November 2013 – Page 2

November 26, 2013

Fourth Annual Opensim Grid Survey Reveals The Flaws With Surveys

Maria Korolov has posted the results of the fourth annual opensim grid survey over at HyperGrid Business and the results are hard to make much sense of due to the small number of participants. However this doesn’t mean that the survey is worthless, but it does mean that the results should be taken with a pinch of salt in some areas.

654 responses were received by the survey and you need to bear in mind that most of the questions were aimed at people talking about the primary grid they use. That’s important because it means people are talking about something they are familiar with but it’s also likely to bring a large amount of bias.

I’m not going to go through the results in great detail, the linked post above has all the details you’ll need but I will discuss some of the results.

How do you rate this grid overall?

Kitely
AviWorlds
Zandramas

I’ve listed the top three there, Kitely came out on top with a score of 4.93 from the 84 votes cast for Kitely. However AviWorlds in second place only received 16 votes and third placed Zandramas received just 10. Now those vote numbers are not what put those grids in those places, but the average score from those vote numbers did, hence why the margins of error here are going to be quite large. Kitely is a product I’m very keen on and I wish I had more time to spend there so I’m glad to see them getting such good feedback.

This theme of low numbers of votes and therefore large margins of error is a theme throughout the survey, although to be fair to Maria, she doesn’t hide this fact, talking of the community results Maria says:

“The startup social grid Zandramas ranked best for community but — with only 10 responses — this rating is also the least definitive.”

However parts of the survey were most definitely useful, one being the number of grids that are around being surprising to me.

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November 24, 2013

Rome Coming To Versu But When Will Versu Come To The Android Or Second Life?

Emily Short has a teaser on her blog for a new Versu title : Coming To Versu. All the teaser contains is an image and the word “Rome“. Now as we all know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the Versu port to Android. On that blog post someone asks:

“How’s the Android port coming along by the way? =)”

Emily replies: “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to announce a date on that. I hear you, though.”

Versu, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is Linden Lab’s interactive fiction product. There are plans to allow user generated content on the platform so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Linden Lab don’t seem to advertise Versu that well, which is not going to surprise long term Second Life users. There’s surely scope for an official Versu blog of sorts to keep people updated. I’m also surprised that Linden Lab don’t use Second Life to promote Versu.

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November 23, 2013November 23, 2013

The Day Of The Doctor – Dr Who Events In Second Life

With the 50th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who in full swing, I decided to take a look at the Second Life events calendar to see what’s going in the virtual world. I discovered best in costume parties, a themed Giant Snail race and a couple of concerts.

This is not an exhaustive list and the only place I can vouch for is Giant Snail Racing, which is heaps of fun.

Some places may be more moderate so check any places carefully before rushing in, one does wonder what’s going on at place where Madam Mellons is the host, but hopefully it’s all good fun! Now on with the events, all times are SLT. Some events are taking place tomorrow.

Giant Snail Racing

Time : 11:00am 23/11/13

Duration : 1 hour

Location : Devon Dream (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Devon%20Dream/152/100/777)

45 foot tall Snails compete for fame and money over a crazy obstacle Course. You can watch you can race. come check it out. get there a few hours early if you want to race if you haven’t raced before and well get you set up. Talk to RacerX Gullwing about that. You can see the races at http://treet.tv/shows/snailraces Oh the theme this week is the Doctor Who. If you customize your full perm free snail to the theme you might win a prize too. Get your free snail at the track. The track is always open come on down and give it a try touch the ? in green circles for the tutorial. or watch this video from youtube :

Best in Dr Who @ The Worlds End Pub

Time : 11:00am 23/11/13

Duration : 1 hour

Location : London City2 (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City2/128/128/2)

Come and join us at The Worlds End Pub, London City, for ‘Best in Dr Who’. Get your favourite Doctor Who outfits on and join us for an hour long event and enter the contest for a chance of winning some Lindens. Our resident DJ will be there playing all the top tunes from across the decades.

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November 22, 2013

Qarl – The Simplest Solution Is The Best One – And Collision Bones Are Indeed MUCH Simpler Than The Mesh Deformer

The arguments regarding the collision bones versus Mesh Deformer solution continue to rage in the Second Life forum. The problem with solutions is that better is very very subjective, both solutions have pros and cons and neither of them are the perfect solution.

Personally I’d have preferred to see a two state solution here because the Mesh Deformer and the Liquid Mesh type solution should have been able to work side by side as a server side value as to whether a mesh needs to be deformed was part of the Mesh Deformer solution. Therefore if a content creator went with the Liquid Mesh style solution, they would just have changed the value of their mesh to signify it did not need to be deformed by the deformer.

However when forming an opinion on solutions it’s useful to get feedback from people who know what they’re talking about and former Linden Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden) has responded largely positively to the news that Linden Lab are adding extra bones to the Second Life skeleton to aid content creators to make Mesh clothing that fits various avatar shapes. This is despite the fact that Linden Lab are not implementing his Mesh Deformer solution.

I say largely because Qarl has some complaints about the way his Mesh Deformer project has been received at Linden Lab and quite frankly I agree with him. However in a statement on the Mesh Deformer Jira Storm-1716 Qarl says:

“Several people have asked me – this seems like the best place to answer.

LL’s assessment here is mostly good. in almost all situations, the simplest solution is the best one – and collision bones are indeed MUCH simpler than the mesh deformer. as i see it, collision bones have two downsides: 1) they are substantially harder to use for the person creating the garment and 2) probably don’t track as well to the avatar shape.
in the end, the evaluation must be made by the content creators who use the tool.

i will reiterate that the two year delay and refusal to communicate are unacceptable.”

Are there politics at play in Linden Lab’s decision? I honestly don’t know but we’ll come back to that later. The fact of the matter is that Linden Lab have gone with a solution that will largely work as intended.

Continue reading “Qarl – The Simplest Solution Is The Best One – And Collision Bones Are Indeed MUCH Simpler Than The Mesh Deformer”