERY SURE THEY CAN. But, do any of my customers that love my mesh art creations care that the UV maps is or is not 100%? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I put a lot of focus on trying to create nice shapes with great custom textures and with SL Mesh models that generally stay at the 1 to 5 Land Impact level. For what mesh content I create for SL, ZBrush (and PhotoShop) are the only two tools I needed to invest in that serves my way of creating mesh / textured art for SL very quickly and intuitively and with more than acceptable results that is BUYABLE to the residents and customers of SL. Any need for several other 3D modeling tools in my model creation process would simply be a waste of my time and money as they only add advanced functions that do not need. Conclusion... no one is right or wrong. You advanced / professional 3D model creators clearly have a need and gain a value add to invest time and money into several tools. The hobbyist ameteur that I am for mesh creations in SL... I do not need them. At least so far I have not been frustrated about missing a feature that I wished Zbrush had which could not be solved with a different process / method in Zbrush. Thanks again for all the valued input to help me solve the UV MAP issue - it was truly valueable advice!

Ahhh I got ya!! silly me. yes you are correct - I could have made as many UV islands as I wanted then returned the model back to a single polygroup. forget what I said.

Nacy Nightfire wrote: I want to add that just because you created polygroups for the purposes of breaking your mesh up into UV islands, doesn't mean you have to keep these polygroups on export. After creating your uvs, if you return your model to one polygroup before exporting, you will have only one material group and no complaints from Second Life on upload. Changing back to one polygroup will not disturb the UVs you made. Good point on that.... but if there is no penalty to SL or Zbrush in leaving all the polygroups where they are then why return to 1 polygroup? I think I know what you are saying... If I only split up the model into 8 polygroups to create a more efficient UV map, then its nice to clean them up after. Correct?

your suggestion did help. as for your response: I want to disabuse any 3d modeler beginners of the notion that ZBrush is the king of static models and texturing, if any such people are reading this thread. ZBrush has a very solid place in the professional's CG tool box for creating 3d art. It is not, however, an optimal stand-alone solution. Zbrush, is simply one of many tools available, and, like many, has limitations. I do agree that every 3D tool has pros and cons - and that surely includes Zbrush. But there is a big point in your comment to take note of to put your comments in perspective: in the professional's CG tool box for creating 3d art I dare say that the vast majority of 3D mesh creators for SecondLife are NOT professional 3D mesh art creators. They are like me - amateur / hobbyist mesh creators. I am sure there is a population of professional 3D artist like you that can and do spend a lot of money for 3D model tool software in order to perfect your career and craft. But most mesh creators in SL are only making mesh for fun or a small income from secondlife. I have talked to a lot of new mesh creators and most will stick with Blender only because its free. When I tell them of ZBRUSH they look at it for a minute and then see it costs $699 for a license and say... no way I am gonna pay for that. I will suffer with the complexity of Blender. So... I would doubt very much that most would consider an entire toolbox of usually very expensive 3D tools.... unless of course they are "professional" and make a good living from the craft. So... if one needs to pick a single 3D tool that is good at a certain type of 3D modeling then Zbrush is a great candidate. It is not good at other things - like rigging. But you are correct in the statement for all those professionals out there - but lol I suspect they already knew when you said.

OK ... so to take this concept as far as possible, I decided to break up my model into several more polygroups (11 polygroups to be exact) in an attempt to see if I can use up as much texture space on the map as possible. This only took another minute. But when I told the Zsculpty plugin to create a DAE and texture map for SecondLife, I was given a failure warning that due to a limitations on SecondLife's mesh models, no more than 8 polygroups can be used (i.e. no more than 8 islands on the texture map). So I merged a couple polygroups to get the count down to 8 and repeated the process. This is the resulting UV Map from Zbrush... as you can see, the UV Master did an excellent job automatically to use up as much of the map space to fill with textures data.

