Second Life – Page 277

February 8, 2011February 8, 2011

Penny Patton’s Guide to Better Camera Placement

Penny Patton, long time advocate of better scaling and camera positions, has posted in the blogrum a guide to improving your Second Life view, via better camera placement. Penny has also granted me permission to reprint the post here, which I will do shortly.

Why is camera placement important you may wonder, well it simply is, it’s one of the most important features of any video game because it gives us perspective, and the problem with the default settings for the camera in Second Life, according to Penny, is that the camera view not only isn’t very good, it has distorted perceptions so that pretty much everything we build, from our avatar to our homes and stores, is oversized. The problem with everything being oversized is that we use more space than we need to on our sims, meaning we have less room for landscaping and features.

This is quite a compelling argument and after altering my camera as Penny suggests, I can see where she’s coming from. However not everyone will agree with this or feel the advantages, that’s down to personal choice of course but knowing about features like this can improve your view of Second Life. Continue reading “Penny Patton’s Guide to Better Camera Placement”

February 7, 2011February 7, 2011

Battlestar Galactica Sims given green light?

Back in November 2010 I reported on reports that Battlestar Galactica content was being removed from Second Life after allegations that Universal City Studios Inc. had complained to Linden Lab about Intellectual Property issues, the post is here.

Today, thanks to a ginger bird who eats too much cheese .. Suella Ember updating a blogrum post about the issue with updated information, news is being circulated that a deal has been struck to allow Battlestar Galactica roleplay within Second Life. Suella links to this story here at the Harrisburg Second Life Examiner, who were instrumental in breaking the original news about the takedown, so seem to be a trustworthy source on this issue.

The crux of the matter is that an agreement has been struck to allow roleplay to continue, as long as it doesn’t involve the creation and sales of real or virtual items related to Battlestar Galactica.

Continue reading “Battlestar Galactica Sims given green light?”

February 5, 2011February 5, 2011

Inworld Classifieds get bit by Maturity Ratings Bug

There has been a lot of talk about how the maturity ratings bugs have plagued the Second Life Marketplace, merchants have found that their items are being flagged as moderate when there’s no obviously moderate material in the post. We’ve had laughter and frustration over “an”, “5”, “Six” and “X” being too hot to handle. However now we have another issue and this one certainly manifests itself inworld when using Viewer 2.4, I don’t know about other viewers.

The issue is with reagrds to inworld classifieds being filtered to the wrong category. I was alerted to this by Medhue Simoni’s post on the blogrums and sure enough, I found that my adverts for Pirate clothing and an advertisement for workers in a roleplay tavern could only be found in search if I ticked the adult rating box.

Continue reading “Inworld Classifieds get bit by Maturity Ratings Bug”

February 4, 2011February 5, 2011

Extending Reach – Facebook and Other Options

Hamlet, over at New World Notes, is on a Facebook offensive, as opposed to Ciaran, over here, who is on an offensive Facebook campaign. I do agree with Hamlet with regard to Facebook having the potential to extend reach, which it clearly does have. Indeed I have no issue at all with Linden Lab or any other Second Life residents promoting Second Life on Facebook, where I do have a problem is with Linden Lab promoting Facebook on Second Life, as they did again recently on the spring break blog post.

I fully believe LL are doing this all arse about face, they should be offering Facebook exclusive promotions, on Facebook, to Facebook users (as opposed to Second Life users, although some clearly fall in both categories). People may well moan about promotions on Facebook, but the idea is surely to extend Second Life’s reach into Facebook territory, not extend Facebook into Second Life territory, which is more akin to driving the wrong way up a one way street.

However Facebook isn’t the only way to extend reach and Facebook simply does not welcome Second Life users, to use their Second Life names, full stop. Facebook doesn’t like pseudonyms, beyond the rich and famous and those whose cause Robert Scoble takes up. Continue reading “Extending Reach – Facebook and Other Options”