Building Tutorials

I'll be posting building tutorials from time to time during 2009. I made the first and most basic one today while the OLG went through major update. True, it was NOT Made On the OLG, but I suspect the budding builders will forgive me. It was photographed on Phil's beta grid where it is often so calm and peaceful.

I made a new blog for the tutorials as I am guessing many of you wouldn't care about them at all and shouldn't have to scroll through them to get to what you did want to read. So I will post the links here and they will link to the tutorial site. I think that should work well.

I'll be reposting this again tomorrow so that it will show up in 2009, but since I made it this eve, I figured for history's sake, I'd put this up now.

Building 101: Photo Frame

Happy New Year!!!

Endings and Beginnings - Inventory Loss

Much of life is about ending and beginnings.

I went over to Gembong in Phil's domain today to delete my buildings -- and turn those damn tier post to mute. I had NINE of them writing me once each day with messages both in world and in email. That was definitely too much information even when I was there -- let alone after I had gone. I left a Peace on Earth poster and hunt globe there for the last of the thousands of hunters, but deleted everything else.

It was an eery feeling, that emptiness. I was the second person to buy on this sim well over two years ago. It was empty then too, but empty with promise. Now it may have a second chance at a new beginning, but it may just as easily disappear into the ethers. Only time will tell.

So I am firmly footed in my new world. All bridges burned behind me; a tiny 512 foothold to call home when I am there sorting through textures and scripts and things that might be useful in my new land.

************************************************

Things were smoother in Openlife today. No new inventory appeared so I started uploading once again some textures I knew had vanished.

BUILDING TIP:

For those of you that have never lost a bunch of inventory, including textures, the results are odd. Certainly you realize that things are missing, but in the case of textures, it's hard to tell as we usually have hundreds if not more.

Here's what happens. You click on an object you have made -- looking at the texture tab. You might want to change the texture or simply find out what texture was used so you can use it again. Even though you are LOOKING at the object you made WITH the texture on it, the building tool cannot figure out what the texture is because it is no longer in your inventory. The eyedropper will not work either.

If you recognize the texture and have a copy of it on your hard drive -- assuming it wasn't SO long ago that that computer has gone into the recycle system -- you can upload the texture again. BUT, clicking on the same object will still not show you the texture as the original texture on the object was uploaded at a different time and has a different UUID. So, if you want to try and keep consistent and if you believe that the inventory loss won't happen again (wink) you can retexture with the newly uploaded graphic.

In many ways I am lucky. While I lost a lot of textures, they are all on my hard drive as I had JUST uploaded them. I may end up with copies in some cases, but since uploading is free and I am slightly p*ssed (American not Canadian version of the term), I really couldn't care less. I plan to upload new files and ones I have lost. If they miraculously appear in another week or a month, I'll have copies. It is too hard to work without the tools you need.

Strangely enough -- and I am surprised -- there are very few comments about our still lost inventory on the boards and forums. I can't be the only one missing things. I can't be the only one keeping track of what they uploaded, so why isn't there a bit more frenzy? There was plenty last week and now it is all quiet. That puzzles me in a sociological way and puzzles are good. They keep us thinking.

I did do some building today and will share that along with a project very soon -- tomorrow maybe. But its past my beauty sleep hour and time to retire.

I wish you all sweet dreams.

State of the OLG - End of December

It's been almost two months since I joined the Openlife grid. Much has improved. Much is still problematic. I wanted to keep a record of the trials and tribulations and the gains. It is the day to day events that become a blur as history moves into the future.

On the plus side:

• We can now log in most of the time rather than typing in a huge number of sims trying to get into world -- let alone our sim. A big plus.
• The viewer and website are now all on UTC time and there is even a clock on the Poke (status) page so we can see what is going on easily and don't have to convert that time if we don't happen to live naturally on the UTC meridian.
• We can IM between sims I am told (I haven't tried this) and we can see if friends are online as long as they are NEW friends (since the implementation) or if we defriended and refriended them :D
• We have events on the website.
• I'm sure there are other goodies I have forgotten.

On the not so good side:

• The lost inventory hasn't all reappeared yet after about a week and a half. Some of mine has however and that is a hopeful sign.
• Physics have been iffy again but seem better this eve so keeping fingers crossed.
• Asset server issues popped up again today. This will most likely be an ongoing battle. Lots of textures were GRAY, I ended up as a cloud for awhile and inventory items of even yesterday would not rez. Again, more or less OK at the moment. The world is in flux and we are riding the maelstrom.
• We don't seem to have an actual Terms of Service and that is still a bit bothersome to me.
• Communication is getting better but meetings have been missed, spur of the moment meetings called and generally a blur of what on earth is going on.
• EDIT: Much (or at least some) of these problems appear to have been from a faulty server which was replaced the evening of this post and things are much better. I now also know that I am region #163. I am SO proud :D
  

In world issues:

• One of the biggest current problems seems to be that anyone TPing to a sim that happens to be down will most often crash the sim they are in. Since many of the new folks as well as the old don't know this, your region is always in jeopardy of crashing.
• Permission problems are still very evident and perhaps more involved that laymen can understand.
• Money appears to be down the road as the permissions problems need to be solved before currency (credits) are implimented.

All in the Details

I'm a big believer in details. A great mountain cabin is a lovely thing, but without that bearskin (fake of course) rug, cozy plaid couch and hot steaming coffee, it is just a building.

So after finishing up the sectionals today and making a few more animations, I decided to work on some details for the decor - accessories shop and of course for ME.

