UnilWay SpiritWeaver

Somebody probably already noted this but that particular distinction seems to have come about during the days when people who had 6-foot tall avatars were getting tossed out of places for being too short and likely child AVs. So the common counter was to state that your avatar's height was the same as you were in real life, and as a 97-year old granny you weren't no child. And now that it's common for avatars to have a smaller scale, I guess stating that has just kind of lingered around long past it's purpose.

In clubs I've been seeing places have an extreme 'Humans Only' rule (as in even pointy ears or improper eye colors will get you tossed out). There's a few with that rule that also charge group membership fees in the thousands of lindens. But I've seen more exclusion, such as height exclusion, in places you would not expect it - like regions that exist for people to go with a few friends for private hangouts in remote corners or to take pictures. Why anyone would care what the visitors look like in places like that is beyond me - but that's where I find things like height rules or furry bans, etc.

They're generally harmless. When they become an issue is when you're dealing with lag caused by a region that has a huge pile of them, or just the general desire most people have of wanting the other "people" in SL to be actual people they can interact with. Very rarely we've seen them used for griefing or intrusive data collection - but this happens more from actual users than bots.

How long has it been since anyone rented that land? If more than 2-3 years maybe it should just get repurposed. I've not been paying attention though and maybe they get profit out of it the way it is. If repurposed, and if you could find a route from those regions up to the nearest existing protected road, might need a lot fewer new regions to do this. I prefer more water regions. I always prefer more water regions regardless. Need a new route? More water regions? Demo timing out too fast? More water regions. It's a good answer to any SL issue. But if they're adverse to it... then those rentable event regions could get repurposed. Perhaps into water regions with water land up for sale.

Depends. If it's a genre restriction, "this is a fantasy venue, be in fantasy theme", then sure. But if it seems illogical - like the one that hit you - I'd bounce. Sometimes the genre themes also rub me the wrong way and I bounce. Especially when it's a genre ban out of a non-genre venue: "All avatars must be 100% human to hang out in our social cafe / dance club / discussion venue / random place. No elves, nekos, or etc." These places are usually asking for "realism because their patrons demanded it" but I often only find out about them because someone invited me and then asked me to just ignore the rules... Where we might fall on opposite sides of this is in 'currentness of avatar look' - as in I have no issues with places that want mesh avatars, but only if they're screening out badly optimized mesh (which almost none even know how to do). If I'm going for the eye-candy then I want the eye-candy. A few times I've landed in places with warnings that "people using stolen content will get DCMA'd" that then have 'World of Warcraft', Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, etc statues / props out... I almost want to go buy something stolen and put it on before coming back when I encounter that.

I didn't find that sort of thing daunting but... it was great marketing. Aside from my joke about 'free sample for future addicts' it's just getting the product out there. Lots of people see great quality mesh heads, and want one for themselves. The free sample is just that, a free sample. If you don't mind being part of a clone army and having to take on random Jedi every now and then... sure. Keep using the freebie. But most people eventually want their own look. Either wait a whole year for the next handout, and get the one everyone else also has, or buy one that a lot of people have, but not everyone, on your own schedule. And once you buy in... then your alt needs one. And maybe you need another for that other look, and so on. Less an issue now but for a while a big thing was skin compatibility. Likewise addon compatibility. So you start wanting to stay in brand because it works with all your stuff. The exact same reason many (but not all) people stay loyal to a given mesh body.

Rando on teh interwebz: Why they give away free stuff? It makes no sense.. <--- What, you can't read that? Not my problem. Lelutka: Anyone else notice how 103% of people in SL now use one of our products, and 200% of them are not using the free ones? Random street level drug dealer: Hey, you stole my business model. Somebody get my lawyer.

At the 'Mainframe' cyberpunk event - demoing this all PBR materials skybox. This PBR stuff looks amazing. A second PBR skybox was more subtle but has this really nice wood grain to it's floor: On the side edge of the wood there's an alignment issue though - but likely easy to fix.

