Tag: SL News

Lab calls a halt to the direct exchange of Linden Dollars to other virtual currencies

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday, March 13th, Hypergrid Business relayed news that Linden Lab has called a halt to the use of Linden Dollars outside of their own platforms.  The news itself came from the OpenSim based Avination, which has for several years provided the means to exchange Linden Dollars to their own currency (C$) via the use of an in-world ATM mechanism.

In an announcement, which has also been distributed to their users via e-mail, Avination state:  “Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, we regret having to inform you that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including the payment of your Avination sims via the Avination ATMs.”

The announcement goes on to further read in part:

Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of ANY other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife [sic] is in violation of the TOS …

According to Linden Labs [sic], users of SecondLife [sic] must cash out through LindeX before using real currency to pay for services not rendered within SL.

This move is being linked to matters of potential liability for the Lab. In 2013, the company moved to put greater controls on the re-sale of Linden Dollars through third-party exchanges. At the time, there was a lot of speculation (including my own) as to whether this was in response to FinCEN recommendations or as a more general means of dealing with issues of fraud, etc.

In 2013 the Lab moved to provide greater control over the re-sale of Linden Dollars, including prohibiting third-party exchanges from either buying back L$ amounts from users or providing them with the means to cash-out L$

While the Lab did subsequently allow third-party operations to continue to sell Linden Dollars to users (said L$ having been purchased from the Lab), a prohibition was placed on such operations to either buy L$ amounts from users or cash them out of the platform; a move which allowed the Lab to demonstrate it can effectively monitor and control the outward flow of money from Second Life.

However, it might be said the the use of in-world scripted devices such as “ATMs”, which enable the direct conversion of Linden Dollar values to other virtual currencies which can then be cashed out, potentially gives rise to liability exposure for the Lab, should it be shown that such mechanisms might be used for illegal purposes. Thus, the Lab has made this move to distance itself from such a risk.

In their announcement, Avination also suggest that this move may affect how Second Life users can pay for external services such as audio stream rentals in the future. Whether this is the case or not remains to be seen. Most of these services provide such a payment mechanism through a registered Second Life account, without any supplemental transfer of the value of the payment outside of the platform (the funds can effectively only be cashed-out via the Lab’s LindeX). Thus, there wouldn’t appear to be any issues with services working in this way to continue to do so. However, this is purely speculation on my part, and we’ll have to await official word from the Lab.

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Volumetric lighting: soon for SL?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Blackdragon logoUpdate, March 11th: The capabilities described below are now available in Black Dragon 2.4.1.9, which I’ve overviewed here.

Update, March 4th: Niran is continuing to experiment with shaders, and has posted an interesting snapshot taken under water.

NiranV Dean has always enjoyed a reputation for pushing the limits of the the viewer, first within his Niran’s Viewer, and more recently with his Black Dragon viewer.

A lot of the work he does builds on code developed by Tofu Buzzard – such as with his implementation of screen space reflections and, more recently, Godrays. This work, coupled with his own, has enabled him to earn a reputation for producing a viewer with rich graphical capabilities.

Now Niran is pushing the limits again, using both his one code and elements such a Tofu’s Godrays to bring something to Sl people have long wanted to see: volumetric lighting effects.

On Sunday, March 1st, he released a stunning video showing the work to date. When watching it, be aware that while the camera is moving, everything else is static, other than the grating in the ceiling of the room. When you’ve got that, note how the grating not only casts shadows on the floor, it actually breaks up the light falling through it, just as would happen in real life where light rays hit a solid object and are broken up by it.

“The original Godrays are from tofu,” Niran says of the work. “The problem was, they only worked on objects and terrain; they got cut off on the sky. So I’ve worked on that, and added some code to my viewer, which was really the first iteration of things we saw on my viewer [the updates with Godrays from 2014].

“Since then, I’ve been working on improved resolution and smoother Godrays, moving things to another shader, which brought it’s own problems. Most recently I’ve been moving to another shader for depth of field and improved shadows.”

Interest in the work Niran has been doing has been expressed by the Lab, and he will be offering it as a code contribution for them to consider, although he still has some further work to do.

The first of this is to introduce a global fading effect on the Godrays such that they appear to fade away as an observer looks away from the sun. The basic code is already there, but is disabled in the video, as Niran is still working on things. He hopes to be able to offer the fading effect as a toggle on / off option once the work has been completed.

“The other work still to be done is with particles,” he told me. “Since these Godrays are in the final depth of field shader, they also share the same problems. So, if I can move it into a separate shader on top of everything else, it should resolve the remaining issues, and everything should be good to go.

Of course, contributing code to the Lab doesn’t always mean adoption by the Lab; there can be many intervening factors that prevent the latter. However, Niran is quietly confident his work will be adopted. But if not, “well, there’s always my viewer with it!” he tells me with a wink and a smile.

