Fallingwater showing interior lighting reflected on the bedroom terrace using materials
It’s been almost a year since I last wrote using the “f” word.
You know.
“Fallingwater”.
You almost got away with nigh-on a full year with nary a mention. If only I could have just kept quiet ten more days. Sadly, however, I can’t; and for that you can blame two people: Oren and Ilan over at Kitely :D.
The Great Room with materials added
You see, back in November they introduced materials processing support into Kitely, with a further update at the start of December. Given the nature of Fallingwater – notably the stonework in the build – I had to hop over and give things a go.
So, as and when I can, I’ve been spending time jumping into Kitely and adding normal and specular maps to Fallingwater. I still have areas in the build – noticeably in the stucco finish and with the ceilings – where I need to re-scale the repeats; with the addition of normal and spec maps the patterning is a little exaggerated and somewhat overbearing (as seen in some of the images here). This is going to take a little more time to fix, and time is one thing I’m fast running out of with the holiday season tap-dancing its merry way ever closer to me.
I am, however, reasonably satisfied with the look of the stonework, where I think the additional maps really bring things to life. I’m also pleased with the stone flooring as well, where the specular map helps bring the polished shine of the original to my build – although I still have yet to get the texture suitably tinted to match the original a little more closely.
As to how materials works on Kitely, there’s an easy answer: “exactly like they do on Second Life”. I did have some issues with applying maps across multiple faces, wherein maps would fail to apply to some faces; however, I’ve found this to be a problem elsewhere within OpenSim when using diffuse maps, so don’t see it as a problem specifically with Kitely’s implementation of materials.
The footpath up to the guess house and staff quarters, with materials help bring the stonework to life
Materials also helped m bring a little more life to the water passing by under the house, where a specular map helped me to create the impression of the house lights being reflected in Bear river. Again, it’s not perfect (the ability to independently animate the specular map from the diffuse would help) and entirely dependent upon windlight settings, but the result works reasonably well under the region’s default lighting (Bryn Oh’s Mayfly). A specular map also brought a “wet” sheen to the rocks of the falls as well.
There’s more I’d like to do with the place in the future. Not only sorting out the stucco finish, but things like raising the level of the house so I can correctly scale the falls themselves and try to re-created a more accurate look to the rocks of the falls. But that kind of work is going to have to wait a goodly while until I have the time I need to devote to being in-world in Kitely. Sadly, that’s not likely to be any time soon. Or perhaps that’s fortunately for you, as you won’t have to put up with more of my witterings about the place :).
A better feel for the stone walls using the guest house wall as an example
In the late 1990s, I caught a series on Discovery (or possibly TLC before it got rebranded by Discovery UK), called Connections 2. It was the follow-up to a series originally made and broadcast by the BBC back in the ’70s or ’80s and called (oddly enough) Connections back in the ’70s or ’80s. In it, commentator, broadcaster and journalist James Burke demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology.
I bring this up because I was put in mind of how that series drew connections between people, events and so on to present a narrative on how we arrived at a modern aspect of technology and / or thinking, while touring Takni Miklos’ Plankton, which is open through until the end of December as a Part of the LEA’s Full Sim Art series.
Like the television series, Plankton is about making connections. There are very strong cultural / historical elements here, rooted in particular in astronomy, leading to something of a theme of continuity running through some elements of the installation which connect the past right through to our lives. But unlike the TV series, there is no actual narrative, per se; one is very much left to draw one’s own through the process of exploration.
The connections in Plankton take several forms and are as much about how we connect with the installation as they are with themes or ideas. There are a number of ways in which to move around: “taxi” teleporters, point-to-pint teleports, elevators, walkways – you can even use your “inner pig” (presented to you on arrival) to reach other avatars in the region, thus offering the means to connect with them.
All of this means that any two experiences within the installation and the connections made when travelling through it are likely to be same. How you proceed, the choices you make in your explorations, lead to discoveries and connections which are not necessarily linear; making this a complex and involved place to explore.
Aspects of the installation extend from the ground, up through multiple platforms and spheres reaching high up into the sky. Not all of them are linked to the cultural / astronomy theme, so may even appear frivolous or confusing. But it is worthwhile taking your time in exploring and moving around.
One thing you can be sure of is that this is a lively space, with almost everything within it interacting with the visitor in some way, either responding to direct touch or to the nearby presence of any avatar. Even the landscape at ground level is in places changing, where objects will freely interact with one another as well as to the presence of visitors.