OK got home and called up my model in Zbrush and in a minute I chopped up the model into 5 polygroups, deleted the old UV and told UV Master to create a new UV Map using the Polygroups. The result is much better as the texture makes up much more of the map. Thanks for the tip on breaking up the model in Zbrush with polygroups for the purpose of using more of the UV map for texture. I never thought of using polygroups simply for the purpose of making the UV Map more efficient. As for the comments that ZSbrush's UV Master not being the best at controling the creation of UV maps, you all are likely correct but when you consider that Zbrush's method of texturing completely prior and in 100% isolation of the creation of the UV maps and that Zbrush users only spend seconds in the UV map creation process, so far I consider it s minor limitation. Zbrush is the king of creating static models and texturing them. Someone also commented that the LOD0 model of my spool could be more reduced in polygons by removing many of the edge loops. I am aware of that but since Zbrush textures / colors the model by actually painting on the polygons of the model, removing too many edge loops for long stretches of the model would cause visible distortions and shifts in texture resolution of there isnt a relatively even distribution of polygons. As such, I had to place edge loops on areas where there was no change in shape for the purpose of even polygon distribution. The model is low enough in polycount that I am not worried about using extra polygons - as the texture of the model is a higher priority. Thanks again all !

You are right that I didn't use oolygroups for the model. When I get home I will cut the model up into polygroups then re UV the model. I normally ceeate polygroups when there are distinct areas of the model that benefits from isolation. But msybe I should cut up into polygroups just to create more islands. With zbrush one does not have to worry about aligning textures across many seans as the modek is painted before the uv maps are even created. So more seams is not an issue. I will show you the results when I try it out.

I am sure that these are easy answers to my questions but I am not sure how to solve it - if it is even solvable. So I am asking the Mesh Experts in this crowd. Background: I am using Zbrush 4R5. What you see here as an example is a mesh model I quickly created of a wooden spool for thread as displayed / rezzed in the SL Beta grid. I am showing three images in the capture below. The main picture is a shot of the Spool from its inside and in edit mode so you can see some of the mesh wireframe. The top image is the Spool as it looks rezzed in SL. The third image is the Texture UV map for the spool. So here are my Questions: ONE: If you look at the UV map (its a 1024x1024 map), you can see that the map only uses about half of the available map space. I would like to be able to have the model use as much of the UV map space as possible so that it can increase the resolution quality on the model. I am losing about 50% of the available texture pixels of resolution. Is there any way (solution,process, parameter to set, etc) that I could use the entire UV map? Why is the UV map not using more of the 1024x1024 map space? TWO: I suspect I know the answer to this but if you look in the hole at the top of the spool you can see that the inside of the model is alpha and as such you can see right thru it. Other than closing the holes, is there any way to non-alpha the inside of the model? Thanks in advance

Kenbro Utu wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Soooo... how bout it? Why not take personal initiative and do for us Merchants what the Commerce Team is too afraid to do.... call a weekly User Group session inworld and provide us the help we need. "I received special permission to participate in the Merchants Forum this week because of the Direct Delivery Migration." With this statement by Dakota, I doubt there is any room for "personal initiative" as far as User Group sessions. Sounds like LL is holding a short leash... Yes you are right. Its very clear from Dakota's statement that LL has a major tight short leash on most of their staff communicating with LL's SL customers. Only specific LL staff like Oz or Andrew or Simon are allowed to freely communicate with residents (i.e. during weekly user group meetings). That Dakota actually need permission from the Commerce Team to even post helpful support advice to LL customers is a sad testiment on how much Rodvik wants to isolate his staff from his customers. It was already proven when he gagged one of the most effective and helpful support avenues for SL... the Resident JIRA. Even his own staff quietly grumbled how stupid an idea it was. So I suspect since Brooke and team dont want any engagement to happen between them and the Merchants... Dakota would not be allowed to host the weekly meetings even if I were to call the meeting and invite her. PRETTY SAD! PS: nice seeing you around Dakota on the forum... see you in a few months.

