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Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts

3/05/2024

Some Events For March 2024!



Fly for Life Expo 2024 Events

Sunday 3/3/2024 - 2:00 PM - Expo Opening Day and Kick-Off Party w/ Luke and Friends

Monday – Friday 3/4 – 3/8 
All Day – Fly for Life Expo open to public
Air Racing Track Open!
Fly for Life Aviation Museum
Tour Aerobatic Team Hangars
Team Practices on Fly for Life Show Region

Friday  3/8
5 PM – 6 PM – bFlat Unplugged at Fly for Life Entertainment Venue

(We still have openings on the Friday schedule for DJ’s and live singers. Sign up at this URL

Saturday 3/9
11 AM – 3 PM – Ride with the Open to the public – Take a ride with the team of your choice 
  
 2PM – 3 PM – Alchemelic – Original Music and Particle Show
 3PM – 4PM – Second Life Cheerleaders
 4PM – 5 PM – Billy Bob’s Psychedelic Underground Tribute Band with Kalyca’s Acid Rock Light Show

Sunday 3/10 – Fly for Life Air Show
8:00 AM – Preshow 
8:30 AM – Blue Angels – Fat Albert
8:45 AM – Blue Angels Helicopter Fly-Over
9:00 AM – Brazilian Smoke Squadron
9:45 AM – Anemone Wing Walking
10:30 AM – Team Phoenix
11:15 AM – The Roulettes
12:00 PM – SL Blue Angels
12:45 PM – PAF (French Air Patrol)
1:30 PM – The Hawks Aerobatic Team                  
 

More info here as I get it. 

2/05/2024

Designing Worlds Video - All About DSL


Thanks to Designing Worlds with Saffia Widdershins and Elrik Merlin for producing a great video outlining the support teams and what we do as the Drivers Of Second Life.

"As regular viewers will know, one of the things that Elrik and Saffia love is discovering new places and new things to do in Second Life, and in this episode they find something that they think is really exciting – the group Drivers of Second Life, who organise weekly Grid Drives, employing a vast array of vehicles, not just cars, to discover interesting places across the SL Grid. They use a special, and extremely ingenious, HUD to navigate – and drivers have a great deal of fun!

Drivers of Second Life is a club that hosts weekly explorations of Second Life with HUD-guided tours (and rewards and prizes on offer too!). A project by the team behind the Second Life Cheerleaders Squad and the game Get the Freight Out, Drivers of Second Life is a wonderful way to explore Second Life, using your own vehicles or – sometimes – boats, planes and railway trains (to say the least of it!) supplied by the group.

Saffia and Elrik talk to the prime movers behind SL Drivers, discover how the setup works, and go on a Drive themselves: hold on to your hats!

They talk to Christi Charron, one of the main people behind Drivers of Second Life, who takes them for a test drive, and also to Famously Distracted of Get the Freight Out. And Saffia gets to experiment with a variety of vehicles, showing an unexpected skill at kayaking through ice caves …

This is clearly a show you won’t want to miss!"




8/20/2023

FireStorm Classes Box Of Class Notes Now At HQ1


I added a box of notecards from Bluezy Bleac the teacher at Firestorm Support near the front of the entrance to HQ 1. I will try and keep them as updated as I can. The classroom LM is in the box as well.

I always learn something new at these classes when I get the chance to attend them.

NOTE: These are not my notes.

They are created by wiki.firestormviewer.org (Bluezy Bleac) 

secondlife:///app/agent/11e1584a-17e1-4622-8158-0445f602fde9/about

I suggest you try and take a Firestorm Class which are announced in the Firestorm Support Group here to improve your viewing pleasure and knowledge.

secondlife:///app/group/3a1be8d4-01f3-bc1a-2703-442f0cc8f2dd/about

Class Schedule can be found here: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/firestorm_classes

Cheers,

Jazz




8/15/2023

Drivers of SL by Bixyl Shuftan of SL Newser


https://slnewser.blogspot.com/2023/08/drivers-of-sl.html

After my initial interview months ago and later with Zada and Christie, Bixyl Shuftan has produced a felicitous article on DSL. This article is a good summary of our organization and how it works. 