Lab updates on forthcoming improvements for SL

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Monday, February 9th, the Lab issued a blog post outlining some of the upcoming improvements to Second Life.

In all six improvements are listed, five of which are user-facing, while the sixth should also yield benefits, although these may not be in terms of observable differences in how SL operates for most people. Further of the six listed, four have project viewer associated with them, three of which relate to visible viewer-side changes in terms of improved or new functionality. The remaining two updates should be appearing as either project or release candidate viewers in the very near future.

Regular readers of my weekly SL project updates will likely already be familiar with these improvements, at list in principle, but I’ll run through them here as well.

The first of the improvements which is already available for testing is the new Avatar Hover Height (AHH) feature. For those who remember it, this effectively sees the return of the old “z-offset height adjustment” found in many TPVs, which allowed users to adjust their avatar’s height relative to the ground, whether standing, sitting or kneeling, or when using poseballs, etc., to ensure they were correctly positioned relative to whatever they were standing / sitting / kneeling upon.

Now in a project viewer (and soon to be a release candidate: Avatar Hover Height provides a means of adjusting your avatar's graphical height above the ground / floor / objects, as seen by yourself and others
Now in a project viewer (and soon to be a release candidate: Avatar Hover Height provides a means of adjusting your avatar’s graphical height above the ground / floor / objects, as seen by yourself and others

I’ve provided a complete overview of the new functionality, which does not replace the existing Appearance panel Hover slider), and server-side support for it is now available grid-wide. So, if you want to try-out the feature for yourself, you can do so by downloading the Avatar Hover Height project viewer. I’ll continue to provide updates on this feature under the Avatar Hover Height tag in this blog.

The Marketplace listing panel is the viewer-side hub of the new VMM functionality
The Marketplace listing panel is the viewer-side hub of the new VMM functionality

The second of the improvements currently undergoing testing is the Viewer-managed Marketplace (VMM). This is more specifically aimed at people selling goods on the SL Marketplace, and provides them with the means to manage their Marketplace inventory and carry out an number of Marketplace operations from directly within the viewer.

Server-side support for this functionality is only available on Aditi, the beta grid at this point in time, and I’ve also provided an overview of how it works, complete with a look of the viewer-side changes and how to use the test regions on Aditi for those interested. Testing of VMM on the main grid should be commencing some time in the next month (but not until after February 14th), and I’ll continue to carry news about it under the Viewer-managed Marketplace tag in this blog.

The third improvement that is available for testing and mentioned in the blog post is that of the new Mesh Importer (upload) project viewer. As the name suggests, this provides a modified mesh uploader with optional debug output, performs name-based LOD association, and handle models with many materials, allowing models with more than 8 unique faces to be imported.

A number of bug reports have already been filed for this viewer – see the JIRA filter list for details.

The remaining two updates which will be visible to users should be appearing in project or release candidate viewers in the near future are:

  • An improved means to control and organize the many notices users receive: inventory offers, group notices, event invites, and money transactions, which will offer a new floater for such messages, rather than simply having them arrive in the same pop-up / chiclet formats which make them indistinguishable to one another at first glance
  • graphic-presets-1A means for users to save one or more sets of graphics settings on a per-account basis, allowing them to quickly switch between different sets of graphics options to assist with performance as they move around the grid (so, for example, you might have a set of “low” graphic settings you could switch-on in order to maintain performance in busy regions, and a set of “high” graphics settings, with as many bells and whistles turned on as you like and in accordance with your GPUs capabilities,, for use in quieter regions). It will also provide controls for defining how other avatars are rendered in your field of view, by allowing you to define a limit above which the viewer will cease rendering avatars fully, and instead will render them as a sold colour imposter.

The last update mentioned by the blog post is that of the Lab’s extensive tool chain update and changes to the viewer autobuild process. While this won’t bring any noticeable changes to the viewer UI, etc., it should, as the blog post notes, “improve stability, performance, and the productivity of developers so that we can more quickly bring you an even better Second Life.”

As added benefit in this work is that it should in time allow TPVs to build their viewers using the same packages as the Lab a lot more easily. And, as a side note, it also potentially smooths the way for the Lab to produce 64-bit versions of the official viewer, although there are currently no plans in the pipeline for them to start doing so, due to the 32-bit versions of the official viewer being very stable on 64-bit operating systems.

An initial project viewer built using the new tools is already available, but note that this does not contain any functional changes compared to the current release viewer.

In addition, as the Lab’s blog post notes, a similar operation has been under way to update a number of the tools used to build the server-side simulator software as well.

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Back by popular demand: the Linden Lab snowball fight

Posted on by Inara Pey
Winter Wonderland - race track, rinks and Ferris Wheel
Winter Wonderland – race track, rinks and Ferris Wheel – and a Snowball arena, where the Lab invites everyone to join them for a fun-filled snowball fight on Friday, February 6th.

