Creator of Slink Avatar Announces Closing of Stores

 

In what can only be described as a surprise move, the creator of the Slink avatar, Siddean Munro, announced on Saturday December 31, 2022, she was closing her stores, taking her avatar and other products off the market.

Following two stressful years of pandemic which I am sure we have all been affected by in one way or the other, I suddenly lost my mother in September of 2021, my grandmother in January of 2022 and my cat Cleo in June. I have been unwell and enduring a lot of chronic pain. I have to be very honest, my spark has dimmed a little and I no longer have the energy to pour into this business like I once did.

I’ve done a lot of soul searching over the last 18 months and have come to the very difficult decision that for my own physical and mental wellbeing, I need to move on from Second Life. I am starting something new, and can only hope it will be half as much fun and as fulfilling as my time in Second Life has been.

She would thank her customers for years of loyal business, "I cannot express what your support has truly meant to me, and I know these words will never be enough...."as well as other content creators who made products for her avatar, "you made what I do so much better! Thank you so much for your fabulous, innovative and gorgeous creations that made mine look so awesome." She announced she would no longer be answering messages made to her or her alts.

 

Checking her Marketplace page, it was cleared out, empty, one day before the announced closing. Same thing with her inworld store, at a sim also named "Slink." Entry was restricted to one tiny area with ban lines around it. There was a redelivery terminal, but the items for sale were out of reach.

 

Siddean had been creating items for sale since 2007. Her avatar shape has been around for some years, and has been described as "The Tesla for mesh bodies," applauded for it's low-lag design, which contrasted with some popular but complex and lag-inducing avatar shapes that multiplied two to three dozen times could make attending an event unreachable for those with older computers. 

On the official forums, there was praise for her on a thread about her closing. "I was very surprised (and a little sad - Slink is still my favorite and most worn body), but it sounds like a change will be good for her, and I wish her the best in her new endeavors." ''I wish Siddean and her team all the best for the future. Slink has been an innovator in SL and Siddean is just a lovely person." "I'm wishing the creator all the goodness, it seems they need a whole lot of happy thoughts from all of us. They were one of the amazing trend setters in SL back in the day and I'm sure their contribution will always be remembered!" "My heart goes out to Siddean, if I'd been in her shoes with all that RL threw at her the last few years, I'd probably do the same soul-searching. I hope she finds a new venture beyond Second Life where she can put her talents to good use and get that spark back." "It seems they had an awful year, and I am not surprised to hear they are stepping away. Lets hope one day they come back with an amazing creation that knocks us all off our feet " "So sad to hear this, Siddean was one of the pioneers of mesh bodies in SL, I don't think we'd be where we are now without her.  I wish her all the best for the future." "Sad news ...15 years of visible accomplishments and a very nice goodbye with hope for the future. Rare in SL for creators it seems."

The other products around for Slink avatars will likely be around for around for a while. But with the avatar no longer for sale and the creator gone from Second Life, it is unclear if any more will be made.

Sources: Slink, New World Notes  

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Announces Bakes on Mesh Feature is Live

Earlier this week, Linden Lab announced on their blog the release of a new feature for the Second Life viewer: "Bakes on Mesh."

In short, Bakes On Mesh is a feature that allows you to apply a server baked texture to a mesh attachment, similar to the way that standard system avatars currently work. Using this feature, you’ll be able to apply several texture layers to customize skin, tattoos, clothing, etc on your mesh object as a single server baked texture without the need for multiple transparent layers.

The major features of Bakes on Mesh were described as:

Any face of a mesh object can be textured using any of the server baked textures.

The corresponding region of the system avatar is hidden if any attached mesh is using a baked texture.

New texture bake channels have been introduced to give more control over how meshes get textured.

A new “universal wearable” is now provided with support for the new texture channels.

The potential benefits of Bakes on Mesh are avoiding the need for appliers, avoiding the need for different layers and therefore needing fewer meshes and fewer textures to display, and allowing the customization of any mesh set to the system by "simply equipping the appropriate wearables, without needing to modify the mesh itself."

There's a new "Bakes on Mesh" channel of threads in the official forums, where people can ask questions, or get some answered. Inara Pey has written an introduction and overview of the new feature. The Slink avatar brand has a FAQ page about "BOM," as some are starting to call it. They have also announced they've been updating their avatars for it as well.

The Slink body parts system has undergone a MAJOR update for Bakes on Mesh. We have gone back to the drawing board on many features and redesigned the whole thing from the ground up. We have streamlined the geometry and texture usage, and removed as much unnecessary overhead as possible. This includes extra onion skin layers that were no longer necessary, and the script system and HUD have been completely redesigned to take full advantage of this opportunity. The end result is that the user experience is easier, cleaner and lower avatar rendering cost, especially in the body bundle packages.

Also the Black Dragon Viewer (and presumably Firestorm) are making BOM updates. Hamlet Au quoted Black Dragon creator NiranV as saying BOM was a much needed feature that would help greatly with avatar complexity and the lag that goes with it, an issue he previously talked about as some avatars have been getting very resource-demanding, "Bakes on Mesh idea is nice and it's a much needed thing, especially with onion layers. This could potentially reduce texture memory usage by up to 75%, and polygon counts too."

But just how fast and how much residents will demand Bakes on Mesh enabled products, and how many and how fast avatar designers update remains to be seen. On older viewers that don't have the feature, what is seen is basically a mess of textures that don't make any sense. As Niran stated bluntly, "BOM doesn't mean jack ... if the creators don't swap for it since the user can't, because all the ... human (avatar) trash content is no-mod."

Sources: Linden Blog, Slink, Modem World, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan