Reader Submitted: The Relevance of Statues

All the current news about statues in the real world reminded me of a rather unprepossessing statue in Second Life that celebrates a huge step forward in the virtual world.

Back in 2006, working in the dark dangerous prim mines which honeycomb Heterocera,  a mole, sadly their name seems not to have been recorded, made a remarkable discovery as detailed for posterity on the plaque.

"This statue commemorates the discovery of sculpted prims in '06. Found in the prim mines of Heterocera, sculpted prims were immediately recognized as a new category of prim that would change the face of Second Life forever. This statue is dedicated to the brave Moles who delved into the pixelated crust of Heterocera Atoll in order to bring forth these valuable prims."

The statue is located alongside the West Coast Road,  close to a rezz zone and the YellowDots -"Chatty Cafe"-   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nightfield/252/145/37

If you want to combine a bit of extra  fun with your visit, there is a friendly mole  which allows you to rez a 4x4  and close by an Air Balloon rezzer. 

Annie Brightstar 

From "Exploring Second Life With Annie"

Sunweaver Estates Get Private Estate Prim Increase

On Tuesday November 29, Linden Lab announced it was starting the increases of the prim capacities of private sims. On Friday December 2, Sunweaver chieftess Rita Mariner announced to the community that it's residents now had it.

Sunnies/Islanders:  I went around and upgraded every ones rent boxes to reflect the new level of prims you get based on the extra prims each sim got.  Each 512m lot gets 156 prims now, That is a nice boost and it's free! Those of you with large parcels got HUGE bumps in prims, ENJOY!  The ER will be open for Prim OD's 24 hours for the next several days.

That evening, Rita told me she had finished in the morning, thinking originally each lot would get 152 more prims, but instead they got 156, "It was hefty upgrade per lot."

There have been a few people asking why the private sims get less of an increase than the mainland ones did earlier this month, as well as it coming later. The general feeling of those I've talked to feel Linden Lab is trying to encourage people to move to the mainland. But most are simply happy with being able to do more with their land.

Bixyl Shuftan

The Big Change? Mainland Sims, Possibly Private Sims, Getting Prim and Land Impact Increase, Possibly 50%

Maybe this was the "important development from Linden Lab ...  that will change your Second Lives forever" that was talked about on Monday.

On Tuesday November 1 on the "Deploy Plans of the Week 10-31" thread, someone posted about what he noticed on his sim, "my 1024 sqm parcel there is showing a capacity of 351 PE when it should be only 234. Is there some bonus I don't know about or today's restart just buggered the land for the better?" Others noticed something was going on as well, and one stated, "I asked about the capacity increase on Live chat and the Linden said it is not a bug, that there was a roll to increase the prim useage on Mainland and that there would be a blog post from LL soon." This was followed by a message from Patch Linden.

Hi!  Over the next couple of days there will be some changes coming. The deploy will happen in stages. So as you see these changes rest assured it is normal and is happening as intended.

On November 3, we will post an official blog along with a video where I will have all of the information and details regarding these changes.

Keep an eye on the Official Blog, on Thursday for more info.

So it looks like there's going to be an increase in how many prims a sim can hold, at least for mainland. Kultivate Magazine claimed that not just mainland, but also private sims, both estates and homesteads, would get a 50% prim capacity increase. The growth would be 22500 prims up from 15000 on full private sims, and 000 prims, up from 3750 on homesteads, "Keep in mind that these prim increases are on some mainland regions, so your sim may not have been upgraded yet."

As of the writing of this article, there is no official word from Linden Lab. But there is plenty of chatter on both the thread of the official forums, and the SL Universe forums. Details will have to wait until the special announcement at 2PM today.

Image Credit, Inara Pey, Pussycat Catnip

Sources, Kultivate Magazine, Modem World, New World Notes 

Bixyl Shuftan

Saving Prims

Becky "Sha" Shamen took a break from her exploring to reflect on an issue familiar to any of us whom have a home, office, or any other kind of space in Second Life: the prim count. Over time, she found ways to personalize her space better by looking for low-prim furniture, which doesn't always have to be expensive, and can sometimes be found for free.

Read Becky's article in Design.

Club Cutlass Goes Poof

Cyanthia Farshore sent me this picture of Club Cutlass during their Wednesday party, or rather what was left of it after a mishap. The dance floor was still there, but the walls and much of the place just vanished.

In addition to the picture, someone else sent me a short segment of the chat there when Nydia Tungsten showed up to help take care of the mess.

Cynthia Farshore: powder room accident
Nova Manadragon: Huricane Rita hit the club, that's what
Nova Manadragon: took half of it away
Nydia Tungsten: Damn Rita...what did you DO in the powder room to make the walls dissolve?
Nydia Tungsten: o-0
Cynthia Farshore: I guess some of it was not locked so delete struck
Sha: Bless you Nydia :)
Rita Mariner: You know, burritos and a good (windbreaking)!

What probably happened, Nydia later told me, was that the sim the club was in was overloaded with prims, and something had to give. Eventually, the club was restored, but it took returning a number of items to one parcel owner whom had exceeded his allotment.

Bixyl Shuftan

Opinion: A Look at What Went Wrong With Mesh

Okay, I should have written about this a long time ago, but better late than never.

