Virtual Worlds – Page 245

June 15, 2012

Take Me To Your Leader

I’ve been spending way too much time in Blender, building, thinking I can do this better, fretting about the lighting, so then lights go out, walls come tumbling down, yes they do …. anyway! So Linden Lab seem to have gone on a communications strike, the blog isn’t being updated and Rodvik is missing in action! What the bloody hell is going on?

One theory doing the rounds in the forumsphere is that Rodvik got to know the users and then pondered “What’s that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a Monster?” However that doesn’t explain why the main blog is so bereft of … well blogginess. They already know us!

So what the bloody hell is going on? Your guess is as good as mine, but we can ponder.

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June 12, 2012June 12, 2012

Podex Advertise Visa Electron Card That Can Be Funded With Linden Dollars

Podex, a company who have been running Linden Dollar Exchange Services for a while are now offering a VISA Electron Card that can be loaded with Linden Dollars and then used as a normal VISA Electron Card outside of Second Life.

This is a novel move, it’s a prepaid card, you can load it via bank transfer or via an inworld Podex exchange, it’s also as far as I’m aware, unchartered territory, and with no announcement of Linden Lab of the existence of such a card, it’s a move that will raise questions regarding its legitimacy, as exemplified by this thread on the official forums asking if it’s a scam.

The card isn’t free, you pay L$10,000 at a Podex terminal, or you can purchase it via Paypal for 30 Euros, USD$40 or £25. The cost of the card is explained here. However, with Podex being relatively unknown outside of Second Life, and not that well known within it, this is something that will make people nervous.

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June 4, 2012June 4, 2012

Desmond Shang is Up To Something

There is a thread over at SLUniverse from Desomond Shang, entitled “Second Life 2015” in which The Caledon Governor ponders what may be happening with Second Life in 2015. The opening post ponders tier, vitality, seismic changes and such like. This isn’t unusual for a post from Desmond.

There is also pondering on The marketplace, which I often ponder on too and I simply can’t understand why in a 3D virtual world, Linden Lab are so obsessed with a 2D Marketplace, to the extent that they have shop links in the viewer to it, undermining the land market as it goes. Tier is way too high for Linden Lab to be playing this tune.

However it’s further into the thread that Desmond Shang reveals that he’s up to something, and then teases people by not saying much about what it is!

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May 25, 2012May 25, 2012

Reducing Resources

Hidden away on the Second Life Wiki are two very useful pages regarding optimisation, well they can be seen in that light anyway. One is regarding texture sizes and how much memory they consume. This is a useful guide but far from being the be all and end all, basically using 1024 x 1024 textures everywhere is silly, fortunately people generally use 512 x 512 but from the linked page we can see that a lot of them will eat resources too, which brings us to thinking about which textures we use and when we use them, do we really need 512 x 512? Well generally, it’s a yes but there are many times when 256 x 256 or even 128 x 128 would be fine.

The other page deals with pyhsics optimisation, this is a really handy page because it talks of using simple physics shapes to reduce load. The trick really is whether you can get away with only using a cube as your physics shape, say for example you build a nice fence with gaps all over the place and maybe it’s a bit weathered, could you just use a cube as the pyhsics shape? If you can, then the physics optimisation page is for you, if you can’t, then why can’t you?

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May 16, 2012May 16, 2012

Region Idling – Close But No Cigar

Region Idling has been announced, which is not the worst idea in the world. The basic idea is that when a region is empty,everything goes on a go slow and those saved resources are used elsewhere to improve user experience in other regions. This has potential, but like NeoBokrug Elytis of Wastelands fame, I have concerns and certainly feel that as a region owner, it should be my choice as to whether my region is part of the idling process.

This could be a step in the direction of lower tier bills, if your region is idling, maybe you won’t get charged as much for that period, one day. However I’m speculating there, I certainly like the idea of being able to turn my region off and pay less tier per month for it, but Linden Lab haven’t indicated that’s where we’re heading and that’s where the concerns come in.

My region may well be deemed to be idle, but it will be doing something, whether it’s talking to webservers,or acting as a delivery agent for remote notecard boards, generally, I have something going on and that’s what I’m signed up for. Mainland is Linden Lab’s estate, they call the shots and I have no arguments about my Mainland parcels being part of this process, because my landlord wants those regions to be part of this process, however I do strongly feel that I should have the choice as an estate owner as to whether my regions are part of this process.

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