Yeah I can see the cross appeal. But it does mean that people who have homes on the fantasy coastlines can't sail out as easily as people in other themes and yet the fantasy regions have some great internal waterways. Plus side: No 100m long giant yachts all along the fantasy waters - in the internal waterways even a small SL sailboat like the Bandit IF can seem large. Downside: No 100m long age of sailing ships along those coastal waters - in theme boats also can't make use. Small powerboats work great in the canals, but are out of theme. Small sailboats that use actual wind systems would be more tricky as the canals are thinner than ideal response times. But I have messed around with some of mine in there and it's not impossible. Odd aspect: most of the edge regions are still not open because the demand hasn't filled out the interior. These edge regions are the ones any sailor would want. I suspect this issue of 'why doesn't fantasy connect up well' will get raised a lot if those regions ever get filled because the people who do eventually take those lots will wonder why they can't sail out of them other than hugging a very long coast until they reach the top. I suspect that if the coastal regions of fantasy did open up, people would hurry to grab them despite the interior remaining with high vacancy. I'm just guessing, but I can't be the only one watching those regions and the boathouses over between "SSPAlotta Fish" through to "SSPBristol Fashion" and waiting... That said, I happen to have a fantasy home right near the exit point (premium plus will get you what you want if it's open) so I'm watching the other fantasies now mostly in hopes of neighbors. That noted: A few more plots up top are still available but you'll need a premium plus ticket to get them as the odds of hitting one by random are thin. The absolute best 'sail into and out of fantasy' plots are taken by people who have no indication of an interest in boats (but might and I just don't see it). The ones with direct water access though might be less than a single handful, as the canal bridges make it hard to sail many boats in or out.

No and that seems weird to me. I got the firestorm PBR viewer yesterday and have been going all over the place with shadows on and haven't seen this issue as of yet. I've had shadows always on for a few years now. Long enough that I forget when and what SL looked like before I flipped it on. Same lighting, inside a 3x3x3 hollow prim with prims above and below so there's no gaps: Without PBR (Firestorm release viewer) I see nothing: With PBR (Firestorm PBR Alpha) I get myself as a shadow: What the scene looks like in PBR (Firestorm PBR Alpha) using region lighting: So I don't get black walls in the dark, just no scene. Outside of the box, with or without shadows it looks like this:

I filed an AR with my main on one a few months back and have been waiting to see if anything would ever happen. Other things I reported after it were dealt with in a matter of days suggesting some AR backlog but not an insane backlog (not that I file ARs often, but I did have a spate of a few of them in the last quarter of 2023).

Wind based sailing with persistent wind directions (the various wind based scripts that you set wind for, rather than SL wind which randomly changes direction every few seconds). Physics based mermaid system (near as I can tell there's only 1 maker of this, the Tala AO - basically mermaid movement that works like an SL vehicle, giving a system radically different in feel from a 'swim HUD').

I believe that is in fact the answer... Put on your best stuffy geek accent, begin with "Well. Ack-shually..." and then start taking about genre purity. You'll hit the mark a few sentences into that.

Largely for this very reason. What happens is each parcel around each other puts up feuding signs against each other and everyone else has to deal while the various sign posters just get madder and madder at each other. That's the very reason I sold off a plot on Horizons north of Zindra... Used to be very partisan but now I'd just rather that stuff not be all over my SL anymore. 90% of politics is tricking people into thinking they disagree on things that at as fundamental level they actually have common ground over in order to make people afraid or angry at another side enough that they will pay someone to protect them from the enemy.

Pesky typos. :) I was thinking that perhaps you'd meant the old linden homes where the covenant allows chaos.

Is this now our everything PBR thread for non-experts thread or is there a better one somewhere? I grabbed the Firestorm PBR alpha today so just starting to explore this. I notice colors 'pop' more - brighter brights, darker darks, but not muted darks. It looks really good on my avatar skin. I think my heavy use of lights in my SL home will pay off, as they have more noted impact. I seem to have higher FPS, but my fans want to spin up. I'm on an AMD 2700 with an nVidia 2080 and 32gb of ram, circa 2019 PC. I have NOT yet tried to apply any PBR textures to anything like the first post of the thread noted. Just starting my journey with PBR. I don't see anything in the library labeled 'PBR' so I have yet to even figure out how to recreate the issue.