Well thanks Dakota for the clarification. I did not realize you were not part of the Commerce Team. Now that makes sense why you are the only one from the Commerce Team to communicate with the Merchants in any interactive way.... its because you are NOT from Commerce Team. As for your explanation on how you and LL support your customers and that you are pointing out again how the forums are not the place to seek support for problems in the marketplace or in SL, and, that merchants of Marketplace that are encountering problems should simply place Support Tickets since LL will not provide support or answers to LL problems on the forums.... Here is where I completely disagree with LL's position. Since last summer when Rodvik gagged the Resident JIRA whereby it was an avenue that allowed all users to formally report a problem on the grid or on MP where other Merchants could feed their experiences to the problem and allow fast effective resolution of the problem via collaboration, the SL FORUMS are now the only open visible method for SL and MP problems to be reported to the community for all other Merchants to be made aware of. It also is the only place where a Merchant who is struggling with a problem that he/she thinks is his own issue can find out its actually a bug in the LL code. The FORUMS are now the only place where LL staff can openly gather and communicate resolution to problems that likely 100's or more other users are having. Submitting a support ticket only solves a problem repeatedly one at a time where a simple posting on the forums could effectively solve the problem for the whole community. As such, since LL gagged the JIRA, you Dakota as well as any other LL Support Personnel should be on the SL Forums more than ever to more effectively resolve problems at a much larger scale by publisizing your knowledge and experience as opposed to telling users to ask for help privately one at a time through a support ticket. Do you not think / believe this would make your job FAR EASIER? Think about the valued advice you provide in this thread that has helped 100's that read your helpful comments. Now imagine if you stayed quiet on the forums as you normally do and all these users struggled in frustration to resolve MB retirement or started submitting support tickets to you - over and over and over? Which do you think would be a more eefective use of your talents, knowledge, and time? Soooo... how bout it? Why not take personal initiative and do for us Merchants what the Commerce Team is too afraid to do.... call a weekly User Group session inworld and provide us the help we need.

Dakota Linden wrote: Hey Porky! I love the Marketplace. Honestly. And I have for a very long time. Years. I am very lucky indeed that Linden Lab lets me do and work with what I love. I also enjoy helping users as I want them to love the Marketplace as much as I do. Yes, I know that is not always possible and there is much yet to still be done. This is why I am here in the forums, today, to help those users who normally do not send Support Cases. We want everyone to have as smoothe a transition as possible for the remainder of the migration. It is really good to hear that you personally enjoy helping your customers. So the question is, why do we not see you on a much more frequent basis helping the Merchant community on these forums when in countless cases a posting from you or even anyone from the Commerce team to clarify a statement or provide an answer to a posted problem would have been a God-send? Not only that, as you can see in this thread, when a Linden from the Commerce Team actually participates in a thread and provides actual HELP as opposed to simply staying dead silent as the Merchant community's frustration builds up to a boil when they get no answers at all from the Commerce TEam, the response and interaction between CT (i.e. YOU) and the Merchant community is positve. I do give you credit in that among all the Linden Commerce Team, you are the only one that actually comes onto the forum threads as DAKOTA LINDEN (not under the anonymous mask of "Commerce Team") and engages with us (as rare as your appearances are). I have not seen a posting from Brooke or any other Linden from the Commerce Team in I would say over a year. And when in the fall we escalated an improved relationship between Commerce Team and the Merchants to the level that Rodvik make a token posting in the thread, we suggested that the Commece Team re-enstate weekly USER GROUP meetings like several of the other LL Departments have been doing for a long time. The response from Commerce Team was "NO WE WILL NOT DO THIS". That kind of response from the team you belong to Dakota flies in the face of your personal position that you really enjoy working with the Merchant community to help. So here is my request to you directly Dakota... since you have stated how much you enjoy Marketplace and helping our community.... Forget about the Commerce Team's formal "We are scared of our merchants and do not want to meet with them weekly position". Take it up personally to call a weekly meeting on the grid - at a linden sim (you can ask Simon L. to use his place where they hold all the other weekly user group meetings) - and invite the merchant community to come and chit chat about topics like the shutdown of MB and answer questions and provide help. What do you say about that?

