Archive for May, 2008
The Garden of NPIRL Delights… almost live…
May 16, 2008 3:13 am
*uses her paw to wipe the sweat of the forehead* <- I am sure a dozen other avatars are doing that together with me.
It’s almost opening to the public and we’re pretty nervous: another rolling restart is announced and we have no idea how that will influence the grid and our building festival.
As per overall Garden law, I can’t show you photographs yet, but I don’t think this is a violation of that rule. This is what happens when Lauren and I need to hunt you down for artist information. *grins* Poor Mr. Cheen Pitney.
Anyway, believe me, things look great and very NPIRL - not possible in real life. Even the pathways, threes, music stage, avatars, … and press release can be found here. For more news, keep on eye on garden.rezzable.com - you’ll also find an overview of the creators and builders participating in the creation of the Garden of NPIRL delights there - and the NPIRL blog.
I’m curious what you opinions about the garden will be!
Second Life web resources for May 1st 2008 through May 12th 2008
May 13, 2008 1:30 amGolden Greenies Teddy Awards
May 11, 2008 11:11 am
On Monday May 5th, the first edition of the Golden Greenies Teddy Awards for Excellent and Extraordinary Achievements in the Fields of Greenieness and Virtual Photography were held at the Greenies Home Sim.
The Golden Greenies are created by the Greenies to give avatars that live their motto ‘Green the Grid’ a more personal reward than L$ can ever be. Getting a Golden Greenie Teddy Award means ‘we utterly love what you just did or created’ and ‘TY!’ so much for sharing it with us and letting us show it to the - virtual - world.
Winners of the Surfline Greenie Holiday Photograph Contest were Kaxu Heron for ‘Best in Virtual Sports Photography’, Zoe Demar for ‘Best Holiday Photograph’ and Iodee Tae for ‘Best Holiday Postcard’. A huge ‘congratz!’ to those three ‘avies’. They all got a 5000L$ deposited on their L$ balance. Kaxu stated he will spend that on getting new poses, we do not know for the others. Zoe? Shoes? Iodee? ;)
All photographs can be looked at in the Greenies Holiday Photographs pool on Flickr, or admired on the Fridge at Greenies home sim. They are fabulous and amazing!
More photographs of the award ceremony itself in my ‘Golden Greenies Teddy Awards 2008′ Flickr pool.
Nominees for the Golden Greenies Awards and the Surfline Holiday Photograph Contest as chosen by jurors Nock Forager, Nobody Fugazi and Vint Falken are:
Miss Iodee Tae
Miss Zoe Demar
Mister Kaxu Heron
Miss Taylor Flanagan
Summertime… and the Virtual Living is less easy?
May 9, 2008 8:20 pm
In the summertime when the weather is fine
You could stretch right up and touch the sky
Now when the weather is fine
You got women,you got women on your mind
I’m going driving right now to see what I can find
Lately, the weather in Belgium has been absolutely fabulous - or at least, so does the owner report. The sun is doing just great: it puts a smile on people’s faces again, it’s light longer and sitting on a patio or the likes with a cocktail becomes a more and more pleasant thought again.
Festivals are starting again, friends call to go and have a drink in the evening, pc’s overheat more easily and a swimming pool or lake with a towel and book - or wifi ;) - becomes a very interesting thought.
At least, it’s like that for my human, who seems to cut down on my playtime now the desperately needed sun is back in the lands. And for you, fellow avatars? Does your human plan to abandon you during summertime, tie you up to a virtual tree whilst he or she goes swimming? Or will the sun and summertime not affect them - and thus your playtime - at all?
Talking heads… euhm… sculpted faces
May 4, 2008 12:21 pmDr Muglerstein - Me won! Me won!