In all, I’m not sure words really suffice in describing it – better you go and see for yourself!
Dave Rowe (Strachan Ofarrel in SL) has released an update to his experimental version of the CtrlAltStudio viewer with support for Oculus Rift (Windows only).
CtrlAltStudio version 1.1.7.34400, released on Wednesday December 18th, allows the user to turn their avatar with a simple turn of the head when seated and using Riftlook.
The capability has been developed in conjunction with Tom Willans at the Serious Games Institute of Coventry University, here in the UK, and the release notes for the new version, together with the blog post announcing the release, describe the function thus:
There are two ways to use this option:
Setting the slider to 0° makes the turning happen all the time. This enables you to look at something then if you continue looking at it, your view will gradually rotate so that the object lies straight ahead and you can thus walk towards it.
Setting the slider to a value such as 45° makes turning start after you look left or right 45° or more. Turning then continues until you look straight ahead again. Depending on the value you set and how flexible your neck is, the effect can be like a gesture that initiates turning.
The new capability can be found in the Oculus Rift section of Preferences > Graphics > Display Output.
The new option to turn your avatar when seated and using the Oculus Rift headset
Strachan has invited those who have a headset to try the capability and to let him have their feedback. So if you do, please drop him a line on his blog.
This release also brings with it:
A change of the Rift prediction delta default value from 20ms to 35ms to improve typical perceived latency.
A fix mouselook not being able to turn more than +/-180°.
If you have been using previous versions of the 1.1 Alpha release of CtrlAltStudio, you should be able to install 1.1.7.34400 directly over it. However, if you have been using the 1.0 release (stereoscopic) version, a clean install is recommended.
It’s no secret that I love the parklands of Calas Galadhon; I think Ty and Truck do an amazing job with the park, providing it for all to enjoy, changing it to match the seasons, offering a wide range of activities, seasonal or otherwise, throughout the year and presenting a host of entertainments throughout.
Not only that, but they also manage a special theme region, SilverMyst, currently the setting for this year’s One Christmas Night, which I was able to visit just before Truck and Ty were about to open it to the public, and which also hosts their Halloween delights.
When writing about One Christmas Night, I promised a visit to Calas itself to try to capture some of the winter magic there. However, plans change; Saffia Widdershins contacted me and asked if I could expand upon the One Christmas Night piece to provide an article on both it and Calas Galadhon in winter for the next issue of Prim Perfect magazine. Of course, I was happy to oblige.
So, rather than spoil that article by writing about Calas here, I’ll simply say Prim Perfect should be out at the end of this week, making it ideal reading for Christmas with or without my wibblings :). You can find it at any of the in-world Prim Perfect vendors, or grab it on-line from the Prim Perfect website.
In the meantime I’ll leave you with a poem by Robert Frost that came to mind as I explored the Calas winter regions on horseback, together with a few paintings I hope will whet your appetites for a visit there yourselves if you’ve not already done so!
In a blog post dated Tuesday 17th December, the Lab has asked for feedback on the SL Marketplace search functionality, and have set-up a survey for people to take as a means of offering their views.
Next year, we’ll be making some improvements to the Second Life Marketplace search functionality. To help focus those efforts, we’d like to get some feedback from Marketplace users (both buyers and merchants) about how Marketplace search is working for you today and, more importantly, what you’d like to see in the future.
Please take a few minutes to help us improve this feature for all Residents by completing this brief survey here.
The survey will be available for feedback through January 6, 2014, and your input is greatly appreciated!
The survey presents a dozen sections, some of which are multi-part, asking for elements of the search functionality to be rated, and some of which offer users the opportunity to provide direct input / suggestions on things like the current search filters, relevance and sorting of results, presentation of search results, etc., and any specific changes people would like to see. It takes about 5 minutes to complete.
For those frustrated by Marketplace search, this would appear to be a good opportunity to provide feedback as to how things might be improved, which will hopefully be taken on-board. A discussion thread on the survey and feedback given has been started within the Merchant’s forum.
Andrew Linden, in his last appearance at a User Group meeting – indeed, in possibly his last public appearance prior to his departure from Linden Lab – gave further information on the uniform scaling functions for objects and linksets he’s been working on.
In particular, he described a third function – llScaleByFactor(float) – which sits alongside the two previously reported upon in part 3 of my week 50 report. So taken together, all three functions are:
integer llScaleByFactor(float factor): uniformly scale a linkset by the specified factor (e.g. 2.0 to double the scale). Returns TRUE if successful, FALSE otherwise
float llGetMaxScaleFactor(), float llGetMinScaleFactor(): return the maximum / minimum scale factors that will work in llScaleByFactor due to limits in place by prim scale and linkability distance restrictions
llScaleByFactor(float) returns TRUE if the scale change succeeded.