Jessica Lyon wrote: Thought I would just chime in here for Linux merchants. Though I can't speak for sure about other third party viewers, certainly Firestorm's latest release has this issue fixed. I'm going to assume Singularity has this working as well, and probably other TPV's who have recent releases out but I don't know for fact. I'm actually pretty sure we submitted the fix for this issue to LL a while ago so I'm a bit surprised it hasn't made it to a public release yet. This thread was only just brought to my attention, I'll see if I can push some buttons for LL to get this fix out in their official, but in the meantime the message for merchants is “you do have alternatives.” Jessica Lyon Project Manager The Phoenix Firestorm Project, Inc So by "latest release" do you mean the latest release of the Firestorm that is actually downloadable by the community for install? Is that the version you say is fixed? My problem with Firestorm is that they say a problem is "fixed" even if it has not been actually released to the community for use. Case in point is when the Firestorm team say that they have "FIXED" the horrible Music Stream Stuck bug that was introduced in the last release of FS in Decemeber. Your team knew the probem and have fixed the code that causes this EXTREMELY frustrating bug on the grid.... but since your team has not released the fix as part of an updated release that the community can download and use.... ITS NOT FIXED. So over 3 months later, a huge portion of the SL grid population still is suffering with this highly annoying bug. So... FIXED means that we can download a version of code that incorporates the broken code. Until this is true... you have not fixed anything. So please confirm what you mean by fixed.

Sorry I missed this posted question in this thread. ZSCULPTY is a 3rd Party plugin that is not native to ZBRUSH. You can get the ZSCULPTY installation download from the ZBrush Central forums and then simply follow the instruction to integrate it as a new plugin into Zbrush. Once you do that, it will appear as a Zplugin.

Well Its good to have someone in this thread that has the ability to attend the weekly usergroup meetings. I really miss these meetings as it was a very effective way to bring up grid/viewer issues on the grid to LL that LL is not aware or doesnt comprehend the impact/magnitude of the issue. These meetings have also become vastly more important ever since Rodvik decided to gag the LL Jira's. There is no other effective way to report and track problems. I think these meetings are important enough that LL should at least have ONE of these weekly meetings at a time outside of the North American business hours window so that more of us can attend. Since we cannot view or provide feedback to "BUG-355", I was not aware that LL staff somehow believed this problem had gone away. If they believe they had fixed it, then the question to ask LL is: "What patch did you apply to the sims that would have fixed it and when was this patch applied?". The other related questions I would have are: Why do some sims with frequent (i.e. several times a week) large scheduled events event not seem to encounter the instant MSL problem yet other sims do? Why does it seem to happen to moreso at sims where the event incur a large quick growth of avatar traffic while other sims that have long sustained avatar loads do not seem to experience this problem (i.e. schedule live singer 1 hour events vs popular 7x24 DJ music clubs). It seems to happen on mainland sims quite easily since these poor old sims cannot handle more than 40 avatars but the sim my own store is on experienced a MSL and went into dumb dead mode 2 weekends ago whereby LL support was called into to reset the sim. There were only about 15 avatars on the sim at the time of the an uncommon event on the sim (a hunt) where a lot of avatars arrived in a short timeframe). Has the secret LL patch to this problem manifested the problem into instant sim crashes now as well? In the past couple weeks the instant "Boot avatars off" crashes at these events have spiked - several this past weekend. The symptoms seems be be triggered during or as a result of a major fluctuation of avatar arrivals. There was a plausible theory that many it is a bug when too many avatars arrive on a sim too quickly and/or on the same TP location. But its just a theory. Thanks again Qie for being our voice.