Thanks and appreciation go to Bixyl! 

We hope to see her on one or more of our drives or events in the future.

Give it a good read and feel free to leave comments below. 

6/23/2023

The Decommissioning... We Said Goodbye To Our Beloved HQ1









In 2019, it was decided that we needed a world headquarters. We needed a space to be able to give out our weekly navHUD via a file cabinet and have a home to call our own where people could gather to collect our weekly adventure drive which included a GTFO drive once a month. Close ties with the GTFO organization including CinnamonMousse and Syler Avon made this possible. Shortly thereafter, Christie asked me if I would be interested in maintaining the place and I agreed it would be fun and that would take on the responsibility. Thus the DSL headquarters was a established inside the GTFO World Headquarters located on Bruissac on the Jeogeot Gulf adjacent to the Blake Sea (some of the most expensive real estate areas on the grid).

As the years went on, I would create sets of displays in the courtyard depending on our special events and seasons featuring vehicles from our sponsors given out each week to highlight and a also give a sense of belonging. I especially enjoyed creating winter scenes with snow and vehicles related to that with trees and lighting etcetera.

As the story goes, one day Syler decided to make a change. He grew tired of the same old set up of the GTFO World Headquarters and wanted to try something new. This included our space. It turns out that Syler re arranged his land holdings and was able to consolidate land in Bruissac and adjacent Hugues together to form a new GTFO and DSL headquarters. This is where we are at now. 

 

6/22/2023

SL20B is OPEN! Yes We Have an Exhibit!


Welcome to SL20B ! We are so happy to see you! Grab your party hat and your dancing shoes and let's CELEBRATE!

DSL Exhibit here : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Blissful/57/212/23

---SL20B DATES---

Event Dates: June 22nd - July 11th

SLB Official Opening: June 22nd, 10am SLT.

Opening Speech June 22nd,  12pm SLT with Patch Linden

Music Fest: June 22nd - 24th

Live & Auditorium Stages: June 25th - July 2

--- Birthday Gifts---

There are signs throughout the Welcome regions titled "SL20B Gifts". Click on them to receive your SL20B gift bag of memorabilia!

--- SL20B Hunt---

The SL20B Hunt HUD can be picked up signs at the welcome Area. Join the hunt and follow the hints to each new SL20B sign to pick up a collection of awesome SL20B themed gifts. The SL20B Signs are hidden all over the Birthday estate so grab a bottle of water and let's get hunting! (We ask you not to spoil the location in public or group chat.)

--- Gift Area ---

Make sure to check out the Tapestry of Time Gift Area for a windfall of gifts from SL20B Exhibitors. You might need to pick up a cart to carry away your loot!

--- Stages and performances ---

With four stages at SL20B, there is always a party happening somewhere. Check the Official SL20B calendar of events to always know where the next party is waiting to explode! 

**Official SL20B Calendar**

https://second.life/birthdaycalendar

---Shop and Hop---

Want to deck yourself out in the latest Cyber styles and rock the night away? Jump over the the Shop and Hop. With twenty general regions and four adult-rated regions there are sales and gifts galore waiting for you!

--- Exhibitors---

Twenty-two Regions, both general and adult-rated, full of creativity showing the brilliant minds of our Residents. From personal passion projects that feature works of art, design and scripting to non profit organizations and roleplay communities, discover what it is people love to do in Second Life.

--- Community Gallery --- 

For twenty years, Second Life has offered us a virtual space to create, define  and explore. We have come together over the years from a myriad of points scattered across the globe, each bringing a unique combination of experiences and abilities which have shaped this space into a world. Inside that world we have met new friends, discovered new interests, experienced new adventures, and made new memories. This year, we invite you to share those memories with us. The Community Gallery at the Second Life Birthday has been created to showcase the memories we have made in Second Life over the years. The memories that turned a virtual world into a community of Residents.

Official SL20B Calendar

https://second.life/birthdaycalendar

SL20B Magazine

https://second.life/sl20bmag


5/23/2023

Reducing the Risk of Simcross Crashes for Beginner Pilots


So, you've decided to try flying in SL!

You've bought a cool aircraft! You've rezzed it! You've learned how to start it up, you've learned the controls, you've taxi'd up to the runway! And you've taken off...so many times! But it seems like every time you take to the skies, you lose control of the plane after only a few simcrossings and...well...flight over! Maybe it has gotten to the point where you are now thinking, "This is stupid! I can't fly in SL! And who are all these idiots out there flying all over SL? They must be crashing all the time! It's a waste of time even trying! And I wasted L$3000 on a plane I can't even fly! I even rented a hangar/office/parking place at an airport, which is now useless! That's it! I give up...I QUIT!"

So...yeah. Guess what! That was me in the fall of 2022. I got so frustrated with bad simcrossings that I almost quit flying altogether. Instead, I took a step back, took a deep breath, and decided to ask around, do some research, and experiment. At first, after a few changes, I noticed improved flying with fewer simcross crashes. After more hunting and pecking around for information to adopt, things started to really improve dramatically. In time I found myself flying vast stretches of Second Life with only the occasional simcross crash. Today, simcross crashes are rare for me, and they're usually the result of it being a bad day in the Linden server room (or me doing something really stupid! Hey, it happens and I can admit it!). And in the few instances when I do lose control of my aircraft, 99% of the time I can regain control of that aircraft and fly right on! So, how did I get to where I am today?

First things first: the following is based on my experiences. Your experiences may be different. Don't shoot this messenger if you disagree; he's only offering personal experiences that he hopes may help others. Second, no one thing that I am about to tell you should be taken as a fix-all. You have to consider all of these points. Together, I believe they will reduce your risk of simcross crashes. Third, some of these may also apply to boating, or to a lesser extent driving vehicles, or whatever other modes of transportation are out there. How much of a difference will you experience? Maybe a lot; maybe little, maybe nothing. We are all in different situations: old computer vs new; fibre vs cable; Windows vs Mac; desktop computer vs laptop, persistent users vs non-persistent. So it really depends.

Six ways to a potentially better flying experience

I won't bother discussing things like sim corners; by now we should all know about that particular issue. So with that, let's take a look at the factors I identified for better flying based on my own experiences:

  • Cut down your inventory size;
  • Reduce your avatar complexity / unneeded scripts on your avatar;
  • Save yourself a "Pilot outfit" that works for you;
  • Monitor your passengers' "data baggage";
  • Watch your speed of travel;
  • A little trick to hopefully regain control of your aircraft.

Cut down your inventory size

Many may not realize that wherever you travel in SL, your inventory follows you. That means that when you cross from one sim into another, Linden Labs servers have to transfer your entire inventory from one sim to the next. Granted, modern servers are pretty quick. But if you have an inventory of, say, +100,000 items, you might be pushing things while trying to pilot an aircraft - particularly given the two recommendations that follow this first one. When I reviewed my inventory, I was shocked by how much junk I had acquired over the years; I had things going back to day one when I joined SL. I don't even know how I acquired most of it. And I didn't even recognize what a lot of it was! So I took a couple of hours and deleted a lot of that junk and ended up with an inventory that was only about 25% of what I started with. If you review your inventory, there's a possibility (no, probability!) that you will find a lot of items you don't need, a lot of it you forgot you even had, and some of you don't even know what it is or how you got it. You've never used it, you'll probably never use it, and SL is lagging your sim crossings by trying to instantaneously transfer junk you don't even use from one sim to the next while you're flying across the grid. 

Recommendation: 

Delete those items you don't use, need, or even know about! Then remember to empty your trash - because if you don't empty your trash, you're just dragging that same junk around in a different folder. Go Avatar >> Inventory >> Trash; right click >> Empty Trash on it! Done and DONE!

Reduce your avatar complexity

So you want to look cool when flying! Great! But just keep this in mind - on top of all those junk items in your inventory, the data lag that comes with a high complexity avatar and outfit just means you've got the Linden servers working overtime transferring even more of your data from sim to sim so you can look cool. What is Avatar Complexity? Basically, this is a number rating of your avatar and the complexity of data it is carrying around SL: the higher your complexity, the more difficult it is for SL to draw your avatar. Your avatar complexity rating can be a number anywhere from just a few hundred to hundreds of thousands(!). It is calculated by your avatar's shape, the clothing it is wearing, and any attachments; think "body parts, jewelry, glasses, shoes, clothing, HUDs, AOs, and on and on and on." (Personal note: I have a pair of hiking boots that have a complexity of over double my pilot's avatar/uniform!) They can be some of the most detailed objects in SL - and therefore data-heavy. That's more data you're dragging around SL. 

Recommendation:

Check your avatar's complexity by going Avatar >> Avatar health >> Show avatar complexity information - and you will see it as text floating over your avatar. If you find that your regular avatar that you use for other non-aviation activities in SL is data-heavy, you can start fixing that problem by getting a cheapie avatar from Linden just for piloting - go Avatar >> Choose an avatar. It's just a pilot avatar that you need, and who is going to see you cramped in an airplane cockpit 100m above the surface? You can use your high end avatars for everything else in SL. Personally, I get by just fine with an avatar complexity of ~8,000, including pilot uniform. And beware: if you are carrying passengers in your plane, their complexity can affect the success of your flight. More about that below.

Reduce or eliminate unneeded scripts on your avatar

As an extension to the above point, another way of looking at Avatar complexity is how many scripts it is carrying around. Scripts contain data and they're also calculating things while you are in flight. Scripts are in tons of things. When I started trying to figure out why I was always suffering simcross crashes, I found out that I was wearing 93 scripts. Yup - 93! Add the data in those scripts to an inventory of over 100,000 items and look at that next to an avatar complexity of over 93,000. It's no wonder I couldn't fly across a simcrossing! Actually, it's no longer a mystery to me why I often crashed just trying to walk from one sim to another.

Recommendation:

Firestorm has a tool you can use to see how many scripts you are wearing; it's simply another way to look at your avatar complexity. Go Avatar >> Avatar health >> Scripts. A window will pop up listing all the scripts you are currently using. I'll bet you don't even know what some of them are for! If you don't need them for flying, detach them!

Save yourself a "Pilot outfit" that works for you

By now you should have a much leaner inventory, and hopefully a much lower avatar complexity and have detached a pile of scripts that were crashing you at simcrossings. Maybe you have also found a pilot's uniform that is low/no script that is working for you. As for me, my standard pilot outfit and HUDs I use for flying add up to only 5-6 scripts. That's it! Sure, it took time for me to put all that together. But can you imagine having to go through all that, deleting/adding, changing shirt/pants, etc, before every time you fly? Forget it! You want a one- or two-click solution so you can quickly put on the flying outfit that best works for you.

Recommendation:

Go Avatar >> Now wearing... and quickly review it, and if you're happy, hit "Save as" and give it a name like "My pilot outfit" because you don't want to have to do repeat all of the above every time you want to go flying. If you save a "My pilot outfit", now all you have to do is go Avatar >> outfits, find your "My pilot outfit" and right click and hit "Wear - Replace Current Outfit." You might even want to save several pilot outfits: one for corporate airline pilot (uniform), one for private pilot (casual clothes), one for fighter pilot (flight suit, helmet you've carefully fitted for yourself), etc.

Monitor your passengers' "data baggage"

So now you've told your friends that you're a pilot, and they're impressed! Now they want you to take them on a trip! Cool! How much data baggage will they be bringing along once they sit on your plane? They won't be able to stow it in any overhead compartment and forget about it. By "data baggage" I'm talking about the things I've listed in my previous points: inventory data, avatar complexity data / script data... Can you see where I'm going with this? I once took 7 people on a flight through Blake Sea...or at least I tried to. I had already long ago reduced my inventory, reduced my avatar complexity, and reduced my scripts to only the necessities and had a saved pilot uniform I could wear and remove instantly; so I was fine. But you can probably guess what happened next - after only about five regions, the plane left my control after a bad simcross and we all ended up at the bottom of Blake Sea. Not only did my passengers crash, they crashed me as well. Upon review (using a lag radar) immediately after the crash, I learned that the passenger with the lowest number of scripts had 40; the rest all had between 70 and 130 scripts. They were shocked that they were wearing so many scripts; some had no idea what a "script" was. They buy stuff, they wear it, they don't know it has a script(s). As my passengers and I were all staring at each other at the bottom of Blake Sea, I and the group host reminded everyone to remove any unnecessary scripts. After about 10 minutes of them removing scripts and me confirming it as their script numbers dropped on my lag radar, we teleported back to the airport for a second attempt. Long story short, the second flight attempt with all 7 passengers and myself lasted over an hour and everyone had a terrific time - with only one person suffering a bad simcross. Big difference!

Recommendation:

Tell your passengers in advance of the flight to show up with at least a minimum of scripts on their avatar. Granted, they are not going to sit around their SL home before the flight and reduce their inventory by several thousand items or scrap their high-end avatar just to take a flight with you. But this is a game of risk and probability - and for this one flight you can very likely reduce their risk of simcross crash significantly by ensuring they show up with the minimal amount of scripts possible; they could probably do it in just a few minutes.  The "lag radar" HUD I use is simply called...well..."Lag Radar." You can even use it on the plane or at the terminal as passengers show up for the flight. That's when you take a look at the lag radar; if you see someone with a lot of scripts, maybe you can warn them that unless they remove some scripts, SL is going to crash them and their flight will be.....well.....short! You've warned them, you've done your due diligence. There's not much more you can do.

Watch your speed of travel

If you take everything I have discussed up to here and throw in the element of speed, that's yet another consideration. I try to keep my throttle at a reasonable and feasible level. Of course, it will depend on the aircraft you are flying. But in my experience with, say, a D-300, I have the throttle at around 50% for takeoff; but then once in the air I drop it to 30-35%, or even 25% when flying above very narrow protected area rivers or roadways. Keeping my speed low just seems to give the servers that little extra time to transfer me across the simcrossing to the next region - not to mention making it easier for you to fly along those very narrow corridors without straying off an hitting a banline or orb; and that takes on greater meaning if you have many passengers on your plane all trying to near simultaneously cross a simcross. Also, I'm in no rush. And I'm pretty sure my passengers aren't flying with me for the speed; they're probably there to enjoy the flight, the scenery, the experience of simply going for a plane ride.

Recommendation:

Try to keep your speed at a reasonable level consistent with your aircraft's specifications - not just so you and your passengers can enjoy the view, but also to give the Linden servers a little more wiggle room to transfer yourself and a bunch of passengers from sim to sim.

A little trick to hopefully regain control of your aircraft 

Once you cross into a new region and find your aircraft controls no longer work, that's it! Your plane is flying on its own - a zombie plane. You have no control. You keep pushing buttons and...nothing! You even push them buttons harder...still nothing! And you know...you just know!...you are about to suffer a simcross crash and maybe even get kicked out of SL. Well, next time before you give up, maybe that doesn't have to happen...maybe there is a solution!

Recommendation 1:

First, as soon as you notice you've lost control, keep your fingers off the keyboard and see if the sim catches up and gives you back control of the plane. Typically, I wait about 1/3 the way across the sim. If you still haven't regained control, right click on the plane's body and click "Edit." This freezes your plane - indeed, it freezes your flight. Then wait about 5 seconds. Then quit out of "Edit" and try your controls again. If it worked, then fine. If it didn't work, try "Edit" again except this time raise the aircraft a few meters. Then quit out of "Edit." Chances are, you have regained control by this point. If not, try "Edit" a third time (with or without raising the aircraft a few meters via the blue up/down arrow). In my own case, I regain control of the plane 99% of the time using this method - both with and without passengers (I've even done it with marine vessels). And I suspect that the 1% of the time that I don't regain control is simply a case of the servers at Linden Labs just being in a "bad mood." We all know what that's like; we all experience it. 

Recommendation 2: 

If you have the Airport Waypoint HUD - HSI by Kaliska Bunny - available on SL Market Place - and if your experience is like mine, you can probably tell that you have lost control of the plane after a simcross when you notice that the "distance to destination" number in the top left of the HUD has frozen - let's say it has frozen at "875". In that case, put your plane in "Edit" mode, then watch that frozen "distance to destination" number stuck on "875". When you see that number suddenly change -  dropping instantly by a large number and now reading, say, 523 and dropping again - then you have regained control of your plane and can quit "Edit" and carry on with your flight. The recommendation is to develop the habit of turning your eye to that number on the HUD fairly regularly (like you do for your speed, altitude, world and mini-map, etc) to see if it suddenly stops after a simcross. If you don't have that HUD, you might want to consider getting it. Does this trick work with other HSIs? I don't know, I've only ever flown with the Bunny product.

Putting it all together

Reducing your inventory size, your avatar complexity / scripts on your avatar; saving yourself a "My pilot outfit", keeping your speed at a reasonable level; preparing your passengers in advance of a flight; and learning to "Edit" your plane out of a bad simcross crash. The big takeaway from all this is simple: you can go from depressingly short flights that crash after only a few regions and make you want to quit flying in SL, to flying for well over an hour across several hundred sims with no or relatively very few simcross crashes - and maybe even save up to 99% of the ones you experience. If you take a bit of time and focus on implementing the above few recommendations, I strongly suspect that your flying experience in Second Life could change - and radically! I went from almost giving up trying to fly in SL, to buying more planes, getting them custom paint jobs, renting travel offices/hangars/passenger terminals on four continents, having lots of fun playing GTFO!, and taking passengers across entire continents daily. 

Blue and clear skies to all and thanks for reading!

2/13/2023

SL Living Expo Vehicle Show March 3rd 2023


 SL Living Expo Vehicle Show Rules

SL Living Expo runs March 3-12th.  Setup will be available starting February 28th. 

1. One entry per avatar.

2. Entry Fee: L$200 ($2.50 USD). Entry fee must be paid prior to being allowed to enter your vehicle into the show. 

3. Vehicle definition: Cars, Motorcycles or other vehicles that can be driven on a roadway.

4. Maximum allowed prims for vehicle is 150 LE.

5. Minimize scripts as much as possible (Vehicles do not need to be driven) and vehicles must be locked.

6. Must fit in a 12x12 plot.

7. All entries must be a moderate rating.

8. Vehicles can be modified using a variety of kitbash parts and re-texturing.

9. Winner is determined by largest amount donated in their assigned RFL kiosk.

10. Cars will be divided into two categories: modified and unmodified.  Modified cars must be created by  using kit parts to modify the appearance and design and must be completed by you.  This may also include re-texturing with a custom texture.  Unmodified cars are purchased from other creators and you just want to show off your favorite.  unmodified cars must also come with a write-up from you as to why it's your favorite and why you've chosen to show it off at the SL Living Expo.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Cody Chronotis (cody.conundrum). 

For Registration Payment, visit our office.  The vehicle show poster in the office has a white box for payment. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Choerom/23/13/100



3/24/2022

Steam Punk Ahead


 It appears that this years celebration will be themed steam punk. Looking forward to that. Get your steam punk vehicles out to celebrate. June 16 through July 5th 2022. SL Public Calendar here

1/23/2022

Second Life News and Information


news@SL
news@sl logo

Here are a few links to check out what's going on TODAY in Second Life.

DRIVERS OF SECOND LIFE

https://driversofsecondlife.blogspot.com

MODERN WORLD

https://modemworld.me

NEW WORLD NOTES

https://nwn.blogs.com/

SECOND LIFE COMMUNITY FEATURED NEWS

https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/blog/4-featured-news/ 

SECOND LIFE NEWSER

http://slnewser.blogspot.com/

SLE NEWS SOURCE

http://www.slenquirer.com/

If you know of any other sites and blogs that should be considered for current SL news, please comment.

Simulator Script Performance Improvements?


older sl logo
Older SL Logo
Linden Labs has supposedly updated simulator script performance last week. Let us know if you feel the difference.