On Wednesday, February 4th, Linden Lab announced the return of the Linden Lab Snowball Fight, together with the official announcement on the Fun Booth Fun Contest I’ve also blogged about under separate cover.

Ebbe, Get Your Gun! - my first encounter at the park was a snowball gun toting Ebbe Linden!
Ebbe, Get Your Gun! – my first encounter at Winter Wonderland was a snowball gun toting Ebbe Linden – now the Lab is inviting everyone to join them in some fun on Friday, February 6th!

The snowball fight announcement reads:

Come pelt some Lindens and fellow Residents with snowballs in a frozen field free-for-all at Winter Wonderland. That’s right – between 10 AM SLT and noon SLT on Friday, February 6th, we’re holding a meet-up in world at the Snowball Warzone. Get your free snow launching weapon, gather your posse, and prepare to say hello to some Linden friends for a full on flurry of snow-slinging fun.

The snowball fight, once a mainstay of wintertime fun involving the Lab and Second Life residents has been sorely missed over recent years, and the recent opening on the Lab’s new Winter Wonderland experience, which I previewed / reviewed  at the end of January, brought with it renewed requests – such as this one from bizpfeffer –  for the snowball fights to be re-launched.

Well, the Lab has heeded the requests!

So, don your winter woollies, get your weapons at the foot of the stairs leading to the Winter Wonderland Snowball Warzone, and then … lock’n’load with plenty of snowballs!

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Lab runs a photo booth competition with L$19,000 prize pool

Posted on by Inara Pey

photo-boothAt 10:00 SLT on Wednesday, February 4th, 2015 the Lab launched a new photo competition with a total prize pool of L$19,000.

The Photo Booth Fun Contest challenges SL users to submit their own photo booth theme pictures – the sillier the better – for a chance to win one of the following Linden dollar prizes:

  • Grand Prize – 10,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at US$40.00).
  • First Prize – 5,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at US$20.00).
  • Second Prize – 3,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at $12.00).
  • Third Prize– 1,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at $4.00).

To help inspire people with ideas for entries, Xiola Linden has scoured the web far and wide and set-up a Pinterest page full of images showing possible ideas and the use of props to make truly memorable / silly photos. But remember – the images are for inspiration only! The judges are looking for entrants to be as creative as as silly as they can get.

To enter, simply create your snapshot and then upload it to the contest page linked-to above and at the end of this article, using the Entries tab on that page (you must be signed-in to the forums for the button to work).

For full details on the rules of entry, general conditions, eligibility for entry, prize information and so on, please refer to the contest’s official rules and conditions.

In a new move for the Lab, winner will not be decided on the basis of a popularity vote. Instead, a specially selected jury, comprising a mixed panel of Linden Lab representatives from the Lab’s marketing and community relations team and a number of Second Life residents will judge the competition.

As noted at the top of this article, the contest is now open, and entries can be submitted between now and 10:00 SLT on Wednesday, March 4th, 2015.

So happy snapping and good luck!

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Lab brings a little Skrill to provide additional payment options

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Tuesday, January 12th, the Lab announced the provision of new payment options for Second Life users, through a partnership with Skrill, the UK-based e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet.

Under the new arrangement, Second Life users have further options for their payment activities, including like buying L$ and paying account fees, as well as additional local currency options for Residents outside the United States.

The service actually soft-launched a few weeks ago, and according to the Lab, has seen some very positive results to date, hence the announcement. However, some users outside of those trying the service may have additionally noticed that Skrill themselves announced their partnership with the Lab earlier in January 8th, when they issued a press release on the matter, which reads in part:

New York, NY – 8 January 2015: Leading digital payments company, Skrill, today announces a collaboration with Linden Lab to integrate the Skrill Digital Wallet as a payment option for users of Second Life, the Internet’s largest user-created virtual world.

Skrill’s Digital Wallet provides users with a secure and easy method to send and receive Linden Dollars. Skrill 1-Tap, Skrill’s recurring payment solution, allows users to enter their information only once to enable continuous payments thereafter with just one tap or click.

As noted in the Lab’s blog post, any Second Life users with a Skrill account can now add it to their payment options under the Billing option on their secondlife.com dashboard.

SL users with Skrill accounts can add them to their SL billing options
SL users with Skrill accounts can add them to their SL billing options

While the service can currently only be used for any payment transactions (operating just as a credit card would), the Lab note that they hope to extend the service to encompass the processing credits (redemptions) to Skrill accounts in the future.

Given that many SL users have problems in using Credit Cards with the platform, or are unable to use PayPal, the arrangement with Skrill potentially offers a method by which they can better carry out payments and L$ purchases.

If you wish to find out more about Skrill, please visit their website.

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