Author: Ciaran Laval

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Useful Blender Tutorials

Mesh is on the grid, although not officially released, so getting ready for Mesh is an important step, although as I’ve said before the prim is far from dead and Mesh will have problems, especially early doors, with viewer compatibility. I’ve been looking at Mesh and settled on Blender as my tool of choice, which you can read more about here. I’ve chosen Blender because Autodesk Maya, which is a fantastic 3D Modelling tool, is expensive for a noob to 3D modelling like me, it is of course aimed at professionals, which I’m not. Another popular tool is Google Sketchup, but from what I can see the free version is for personal use only, so Blender is the tool that gives me the most options at the best price, in this case nothing but donations should be forthcoming.

First things first, anyone who tells you 3D modelling is easy is talking cack, trust me on this, it’s not easy, inworld building with prims is definitely easier to learn, however Blender is a powerful piece of software from what I can tell, now you may be like me and rush head first in and then bang your head on the wall and then follow a process like this:

  • Excitedly download the program.
  • Open it up and stare at a cube.
  • Look at the menus and think “WTF”.
  • Read some tutorials and think “WTF”
  • UV Mapping? “WTF”

However fear not, because I have fearlessly sought out some half decent tutorials which have allowed me to upload a mesh cube with a texture on it … it’s a start! I will share some of the useful tutorials with you.

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Blizzard Move Into Micro Transaction Business

The announcment that the forthcoming Diablo III will have an auction house system catches my eye because we’re talking an auction house here that can result in cashing out real money from the game. The currency based system will be optional and if players prefer they will be able to trade with inworld gold instead, but it will be seen as an interesting development in the gaming world, micro transactions and the ability to cash out have been a strong driving force behind Second Life, seeing this system extended to a game is interesting, from the FAQ:

Can players choose to get cash from currency-based auction house sales, instead of having the proceeds deposited into their Battle.net account?

Yes, as an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

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You Are The Social Network

This week The Guardian weighed into the Google plus online anonymity stakes with two articles, one from Jemima Kiss on nym wars , where Marx Dudek seems to have found her way into the murky world of The Guardian’s comment is free section. The other post, from Krishnan Guru Murthy is about anonymity and online social networks. Both posts have some interesting opinions.

I’m not a fan of the real names policies of Facebook or Google, there are a myriad of reasons why telling people it’s sensible to post with their real name is bad advice, there seems to be some sort of attempt to say that it’s only people living under extremist regimes who should fear using their real name, but there are day to day events that make it a bad idea. One example is in the comments of Krishnan Guru Murthy’s post where someone talks of the BBC’s decision to close the Ouch! disability forum they had there, the boards are now closed for posting. The person commenting on The Guardian pointed out how there are some sensitive subjects raised there, that people would not want to post about using their real names, and yet they had a community there that helped people share information and support each other. This is however an example of why you don’t need to be a part of Facebook, Google + or Twitter to social network, although the BBC’s decision to close the board remains a disappointment to its former users.

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The Prim Strikes Back

There’s a lot of talk about Mesh, whether it will be good, whether it will be bad, however another side of the mesh project that is receiving a lot less attention is the boost for the prim. If you go to a mesh enabled sim, without needing to pass the mesh test or have payment info on file, you can create very large prims!

Why are large prims any use? Well they simply are, this is why we’ve had megaprims in Second Life for years, unsupported it should be added, but they’ve been here and people have used them because they save prim space and soon, they will be offiically supported at a whopping size of 64 x 64.

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Why Aren’t Linden Lab Talking To Us?

So, after a break from blogging of Avril Korman like proportions, I’m back! However unlike Avril, I’m not back with a challenging and epic blog post to create a great deal of discussion and my break has largely been a result of just wanting a break. There are many interesting issues I could blog on, Shava Nerad (Shava Suntzu in Second Life) has an interesting campaign about Google + and their profiles rules. However it’s Friday night here in blighty and I’ll end up singing Safety Dance if I blog about that.

So let’s look at what’s been happening on the official Linden Lab blog, on July 21st they blogged about Mesh and on July 28th, they blogged about Mesh! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to Mesh, indeed during my break I’ve been playing with Blender and volunteered one of my regions to be put into the Mesh RC Channel. However, there are a couple of other things that seem to have happened in the last week, new profiles have gone live and the hidden avatars feature, that I blogged about back on July 5th appears to have gone live, I haven’t checked it but the settings are in the latest viewer.

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