I love magazines as accessories, but most of the ones floating around Phil's were VERY much copyright infringement. I mean you can't just grab a copy of a cover of "Sunset" or "Sailing" or "Cooking Light" and put it on a prim. A no-no for sure. AND, this is a virtual world so we need virtual magazines :D

So, when my DSL folks called to say they were turning me off for a bit too see if they could really get my speed up to the 13mps they promised, I opened up my graphics program and went to work. I got permission from one of my iheartsl.com sisters and took some pics from her prolific blog and made them into magazine covers. So, no, they aren't really OL magazines. That will come later, but they ARE virtual and they are legal. Both things count in my book. They also have very nice back covers if you flip them over and appropriate spines.

So that's the news of today.

In the Hood

I SO broke my pretty pictures and short text rule in that last post, that while it is important to Openlife residents, I just had to post something short and with a picture or two. So here it is.

What's up in the hood? The hood being my lovely sim of Fantastic :D

I've been working on jewelry the for a couple of days and have a nice assortment in my (Sam's) style. It may be sold someday. It may not, but I'll be well dressed anyway - LOL. That makes four stores in the village with goods. I have a friend who may fill a couple of shops so that will be good.



Also, this week, I have been working on a giant set of sectional pieces. They are made with sculpties and have a large assortment of animations (I so love making those) to choose from. It may look like a movie theater but those are the different pieces that people could mix and match to make a seating area of their choice. They can pick out the animations that work for their size of avatar. There are male, female and unisex animations. Many are subtle as I have found that having too many busy animations in one piece of furniture can be distracting. It works fine if it is just one or two people and you pick the animations to fit your mood, but for a big group, simpler is better.


And this morning I made a lounge on the art gallery rooftop. I had made the rooftop usable all along but had no plans for it until I saw that Debbie T was giving away dance machines to club owners. I am guessing that a lounge will qualify. I hope to add a piano with animation and some fairy type particles in the trees sometime soon. I am not a big party girl but its nice to have a fun place to hang out with friends and other folks that stop by.

And that's what's been happening in the hood.

TOS and the LCO Drama

I guess I went over to the that double Aquarian anarchist place tonight. I read on the Lindenland fashion feed about Legend City Online stealing a bunch of content and that didn't sit well for me. So I posted the question about Openlife Terms of Service (which seemed lacking and which people had asked about before on different posts and blogs) on the official forum. Luckily, Sakai answered right away and of course I replied to his answer. Here is the reply.

If nothing else, I learned a lot including that no one that was complaining about LL losing ALL OUR STUFF in the inventory had any right to complain as we had somewhere along the line click through on a new TOS (oh my I am guilty too) LOL. So THAT was good to know and I'll pass that along.

*****************************************************

Sakai Openlife wrote: Actually Terms for the use of the Openlifegrid.com WebSite & Virtual World have been available since conception and can be found at the footer of every page of this site. (see down the bottom click terms.) or if you feel like being scrolless ->http://openlifegrid.com/Main/tabid/36/ctl/Terms/Default.aspx

Thanks oh great leader but aren't those mostly the terms of USE for the webpage? I did find those as mentioned above. That looks very much like the "standard" webpage terms of use and it doesn't say anything about Terms of Service which is confusing to a lot of folks and was not where I was sent a month or so ago :D (That could have been in error of course). There is one section that seems to relate to what people are asking about.

Here is the part that seems to relate to the grid and content creator rights if I am correct: (my bold)

MATERIALS PROVIDED TO Openlife Grid OR POSTED AT ANY Openlife Grid WEB SITE & VIRTUAL WORLD

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein. Openlife Grid is under no obligation to post or use any Submission you may provide and may remove any Submission at any time in Openlife Grid's sole discretion.

By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in this section including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions

If in fact those are the Terms of Services, doesn't it say that you (company) can "take our stuff" which is pretty much what people are worried about ? :D

However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to:

copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce ...

I am just the designated messenger. People are asking these questions.

*************************************************************

This is the VERY disturbing text from LCO:

b ) You agree that any content downloaded into or created items in world give Legend City Online automatic rights to use, produce, and or distribute within our services and this content is royalty free, worldwide and carries no balance for fee. Furthermore, you agree that you have the right and are authorized to grant us such content under these conditions).

I think it would be a good idea (IMHO) to have a Terms of SERVICE page separately and, if it still isn't working, to get the link you click on when signing up to go to the appropriate page and not a 404.

I'm not sure that I personally feel a whole lot better after reading that statement. No reflection on you, personally, of course.

Thanks for the superquick reply :D

****************************************************************

OK. In the interest of really doing my homework (which I try to do), I went back over to Phil's and looked through there PAGES of TOS. Along with a very disturbing paragraph that says, "we can delete you stuff and any time -- HOHO with no recourse by you" (paraphrased), I found THIS:

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Users of the Service can create Content on Linden Lab's servers in various forms. Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service, to the extent you have such rights under applicable law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice; (b) the perpetual and irrevocable right to delete any or all of your Content from Linden Lab's servers and from the Service, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and for any reason or no reason, without any liability of any kind to you or any other party; and (c) a royalty- free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing and/or providing support services in connection with the Service. Further, you agree to grant to Linden Lab a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights you have in your account information, including any data or other information generated by your account activity, in any media now known or not currently known, in accordance with our privacy policy as set forth below, including the incorporation by reference of terms posted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/privacy.php.

You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights.