Sadly they don't enforce that rule. That, or the AR backlog is months long and other issues that get AR'd more recently jump over that one in queue.

Well the real problem is that the sign was posted there 3 years before Belli existed.

I actually prefer this. If I use body X, I have no desire to buy a copy for body Y and if that split comes with a cost reduction then all the better. If not... then I'm still neutral because now the merchant has real data about what their customers want rather than relying on a traffic survey bot 'out in the wild'. I prefer everything split up - so I can assemble the bits I want and not pay for the bits I don't.

This is why I stick to bodies with mod permissions. To let me remove everything I'm not using. That invariably breaks the configuration scripts the body came with - so I keep multiple configured bodies around, along with one backup that is all of my changes BEFORE I unlinked anything. I don't wear any configuration HUDs. I do have 2 HUDs of my own that are "off screen" that cycle animations and are written to be as small as I could get them and operated with some simple chat commands to a private channel.

I just prefer hair that doesn't clip. That can go either way, but most of the time has me favoring rigged hair that does not have strands going in front of my torso. Even if they shape that around the bosom they're always guessing at size so there's either clipping or weird gaps.

Yes. The older I get the more I like to have my PC set to 'dark mode'. White text on a black background is easier on the eyes than black text on a white background. The same holds true for the general UI. And for a venue likewise. Too dark is bad as well though. For venues in SL I like more natural or earthy color tones. Give me lots of tan, brown, forest green, etc and I'm happy. I can tolerate other schemes also as long as they're not overly-bright.

Quite the opposite from what I have heard. It locks out the deaf community. It's therefore an accessibility hindrance. For people who have trouble reading text, the internet is full to text to speech readers. The accessibility issue for them would be who well a given SL Viewer can integrate with such apps.

What is the likelihood of something like this... I feel like it's like worrying about what to do after the sky falls. The odds are just not worth worrying about. amazon's store and prime has a LOT of adult content beyond SL. It's even a thriving place for erotica authors to self publish. SL does allow some things not allowed elsewhere - rather graphic mixes of sex and violence for example. But if the banhammer came down on those things less than a handful of active users would feel any impact.

EDIT: This list got longer than I'd like... Off-putting: Voice. I don't use it, don't like to be in places that do. While not an impact for me 'personally' I've read from a few deaf SLers that the big push Linden Lab did some years back to get EVERYTHING on voice was very isolating for them and as that's spread to a lot of communities they've been pushed aside. Single word chat messages from strangers, like: "hi" Long but invasive messages telling me RL info and asking for mine. Messages from strangers telling me about myself but revealing nothing about them. Social messages from a stranger using their business account who's profile image is a store brand logo and entire profile is about customer support and other useful but NOT social info. This is a new one for me - I actually failed to respond to a neighbor wanting to connect with me a month or so back because it came from a profile like that and felt 'weird' as a result. Like; "hi, we should hang out, we have a lot in common" and I look at their profile and it's all about CSRs, MP links, and product support. People who take "my world my way" to an extreme with no desire to get along with anyone. hermaphrodite avatars - this is just a personal bias but it's visually jarring for me. Spent a year some time back with a regular nude chat visitor I'd hang out with who had a female avatar with a big ol' joystick down there; and I'd always be moving my camera to keep them out of view... Yeah I know, it's 2024 so cancel me. But I'm just not a fan of the look. Strangers that randomly IM me to tell me something they don't like about me. This has only happened once in the last year, but it used to be a regular thing. People who's only interest in hanging out is because they incorrectly think I have the same kink as them. I suspect most folks don't get this one, but when your always nude in SL everyone thinks you're into all the "stuff", all the time. People who rez low quality builds near my land. Stuff that's prims where the textures are not stretched right, things don't line up, etc. To a lesser extent; when it's a major style clash with the surrounds. This one is probably just me: Real life photos in SL. It's a style clash thing. It just feels like the art in here works best when it's either drawings or came from SL or another 3D app / game. Badly proportioned avatars: tiny hands, feet, or heads. And then some things that just don't match my preferences so I "try" to keep quiet about them because my own look has an element or two that is unusually proportioned so it'd be hypocritical to go after others for their choices.