Archive for May, 2007
Second Life web resources for May 24th 2007 through May 31st 2007
May 31, 2007 4:31 pmLess Flickr views, anyone?
10:36 amAn intersting question raised by Looker Lumet: ‘But as from last week, the views dropped enormously. In fact so dramatically, that it can not be, that suddenly my pictures are not that good or interesting anymore?‘
Yes, I ’suffer’ from the same. Where one of my pictures before easily made it to +500 views (with a +1k in one day max and a minimum of 100 or so) now a picture does ‘good as it comes to view rate’ when it reaches 300.
What’s causing this? Probably a combination of some of the following reasons:
- More SL photographs on Flickr in general. Hence more photographs in the Second Life pool. Hence less ‘display time’ on the official SecondLife.com site. Hence less clicks upon them.
- Me posting less ‘flesh’. Although the portrait of Vanny and Lisa with ’some nipple showing’ is stuck at 347 views as we speak.
- Me commenting less on other people’s pictures. And thus less people wanting to return the favour / curious about my stream and pictures.
- The new ‘labeling’ system. We are now amongst CGI or screenshots, not amongst normal photographs anymore. So a lot of people who have their flickr accounts configured to see only normal photographs are.. euhm.. missing out on our SL photographs. ;)
- Overal snapshot quality improved. I assume were our pictures used to ‘jump out’, they do not do that anymore.
- Maybe Flickr changed its ‘view counting’ system? (Although I can’t find anything about that on the forums/blog.)
Or did I miss out on something?
WindLight: What’s your tweak?
9:27 am
Tweaking and playing with the ‘Pirate’ WindLight setting, I found a combo I more or less like: Pirate (Detroit). Detroit because that was the sim I was in when I conceived the settings. ;) If you haven’t already, be sure to check it out, it has everything you need for experimenting with WindLight: cars, streets, some green/nature, beach, skyscrapers, …
Now the settings are sunset settings that don’t look like a sunset. Good enough, I didn’t like ‘noon’ in OldLook anyway. The sky is slightly colored pink, but you don’t get that - to me - irritating color haze over everything. Actually, it looks a bit like OldLook + clouds and pinkish sky.
I still must find a solution for the horizon / ‘horizon meets water’ looking crappy (Why does render > ground > off does not work anymore? *cries*) but I’ll do some more sliding later.
My settings - ‘WindLight settings sharing, (non)mod, (non)copy, (non)transfer’ should be implemented! If someone has good/interesting settings, I’d even pay for those, I think - as I mostly use them now:
And some more experimenting with WindLight…
… with refraction for instance. I don’t know if this is a new feature or was always there, but I never saw it before. Anyway, I love it! Me standing on the terrace with the Sister’s Clubhouse in the back as seen through Scheherazade Sim coastal water. Must ask Helena to turn of the lights during day time, though. This isn’t going to help us to meet Kyoto standards. ;) (Now that I think of it: the unedited version of this photograph - which is taken using OldLook - might have been done this way too?) (Pirate ‘Detroit’ settings used.)
… with the sun reflecting(!!!) in windows. I was going in ‘overkill of joy’ mode when I first noticed this. Instantly uploaded a snapshotted, send that to tons of avies and tp’ed Kris in. Because of the enthousiasm I forget to tell him to start flying immediately, so he hit the ground.
Maybe that was why he was so mean as to tell me I should fly off and check the other side of the building for the sun. The window’s glas was just transparant. Major bummer. One depressed Vint. (Pirate ‘Detroit’ settings used.) Nvm Kris. Kean says it’s indeed true: shiny surfaces now reflect the sun! W00t! More proof with this utterly cute picture. Now excuse me, I’ve got some Purrrr-ing to do.
… and wondering if we actually have real constellations in our sky. Funny thing was that when raising this question to Kris - who’s last name is ‘Constellation’ - I could not think of the correct English word and used ‘cancer, gemini, …’. I’m not a hero at recognising those things, so the only one I could find was the ‘Neko’ one.
Are the RL constellations there? Or should we invent some ourselves? And can Gorean ships now navigate on the stars again? ;) (Vint’s adjusted night settings used.)
… and how my skybox at Scheherazade looks with my Pirate (Detroit) settings… Hmmm. Like it used to in OldLook, except a bit of gamma overkill. *sobs*
The Irony: WindLight Atmospheric Rending
May 30, 2007 8:38 am
Geeh… Overexposed skies… I just hate it when that happens! ;)
PS. Does anybody else has this feeling: now that our skies are ‘real’ the ‘grid minus skies’ (read: everything else) suddenly looks that surreal?
After some quick testing, I’m one happy cat. Rember that over sized sun? It’s history! The sun is now scalable and it’s not needed to go into mouselook anymore to move it. *Puurrsss*
And, lookie! I can turn my sky B&W. *Puurrrrs some more*
And moving a single slider makes you switch from cloudy to bright clear sky. *Puursss again*
And so much more…
Ow, btw: ‘Turn render ground off’ does not work anymore. And half of the settings make it look like you’re in an underwater world or so. But who cares, right? New visual toys!!! *Puuurrrrs and swiches tail*
Would be nice:
- Being able to share the saved settings with your friends. If we can share landmarks, then why not sky settings?
