Well the other night a friend was telling me excitedly mesh was in beta, I don't really have anything currently done in mesh format and was kinda disappointed it would go so far in development before hitting public Beta, but I started making an inquiry about it asking several questions of some things it should have very basic at minimum that it turned out to be lacking, not being very knowledgeable of it yet and having not tried it out myself yet I refrained from posting a Jira article Until I knew a bit better, the very late the next day a friend gave to me a Jira article she had written, I read it said it was a good idea but was half asleep so I said I would read it again and vote for it later, well I've read it again and it's a damn great Idea. Really with that said it would be crazy and stupid for Linden Labs to release mesh format in it's current state without implementing the suggestion which can be found here as this suggestion suggests some very basic things that make using the Collada format all the worth while:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-23447
Pretty much the standard avatar mesh with the sliders and all that, you can replace that with a custom mesh with Mesh import, however Linden Labs was pretty sloppy with allowing users to set a replacement for that mesh, One issue I had been preaching the whole time time this was in closed beta was that Linden Labs needs to allow meshes to be anchored to the avatar shape in some way. In it's current implementation Linden Labs has failed to do so, which is a very basic thing and it is essential for Mesh to be relevant and useful for avatar meshes. In the current implementation of mesh when you replace the standard avatar mesh, all those sliders you get in Edit appearance, don't mean much to the mesh itself, thus meaning if your a human avatar and go to a store and Buy a mesh from a content creator, or are a furry who buys this cute fox avatar you like, your going to look exactly like in shape as everyone else who has purchased the same mesh, thus taking away your individual appearance and not making mesh useful beyond being able to structure rezzable Objects, this Jira Topic addresses that issue and beyond and suggests allowing Morph targets, which content creators can bind to shapes and various other aspects, which will make the sliders in edit appearance useful once again when using a custom Mesh in place of the default avatar mesh, and giving power to tweaking your shape once again with options such as torso length and such, who knows the user might buy a mesh to make them look like a super model and decide the breasts are too big, I'm guessing most will assume not big enough, or maybe they might want to be a little thicker and heavier set or they might like the basic shape of the avatar mesh their looking at but may wish to tweak the sliders so that their weighted a little more or less realistic, this Jira article above puts that bit of customization back in users hands, as with the current implementation of mesh they lose the power to tweak their shape like that when using a mesh, maybe you might just be using mesh so that your avatar looks like it has toes rather than blended together stubs on it's feet, whatever the reason, this Jira article adds back in the flexibility of that, also aside from that it addresses further issues as well, as many of you know, when you wear a jacket clothing layer the default Mesh for avatars morphs a bit so that the sleeves are wider than your arms and it falls into sliders, Yes content creators being able to set morph targets also addresses this as well, as they will be able to set their avatar up to widen in the arms or pants, simply put clothing the current way it's Implemented may be able to wrap around digigrade legs if the modeler took it into consideration with this Jira article in effect, or in the case of a human avatar, maybe that more muscly shape. some people think that standard clothing will become irrelevant with the introduction of mesh clothing, however mesh clothing may not fit everyone's mesh properly without this capability to support morph targets, also creating clothing the old way and being able to use it with custom meshes, enables indefinite flexibility with clothes as standard clothing will be able to fit just about any mesh that is made keeping it in mind. After all you users the community have pushed hard to get Linden Labs to use Collada format, you better ask them to make the most of it as well, otherwise we may as well of been using OBJ without what this Jira article suggest, So vote for it now, this is an absolute must if you care about the presentation aspect of secondlife at all!
and Onto the next point about mesh...
Also my friend made another Important suggestion, not everyone wants to be human, also the way mesh is currently setup the way a Collada mesh is anchored to the skeleton of an avatar kinda makes avatars with custom meshes move as though there a stuffed teddy bear rather than a person or thing that has bones in it, a topic addressing this can be found here:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-23448
This topic suggests that content creators be given more Power over how the skeleton works and allow content creators to customize the skeleton which not only allows people to define extra limbs such as tails and the such within their mesh, but it also extends this capability so content creators can tweak the skeleton of content they create, thus allowing the avatar mesh to respond to animation better where as the body moves more stiffly in some points and looser in others, so the importance of this topic though seemingly focused on furry also extends to people not into the furry scene as important to human avatars as well, as content creators will be able to extend their skeleton to move and respond better to animation.
If you would like to see mesh in it's current state, It's not bad, but its lacking a lot of absolutely needed potential as you can see here attachment meshes can be associated with parts of the skeleton to bend with it in the hair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1STH6Qy4fik&feature=related
but take notice of the boot, while it bends well this could be greatly improved upon in realism of the motion.
also if you watch this below video closely around the bunny avatars midsection you can see there some flaws in how its the torso is anchored to the skeleton, custom skeletons in the mesh would allow it to move and respond better to animation, By giving content creators who make meshes more power over how things flex and respond to animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_n29fFxQkI
really mesh in its state is incomplete without the above suggested functionality, while it is much better than what we had before its lacking a lot and I find it to be truly incomplete and in this incomplete state it might take something from the end result of your own personal look without it, so if your reading all this, drop to the web addresses below, sign in with your secondlife name click votes and click the button to vote for the issue.
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-23447
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-23448
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
In reference to a Comment of a previous post Regarding zf redzone
this article is in reference to a comment replying to zfire xue which can be found under this blogpost here where I said I would expand on the violation information about zf redzone: http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/07/spywaretos-and-legal-violation-in.html?zx=e34557c63c81300e
ok someones already written an article on this but however I'm going to write my views on this law the Law I'm referring to is BPC17200-17210 which can be used to define the penalties for violation of BPC22575-22579 the article found here doesn't really explore the full scope of the law but gives idea about it which can be found here:(mind you this is the writers interpretation of the law based on their knowledge of internet and service and is not the law itself)
http://www.cooley.com/files/tbl_s24News%5CPDFUpload152%5C927%5CALERT-Cal_OPPA.pdf
now for the law itself:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210
in the article you should note that no enforcement provisions are provided however BPC22575-22579 defines acts by zfire with his redzone utility to be illegal and note that violation of it in accordance with the cooley.com article explaining BPC17200-17210 does note that violations can be enforced through BPC17200-17210 with that said in the cooley article you should pay particular attention to the section that is titled Consequences of Noncompliance with that said any violation of BPC22575-22579 legally constitutes a violation of BPC17200-17209
under the recommendations section zfire xue has not followed through with paragraphs marked by the bulleted paragraphs I will review here below before reviewing the law and where the violations are defined. do keep in mind when reading personally identifiable information in the cooley link it is defined by BPC22575-22579 as any information that can be used to contact an individual online or in person, as usernames in the secondlife service enable you to message a person these fall under that category.
Cooley.com recommends that a person operating an online service must determine whether or not they are collecting personally identifiable information, on the redzone website they say they consider this information not to be private, when it is Protected under BPC22575-22579. Cooley.com also recommends creation of an accurate privacy policy, this is not the case, their policy is deceptive as it states users will be notified before information collection, but no such notification takes place, it is also recommended the privacy policy be conspicuously posted, there are several ways to do this within secondlife the best way is to make use of the annoying scripting command LLDialogue, cooley also recommends that audits of the website take place to be sure the privacy policy still accurately reflects, actually the privacy policy regarding redzone has never been accurate. cooley also recomends that you keep in mind that several states are passing laws like this and you should be mindful that there may be many privacy laws you must adhere to in an online service it is also recommended that you insure there is adequate security for the information collected, in the case of redzone, there is no security as that information is given away to its users, dont believe me? lets reference the a blogpost of someone who recently commented in my blog and posted a screenshot in theirs http://forcemesilverspar.blogspot.com/2010/09/zf-redzone.html you can examine the screenshot there for yourself, and yet again cooley recommends creating internal procedures to prevent your service from being used to cause a privacy breach, but zf redzone alt detection in itself is a privacy breach. all these recommendations proposed by cooley.com are things recommended that would bring a service up to code. zf redzone does none of them
You should bear the phrasing in the cooley article with a grain of salt as most the phrasing pertains to web where as the law itself is in references to online services but lets take a look at the law which I linked above from here on in.
First Off lets take a look at section 17200:
"17200. As used in this chapter, unfair competition shall mean and include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising and any act prohibited by Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 17500) of Part 3 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code."
In my previous article linked at the top of this article we have established that zf redzone is unlawful as it collects information outside of the compliance of BPC22575-22579 and provided information as to how so, we have also exposed it as fraudulent by exposing weakness in its accuracy vs the ridiculous 120% accurate claim by its author and pointing out their willingness to violate the privacy policy and Terms of the service they operate with by falsifying by quoting it in part it is deceptive as it operates without notice to the user, and users supposedly reach an agreement through passing it by which actually has no legal binding, and the content of the privacy policy which you never get to see regarding it differs from how the system does thus further proving its deceptive
17201 pretty much defines how terminology will be used in the law, meaning person may refer to company yadda yadda yadda, 17204 pretty much states people may make claims on each-others behalf, so I guess this means class action lawsuits can be filed against companies and individuals who violate BPC22575-22579 which puts them in violation of BPC17200 as stated above in line 17200 any business that engages in unlawful business practice may be found in unfair competition so a violation of BPC22575-22579 constitutes a violation of BPC17200-17210
section 17202 pretty much defines that relief may be payed to competitors of the company that engages in unfair competition, since zf redzone is a security orb product this pretty much defines everyone who produces and sells any form of security orb within the secondlife service or any other land security utility or any sort of copybot protection system or for that matter any tool that has a feature which may put it in competition can make a claim and try to get a relief payment to aid their lost business
"17202. Notwithstanding Section 3369 of the Civil Code, specific or preventive relief may be granted to enforce a penalty, forfeiture, or penal law in a case of unfair competition."
17203 I wont quote here as its pretty long but as with anything I write regarding law the links provided and you can read it by following the link for yourself and interpret it yourself to verify it but pretty much it states court may take action against anyone who has engaged in unfair competition(so even if zfire xue was to quit committing these violations he could be charged with those hes already committed), anyone who is doing so, like he is doing now, or anyone who proposes to do so thus meaning if he proposes to create any more products outlawed by BPC22575-22579 he can be charged with a violation for the proposition of creating such a product.
we should also take a look at section 17206 of the law a bit lengthy to post here but you can read it at:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210
pretty much this states the penalty for entering into unfair competition is a maximum of 2500 but per violation as well, each of those 2500+ zf redzone locations, is an individual violation in itself also in court, this law states what shall be taken into account is the seriousness of the conduct, yeah its pretty serious silent privacy violations and persistence of misconduct, yep the creator of redzone has been informed, and has obviously read my article(as they commented on it, and left themselves quite a weak defense) so they are quite persistent in conducting this illegal activity also if each instance of violation can cost the operator 2500 each then that indicates that each $20-30 sale of this system can potentially end up costing its author $2500 but there's more on that which I will get into later
section 17206.1 pertains to an additional fine of $2500 if the act is perpetrated against senior citizens or the disabled, and really isn't too important as this does not target those groups, however in the event of a class action lawsuit regarding this the age and disability status may now of those who had information collected on them by this system may play a role in the author of this system being charged with additional fines should charges come to pass and I'm sure SL has plenty of disabled users and even a few elderly users. so that knocks the fine up to a total $5000 per orb that has uncovered information regarding a senior or a disabled person.
and onto my favorite part as to why I called zfire xue's comment in my blog enlightening, obviously we have established knowledgeable and willful violation with that comment and within the article of BPC22575-22579 willful violation for this law as established under section 22576 from BPC22575-22579 which can be found here http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=22001-23000&file=22575-22579 knowledgeable and willful violation or non compliance after 30 days of notice constitutes a violation, with zfire xues comment in my blog we have established knowledgeable and willful violation which means a 30 day wait to come up to compliance is no longer required but now lets take a look at section 17207 of BPC17200-17210 I like the first paragraph which I will quote here:
17207. (a) Any person who intentionally violates any injunction prohibiting unfair competition issued pursuant to Section 17203 shall be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed six thousand dollars ($6,000) for each violation. Where the conduct constituting a violation is of a continuing nature, each day of that conduct is a separate and distinct violation. In determining the amount of the civil penalty, the court shall consider all relevant circumstances, including, but not limited to, the extent of the harm caused by the conduct constituting a violation, the nature and persistence of that conduct, the length of time over which the conduct occurred, the assets, liabilities, and net worth of the person, whether corporate or individual, and any corrective action taken by the defendant.
so lets see here we've established that each instance of zf redzone is its each own unique violation with 2500+ violations but this part of the law states there is a civil penalty of $6000 for each violation, and for each violation each day the conduct occurs is to be considered a unique violation in itself, so with 2500+ zf redzone locations this constitutes zfire xue having committed 2500+ violations against this law a day with each violation carrying a civil fine of up to $6000, with that said if you view the related xstreet page(aw drat he deleted more of the item discussion) we can establish with a comment " Posted By: TheBoris Gothly at 2010-05-04 00:41:19 (item owner) " that this tool has been around since at least the time of the time-stamp, still all the the same I remember a 2009 post and its likely Linden Labs for legal reasons such as this and request of the court keeps records as to how long an item has been listed and probably records as to deleted text within the item discussion meaning it may be possible to prove these violations have been going on longer.
section B of 17207 refers where this shall be taken to court too and makes reference to relation to which county the violation took place in Linden Labs being a San Francisco based company and this system zf redzone being implemented on their servers establishes the location of the violation at a central point section C details who collects the fines
section 17208:
17208. Any action to enforce any cause of action pursuant to this chapter shall be commenced within four years after the cause of action accrued. No cause of action barred under existing law on the effective date of this section shall be revived by its enactment.
simply put if someone is found guilty of a violation of this code the courts may wait up to 4 years to take action and action must be taken within those 4 years, and that the person may not be charged with the particular violations again, but as established above, each new day is a new violation so if zfire xue was charged under this law the courts could impose the fines anytime within 4 years, and the violations addressed may not be addressed again(sort of like double jeopardy) but as said each day the violation occurs is a new violation meaning if zf redzone was not immediately done away with though the fines may or may not immediately take place new charges may be brought for a new day of violations(or however long this goes on after initial charges), however the days of violations addressed may not be charged again
17209 defines that if you shall take action against a party when the rest of your paperwork is due, big deal, I wanted to mostly look at fines related to this and with the link above you can read this for yourself if you so wish
section 17210 pertains to additional ways to violate this clause but pertains to information outside of internet business practices such as hotels and the such and covers nothing I found of any importance in writing this article.
ok someones already written an article on this but however I'm going to write my views on this law the Law I'm referring to is BPC17200-17210 which can be used to define the penalties for violation of BPC22575-22579 the article found here doesn't really explore the full scope of the law but gives idea about it which can be found here:(mind you this is the writers interpretation of the law based on their knowledge of internet and service and is not the law itself)
http://www.cooley.com/files/tbl_s24News%5CPDFUpload152%5C927%5CALERT-Cal_OPPA.pdf
now for the law itself:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210
in the article you should note that no enforcement provisions are provided however BPC22575-22579 defines acts by zfire with his redzone utility to be illegal and note that violation of it in accordance with the cooley.com article explaining BPC17200-17210 does note that violations can be enforced through BPC17200-17210 with that said in the cooley article you should pay particular attention to the section that is titled Consequences of Noncompliance with that said any violation of BPC22575-22579 legally constitutes a violation of BPC17200-17209
under the recommendations section zfire xue has not followed through with paragraphs marked by the bulleted paragraphs I will review here below before reviewing the law and where the violations are defined. do keep in mind when reading personally identifiable information in the cooley link it is defined by BPC22575-22579 as any information that can be used to contact an individual online or in person, as usernames in the secondlife service enable you to message a person these fall under that category.
Cooley.com recommends that a person operating an online service must determine whether or not they are collecting personally identifiable information, on the redzone website they say they consider this information not to be private, when it is Protected under BPC22575-22579. Cooley.com also recommends creation of an accurate privacy policy, this is not the case, their policy is deceptive as it states users will be notified before information collection, but no such notification takes place, it is also recommended the privacy policy be conspicuously posted, there are several ways to do this within secondlife the best way is to make use of the annoying scripting command LLDialogue, cooley also recommends that audits of the website take place to be sure the privacy policy still accurately reflects, actually the privacy policy regarding redzone has never been accurate. cooley also recomends that you keep in mind that several states are passing laws like this and you should be mindful that there may be many privacy laws you must adhere to in an online service it is also recommended that you insure there is adequate security for the information collected, in the case of redzone, there is no security as that information is given away to its users, dont believe me? lets reference the a blogpost of someone who recently commented in my blog and posted a screenshot in theirs http://forcemesilverspar.blogspot.com/2010/09/zf-redzone.html you can examine the screenshot there for yourself, and yet again cooley recommends creating internal procedures to prevent your service from being used to cause a privacy breach, but zf redzone alt detection in itself is a privacy breach. all these recommendations proposed by cooley.com are things recommended that would bring a service up to code. zf redzone does none of them
You should bear the phrasing in the cooley article with a grain of salt as most the phrasing pertains to web where as the law itself is in references to online services but lets take a look at the law which I linked above from here on in.
First Off lets take a look at section 17200:
"17200. As used in this chapter, unfair competition shall mean and include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising and any act prohibited by Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 17500) of Part 3 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code."
In my previous article linked at the top of this article we have established that zf redzone is unlawful as it collects information outside of the compliance of BPC22575-22579 and provided information as to how so, we have also exposed it as fraudulent by exposing weakness in its accuracy vs the ridiculous 120% accurate claim by its author and pointing out their willingness to violate the privacy policy and Terms of the service they operate with by falsifying by quoting it in part it is deceptive as it operates without notice to the user, and users supposedly reach an agreement through passing it by which actually has no legal binding, and the content of the privacy policy which you never get to see regarding it differs from how the system does thus further proving its deceptive
17201 pretty much defines how terminology will be used in the law, meaning person may refer to company yadda yadda yadda, 17204 pretty much states people may make claims on each-others behalf, so I guess this means class action lawsuits can be filed against companies and individuals who violate BPC22575-22579 which puts them in violation of BPC17200 as stated above in line 17200 any business that engages in unlawful business practice may be found in unfair competition so a violation of BPC22575-22579 constitutes a violation of BPC17200-17210
section 17202 pretty much defines that relief may be payed to competitors of the company that engages in unfair competition, since zf redzone is a security orb product this pretty much defines everyone who produces and sells any form of security orb within the secondlife service or any other land security utility or any sort of copybot protection system or for that matter any tool that has a feature which may put it in competition can make a claim and try to get a relief payment to aid their lost business
"17202. Notwithstanding Section 3369 of the Civil Code, specific or preventive relief may be granted to enforce a penalty, forfeiture, or penal law in a case of unfair competition."
17203 I wont quote here as its pretty long but as with anything I write regarding law the links provided and you can read it by following the link for yourself and interpret it yourself to verify it but pretty much it states court may take action against anyone who has engaged in unfair competition(so even if zfire xue was to quit committing these violations he could be charged with those hes already committed), anyone who is doing so, like he is doing now, or anyone who proposes to do so thus meaning if he proposes to create any more products outlawed by BPC22575-22579 he can be charged with a violation for the proposition of creating such a product.
we should also take a look at section 17206 of the law a bit lengthy to post here but you can read it at:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210
pretty much this states the penalty for entering into unfair competition is a maximum of 2500 but per violation as well, each of those 2500+ zf redzone locations, is an individual violation in itself also in court, this law states what shall be taken into account is the seriousness of the conduct, yeah its pretty serious silent privacy violations and persistence of misconduct, yep the creator of redzone has been informed, and has obviously read my article(as they commented on it, and left themselves quite a weak defense) so they are quite persistent in conducting this illegal activity also if each instance of violation can cost the operator 2500 each then that indicates that each $20-30 sale of this system can potentially end up costing its author $2500 but there's more on that which I will get into later
section 17206.1 pertains to an additional fine of $2500 if the act is perpetrated against senior citizens or the disabled, and really isn't too important as this does not target those groups, however in the event of a class action lawsuit regarding this the age and disability status may now of those who had information collected on them by this system may play a role in the author of this system being charged with additional fines should charges come to pass and I'm sure SL has plenty of disabled users and even a few elderly users. so that knocks the fine up to a total $5000 per orb that has uncovered information regarding a senior or a disabled person.
and onto my favorite part as to why I called zfire xue's comment in my blog enlightening, obviously we have established knowledgeable and willful violation with that comment and within the article of BPC22575-22579 willful violation for this law as established under section 22576 from BPC22575-22579 which can be found here http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=22001-23000&file=22575-22579 knowledgeable and willful violation or non compliance after 30 days of notice constitutes a violation, with zfire xues comment in my blog we have established knowledgeable and willful violation which means a 30 day wait to come up to compliance is no longer required but now lets take a look at section 17207 of BPC17200-17210 I like the first paragraph which I will quote here:
17207. (a) Any person who intentionally violates any injunction prohibiting unfair competition issued pursuant to Section 17203 shall be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed six thousand dollars ($6,000) for each violation. Where the conduct constituting a violation is of a continuing nature, each day of that conduct is a separate and distinct violation. In determining the amount of the civil penalty, the court shall consider all relevant circumstances, including, but not limited to, the extent of the harm caused by the conduct constituting a violation, the nature and persistence of that conduct, the length of time over which the conduct occurred, the assets, liabilities, and net worth of the person, whether corporate or individual, and any corrective action taken by the defendant.
so lets see here we've established that each instance of zf redzone is its each own unique violation with 2500+ violations but this part of the law states there is a civil penalty of $6000 for each violation, and for each violation each day the conduct occurs is to be considered a unique violation in itself, so with 2500+ zf redzone locations this constitutes zfire xue having committed 2500+ violations against this law a day with each violation carrying a civil fine of up to $6000, with that said if you view the related xstreet page(aw drat he deleted more of the item discussion) we can establish with a comment " Posted By: TheBoris Gothly at 2010-05-04 00:41:19 (item owner) " that this tool has been around since at least the time of the time-stamp, still all the the same I remember a 2009 post and its likely Linden Labs for legal reasons such as this and request of the court keeps records as to how long an item has been listed and probably records as to deleted text within the item discussion meaning it may be possible to prove these violations have been going on longer.
section B of 17207 refers where this shall be taken to court too and makes reference to relation to which county the violation took place in Linden Labs being a San Francisco based company and this system zf redzone being implemented on their servers establishes the location of the violation at a central point section C details who collects the fines
section 17208:
17208. Any action to enforce any cause of action pursuant to this chapter shall be commenced within four years after the cause of action accrued. No cause of action barred under existing law on the effective date of this section shall be revived by its enactment.
simply put if someone is found guilty of a violation of this code the courts may wait up to 4 years to take action and action must be taken within those 4 years, and that the person may not be charged with the particular violations again, but as established above, each new day is a new violation so if zfire xue was charged under this law the courts could impose the fines anytime within 4 years, and the violations addressed may not be addressed again(sort of like double jeopardy) but as said each day the violation occurs is a new violation meaning if zf redzone was not immediately done away with though the fines may or may not immediately take place new charges may be brought for a new day of violations(or however long this goes on after initial charges), however the days of violations addressed may not be charged again
17209 defines that if you shall take action against a party when the rest of your paperwork is due, big deal, I wanted to mostly look at fines related to this and with the link above you can read this for yourself if you so wish
section 17210 pertains to additional ways to violate this clause but pertains to information outside of internet business practices such as hotels and the such and covers nothing I found of any importance in writing this article.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Imprudence as an Emerald alternative
Well today emerald team has announced their final release and discontinuation of their viewer, There will likely eventually be a fork of this viewer but users may be looking to continue the use of its features through another viewer, I heard someone recommend Kirstens viewer in its place, I tried this and was displeased with Kirstens as an alternative you can find the announcement regarding the discontinuation here:
http://blog.modularsystems.sl/2010/09/01/the-end/
anyhow Emerald development ceases with this final release, there will likely be other viewers that are built from emerald and a fork of such, but nonesuch have registered for the TPV List yet however there is a viewer inclusive of some features from emerald which can be seen here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Features
I've used Imprudence before and tried it and hated the abysmal performance, tried it using the latest Release Candidate, Loved it. The performance of the latest release candidate on my system(Imprudence 1.3.0 RC2) was excellent and it can be found here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Downloads
Also its on the third party viewer directory which means it has been approved by Linden Labs and has not done anything to lose that approval which can be found here:
http://viewerdirectory.secondlife.com/
If performance with this viewer however is an issue for you they do provide a solution, as their not licensed to distribute llkdu libraries they use the Slower OpenJPEG libraries instead, however I have not tried this as of yet but will be doing so soon, but they say you can use the LLKDU library yourself you will just need to install and copy it, they mention the solution here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/2010/08/28/an-update-from-mccabe/
Many emerald users are hooked on Emerald for The built in AO that does not impose on SL's scripting Engine where as scripted AO's need to constantly check the avatar state in the sim thus creating lag, or are hooked on the math features for build or the breast physics all that such can be used in Imprudence
You can find information on building using math expressions here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Build_Math_Expressions
as for the AO yes its there too, mind you it doesn't have the latest check-box that allows you to stop the timer within it, but that's fine cause you can just set the timer high to stop cycling the AO can be found under "View > Animation ovetrider" but I cant help but notice the Hotkey listed for it is the same as the Object occlusion hotkey under the advanced menu.
If You liked Emeralds version of "show look at" and how it named the camera points so you could get an idea who may be camming into your skybox the same modification for "show look at" exists within imprudence it just hasn't been moved, it exists in its old location in the advanced menu "advanced > character > show look at". it does pop up a warning that you shouldn't rely on this for privacy, there's several reasons for this, viewers don't always accurately receive this information and sometimes can show different look at points between viewers(a net packet gets dropped and someone that gave you cam focus hours ago may appear to still be doing so), viewers can disable broadcasting of this(imprudence can too but disables this if you do) and also people can always cam in from other sources.
Also there is the breast physics, mind you I did not find options related to this in imprudence unlike emerald(not saying their not there, but the imprudence team intended it be a subtle thing it appears) however the options still exist within the debug menu under advanced and their settings are under the entries:
EmeraldBoobFriction
EmeraldBoobHardnes
EmeraldBoobMass
EmeraldBoobVelMax
EmeraldBoobVelMin
EmeraldBoobXYInfluence
EmeraldBreastPhysicsToggle
EmeraldBreastSportsBra
the settings seem to be the same as emeralds and follow emeralds defaults so if you adjusted this you can copy the debug entries here and make it the same I guess, I'm not going to mess with the settings myself though.
Extended Edit: well another worth mention feature I forgot to mention that was mentioned to me by a friend is the radar feature, both imprudence and emerald have this but use different implementation. emeralds radar has a longer range, the one in imprudence has a range setting and is built into the minimap with a drop down arrow marker, it however is limited to 512m where as the emerald one apparently had a much longer range than that but still if you need a radar both viewers have it built in, just the emerald one is superior, however, it is available in imprudence nonetheless, another worth mention feature I forgot to mention is imprudence does have an implementation of area search which allows you to search the area much the way emerald does with its area search feature,you can search an area by name, by owner, by group or by description, Both viewers have this however I noticed when using this in emerald I would get a drastic frame rate drop, imprudence this feature seems to run smoothly, whatever the case, its good for finding parcels that have implemented zf redzone which should be avoided like the plague, something I think would make a cool edition to this feature though, is the ability to search by object creator, but still nonetheless a greatly useful feature that exists in both viewers
http://blog.modularsystems.sl/2010/09/01/the-end/
anyhow Emerald development ceases with this final release, there will likely be other viewers that are built from emerald and a fork of such, but nonesuch have registered for the TPV List yet however there is a viewer inclusive of some features from emerald which can be seen here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Features
I've used Imprudence before and tried it and hated the abysmal performance, tried it using the latest Release Candidate, Loved it. The performance of the latest release candidate on my system(Imprudence 1.3.0 RC2) was excellent and it can be found here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Downloads
Also its on the third party viewer directory which means it has been approved by Linden Labs and has not done anything to lose that approval which can be found here:
http://viewerdirectory.secondlife.com/
If performance with this viewer however is an issue for you they do provide a solution, as their not licensed to distribute llkdu libraries they use the Slower OpenJPEG libraries instead, however I have not tried this as of yet but will be doing so soon, but they say you can use the LLKDU library yourself you will just need to install and copy it, they mention the solution here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/2010/08/28/an-update-from-mccabe/
Many emerald users are hooked on Emerald for The built in AO that does not impose on SL's scripting Engine where as scripted AO's need to constantly check the avatar state in the sim thus creating lag, or are hooked on the math features for build or the breast physics all that such can be used in Imprudence
You can find information on building using math expressions here:
http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Build_Math_Expressions
as for the AO yes its there too, mind you it doesn't have the latest check-box that allows you to stop the timer within it, but that's fine cause you can just set the timer high to stop cycling the AO can be found under "View > Animation ovetrider" but I cant help but notice the Hotkey listed for it is the same as the Object occlusion hotkey under the advanced menu.
If You liked Emeralds version of "show look at" and how it named the camera points so you could get an idea who may be camming into your skybox the same modification for "show look at" exists within imprudence it just hasn't been moved, it exists in its old location in the advanced menu "advanced > character > show look at". it does pop up a warning that you shouldn't rely on this for privacy, there's several reasons for this, viewers don't always accurately receive this information and sometimes can show different look at points between viewers(a net packet gets dropped and someone that gave you cam focus hours ago may appear to still be doing so), viewers can disable broadcasting of this(imprudence can too but disables this if you do) and also people can always cam in from other sources.
Also there is the breast physics, mind you I did not find options related to this in imprudence unlike emerald(not saying their not there, but the imprudence team intended it be a subtle thing it appears) however the options still exist within the debug menu under advanced and their settings are under the entries:
EmeraldBoobFriction
EmeraldBoobHardnes
EmeraldBoobMass
EmeraldBoobVelMax
EmeraldBoobVelMin
EmeraldBoobXYInfluence
EmeraldBreastPhysicsToggle
EmeraldBreastSportsBra
the settings seem to be the same as emeralds and follow emeralds defaults so if you adjusted this you can copy the debug entries here and make it the same I guess, I'm not going to mess with the settings myself though.
Extended Edit: well another worth mention feature I forgot to mention that was mentioned to me by a friend is the radar feature, both imprudence and emerald have this but use different implementation. emeralds radar has a longer range, the one in imprudence has a range setting and is built into the minimap with a drop down arrow marker, it however is limited to 512m where as the emerald one apparently had a much longer range than that but still if you need a radar both viewers have it built in, just the emerald one is superior, however, it is available in imprudence nonetheless, another worth mention feature I forgot to mention is imprudence does have an implementation of area search which allows you to search the area much the way emerald does with its area search feature,you can search an area by name, by owner, by group or by description, Both viewers have this however I noticed when using this in emerald I would get a drastic frame rate drop, imprudence this feature seems to run smoothly, whatever the case, its good for finding parcels that have implemented zf redzone which should be avoided like the plague, something I think would make a cool edition to this feature though, is the ability to search by object creator, but still nonetheless a greatly useful feature that exists in both viewers
Monday, July 26, 2010
Custom Color Tags in emerald.... Yuck
today I went to a club, and I saw a bunch of emerald users, an LGG Proxy(malicious viewer) user, a couple imprudence users a few sl2.0 users .... or did I?
actually everyone there was Emerald users with the exception of some 2.0 users.... apparently now you can set the color your name tag appears to other emerald users, after they established a color coded system where viewers could be identified by the color of name-tag, I'm used to malicious viewers being marked red, there was a guy at the club with his name marked red cause he set a custom color with his viewer, I don't like this. So far since I've started using emerald since my ex-mate tugged me into it with the introduction of boob jiggle version1.23.5.950? and so far, in all my time here, and I get around, I've only seen one Malicious viewer, and one unknown which brings me to a question. does anybody out there know what Moymix is? I googled it and cant find any useful information, one person seems to suspect its a viewer that allows free uploads, I dunno, but I remember seeing it marked in pink, much like viewer 2.0 is before this custom color tagging, aside from that Ive seen a viewer marked "LGG Proxy" one time a while back(googling it revealed it was a malicious viewer) and it was marked as red, so I'm used to the idea of red meaning its a bad viewer. now since people can set their tags to red on their own, I'm kinda thrown way off.
actually everyone there was Emerald users with the exception of some 2.0 users.... apparently now you can set the color your name tag appears to other emerald users, after they established a color coded system where viewers could be identified by the color of name-tag, I'm used to malicious viewers being marked red, there was a guy at the club with his name marked red cause he set a custom color with his viewer, I don't like this. So far since I've started using emerald since my ex-mate tugged me into it with the introduction of boob jiggle version1.23.5.950? and so far, in all my time here, and I get around, I've only seen one Malicious viewer, and one unknown which brings me to a question. does anybody out there know what Moymix is? I googled it and cant find any useful information, one person seems to suspect its a viewer that allows free uploads, I dunno, but I remember seeing it marked in pink, much like viewer 2.0 is before this custom color tagging, aside from that Ive seen a viewer marked "LGG Proxy" one time a while back(googling it revealed it was a malicious viewer) and it was marked as red, so I'm used to the idea of red meaning its a bad viewer. now since people can set their tags to red on their own, I'm kinda thrown way off.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Item Discussion for zf Redzone Censored
So Today I was filing my usual reports against the zf redzone system visited the xstreet page and of course got the stupid message saying a report already exists for this item, also filed an AR against its location in vsevolod, but I noticed something, every negative comment about it in the Item discussion has been deleted, last I checked it was 103 posts now whittled down to 72 posts, obviously there's a lot of negative to be said about it. I don't know whether the Lindens deleted the comments due to complaint of the seller, or if the seller decided to go back and delete them, I haven't used xstreet in forever so I don't know if you can moderate your item discussion, but it sure seems like to me the creator wants to censor every little bit that says what he is doing violates the ToS and is illegal, so with that his replies against the users should stand on their own if not the case, but why would he need to delete it? obviously someone hit the nail right on the head, probably he had the comments deleted because they can be used to show that he is in knowledgeable violation of BPC22575-22579. either way I'm going to continue to report this to the Lindens, as his utility is a serious threat to those who have multiple accounts regardless of reason for those, and as with found with the previous statement and comments, those who compile their own viewer(so most the developer community)
you can see the item discussion here:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=discussions&ItemID=1175807
Take notice to all the gaps in the conversation
you can see the item discussion here:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=discussions&ItemID=1175807
Take notice to all the gaps in the conversation
Saturday, July 17, 2010
secondlife Relay For Life, Relay today
At the relay for Life event at secondlife showing my support, Right now its the survivors lap so I'm off the track showing my support for those who are living with cancer, My teams campsite is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/RFL%20Hope/115/77/24/ come pay us a visit show your support and light a luminary for someone you know, I'm sure you know someone that's been afflicted by this horrible disease, come show your support for them.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Gathering Hardware and viewer statistics on SL users
Today in Avatar Makers Guild group chat Just a bit ago I got this group notice from a user called Stickman Ingmann:
I made a Jira requesting LL collect and expose useful information for inworld developers.
Oz Linden mentioned that there's internal discussion about a script function to test the viewer for certain capabilities (avatar alpha support, multiwearables, etc), but knowing what the average user can do would help us design products.
Have a read. If you agree, give it a vote. If you don't, leave a comment with feedback if you'd like. Thanks!
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-4405
I have to highly recommend voting for anonymous statistics collection. It's a way to get software developers that write viewers to make secondlife suitable for common hardware and exposes statistical information for content creators who make graphically intensive stuff(such as hair with the Max Prim count, all Flexi, and glow...nothing lags a video-card like that) and to top it off unlike that zf redzone I mentioned in a previous post, It don't violate anyone's privacy, Sounds to me like this anonymous statistic collection will make a great alternative to a totally idiotic unthoughtful scripting function used to gather information on another users viewer capabilities, I mean such a scripting function, paired with the media system, to gather information, on a specific users viewer, can be used for vulnerability assessment purposes, this is definitely not a good thing. so if your a secondlife user reading this blog post, vote for that Jira article, and leave a comment, tell them you don't want a scripted function that can do this, and you would much rather see what Stickman Ingmann suggested than such a scripted function.