You further understand and agree that: (i) you are solely responsible for understanding all copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property or other laws that may apply to your Content hereunder; (ii) you are solely responsible for, and Linden Lab will have no liability in connection with, the legal consequences of any actions or failures to act on your part while using the Service, including without limitation any legal consequences relating to your intellectual property rights; and (iii) Linden Lab's acknowledgement hereunder of your intellectual property rights in your Content does not constitute a legal opinion or legal advice, but is intended solely as an expression of Linden Lab's intention not to require users of the Service to forego certain intellectual property rights with respect to Content they create using the Service, subject to the terms of this Agreement.

We all know I'm not in the Phil camp. I closed my half sim main store and sattelites there last week. Their text does seem to be a bit -- clearer?. It is very interesting to note that is says in here too, that if they loose things, too bad. So the people complaining can't really complain as loudly I guess. :D I simply left! LOL

Smiles.

EDIT: Here is the reply to my reply which happened while I was posting this:

i perhaps a little plain english can help here.

Obviously even more than the just the text above the example will be how the provider uses such a disclaimer and that's most likely the real proof in the pudding so to speak.

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

I think from the above statement it's important to note the first opener 'we do not claim ownership of the materials you provide'... This is important it's user generated content and needs to be received in that context, including to a non creator.

The second half about things you input or submit let's take the example of a texture is also important... 'copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission'...

Because we need to retransmit this data to other users, ie someone comes into your region and views a texture. First you uploaded it, at that point we did the 'reformat' part of the statement, and stored it in our database, without the other mentions just listed we wouldn't be able to provide it to other users.

I hope that information helps, basically our Terms of Use are pretty vanilla and nothing out of the ordinary, including when compared to almost every website you visit on the web today. We haven't asked for a 3rd mortgage or your 2nd child, just to be able to conduct the world in safe & legal manner.

*****************************************************

I did get a laugh out of that which was good. Do I feel "safe and secure"? Not so much. This isn't a safe a secure world after all, but it was good to bring it all up and see where things landed. We have it for posterity now. Let's hope it holds.

Community

I just wanted to make a quick post this evening. People often ask what the difference is on the Openlife grid. Why should they come? What is better than some other grids? You get the idea.

The BIG answer is that the Openlife isn't for everyone. It is new, it is buggy, it is an adventure and you are often ecstatic if you can log in and doubly so if your script engine is actually working.

What is DOES have -- for better or worse -- is a fairly close knit community. It is much like living in a small town. I've always liked small towns and I live in one now. Really small :D What comes along with that is recognizing names from the forums, meetings and casual get togethersl; running into the same people on the sandbox whether you were PLANNING on going to the sandbox or orientation island or not (wink), and knowing your neighbors.

Today I was having trouble with the script engine being down again. This is an ongoing problem for me and Sakai wrote to validate my suspicion that it was "my neighbor". Now I have no idea who that neighbor is, but I know which ones it isn't as their sims stay up when mine crashes - LOL.

The whole script engine scenario doesn't matter all that much. What matters was that the head of the company actually wrote to me. This is not the first time that has happened. While communications are still a problem, there is definitely a more intimate sense of connection to the powers that be and the tech team.

And THAT is one reason why the Openlife is "better".

Being New

The picture above was taken yesterday when my friend Whyy actually got into world. She looks pretty much like I did when I was stuck in my reoccurring but not me shape a couple of months ago :D That's because I gave her all the gear to get her out of Ruth mode. She will be perusing the freebie places next week I am sure and working on getting her familiar shape back -- a good thing for most of us.

I've been talking to quite a few new folks lately -- people who have just dropped by for whatever reason. Their comments seem to fall into the same categories so I thought I would answer a question or two and clear up some misconceptions for those people reading this that are just -- or thinking of -- coming over.

1. There is no money! It looks like you have money? Yep it does.

That wasn't a sign up bonus though, it was more like a placeholder for when money is turned on and a test amount for those working on the feature. The currency is set up on all the regions now, but there are numerous permissions problems to overcome before it is wise to turn it active. Content creators that didn't know there was a problem would loose control of their designs and that isn't good. So pretend you don't see that $2500 at the top of the screen. On the plus side, uploading is still free, so no need to worry about that $20 coming out of your bank account. It never does.

2. I want to BUY things! I want hair (clothes, shoes, AOs -- the list is lengthy). Can I buy things now? Can I buy things in SL for delivery here? Can I GET stuff?

We all want stuff (well most of us anyway). We are used to a material world in real life and in many cases the "other" grid. You can shop at the freebie stores that abound. It is much like starting over when you were new at Phil's if you remember that. Not a good feeling for many of us. If you are a content creator, you can upload your textures for free and make clothes. If you know how or want to learn how, you can make your own shoes, hair, skins, animations etc.

I am betting that most newcomers fall outside the compulsive creativity realm though. For those folks it is mostly a waiting game. People ARE selling goods in SL for delivery here, but there are major permission problems that they apparently don't know about as their goods are not protected. Mostly it is a waiting game. And it can be a game. Find the best of the freebies or make your own goods if you can.

When I arrived a couple months ago I was desperate for hair. I so wanted some good hair. I also wanted better skin. I ended up making both as well as animations. So now I have three new skills and a nice look. I actually am so happy with the me I am becoming that I am thinking my goal in Openlife might just be to never spend any money. If I can't make it, I can't have it. An interesting plan that I don't expect any of you to follow - LOL.

