November 2012 – Page 4

November 20, 2012

Even With Mesh Prim Physics Shape Can Come Out On Top

An Image Should Be Here — A New Mesh Path

So I decided it was time to engage in some building and set myself out a new Mesh path, a Mesh path is something that is very straight forward to build in a program such as Blender, it’s also very straight forward to UV Map, so if you’re thinking Mesh is just too complicated, I advise you to start with something straight forward like this. I’m not going to go through the process here, but I am going to go through why making a Mesh object have a physics shape of prim, rather than Convex Hull, can help things work nicely.

Now by default, Mesh will take on the physics shape of Convex Hull. There are many good reason for this, which I’m not going to discuss. However as we can see, my Mesh path is currently Convex Hull:

However there’s a problem, when I walk along my new funky Mesh path, I sink into the ground at the edges. At one end of my path are some steps, I actually end up falling down behind them, on the main path, you just sink slightly at the edges. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe, but after delving into the murky world of the official forums, being pointed at the Jira and getting some assistance from the ever helpful Drongle McMahon, I decided to change the physics shape to Prim and suddenly, it all works as expected!

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November 20, 2012

Machinima Expo Films Available Until November 26th

The Machinima Expo is over for this year, however, if you missed it, don’t panic. The films that were selected for screening are available until November 26th and can be viewed at the Machinima Expo Website. Warning, these are films, so they’re art, so there maybe some nudity involved, pixel nudity but still nudity. Some of the content is therefore likely to be NSFW, just so you know.

The films aren’t long in length and I very much like the fact that the movies will be available for a while longer yet as it gives me a chance to view some of them! A list of the films that were screened can be seen here. As I said in my previous post on this expo, I’m not really into Machinima and this is purely a time issue, I’ve had a brief look at some of the films and I really need to find time to give it a go. Hopefully some of you will recognise some of the names on the list, I really only recognise Chantal Harvey, Draxtor Despres and Pooky Amsterdam .. oh and Bryn Oh … oh and Miso Susanowa! More than I realised, but as I said, Machinima hasn’t been my thing.

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November 18, 2012

DMCA Is Far From Ideal But It Remains An Option

So there you are, you’ve created your new item, taken the photos, unleashed it inworld and are sitting back watching the Linden Dollars flow in when you get the nod that someone has copied your content, not only that, they’re also selling it.

Now after cursing, banging your head on the desk and swearing to rip someone a new backside, there are things you need to consider. The first thing to consider is that unless you inform Linden Lab of the situation, nothing is likely to happen. The second thing to consider is that Linden Lab do not adjudicate on these issues, they ask you to file a DMCA. Linden Lab have a page on DMCA, which you can read here. The big thing to bear in mind is that DMCA is not a Second Life policy, it’s a legal policy, this therefore goes beyond the terms of service, as noted on the DMCA page:

Please note that these notifications and counter-notifications are real-world legal notices provided outside of the Second Life environment. Linden Lab may provide copies of such notices to the participants in the dispute or third parties, at our discretion and as required by law – the privacy policy for Second Life does not protect information provided in these notices.

For some people, DMCA is discouraging, they don’t like it, they don’t want to provide the information required and they get frustrated, but unfortunately, the option to use it depends upon following the process.

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November 17, 2012

BSM In Server Move Woes

The Bejamble Sales Monitor (BSM) system has ran into problems during a server move. Creator and website owner Cory Hancroft decided to move servers to cut expenses in order to preserve the system, the move will save USD$70 a month in fees but still comes in at a whopping USD$250 a month.

The move of course won’t impress inworld business owners who have experienced problems during the move, problems that were today still reportedly ongoing. The website is working fine but it appears that the new DNS records have not fully propogated and until they do, problems will exist.

Dans Belgar the Inedit owner has decided to end his relationship with BSM and is urging affiliates to use Hippo Vendors. Inedit currently use both sytems, Dans has set a deadline of January 1st for people to switch over. Personally I like the Bejamble system but I can undertand Dans frustrations and having to deal with the fallout of this move.

The system is user friendly, allows you to update or change items for sale very quickly and is not too script resource heavy, it ticks a lot of the right boxes so I hope it sticks around for a while yet.

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November 17, 2012November 17, 2012

Frustrations Lead To Resident Created Petition

I was reading Nalates Urriah’s blog when I noticed a post about the commerce team. Now the commerce team aren’t exactly top of people’s Christmas card lists at the moment, they come in for a lot of stick, rightly or wrongly, and in many cases wrongly. However their communications are abysmal, although my understanding is that they are working on this as well as trying to get the Jira team to allow others to read marketplace related Jira’s. The changes to the Jira with regards to reading other reports are quite frankly, abysmal.

However back to the point, Nalates post linked to a petition that a Second Life resident has created, currently with over three hundred and sixty signatures. The petition is aimed at Linden Lab, rather than the commerce team and is basically a list of frustrations regarding DMCA, Abuse Reports that seem toothless and viewers that connect to the grid with capabilities of circumventing the permissions system to copy content.

At its heart, this petition demonstrates the lack of engagement with Linden Lab on these issues and again I have to say that Linden Lab’s communications are in all too many areas, awful. There are exceptions, the server team do a fine job but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. They should be the example.

However the problem I have with the petition is that it’s short on suggestions on how to fix the problems.

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