- A ‘reset’ option. I’ve messed up some defaults. :( First save the setting you’re in and work on that one.
PS. I’m stuck in the tree and don’t dare to climb down anymore. Camron, put on that fireman costume and come to the rescue?! ;)
SLinovations: Prim Skirt Builder, FlickrView and SLIMChat
May 29, 2007 10:34 amThings that will make our SLives (or at least mine) a bit more comfortable:
Dalien’s Prim Skirt Builder
Tired of creating and texturizing a prim, putting it inside a box armed with the LoopRez script, pressing that box and then finding out that if you want to change a minor thing to the prims, you have to start all over? Thank god Dalien got interested in fashion lately! :D
You have one prim that you should alter and all the other ones follow that prim’s lead. So with one touch upon the base prim you can change prim size, flex settings, textures, … . It also lets you choose how many prims you want and using channel commands the second control prim you can change the overal form of the skirt and link all the prims to a central point.
The Prim Skirt Builder is released under GPL license and came with a very flattering statement! ;) You can find out how to get it and read all about it on the Daltonic Gin blog. Ow and then there is the update on some minor changes with neat pictures and Dalien being attacked by his own prim skirt. I hope the medusa-skirt does not win this creator vs. creation battle.
On the side, I think I owe Dalien an apology: I’m sorry for blaming you for me not having finished that orange cross prim skirt yet. By now you have a created a great new SL fashionista gadget and I still didn’t finish the texture for that prim skirt. *blushes*
FlickrView 0.4
Meanwhile Kris is working on FlickrView 0.4, constantly improving it. Want to show your Flickr stream to your friends in-world? Or want to browse those from others? Then FlickrView (using the Flickr API) is the way to go.
Wave goodbye to uploading textures, renaming them one by one and ordering them in your inventory. Hell, you don’t even need to upload any textures to SL at all anymore! You don’t need to copy paste picture UUIDs and/or add all the pictures to a notecard file anymore. You just *click*. W00t! ;)
SLIMChat
It seems that SLIMChat is currently not longer supported. The website says: Due to the unexpected need for hospitalization, Rin Redgrave will not be able to log on to Second Life for a little while, we will try to keep you updated. -Rin’s Family. If you haven’t done so already, do check out AjaxLife.
Now that SLeek (SLeek at code.google) is suffering from ‘after client update’ illness again, it might be interesting to take a look at SLIMChat, a Second Life instant messenger. Both use libsecondlife and need the .NET 2.0 Runtime Libraries. Yet SLeek is free to use and SLIMchat costs L$5000. Hmmm. Did someone fix Sleek yet?
In exchange for those 5k L$, SLIMChat promises that you can see which friends are online and which are not, that you can add new friends and send and receive notecards and L$. And I’m sure it will encounter the same problem as SLeek does: major SL client updates will require a SLIMChat update. So you won’t be able to do some SLimmin’ - neat new SL word, that I must admit! ;) - for the first couple of hours, days, whatever after such a major update. Furthermore RIndustries promises you life-time updates for the L$5000, but what if he gets tired of this? Or LL one day releases such a fully supported IM client for SL themselves? More about SLIMChat at the developer’s website.
Free Coke and Clothes
May 28, 2007 1:13 pmI while ago Veyron, Wrath, Dalien and I went to the final Virtual Thirst party (Coke, contest, blablabla, … don’t tell me you didn’t hear about that one!) and it somewhere stated that you had to dress creative/appropriate. So.. euhm… well… Anyway, we had a good time, although I didn’t win the costume party. *sobs*
Was my Coke costume not sexy enough? Because I won’t believe it wasn’t hilarious enough! ;) Could it be? Is Wrath right and was I not Miss Popular? Or was it me constantly sipping from the bottle of Evian that is to blame for my loss? Anyway, as I’m probably never ever going to wear that outfit again, you can fetch it for free from SLboutique or SLExchange, find it as a freebie at my shop at Mardes, at my skybox at Scheherazade or at Zhivago hospital or use the MetaMart hud!
It includes a Coca-Cola dress (jacket and skirt), a double layered prim skirt, a necklace made from Coke Light bottle caps, a Coke purse/hand bag and a plastic bottle of refreshing Evian drinking water. All items are copy and non-trans.
Vanny Richez & Lisa Takao
6:33 am
We all know Myg has not been herself lately, yet she still succeeded at supprising me.
At first I though she was just fooling around when she forced me down to the ground.
Only seconds later - by then she had her foot on my back and a gun against my head - I realised she wasn’t kidding about this.
‘I love these two girls. I want to show that to them by getting them the nicest portrait texture possible for their new home. Do not fuck this up! I know where to find you.‘
Although holding the drawing tablet’s pen when you’re trembling with fear all over, isn’t the easiest thing to do, I tried my best.
And I hope Vanny and Lisa are happy with the results. So Myg will be happy too. Because then, she might let me live my meta-life in peace. *considers hiring Agent Paine for protection* *and I need a safe house too*
The final file is A4, 300dpi resolution so I couldn’t help myself showing off some of the… euhm… details too… *gniffels*
Cosy cuteness (in green)
May 27, 2007 5:44 amAll good guys crash once in a while… That night, though, he didn’t. ;)