3. Where can I unpack my freebie stuff?

While a few freebie stores let you unpack at their places, you will most likely need to go to a sandbox region. There are four official sandboxes, Sandbox Island 1, 2, 3 and 4. The are in the Northeast section of the content on the edge by the water. There are many private sandbox areas also, but these change as the landholders change. You can ask around for current places. And remember to clean up your messes :D


That's a start. I'll post more as time goes on.

Welcome to the Openlife Grid!

Lovely Lindens - $$

After a comment from Mac I decide to see if I could get more info on the misty area of using Lindens for Openlife purchases. I am still waiting on a chat window with Frontier Linden :D It's been about a half an hour now and when I went to try and get another operator in another chat window, I again get Frontier so that wasn't too helpful.

Meanwhile I started reading the headlines of all the support entries under "legal" and "linden dollars" and did find this, which seems to imply that it is OK to use Lindens.

So I thought I would post it here as I doubt I will hang around this support portal much longer (yawn) and since we have lots ofpermissions issues to deal with before it is safe to sell anything (this from Sakai yesterday) it is sort of a moot point.

Anyway, here is some info from the Support Center at LL.

I want to sell real-life items through Second Life.

Consider the following scenario:

Bob Avatar encounters, inworld, a store called CompuBuyPlace selling computer equipment. He finds a kiosk with a picture, taken from real life, of a nice wireless optical mouse, which he decides to buy. The Kiosk asks him to pay L$1,000,000 and supply his real-life address. Bob Avatar pays the million Linden Dollars and enters his address. Sure enough, two weeks later, a box arrives at Bob Avatar's real-life apartment from CompuBuyPlace containing the nice wireless optical mouse.

Can this actually happen?

Nothing in the Terms of Service prohibits this, but you should be aware that Second Life generally isn't designed to be a platform for "real world" business transactions, as Linden Dollars aren't designed as a "currency" or currency substitute. You therefore take these steps at your own peril, including potentially subjecting yourself to potential fraud (such as fraudulent L$ exchange), and subject to any relevant tax, licensing or other laws. Further, Linden Lab doesn't own, operate, or insure third parties like the one described above, and therefore will be unlikely to be able to resolve any disputes that arise. If you have any other questions, you may wish to consult an attorney.

Virtual Dollars

The theme of using Linden dollars for payment of goods on the Openlife grid has come up a time or two in the last few days. People have contacted me in Phil's domain wanted to know if they could pay me for goods in Lindenland and get delivery in the more Open grid :D

In fact, that was an original plan of mine long before permission issues raised their head. I was then warned by Sakai-- almost two months ago -- that I could be in jeopardy of loosing my account at Phil's if I took Linden dollars in exchange for virtual goods, land, rent etc. Others who had been in Openlife awhile chimed in with the same song and so of course I paid attention.

Some of you coming over to our not ready for prime time grid may have this same plan, so I thought it prudent to warn you. I did a bit of researching on the Linden Labs website and while I did not find any particularly pointed "don't do this" comment, I did find this bit of info:

Linden Dollars represent a limited license right to use a feature of the simulated virtual environment — namely the commercial aspects of Second Life. L$ derive value in their ability to be redeemed by other Second Life Residents who have a desire to engage in these commercial activities. L$ will retain their value as long as there are Residents interested in using them.

That quote comes from THIS PAGE.

Now I know people are using Lindens for payments on the Openlife grid. It works. It can be done and I doubt that Phil's sleuths are going to worry about each and every occurrence. Still, if you l have ties in Phil's world that you value, it might make good sense to use Paypal as many others are doing or simply wait until we have our own currency.


Just a thought :D

Prim and Proper

It's been a tough day in my real world and now I find the M-W.com (dictionary) is no longer free (sigh). The long list of tiny things going wrong could fill a few screens (well not really but it feels like it). On the PLUS side there was the great hair of the morning :D

I worked in a couple of the shops today adding inventory or props depending on how the currency and permissions issues play out. Either is OK with me I guess. Then late in the afternoon I asked myself what would make me feel BETTER with the day and found that making some jewelry for the heretofore empty cottage would do the trick. It did. It was fun and it was EASY - primarily because of that .001 option in the size parameters. YEAH! BIG YEAH!

So I have three nice pairs of fairly simple loop earrings -- one with amber stones and I'll make some other versions. All that and a couple of coincidences led me to this post. Here's the skinny.

I decided that it would be safer to have items IN world rather than just in my inventory. This from the latest database meltdown which we are still hoping gets rectified. I didn't lose any of my in world objects other than some missing poses in a daybed. So that was good news.

After making up the earrings and placing them on a "black velvet jewelry tray" -- well we can imagine it as that -- I decided some cute little jewelry boxes would add a nice touch to the shop in progress. So, with those .001 measurements ringing in my brain, I made some very delicate boxes. I didn't worry about prims. Prims are not an issue.

Then this eve as I was perusing the fashion feed at Phil's -- an activity that is happening less often these days -- I noticed some VERY cute boxes from Curious Kitty. They were ONE PRIM sculpty boxes for gift giving (or for decoration as I have sold a lot of boxes for that in the past). They are so cute. And then I took a pause and thought, "but prims don't matter here". HOORAY!


So I just wanted to remind myself -- down the road in space and time -- what the thrill of not having to worry about those prims felt like. It felt GOOD!