12:16 am
Le jeudi 24 avril soir, j’ai gag…. euhm… wait… I won! I won! I won! What did I win? Best ‘photograph’ - virtual world photograph, that is - in the Dr Muglerstein’s Machinima & Fantastic Picture Experience contest. Yeeey! Winning in the category ‘Art de la métamorphose’ with my Valentine Squid pic - I love it even more now, it also won me the Koinup contest - I’ll receive a large print of me kissing the squid. And it will get to hang in Paris somewhere. Yeeey! All hail squids! ;)
Other winners are:
- Machinima - Marie Lauridsen
- Instantané Paysage fantastique - Amelia Fayray
- Instantané Portrait d’avatar mutant - Maya
I must admit I am a bit jealous of the machinima winner Miss Lauridsen. She will get a real life sculpture of her avatar, crafted by Standard Non Standard. I’m extremely curious how that one will look, and if the French company ‘Standard Non Standard’ is better at replicating avatars than the company we all now from the ‘take your avatar to work day’ ads. What they have up at their website under 3D printing (click ‘impression 3D’) seems promising.
But despite my jealousy, I’m already really happy I won in the first place. I did not expect that to happen at all. You can see the winning machinima, photographs and the other submissions at the Dr Muglerstein Island in Second Life. Oh, and don’t be surprised if they say ‘allo’ in stead of ‘hi’. ;)
IM UR JIRA, FILNG UR BUGS
May 3, 2008 11:37 pmLMPAO, and not my virtual ass, that is. I knew the Greenies are what you can call ‘engaged residents’, but that they are this engaged, I had no knowledge of. :p
Found on the Second Life Wiki article about the JIRA issue tracker, and this delicious Greenie ‘lolcat’ was created and added by Mister Daedalus Young.
Mr Young, ty! for putting a huuuuge grin on my face! ;) (Despite the fact I seem to be unable to log into the *insert swearword* JIRA at the moment. Anybody else experiencing problems with that?)
More on ARC aka Avatar Rendering Cost
May 2, 2008 11:40 amTorley posted about the numbers that define the ARC - Avatar Rendering Cost - as declared by Runitai Linden:
- A base avatar begins with a score of 1
- 5 points added for each unique texture on the avatar (not counting the base skin). Rationale: Unique textures break batches, create CPU overhead for decoding, and consume GPU memory bandwidth. However, note that this is across the avatar- so two unique textures across 10 prims only count as two unique textures!
- All attachments are then looked at on a per-prim level. The prims are weighted as follows:
- 10 base points for having the prim.
- 1 point added if prim is invisible, shiny, or glowing (each counts). Rationale: Invisiprims/shiny/glow create a small amount of overhead by breaking batches or requiring an extra render pass.
- 1 point added for each planar-mapped face of the prim. Rationale: Planar mapping creates a small amount of CPU overhead that gets worse with flexible objects.
- 1 point added per meter, per axis, of the prim’s size. Rationale: Bigger prims are higher LOD and create more fill.
- 4 points added if prim has bump applied. Rationale: Bump mapping breaks batches and requires a register combiner, and creates a lot of CPU overhead when coupled with a flexible object.
- 4 points added for each transparent face of the prim. Rationale: Alpha creates a lot of overhead by needing to be sorted every frame AND by breaking batches.
4 points added for each animated textured face of the prim. Rationale: Animated textures break batches and require the use of a texture matrix.- 8 points added if prim is flexi. Rationale: Flexible objects create a lot of CPU overhead and consume graphics bus bandwidth.
- 16 points added if prim is a particle emitter. Rationale: Particles create even MORE CPU overhead and consume graphics bus bandwidth.
Note that these weightings, and their resultant totals, are not a *perfect* measure of your cost- but more of a relative counter to weigh against other avatars. Point: it’s close, but it’s not scientifically perfect. For that, you’d have to delve deep into batch sizes and draw calls. These weightings and their description/rationales were written by Runitai Linden, one of our most senior graphics engineers and a man who knows rendering efficiency! :)
And another note- ironically, the Avatar Rendering Cost display itself is CPU intensive, since it’s essentially profiling all the avatars all the time. So a good practice would be to walk around and turn it on when you want a glimpse- otherwise if you turn it on at all times, know your performance is suffering!
I tested some of my outfits for ARC values previously, and yes I must admit I keep it in the back of my mind when going to busy sims. Do you? Or is ‘Avatar Rendering Cost’ still a strange and surreal thing to you? ;)