The new functions do not require any viewer-side update, and have already been added to the server-side LSL syntax file, although they will not actually be deployed to the main grid in an RC release until 2014. In the meantime, those wishing to test the functions can do so on Aditi in the following regions: Balance, Boardman, Borrowdale, Hawkshead and Mayfair.
SL Viewer Updates
The Google Breakpad release candidate viewer won an exception to the code freeze which came into force on Monday December 16th, reappearing in the release candidate viewer channel as version 3.6.13.284710.
The build, dated December 13th, 2013, was allowed a free pass and added to the Alternate Viewer wiki page on Monday 16th December as it contains no actual functional changes to the viewer. Rather, it contains an update to Google Breakpad and restructures the crash reporting mechanism to support out of process crash reporting. The changes are intended to give LL’s development team more call stacks from crashes more frequently in order to improve the triaging and debugging of crash-related issues.
Group Bans List
Obligatory Baker Linden shot 🙂
Baker Linden provided an update on his group ban list work. As per my week 46 report, he is going with the approach whereby granting a role within a group the ability to ban people from the group will automatically give that role both the “Eject Ban Members” AND “Remove Roles from Members” abilities as well. However, it will not be possible to remove either the “eject” and “remove” capabilities from a role using the “ban” ability without first disabling the “ban” ability.
He’s also added server code that will automatically eject a member, as long as the ejector has both the “eject” and “remove roles” abilities.
This means someone with both abilities no longer has to manually remove all the roles assigned to a group member prior to ejecting them, making the ejection process a lot more streamlined.Or at least, that’s the idea once implemented; right now the code has a small “oopsie” in it, as Baker explained, “Of course, in its current state, it will eject regardless of the two roles… which I’m working on fixing now 🙂 Somewhere down the line I did something wrong…”
There’s no timescale as to when the group ban work will appear. From Baker’s comments, it would seem as though the initial QA testing has now finished, allowing him to focus more on the viewer-side updates. Expect to see the results in a project or release candidate viewer before we’re too far into 2014.
Other Items
Disappearing Dwarfins and More
Judy Chestnut and Dante Spectre of Dwarfins fame attended the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday December 17th to report a worrying issue which has been affecting Dwarfins, as well as other breedable creations, which sees them suddenly vanishing from regions. Of those that vanish, some of which turn-out in the user’s Lost and Found folder, others reappear elsewhere in the region and others vanish completely.
Reporting the issue, Spectre indicated that his observed tests revealed that of those breedables which vanish, around 10% turn up in his Lost and Found folder, around 10% turn up somewhere else on the region, and the rest simply disappear, never to be seen again. Interestingly, those that are returned to Lost and Found do not appear to generate the notification normally seen following an object return.
Dwarfins (and apparently other breedables) have recently been inexplicably vanishing from regions
The problems seem to have started around two weeks ago, immediately following the server deployments, although whether the issue is linked to a specific update is unclear, and neither Simon nor Andrew could see anything within the deployments which could explain the issue.
In terms of Dwarfins, the problem has been witnessed on regions running on both the Main (SLS) channel and on the Magnum RC. Regions affected include Dwarfins Rock, Rossavik, Hidden Sanctuary, Hawthorn Estate, and Bull Island, among others.
Andrew Linden has suggested that Dwarfins Rock is cloned on Aditi, where the behaviour of the region can be monitored closely. Should Dwarfins vanish from it, the Lab will then be in a better position to dig-in to data gathered from the region and hopefully determine what may be going on.
In the meantime, if you have noticed similar behaviour with any breedables of your own, consider raising a bug report.
LSL Materials Functions
There have recently been renewed calls for materials processing to gain additional scripted support so, as an example, normal and specular maps could be animated independently to one another / the diffuse (texture) map on an object. In fact, requests for such capabilities have been raised periodically since materials was first announced.
While the capability has not been officially ruled out, it is not at all clear when it might appear – if indeed it will. Commenting on the subject at the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday December 15th, Nyx Linden said, “Scripted materials would be more difficult than you would think.” To which Oz Linden added, “There are some non-obvious complexities with scripted materials properties. We don’t have that in a plan yet, but we know that people would like it.”
So, for those hoping for scripted control of materials, it would appear to be some way off at the very least.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 