And now Sam has some earrings to go with her new hair. It will be lots of fun creating jewelry here. I don't really like super delicate things, but I do like some accessories from time to time. And the real world is a better and happier place with Sam (and Samara) happier too. LOL

A Prim at a Time

My sim was down this morning. Yes, please DO come visit but don't try TPing out as it most often kills the sim. Passing that info around will keep the grid up longer. When you attempt to TP to a sim that isn't online it often kills the region you are in. :D That will change eventually of course. Meanwhile as I waited for restart I worked on some hair.

Girls are vain and most often we are vain about hair! So it's no surprise that our avatars are just as wound up in those shiny locks.

Since I am still missing version 2 of my hair in the inventory meltdown, I decided that a good perk me up would be some nice new and different hair.

I patterned this after a few of my favorite styles. It still isn't flexi and that might be a good thing as flexi and transparency both add to our avatar rendering costs. I do love the color and texture and by the time I was finished I was a happy gal with a new do.

Building tip:

When remaking, adding too, adjusting any complex object I find it works best to do it a prim at a time. So in this project I unlinked the bun (a torus shape I knew I was going to be using a lot on the remake version) and made a copy. I then placed the bun in its new position, made a copy of the already textured prim and changed that new prim to be the next prim in the series. I linked as I went a long -- one at a time or sometimes two or three in series (still linking one prim to the main linked object) as I worked. I took copies often as I was in the sandbox and that is always a bit tricky. I fit the hair as I went along also and then worked on the last saved shape, deleting the old one from the work area.

I have never made hair before and I can't say I love it, but I am happy with my hair. I like the unevenness of the design and it is nice to have something that is definitely unique.

Permissions Issues

Content Creators - this post is for you. If you are about to join us on the frontier (and we are expecting many of you at the end of the month) then you need to know about current permissions issues. This has been on the forum for weeks now, but as new folks you will likely miss it. It is wonderful to be generous with your goods, but you need to be informed also. I have a few things floating around out there from my first weeks in Openlife. I did mean for them to be gifts. I didn't mean for them to be full perm items :D So - be generous in your new land, but be true to yourselves also.



There is still a very large permissions problem in Openlife. I think the Powers That Be understand it and I know some folks do, but others -- according to the official forums -- are having a problem getting the idea that it IS a problem.

For those of you who do not understand why it is a big deal (and I certainly didn't until I went through all the steps a week or so ago) here is a visual aid. I am a firm believer in visual aids. Going through the motions yourself makes an even bigger impression :D



Step one: Find a non full perm item in your inventory -- one a friend will make up for you for this experiment is most likely best. In this case Sam is putting a pair of pants given to her by a friend into a box. It is a copy only item.


Sam set the box to be Take a Copy by checking the Allow anyone to copy box.



Step 2: Samara logs in (she's the hairless one on the left) and takes a copy of the box. The permissions on the box read (no mod - no transfer). She cannot give this BOX to Sam via profile.


Samara goes to the sandbox and places the box. It is still Take a Copy. She opens the box and gets the pants which still have no mod - no transfer permissions.

Sam and Samara have successfully transferred items that were not meant to be transferred by the original creator. I did check with the creator about this experiment and she said it was fine. The box was removed from the sandbox.

So, in effect, the Take A Copy feature can negate permissions applied by the creator of the item.

I suspect that most of us intend to sell just one item to one person when we make a sale -- not make it available to the whole grid :D Until this is fixed, keeping anything we want to set permissions on is most likely the wisest choice.

From a post by Sakai on Dec 9 in the forums:

The transit of items from non-creator and non-respective permissions will be addressed shortly. -> Note Openlife does not have an in world credits system at this point while there are still permissions issues to address.

I hope this step by step pictorial helped make the problem clear. Again, I think the people that need to fix it, understand. I just know that others are having a time getting the concept and being aware of the consequences.

Cheers.

Windlight Migration

A brief comment on the forums by Sakai Openlife sent me back to pondering over Windlight settings. I lost all the new ones I had made in the Openlife viewer when I updated to R 16. Hence I was a bit unsure about updating to R 16.2. I thought that I could probably replace the new settings with my old ones, but I still had a lot of settings I hadn't transferred over.

click picture for larger view

WARNING: Always make a backup before you work on computer files. I know you know that :D. I also know we all sometimes get so excited about trying something we forget. If this makes perfect sense to you, then give it a try if you like. If it seems complex, then it would be be better to leave it alone.


Step One: Find your Windlight settings on your computer. Mine were in Second Life (R) but yours could be from another virtual world.

Copy one or more of the files you want to include in your Openlife viewer. In this case I moved Cuba.xml.

click picture for larger view

Step Two: Find the Windlight settings in the Openlife viewer. Paste in one or more of your settings. Note that Cuba is showing up in the list. In my operating system it put the file at the bottom of the list and I had to refresh to see it in its alphabetical place.



Start your Openlife viewer and see that the setting has been added. Yeah! That's lots easier than copying down all the numbers and translating them over.


Note: I have noticed that at least on my computer, the Windlight settings in Openlife do not have the same look as they do in Second Life (R). So you may need to do some slight adjustments to get the look you want.

At the Top - Woot!

Just a quick note of thanks to all my Openlife supporters -- those that have linked to this blog, those who have RSS feeds of my blog on theirs, those who have sent me personal notes of encouragement and those who have laughed and shaken heads over the virtual dramas and the egos of our fellow avatars.

I never really expected so many people to be reading these words. The posts started primarily as a record so that I could look back in a year or two and remember how things were.

