More Linden Avatars

Thanks, Tatero Nino for the heads up today on even more avatars being added to our standard inventories (Inventory > Clothing > Initial Outifts), like this "Vehitar Ballista" automobile avie. There are a dozen of these vehicles by Xenius Revere to compliment the thirteen robots and dozen animal avatars I blogged about earlier. Of the latter group I found that the cat and dog avatars (by Damian Fate) are actually a "quad" style, running about on four legs.

Vehitar Ballista by Xenius Revere cornering hard to run over a Meeroo. Several familiar-looking vehicles are included but due to copyright I won't name them *cough cough* beetle *cough cough* plus at least one space ship, an Italian supercar, and a cute neon green monster truck.

Dog, one of the two "quad" avies in the group. I really love the soulful look to the pup's eyes.

Harvey the Bus (modeled by JoyJoyJenny Bimbogami) and Sebastian the Airship (me!).
The airship reminds me of a smaller, more "authentic" avatar from Grendels Children, pictured next.

The Grendels Children airship, not one of the new avatars, but worth finding.

Clark the Tank (JoyJoyJenny again) and a modified Vehitar Silus in the background.

None of these avies have external Animation Overrides (AO) but they do have built-in animations. The bipedal avies can use regular AOs. The quads also have an AO or built-in animations.

Now, to wonder if the cars have anything to do with that movie that is so popular right now ...

SL8B: Closed

The Second Life birthday celebration is over for another year and the exhibitors are tearing down their builds. Many just delete and go while others work in a bit more fun. My friend Marianne McCann had fireworks and then demolished her build with fire and explosions, letting the prims fall where they may, then she packed up her van and drove off.

Some, like me, leave little gifts such as signs saying "Thanks for the fun!" and the so forth. Last year I left out bumper boats in my pond for the remaining builders to use and for the Lindens to enjoy when the sims were later closed to all but them. They must have had some fun because it was at least a month before they returned things to me. This year I added a little flair, dropping a copy of the Isle of Lesbos Teeny Bikini Bar on my parcel then putting in the bumper boats. On one wall I posted pictures of Marianne, her friend Pygar, and me three anonymous exhibitors having fun with an administrator whom we found away from his keyboard (Web).

Fun with bumper boats at my SL8B Bar.

Thank you, Linden Lab, for letting us Residents play a little bit and celebrate Our World together. And big thanks to all the volunteers and builders behind SL8B. I had a great time and I hope you did, too. See you for the ninth birthday, I hope!

v2 Gripes

You may have noticed that I'm something of a Second Life Viewer 2 apologist (look it up). While others decry the user interface (so, its different), the lack of features (more than you had in the v1 viewers, actually), and the idea of change in general (not all of you are whiners, but it sure seems like most of you are) I celebrate the growth we've seen in viewer technology over the years.

That doesn't mean I'm wholly in love with v2, though. Change can breed both positive and negagtive. For example, every time I change my graphics levels, I have to go to the Advanced menu (previously enabled via Me > Preferences > Advanced), open up the Debug settings, and type in rendervolumeLODFactor (or start to ... it auto-populates) and change it from the default 1.125 to my preference of 4.000 so sculpties properly rez fast and at distance. Every. Time. Why can't the viewer remember this setting? Maybe a third party viewer solves this problem. I haven't looked as I continue to find the Official viewer the most stable and speedy. Trade offs, I suppose, but I still want it all.

And I want to keep my Windlight settings. The new viewer update system has it's benefits, like keeping relatively experience-free users in touch with important updates. But every time an update occurs, the 400-some Windlight definition files that I keep installed get wiped out. So for these pictures I had forgotten that I had but a limited selection from which to choose.

The clever changing huts at the Murray Info Hub. Sometimes I like to come here for a change of pace to change my clothes or to just for a change. This is an "overflow" Infohub and new Residents are seldom shunted here after leaving Help Island post orientation.

The Murray Infohub has places to relax, like this hammock my friend is relaxing in and a nice little beach bar, as well as the changing huts. Do a little exploring and you'll also find some treasure and floaty tubes for play.

While the 32 standard options were okay for these pictures, I would have preferred other, more dramatic settings. I didn't do any extra customization aside from cranking the graphics quality and draw distance, though for the second picture the "default" clouds are rather annoying. If anyone has some pull with The Lab, can you get them to stop erasing all my Windlight files? At least I have some hopes that when support for Windlight changes by parcel comes to the main release viewer, we'll have more choices.

New "Linden" Avatars

This tiger from Damian Fate is a lot like his Loco Pocos creations, but bigger!

What? Did I stretch out my Loco Pocos tiger avie onto a "regular" avatar shape? Nope. It's an avie from Inventory > Clothing > Intial Outfits > Animal Avatar Tiger. Along with a snot-load more avies, many furries, made by Pocos creator Damian Fate. Theres a bunny, a cat, a dog, a dragon, .... The list goes on, including several robots. Other creators are listed on some of the other avies, but Damian seems to have lots there. As does Renn Yiffu.

A poster of Renn's avies at his store.

Detail from "Linden Robot No11 LadyBot Pilot" by Renn Yifu, also among the new avies.

SL8B Apologies

Un-named parcel by Dixit Writer @SL8B
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL8B%20Spectacular/60/188/22

I'm sorry. There is just so much to see and do at Second Life's birthday expo this year that I just can't see and report on it all. Scan through my previous posts and you'll see that I certainly took a stab at it. But with about 300 or so exhibits and the need for sleep ...

Well, you get the idea. Right now I'm wandering around playing Greeter, still. For most of my days at SL8B I was a Greeter at the Main Stage, home to some fabulous live performances. That's an aspect of Our World that I neglect, really. Sure, I regularly go to events with DJs, but there is something special about having someone mention you in their lyrics or mounting an epic stage show.

With the shows over I can again wander the regions and catch up on items that I had landmarked to blog about and missed or ones that I had flown by with a glance and a promise to spend more time enjoying. Still, I'm not going to see it all. Mores the pitty as so many people put in such hard work. Labors of love, really, celebrating their place in our community. Honour McMillan put it nicely in her blog today: "The important component of a community celebration such as this one is 'everybody'." It seemed like "everybody" was, indeed, here. I met tons of new people, added to my Friends list (something I seldom do), found folks who had muted me over the years suddenly needing my help, and even helped boot some griefers.

No event like this can be an unqualified success, but as a volunteer-only endeavor, I think it went off rather well. Not everyone kept their cool. Mistakes were made. Protests launched. Walkouts happened. A true cross-section of Our World if I have ever seen one. Importantly, though, lessons were learned. Second Life's Ninth Birthday next year will be even better and I promise right now to jump in there and do my part. I hope to see you all there. Until then, I'm going to wander the exhibits up until closing on July 2nd. If you see me, ask for the Greeter Gifts that I have.