Month: August 2011

Duran Duran competition in SL

Posted on by Inara Pey

Coming via Pete Linden is news of an competition being run on behalf of Duran Duran to further celebrate their presence in Second Life.

Entitled “Your avatar at the DDU” (Duran Duran Universe), the competition  will see the winner’s own photo signed by the group.

The competition was announced via a notecard which reads:

“Your avatar in the DDU” contest!

Get creative and take a nice, cool, crazy or whatever mood you are in snapshot of your avatar in your favourite location in the DDU. The winner will get his/her  avatar photo  signed by the band.

Simply add your entry (one per person only) from August 8th 2011 until August 22nd 2011 to our  flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/youravatarintheddu/ . People can vote your picture as their  favourite  until September 5th 2011. The 10 pictures with the highest count of favourite votes will be forwarded to the band to choose the winner. So head out  right away and keep your cameras klicking. Good luck!

Nick, Simon, John, Roger

The DDU is location on the Khanada region (Surl). So, if you’re a Duran Duran fan – teleport in and try your luck!

SpotON3D put themselves on the spot

Posted on by Inara Pey

Today, those behind SpotON3D attempted to host an Q&A session concerning their plans to patent code they use to to display the Viewer through a number of popular browsers.

I say attempted because, as Maria Korolov explains, things didn’t turn out too well. Part of the problem is that the event was announced at very short notice for many, although I actually received notification by way of a comment on this blog at 07:53 BST (23:53 PST Saturday), some eight hours prior to the event being held; unfortunately – and possibly due to the links included in it – WordPress fed the comment to my spam folder without issuing any notice to myself & I failed to see it until several hours after the meeting had taken place. Had I managed to see it ahead of time, I would have certainly posted and Tweeted about it.

The announcement / comment in full read:

This is an official statement from SpotON3D

Due to the reaction of the OpenSim community about our World on the Web plug-in and the pending patent, we’ve decided to take the debate to another level and give everyone – BOTH SUPPORTERS AND NON-SUPPORTERS, the chance to bring their ideas and questions directly to us one-on-one. Our goal here is not to win anyone to a particular way of thinking, but to try answer the biggest questions and at least understand each other’s POV. And who knows? Maybe this can help start a continuing dialog between the OpenSim community, SpotON3D and the many other grids out there.

Stevan and I will try and answer as many questions as possible in a 1-1.5 hour period of time. Due to a previously schedule business trip, Stevan will most likely only have one hour. I will be staying an extra half hour or more if necessary. I can not answer any legal questions, because … well, I’m not a lawyer! Any questions about the legal aspects of the patent, plug-in or other legal matters not answered at this event can be addressed directly to Stevan via email at Stevan@spoton3d.com.

THE VENUE< TIME< DATE – August 7th at 8 am PDT/SLT/MVT
The meeting place will be in SpotON3D in a Quad MegaSim called OUTREACH. Any and all voice chat in the main sim will be relayed over all four sims, so please be patient and fair to everyone else. This mega sim will hold about 150 people, so it will be on a first come first serve basis. Below you’ll find some general guidelines

This event will be filmed, archived and uploaded to our media page, as well as the usual web sites for everyone, so that everyone will have something to review and point others to.

We are looking forward to this being a productive event for both SpotOn3D and the community. You can teleport directly into OUTREACH ISLAND, if you have the World on the Web Plug-in installed on your Windows PC, (sorry MACers and Linux guys … that’s next on our to do list) and just click on the 3DURL below – works just like a SLurl. http://3durl.com/map/veesome/Outreach%20Island/135/126/22

Thank you!
Tessa & Stevan

Quite why other announcements appear to have been issued much later is unclear; Maria reports some did not receive notice until just four hours ahead of the event, or 05:00 EST / 02:00 PST – times hardly conducive to gaining someone’s attention.

SpotON3D put the short notice for the event down to wanting to hold it before Stevan Lieberman had to depart for a week to attend a conference; however, given their press release responding to community concerns on the matter went out on Wednesday, and has continued to garner negative feedback in the interim, one cannot help be feel the company could have worked to ensure more advanced warning could possibly have been given.