SL2OL has been the number one Openlife blog on Google for two weeks now -- at least every time I checked and that was more often than I would like to admit - LOL. I am sure it won't be number one forever, the web is a fickle place. Still, I will continue to do my best to keep you entertained and I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that you, my readers, are in part responsible for its success.

"Simplifying Location 2 OpenLife" means just that -- if I can give you some hints to make it easier, I will. You can accept them or discard them as you like :D. That is what freely given information is all about.

Look for a new section coming soon.

Inventory Blues - Take 2

It's been a tough weekend in Openlife. The grid has been down a lot and inventories are rolled back to somewhere around two weeks ago except for textures you were wearing. At least that is how it affected my inventory and those of some folks I checked with. I have lots and lots of newish empty folders, missing textures and the like. In theory it should all be returned in a few days.

Since I still have that very bad taste in my mouth from the inventory purge at Phil's where we all seemed to lose OLDER items, I am keeping my fingers crossed. Meanwhile I can upload again and I have done that already with some things. I do NOT want to have to make that SKIRT over again though and it, of course is gone as it is new.

So.

So.

So.

:D

So what can I (and you) learn from this? One thing that has held through from the other grid is that items rezzed in world were "safer". I have a nice daybed that is named Daybed with Three Animations from Sam's Place. Guess what? It now only has one animation which was the FIRST animation I added. That post link is from the 8th so we have some clue as to the the timing of the meltdown as I added new animations to the daybed the next day. That is about the only thing I found actually wrong of the items in world. So, they definitely did better than my inventory.

Long ago and far away at Phil's, I placed copies of all my worldly goods as well as textures etc in safekeeping objects. This, I think, was a fairly good idea. What I DIDN'T understand was that the database would replace my new and improved objects (say a book I had made earlier and then filled with goodies) with the original book - an EMPTY one. So that didn't work there. What I did discover is that on the one safe-keeper object I made NEW, the objects remained.

Building tip:

So my new plan which may again do me no good in the end is to place my backups in brand new just created boxes rezzed one at a time. I can't see any better plan. Objects gone from my database at Phil's (and here so far) are the same objects missing in friends inventories. So my best guess is that my menorahs for example have left Phil's forever and are not to be seen again unless someone had a copy out on a shelf in October. Ya never know.

On the plus side (and there usually is one if you look hard enough for it) I had all my new boots out on stands in the shoe store. So I HAD them. They unfortunately are no longer "wear to fit" and so they had to be refitted. The invisiprims also mysteriously shrank in width so didn't cover the whole shoe. Have NO clue there and will need to check all the others when (oh please) they come back.

So not a fun weekend here on the frontier but hopefully it will all be a faint memory soon and our inventories will be returned in good shape. We can only hope.

I'd really like my updated hair back. It took me a LONG time :D

Content Creation - Workarounds

I decided to spend some time at the Openlife wiki today since Sakai asked people to work on it. It is indeed VERY empty. So I am going to repost what I add as time goes on and it will also be a permanent Top Post link at my site. Hope you find it helpful.

What is content creation?

The Openlife grid starts as a empty landscape. It is the ability of the individual to create content that makes the world we see. Content includes buildings made of prims (primitive shapes) and textured with graphics files, as well as your avatar's skin, hair, clothes and accessories. Without content creators, we would all be GRAY shapes.

Any OLG citizen can be a content creator. To explore building with prims, you can work in one of the many sandbox regions. Openlife building tools include the ability to make 100 meter x 100 meter x 100 meter objects as well as micropims down to .001 meters. The different primitive shapes as well as the tools (profile cut, dimple, shear etc.)can be used to make an almost infinite variety of complex objects. Shapes can also be made using sculpt maps.

The original primitives take on the appearance of plywood when you are building. Textures can be added during the building process or on completion of the object. You can edit each prim as a whole, a group of prims together, or you can choose Select Texture from the list of options, click on one surface of a prim and texture JUST that side. You can set the repeats of textures and the direction. There are other choices such as Shine and features such as Light and Flexibility. There are a variety of already uploaded textures in the Library of each avatar's Inventory.

The clothes in Openlife as well as the skin your avatar wears are also made of textures that have been uploaded to the server. Once a graphics file (tga or png) is uploaded, it resides in the uploading avatar's inventory. These files can be shared with others or kept for personal use. The graphics can be made into skin or clothes by dragging textures into the appropriate slot of the Appearance window.

Current Building Issues and Workarounds

The Openlife Grid is in development stage. Current (end Q4 - 2008) building issues include:

• Cannot link already linked groups of prims

Linking groups of already linked prims can give disastrous results. Workaround: Link at the very end of your building. If you need to add an already linked object to a more complex object your can use the Edit Linked Parts feature and unlink the object ONE PRIM at a time. The alternative to that operation would be to ADD the new prims to the already grouped object ONE at a time.

• Cannot safely UNLINK a linked object

Unlinking a object can cause what builders here call exploding prims. This seems to happen most often with rotated objects and torus shapes. A typical group object made of boxes and set to 0 -90 -180-270 degrees will often unlink with no problems. Workaround: Unlink ONE prim at a time. Be sure before unlinking that you have a BACKUP of the object.

• The Undo (Ctrl + Z) operation is not consistent

While Ctrl + Z works well to return a prim to its original position in some cases, it can also - at times - change the rotation of the object as well as simply NOT returning it to its former position. Be prepared for unusual results. Be sure you have a BACKUP.

• Editing individual linked prims sometimes gives unexpected results

(Note: this appears to be getting much better :D) Editing linked prims - especially moving them - has been problematic. One result can be the disappearance of the other objects of the set while keeping the edit prim only. Editing textures currently works fine. Editing textures on several prims at once works fine. Always make your edits with a BACKUP.

• Cannot take a coalesced object into inventory and have it remain together

• Not all LSL scripts are implemented. Some scripting will cause the region to crash.

The Art of Listening

I've always been a believer in listening to the hints of the Universe -- those quiet whispers that send you along a new path, through a new landscape. I've always believed that if you are careless and don't listen to the subtle song, a louder one appears. Still don't listen? I, personally, have always thought of the occurrence as the Universal Mallet -- somewhat like that famous computer cartoon with the duck beating his computer to death.

Well I obviously have failed to listen to the muses as that damn mallet appeared a few times over the last few days. Way too much drama for the trinity I try to keep together -- body, mind and spirit. Details don't matter. They rarely are the important part of the story. The END result is that I have abandoned my altruistic plan of free spaces. I will share with the people I know, love or at least trust :D and give up any Utopian ideals -- sadly but wisely.

So, this leaves me with many prims to use up on my own -- a daunting but not troublesome concept. It also leaves me with a fairly empty gallery. I have some more friends that may come over sometime soon, but OL hasn't made it far enough on their personal primetime meters. So until then, the Art Experience is mostly mine to fill.

The rest of the story is that yesterday, after more drama and frustration, I went to my graphics program and made some "art". Now only of few of my readers -- those who know who I really am -- are aware that long ago and far away in a land called the Real World, I was a fairly prominent and well respected artist. I gave that up almost a decade ago, not really by plan, but because of a lack of inspiration. So sitting down -- even at the computer -- to make virtual art was a fairly big step for me. One I never really expected to revisit.

It started slowly with an echo of some of my older works and by the time I finished the last piece in the series, I was actually happy with what I had created. I added a poetic artist's statement -- also an echo of other times.

So thank you Universe for bringing out the big guns. I appreciate it.

********************************

My new plan (assuming the Universe is in agreement) is to bypass the drama and the politics in OL much as I do in RL, to build with abandon and joy, to not worry about currency, platforms, mesh avatars and what may or may not be coming down the road. As I told my OL neighbor this morning, even if things never go anywhere, $60 a month is pretty cheap enjoyment.

Loop Rez - Where ARE You?

It's the day after the update and some things are OK and others? Not so much. We'll see what we see. My script engine is still down. Seems like many are so most likely they all need to be fixed. I lost one texture on one prim which I fixed but no other major damage that I can see. My ugly fall trees came back AGAIN and I deleted them from the trash this time. Eventually I'll get rid of them I guess.

The borders are a bit spongy -- not dropping down but walking into jello spongy. Thing seem to be loading slower but that could be a cache issue. We'll see when I return. MEANWHILE, it's been a busy day.


I tackled prims skirts today. I've been dreading it, but it had to be done -- or rephotograph a lot of vendors and that wasn't high on my priority list either. So I got Samara high in the air in Gembong and Sam high in the air in Fantastic and they remade a skirt.

Now for some reason I thought that being at 100 X, Y an Z would make things easier. It didn't. So all you really need to do when copying over something complex is be at the SAME coordinates in both worlds. It all worked fine and honestly since it took me forever to get the Loop Rez skirt in the first place I actually took less time with this I think :D

Building Tip:

When copying over a complex object that has to be EXACT from one world to another, simply go to the same x,y,z positions in a sim (sandboxes on either end or both would work fine) and make the item over piece by piece matching ALL the fields. Linking with the same root prim is probably optional but in the case of a skirt, important as the root prim has to do with alignment when fitting.

And SO, Sam (and Samara) now have skirts! Well honestly they probably don't care much as neither are skirt gals.


I also made two basic (no scripts) photo studios and put them in the animations shop. And I made the first vendor for the poses. Since I'm working with the "less scripting is better" ethic, I have named each pose by number and people will be able to purchase from a numbered vendor. This of course assumes that script engines are up so that they can cycle through the poses.

I just couldn't make myself do the posters with ALL the poses in one. They always have seemed distracting to me -- too much on one poster. So my plan is to pick out a couple of my favorites from the set and highlight those. We'll see if that is practical.

Anyway I'm happy with how all of today's projects turned out.

I also dismantled my skybox in Gembong and took most of my personal items back into inventory. So moving on is definitely in the wind.

Update Blues

The Openlife major update has been going on what seems like forever, but I think is has only been three days. Three days -- if we look at the day / night cycles of virtual worlds -- can be closer to 18 in "real" time. Well, maybe not, but it sometimes it seems that way. Time definitely moves at a different rate.

I was lucky in many respects as my sim was up until yesterday afternoon. It came back online this evening. So gone for over a day. Still, I got onto the sandbox a few times and made some outdoor furniture (all but the scripts), an upgrade to my hair (yeah), some animations and the start of a fantasy lounger that is very popular at Phil's place. So I've done enough for the day.

The frustration level is very high. Not so much with me as I have been busy closing down my shop at Phil's and doing those bits and pieces of building when I could get into Openlife, but for people who I expect are firmly entrenched in business in their physical worlds. They believe that OLG is commercial -- and it is. But it is an organization that is stretched and working hard to keep the priority list at bay. It doesn't take a seer to figure that out.

