New World Notes

Watch: How to Convert Second Life Content for Use & Sale in Sinespace

Longtime SL content creator Kub created this handy video tutorial for converting your Second Life creations (a bed from his SL store, in this case) into Sinespace -- both in the world itself and the in-game shop. (His own Sinespace shop page is here.)

 

Kub's overall advice for other Second Life creators interested in experimenting with Sinespace:

 

"Try. I think that Second Life is a very specific kind of workflow that we have all gotten used to and it's made things feel more difficult than they are. I can't speak to clothing or rigging at all for bringing that into Sinespace, as I don't make those kinds of things, but for buildings and furniture and objects -- just a little bit of faith in yourself and you can learn Unity and start transferring over everything you've ever made with ease."

 

Kub is a veteran explorer of many virtual worlds, and sees potential in the Unity-based platform:

Cajsa's Techniques: How The Friendly Otter Creates Her Amazing, Painting-Like, SL-Based Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Hamlet was particularly curious about the process for The Friendly Otter’s “The Crows Watch” that I featured recently. I thought it was likely mostly achieved in Second Life and he thought it was likely more post-processing. Experimenting in WindLight myself, it was fairly easy to get a black and white silhouette, but to get the kind of etched detail was another story. But there was more to it after all. 

The Friendly Otter shared her process with me. Her pictures were shot in Firestorm. First, she used Xanthe’s Hazy Daze WindLight, commenting that it does a good job of clearing the background with bright white light. Then she began editing in PhotoShop. She guessed that took about an hour or two. These are the steps:

1. Film Grain filter - max Highlight Area and max Intensity. This softens the background a little more and shows some more detail of the foreground
2. Black & White adjustment
3. Tilt-Shift Blur - just a low blur of 5px; angled it so it kept the bird bodies clear but blurred the house and some of the legs
4. Texture Overlay - set to Color Burn
5. Photocopy Texture Overlay - set to Lighter Color

Here’s a couple more by Otter, with her technique notes:

Watch: How to Use the Black Dragon for taking Great SL Screenshots

Here's a fun and informative Black Dragon tutorial video from SL YouTube star (and occasional New World Notes videographer) Cassie Middles. Undaunted by an occasional barking dog down the hall, Cassie shows you how to use the third party viewer with a cult following among SL artists to take screenshots.

Black Dragon is significantly different from Firestorm, the most popular SL viewer, but Cassie tells me she likes both for different reasons:

Watch: How to Reduce Prim Count on Second Life Land (Kinda Sorta)

Here's a fun quick tutorials from SL YouTuber Luca on how to (kinda sorta) reduce the prim count on your SL land.

"Just make sure you don't link scripted and no-copy objects unless you know what you're doing," Luca explains. "The frames-per second doesn't get increased but the prim count of things that got linked does get reduced by 25-50%." 

In other words, you're not really removing prims, you're just tricking the system into thinking that you have. Right?

Watch: How to Use Black Dragon, the SL Viewer With Great Graphics Options But a Challenging User Interface

Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer, has a cult following among hardcore graphics fans, but many SLers complain that its user interface for everything besides graphics is, well, challenging.

"It’s worth noting that while I think Black Dragon is unbeatable for visuals in Second Life, it’s not as easy for just about anything else," as blogger Mericat Ireland notes. "Communicating, getting changed etc. is all a bit more difficult than with other viewers (although entirely possible)." That in mind, Mericat shot this tutorial/walkthrough above, and opened up her blog to questions from other Black Dragon users.

It should be noted that none of the SL viewers, including (especially?) the official Linden Lab-created viewer, are user friendly, which is a key reason why roughly 99.9% of new users quickly leave. So really, we're just talking about which set of complex commands you prefer to learn/tolerate.