In Daniel Voyager’s Blog, the launching of Mesh in Second Life was listed at the top of his list of biggest news stories in Second Life for 2011. While certainly an important development, just how big an impact did it have for the average resident

In my opinion, Mesh has been much less important to Second Life than the earlier hype implied. Compared to earlier major updates such as Voice and Windlight, it has been much less important. Blogger Tateru Nino expressed similar views, “the new Mesh content type has had less impact on the Second Life grid than any other new content type that I can recall. In fact, it seems statistically insignificant.”

I haven’t written much about Mesh. This is mainly because Mesh was designed for use by Viewer 2 and 3. My computer cannot use those, as well as the Firestorm third-party viewer which is based on Viewer 2 technology. The viewers I’ve used, mainly Singularity to cut down on lag, have been unable to see Mesh objects as anything but distorted shapes. I once saw a mesh avatar, and to me it looked like a head next to a huge pillow. While Team Phoenix has been working on a mesh-compatible Phoenix Viewer, 1.6.0, I have yet to see anything Mesh. When I tried the Mesh-compatible Phoenix, it kept crashing.

I’m not exactly alone. Someone once stated 90% of Second Life residents are still using either the old Viewer 1.23, or third party viewers. This might be an exaggeration, and doesn’t take into account Firestorm and it’s use of Viewer 2 technology, but this shows the main reason Mesh hasn’t had the impact on the Grid that was earlier predicted: most people are not using the viewers that can see it. Naturally, this would discourage people from building and buying mesh objects.

Another problem is what builder Lomgren Smalls called “Prim Equivalency.” Mesh was touted as making builds that were a more efficient use of computer power. One lady tried making a tree using mesh, and it ended up the Prim Equivalent of 500 prims! Loki Eliot also had a few words on the matter:

“Mesh on the other hand is a weird creature compared to the familiar prim. It does not have a set shape, does not have a set numerical count. You rez a mesh and the viewer tries to calculate a Prim Equivalence (PE) so it can conform to the current system and this PE is effected by a number of factors - Size, Physical Weight, Number of Textures or whether it has a script inside. If you Link two Mesh together the PE may increase or decrease depending on factors of the linked mesh. If you link a normal PRIM to a mesh, it may not even seem to count towards the Mesh's PE.”

“A Mesh Objects PE is not set in stone either. You could have an object made with 5 Prims and have a Mesh version that comes in at 4 PE, if you enlarge the Mesh version by a metre or so, it's PE could jump to 8 PE. The Bigger your mesh the more PE it costs. It's a bit confusing and really kills off mesh for large scale use not to mention griefing potential of an object that takes up prim count when enlarging.”

Although Mesh objects can still have a much smaller Physical Weight than their prim counterparts, Prim Equivalency is another reason most builders are sticking with prims.

Then came another issue, one that sank the hearts of many of those who looked forward to Mesh clothing. Mesh outfits will sometimes be a poor fit with one’s avatar, unless one adjusts the shape to fit it.

Vaki Zenovka had a few words on the matter, “mesh opens up a very significant can of worms that Second Life had never really opened before: that of body image. SL always allowed us to create, within certain limitations, the body that we wanted. We could be slender, youthful, and girlish. We could be stacked, sexy, sensual. We could be wiry, androgynous, angular. We could be voluptuous, curvy, womanly. Men, too: from skinny youths to muscular manly-men to pot-bellied bears, SL allows an amazing range of shapes…and that’s just the humans.”

“here’s the mesh problem: so many of us have struggled for years in real life with our body images, for whatever reason. So many of us dread the chore of going shopping for clothes and wading through options that don’t fit, or hang funny, or gap in places they shouldn’t gap. We hate it because society makes clothes for an ideal shape which is not our own. We hate it because it reminds us that our bodies are not easily mutable, and we cannot change the things about us that feel, for whatever reason, alien.”

For some, the Mesh upgrade has meant an uncomfortable detail of real life has crept into Second Life. That is, unless Mesh clothing is not considered an option.

By all means, Mesh is still a useful feature. If nothing else, it's shown the promise for new and better graphics. As some such as Pooky Amsterdam have demonstrated, the detail it allows makes for some great Machinina effects when everything works well. Unfortunately for use by the masses, it still needs work. And because of the bias of many residents against newer official viewers, it will need the assistance of third party viewers to reach the majority.

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: A Few Notes on Mesh - Redone

10 Gooson heard about her article on Mesh published yesterday, but because of the delays some information was out of date. So she offered an updated version, which is now up in it's place.

Read the updated story in Design.

Reader Submitted: A Few Notes on Mesh

10 Gooson, a longtime friend of Second Life Newspaper and SL Newser, sent us some notes on her (and her partner's) experiences with Mesh, "I've tried to explain what meshes are, what is still unknown, the in's and out's for 'almost-noobs' to explain some more about meshes."

Read more in Design.

Scripts and Lag

Erix Oh has proven himself as a security system designer. But when meeting up with Second Life Newser recently, something else was on his mind. It appeared to him that many residents in the Grid didn't have a clue about how scripts affected lag, and wanted to say a few words on the subject.

Read the story in our new section: Design