So a lot of fist shaking is going on. I can't imagine it will do any good. If I was on the other side of the computer screen (and world) I wouldn't be worrying too much about the people who can't buy into the ideology of patience -- especially when there is an overabundance of others waiting to take any vacated places. The people that can cope, breathe deeply, relax rather than rant, will be the ones to make it through the transitions of the next year. The others will most likely disappear with their fists in the air -- puzzled that their complaints and demands didn't get them very far.

There is a lot of speculation about what will happen when the next wave of "SL refugees" come to the OLG. The grid isn't ready for more folks. I think most people would agree with that statement. There are still plenty of people waiting for their clusters to emerge from the endless depths of blue. Still, the new people will come, unprepared for life on the frontier.

It should be interesting.

Shops for Free

The Village Shops at Sam's Place are about ready. OLG is not however (big wink). Still it's looking pretty lonely on those streets and I'd like to see some STUFF in there. A whole sim is a lot to fill when you are building from scratch and there are only so many hours of the day.

SOOOOOOOOO - I woke up this morning in my corporeal world wondering what a plan might be. People are dropping in daily and asking me when they can buy things. This is a good sign I think and hopefully they will return when they CAN buy -- when permissions and credits are in place. Groups too -- / me keeping fingers crossed.

So here is my temporary offer for anyone who is feeling a bit antsy and wants to get their feet wet in Openlife. You don't have to be NEW, but you do need to be "landless" :D

There are eleven village shops and three village apartments. Most of them are completed and available for occupants. Since this is MAINLAND (a good thing in the long run I think but there are few land tools and no groups right now) even placing objects can be problematic. STILL, letting people see what you will be selling or offering when the time comes seems like a win win situation.

So until mainland rentals become a viable option, I am offering shop spaces as well as two apartments for free. Free is good :D



Here is how it works.

Come to the FANTASTIC sim of FANTASTIC and look around the village shops. There are several styles, some larger than others, some with display windows, some with access to the road to Nara. There are currently two shops that have apartments above. My plan is to rent these to the same people so you live above your work. They are furnished. You can reserve -- so to speak -- your future spot, have your sign out and a few empty vendors showing the goods you will sell. This will let people that are roaming around bookmark your shop so that they can find it when they CAN shop.



About the future of the Village Shops:

When the shops become viable, I plan to rent them at a medium to low market rate. It is not my intent to make a bunch of money on these, I want the shops there for ambiance as much as anything. I believe in small footprints on the land -- in real life as well as virtual. So Fantastic will only have basic scripting as Openlife grows. This is not a spot for high powered, complex goods. Think of it AS a village. Small, intimate, friendly and hopefully accessible.

Since prims are not a huge issue here, I am thinking that 400 per shop should suffice. So, you could put out a real example of a sculpty shoe, but not that 350 prim necklace :D. The apartments (there will eventually be three available) are furnished but those renting the shop - apartment duo will get extra prims for their own accessories. The rates for those duo rentals will be double the shop only rentals.

Currently, I would really like people who want these shops to be making goods IN Openlife (not imports). That is just part of my ethic and it may not work, but priority will certainly be given to those people.

Beauty of Art

It was a slooooooow day in OL for me. Fantastic was unavailable for 18 hours (yes, I WAS counting) -- the first time that had happened in over a week. I did put some clothes together, hence my new garb. You can do that anywhere, but it is so boring. Alright, necessary, but STILL boring.

As I got toward my personal dinner hour, the way was made clear (yeah) and I got the rest of Charlie's work placed in the gallery. Charles is primarily a sculptor, but he didn't get any work accomplished today either, so those works will get added in the near future. There is another person joining soon and yes, of course there is still LOTS of free art space available. It will remain free until after both Groups and Currency are available, so if you are an artist in need of a venue, see this updated post at OLX with the newest info.

PS. While I absolutely admire Charles, the main reason I am sitting on the ground and looking up adoringly is that my feet were a foot or more above the floor while his were IN it. Not a good photo op - LOL.

Full Perms Ripoffs

It all started with HAIR! Well, all is vanity so no big surprise there.

A few days ago I ended up on the Openlife Orientation Island -- one of those you can't there from here so we'll put you THERE adventures. Other well dress (hence presumably not new) folks were chatting when I arrived --no doubt also dropped off in an unplanned escapade.

The first thing I noticed was that some of their last names were Linden (hmm). The second thing I noticed was that two of the women had Samara's other grid trademark hair. Be still my beating heart. Was my HAIR available - for trade, bribery, gray market Lindens ( who cared ) -- on the OLG?

I waffled between major happy dancing and scepticism. The hair had most likely been brought into world with Second Inventory software. That should mean that the owner was the maker, but we all know that isn't always the case. Looking at the profiles of the women in question didn't convince me all was legit. They were very ODD profiles for the OLG going on about there great stores in the other grid.

After a couple of days I actually got around to writing the maker of the hair. I had corresponded with her over the years but we really don't know each other. It turns out sadly that the hair in question was ripped about a year ago -- copybots gone mad -- and then distributed as full perms around and about. This was DEPRESSING. Not only are people bringing in their own goods with Second Inventory, they are bringing in stolen goods. And, on a personal note, the Samara at Phil's is wearing stolen hair even if she paid the originator for her copy. Not good.

Anyone who has read many of my posts, know I am not a fan of Second Inventory. I believe starting over is a good thing. So Sam and Samara will live in their homemade hair for awhile longer and eventually get something grand from an OLG maker. That's my plan.

Meanwhile, I hope the permissions problems get rectified soon so we can offer homemade OLG items to both new folks and old timers.