Just in case of editing by any party here is the Jira Article as it stands at time of posting this Blog Entry:
Having more information about what hardware and capabilities the average users of Second Life have would greatly aid in the designing and marketing of products.
Steam conducts a monthly hardware survey, asking random members of the community if they'd be willing to divulge hardware information to Valve. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey The survey is made public to aid not only game developers in planning and spotting trends, but to aid community awareness on what types of systems people are using.
Gathering and distributing similar anonymous information from the Second Life community would be not only aid Linden Lab in its development choices, but would aid the inworld developers and standard users. As an example, if glow is only enabled by 20% of the users, it may be beneficial for LL to figure out why, and would be beneficial for inworld developers not to rely entirely on it. It would also let the standard user realize that the glow they are emitting may not be visible by everyone.
Besides the information contained on the Steam survey, the follow information specific to Second Life would be useful:
* Feature Support
o Glow/Shader Support
o Transparent Avatar Support
o Media-on-a-prim Support
o Multiwearables Support
o Restricted Life Support
o Etc
* Second Life Resolution
* Second Life Fullscreen/windowed status
* FPS
* Texture Memory
* Viewer Brand/Version
* Viewer Diversity (if people use more than one client or are loyal to just one)
Information also available on the Steam survey that could be gathered includes:
* Operating System and version
* System RAM
* CPU Count and Speed
* Video Card Identifier
* Video RAM
* Display Resolution
* Multimonitor status
* Microphone (not detected, asked)
* Language
* Free/Total HD space (not immediately useful, may be useful if the cache is improved)
* Network Speed
Edit:
you may wish to tell Oz Linden it's a bad idea to implement a scripting function to gather viewer information as it can be used for vulnerability assessments when paired with gathering information via media functions, you can find his office hours here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Oz_Linden and please if you do say something to Oz please link him to the above mentioned Jira article here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-4405 tell him its a much better solution without all the nasty drawbacks of having such a scripting function.
I made a Jira requesting LL collect and expose useful information for inworld developers.
Oz Linden mentioned that there's internal discussion about a script function to test the viewer for certain capabilities (avatar alpha support, multiwearables, etc), but knowing what the average user can do would help us design products.
Have a read. If you agree, give it a vote. If you don't, leave a comment with feedback if you'd like. Thanks!
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-4405
I have to highly recommend voting for anonymous statistics collection. It's a way to get software developers that write viewers to make secondlife suitable for common hardware and exposes statistical information for content creators who make graphically intensive stuff(such as hair with the Max Prim count, all Flexi, and glow...nothing lags a video-card like that) and to top it off unlike that zf redzone I mentioned in a previous post, It don't violate anyone's privacy, Sounds to me like this anonymous statistic collection will make a great alternative to a totally idiotic unthoughtful scripting function used to gather information on another users viewer capabilities, I mean such a scripting function, paired with the media system, to gather information, on a specific users viewer, can be used for vulnerability assessment purposes, this is definitely not a good thing. so if your a secondlife user reading this blog post, vote for that Jira article, and leave a comment, tell them you don't want a scripted function that can do this, and you would much rather see what Stickman Ingmann suggested than such a scripted function.
Just in case of editing by any party here is the Jira Article as it stands at time of posting this Blog Entry:
Having more information about what hardware and capabilities the average users of Second Life have would greatly aid in the designing and marketing of products.
Steam conducts a monthly hardware survey, asking random members of the community if they'd be willing to divulge hardware information to Valve. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey The survey is made public to aid not only game developers in planning and spotting trends, but to aid community awareness on what types of systems people are using.
Gathering and distributing similar anonymous information from the Second Life community would be not only aid Linden Lab in its development choices, but would aid the inworld developers and standard users. As an example, if glow is only enabled by 20% of the users, it may be beneficial for LL to figure out why, and would be beneficial for inworld developers not to rely entirely on it. It would also let the standard user realize that the glow they are emitting may not be visible by everyone.
Besides the information contained on the Steam survey, the follow information specific to Second Life would be useful:
* Feature Support
o Glow/Shader Support
o Transparent Avatar Support
o Media-on-a-prim Support
o Multiwearables Support
o Restricted Life Support
o Etc
* Second Life Resolution
* Second Life Fullscreen/windowed status
* FPS
* Texture Memory
* Viewer Brand/Version
* Viewer Diversity (if people use more than one client or are loyal to just one)
Information also available on the Steam survey that could be gathered includes:
* Operating System and version
* System RAM
* CPU Count and Speed
* Video Card Identifier
* Video RAM
* Display Resolution
* Multimonitor status
* Microphone (not detected, asked)
* Language
* Free/Total HD space (not immediately useful, may be useful if the cache is improved)
* Network Speed
Edit:
you may wish to tell Oz Linden it's a bad idea to implement a scripting function to gather viewer information as it can be used for vulnerability assessments when paired with gathering information via media functions, you can find his office hours here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Oz_Linden and please if you do say something to Oz please link him to the above mentioned Jira article here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-4405 tell him its a much better solution without all the nasty drawbacks of having such a scripting function.
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