Another problem with the event, apparently, was that SpotON3D opted to host it on their own grid, rather than a “neutral venue”, which put some of their critics off, with some suggesting that SpotON3D might seek to censure their views / comments. As a result, they refused to attend; others actively called for a boycott. Therefore, whether their attendance at the meeting might have resulted constructive dialogue taking place was sadly rendered moot.

That said, SpotON3D appeared unwilling to move beyond the position they’ve established through Wednesday’s press release, nor discuss much in the way of specifics – thus rendering the stated aim of the meeting, “to try answer the biggest questions and at least understand each other’s POV”, also somewhat moot.

The controversy is set to continue.

Addendum

The video of the meeting is now available on the SpotON3D livestream; unfortunately, not all questions can be heard (thanks to Maria Korolov for the link).

Radegast: 3D Rendering progresses

Posted on by Inara Pey

The 3D rendering capability I reported on a week ago in Radegast continues to develop.

The rendering window itself has been improved, with the debug panel now OFF by default, giving it a much cleaner appearance. Avatar movement, via the cursor keys (or the movement buttons on the main Radegast window) is smoother, although still not as refined as the Viewer. Right-clicking on scripted-items in the render window now also calls-up any associated menu, or allows you to take direct actions such as sit, take, etc.

Clicking a menu-driven item in the render window displays the associated menu in the main Radegast window

The most eye-catching addition that may be coming, however, is the ability for water reflections to be rendered, as shown in the video below from the Radegast team.

Now, I have to confess, I’ve downloaded the most recent nightly build, and couldn’t get the water reflections to work. This might be simply because the code to do so isn’t as yet in the latest build – I have no idea; but that doesn’t make the video above any less impressive.

There are a few issues around camera movement that could be refined or improved: holding CTRL and moving the mouse to the right – and seeing the camera move to the LEFT relative to its on-screen position, for example, can be a little confusing. But again, this rendering option is still experimental, so there is every chance that if things like this can be refined, they probably will be.

Overall, it’s fascinating to watch these developments within Radegast, and kudos to the team for the progress made so far.

Havok for Avination?

Posted on by Inara Pey

While people were focused on the announcement last week concerning InWorldz joint venture with CariNet, many of us missed an interesting snippet coming out of Avination by way of Maria Korolov’s excellent Hypergrid Business.

In an article by Maria, Melanie Thielker of Avination (and who also heads-up  OpenSim hosting company 3D Hosting) confirms that her company has entered into negotiations with Havok over the potential deployment of the company’s physics engine on the Avination grid.

As those actively engaged in Second Life know, the Havok engine is used to provide physics capabilities on Second Life; if the negotiations between Avination and Havok are successful, then it could see Avination becoming the first OpenSim grid to deploy physics of a standard comparable to Second Life – something that could give the company a strategic edge in gaining user-take up, especially in the areas of combat and role-play, which Aviation is geared towards already.

This is not the first time Avination has taken the path trod by Linden Lab; as Maria points out, in March of this year, Avination became the first OpenSim grid to offer Vivox voice capabilities. Again, given the widespread use of Vivox (Eve Online, EverQuest and others online games use the system as well), Avination opted for a product with a solid track record that is an excellent fit for their product. And they did so without having to pass on costs to their users.

Obviously, there are alternatives to both Voice and physics. In the case of Voice, there is Freeswitch and Whisper/Mumble, for example, although these have disadvantages in terms of reliability and usability. Physics-wise, there are open-source alternatives, as currently used by Avination and others. However, both Vivox and Havok are widely regarded as the “gold standard” in their respective fields.

Given this, Avination have demonstrated a shrewd approach to developing their platform and adding to its overall appeal both with Vivox in March, and now with Havok. It’ll be interesting to see how these latter negotiations pan out.

Playing with prims: the new 64m limit

Posted on by Inara Pey

We’re all aware that mesh is chugging down the road in Second Life. What some haven’t twigged to as yet is that with it is coming a new maximum prim size – 64m on a side.

Now, the ability to rez and size prims to beyond 10x10x10 has long been a feature of other grids, and the fact that we’ve not been able to do so within Second Life is simply down to constraints placed on the system by LL rather than any inherent issue with the grid itself. This has traditionally left us with the thorny issue of mega prims, which, as well as being the subject of much heated discussion over the years within the Lab as to whether or not they should be allowed, are saddled with limitations – as anyone who has attempted to stretch a mega will know.

So, what does the new prim size mean for mega prims once it is rolled out? Well, pretty much the same as it does now:

  • Any “legally cut” mega (i.e. those created using the exploit Linden Lab allowed a few years ago when building the likes of Nautilus / Bay City) that are sized within the 64m limit can be safely cut,  tortured and stretched as per a “normal” prim, without it demonstrating any “snap back”
  • Any mega over 64m along any axis can he cut and tortured, but will snap back to 64m when stretched, but can be resized to anything under 64m

Of course, it also calls into the question the need to continue to carry vast stocks of pre-cut megas between 10 and 64m on a side in your inventory (or indeed, within a repository external to your inventory) – which is also to the good.

Overall, the behaviour is pretty much as one would expect, and in some respects nothing to write home about. That megas coming in under the 64m limit can be stretched without snapping back does mean that those who have used them in builds shouldn’t need to go around replacing them all with freshly-rezzed prims if they don’t want to. However, be careful with mega prims created using any skew (usually 0.79) to achieve the final shape, and for some reason these can exhibit a .05 to .1 degree rotation when linked with “regular” prims that have been enlarged.

That said, there are potential benefits to revisiting and revising some builds that use megas. Often it is necessary to compromise in the use of megas and “regular” prims to achieve a desired result. Providing things can be kept to within the 64m limit, this is no longer necessarily the case, as the images below demonstrate.

Built with megas & “regular” prims: 633 prims
Revised with the new prim size: 134 prims recouped

Of course, there are still some limitations – you can’t hollow-out a prim beyond 95% and nanoprims still require a lot of cutting and slicing of small prims, but on the whole, this is a step forward for traditional building in SL. What is a shame is that there doesn’t appear to have been any upward shift in the calculation for determining the maximum prim linking distance.

If you want to have a play with the new prim sizes ahead of the mesh roll-out you can. If you join the Mesh Volunteer Group, you can access the main Grid mesh sandbox area (Surl), which supports the new prim size if you use a suitable Viewer, currently comprising:

Or you can try either the Beta grid mesh sandboxes or, if you know someone on the Main grid who has a sim involved in the Mesh/Live Volunteer project, you could ask them if you could use some space to fiddle with prims.

Objects created using the new maximum prim size *can* be rezzed elsewhere on the Grid – but cannot currently be resized in any Viewer. Regardless of whether or not the Viewer you are using supports the news prim limit, if you attempt to resize a large prim on a non-mesh enabled sim, it will snap back to the 10m limit until such time as mesh is fully rolled-out.

MOM: August

Posted on by Inara Pey

The August Month of Machinima kicked-off on Wednesday 3rd August, but way too late for me to get to the LEA theatre – 7:00pm SLT, so here’s a belated look.

Eleven entries are on offer this month, with the theme being: “Design and Architecture”.

The entrants cover a broad range of topics within the over theme, encompassing an examination of an international project encompassing students in the USA and Egypt, The Kansas to Ciaro Project #2; through homages to some of SL’s most innovative, quirky and/or thought-provoking builders and artists, AM Radio, Alambra, Off the Wall, Two Ways of Looking at You, What isn’t Underneath, presented in various forms from musical tours, to history-within-a-tale to storytelling; through to questions on the nature of perception, The House that Self Built. Along the way we pass the more esoteric with Relevant Search and Democracia Virtual Ya, and encounter the story of a wandering robot, Copy Design.

After my slight disappointment last month, the August collection makes for interesting viewing, although I admit to being somewhat lost with Demoncracia is concerned; I’m probably a little too literal.

As per usual, the films are all available for viewing at the LEA Theatre (Surl), or can be seen on the Month of Machinima YouTube channel. I’m also including my personal favourites for the month below, each of which demonstrate, in different ways, the power of Second Life.