As for whether it's worth learning how to use Black Dragon, here's a sample of what it looks like in action, in a machinima created by Black Dragon creator NiranV:

Watch: How to Create Great SL Images Even on Low Graphic Settings

Here's a super useful tutorial from Second Life YouTube star Cassie Middles, who shows you how to shoot and then post-process a great Second Life image even with SL settings turned down low. Check out her levels and the resulting pic below:

Watch: WindLight Tutorial for Firestorm, Featuring Favorites & Notes from Cyberpunk Guide Ms. Ayla Pants

Ayla Pants, a fun and chatty YouTuber who explores all things cyberpunk in Second Life and other game worlds (as here and most especially here), recently posted this tutorial for people just starting out with Firestorm's WindLight settings. Here's some further tips and preferences from her:

"[I]t might not occur to newbies that changing your WindLight settings changes them only for you. Back when I had a system body with all of its awkward, angular features, I loved 'Nam's Optimal Skin and Prim' WindLight because it was perfect for just that, smoothing out the rough, crinkly angles and shadows the cropped up especially around the face.  However, it's kind of a bummer to realize only you are seeing your best face, and you can't force everyone around you to see you in that same (literal) light.  Like I say in the video, I also love this particular WindLight setting because it evenly lights up the ad boards that weren't set to full-bright in poorly lit shopping areas."

 

"Also, many WindLight settings will look different if you adjust the time of day slider. Results vary, though, and some WindLights do this better better than others."

Here's some of her own favorite WindLight settings, which as you might guess, tend toward the Gibsonian:

Why Optimization Matters: Even One Bracelet Can Drastically Hurt Frame Rate

Via New World Notes' Discord newsfeed and commentary channel (join here!), "Nadeja" recently posted this fascinating illustration from Second Life for why graphics optimization matters:

"Complexity, textures, triangles comparison." (Click to embiggenate.) "The first one has a Complexity of 17,000 and a huge texture usage: it remains gray for longer, but once it's loaded it has a negligible impact on the frame-rate. The second one has a complexity of 4000, a lower but still quite high texture usage, however it has a large amount of triangles (178,000!)" 

By comparison, whole entire avatars in AAA console games tend to have a total triangle count well under 100,000.

"When I wore it," reports Nadeja, "my frame-rate dropped from 45-46 to 41 frames per second. And this was a tiny element in the scene, I can imagine that multiplied by 20 avatars."

Part of the problem seems to be many virtual world users equate more triangles with better quality, even though that's not the case:

SL Tutorial: Penny Patton's Quick Tips for Optimizing Second Life Builds to Have High Frame Rate AND Still Look Great

Ever since I posted about "Nar Shaddaa", this beautiful Star Wars-inspired bar created by Penny Patton, two questions from readers kept coming up:

• Does this scene really have such a great frame as claimed -- even for older computers?
• How can I optimize my own SL scenes as well as Penny Patton?

Answer to the first question: Yes, if you follow the usage guidelines. But don't take my word for it, check out this in-person tour by Amanda Magick, using an old Mac.

For the second question, here's Penny Patton with some starting tips:

"Unfortunately," she begins, "there's no simple way to break it down. Linden Lab makes it extremely difficult to build optimized environments. There's no real tools for it. You just need to know what to look for and what to avoid."

Here's how:

Visit a Place in Second Life That Looks Great & Has Little Lag, Even On An Old Computer -- If You Follow Some Important Steps First

Last Tuesday we talked about how Second Life, when properly optimized, can look and perform as well as a AAA game, even on older computers. This weekend, you can log in and experience this first-hand, in a small place called Nar Shaddaa - Red Light District.

It was created by Penny Patton, the graphics expert and SL's most passionate optimization advocate,

"The theme is a Star Wars planet of the same name," she explains. "Kind of a Star Wars version of Las Vegas meets Amsterdam. Part of a network of Star Wars RP sims in SL."

Penny just visited it with her near-10 year old desktop computer to take these pics, and as she designed it to be, performance was still excellent: "I was getting a solid 35-45 frames per second. When people talk about FPS in SL they tend to ignore things like stuttering, where SL freezes up for a second or two as you turn the camera. I got none of that even on my aging desktop."

Before visiting, however, you'll need to tweak some settings to get the full effect: