Suzi_Avonside @Suzi_Avonside

Caerdydd, Cymru Offline

Wedi bod gwmpas am sbel... Ers 2010 yn achos OSG


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Great to see a detailed discussion of technical issues here, (makes a change from drama!) though I have to say that at present much of what is being discussed is a bit over my head. I want to get into creating in mesh, having been a prim builder for a long time (I still build with prims, but increasingly appreciate where mesh is superior) but most tutorials are really truly bad (boy some people can waffle!) confusing and offer no real support. Inworld classses ar an option, of course, but not always suitable due to timezone differences. At one time Aine Caoimhe's excellent 'Baby Steps' tutorials used to be available, but are now behind a restricted access on her Blogger page. I've not seen any other Opensim/SL specific tutorials anywhere, and what I particularly liked about Aine's tutorials is that they were written in an accessible way and were straightforward to follow, and started with the fundamentals, such as setting up the Blender interface so that it was better suited to Opensim creation. I remember discussing this with Aine, and discovering that we both were a bit 'old school' when it comes to instruction, and much preferred a long-hand written approach to (often very poorly made) video tutorials.

Would there be any chance of there being some basic, introductory tutorials here on OSW so that more of us could get into legitimate content creation, whether that's from scratch or adapting the huge amount of content that is liberally licenced.
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I agree the vast resources makes learning from step 1 a challenge. I know for me I have a very hard time with written instruction and following the steps, I get lost in "wording" sometimes. I started out using the YouTube videos, I would find one on what I would be currently working on such as a Ruffle, or a cupcake liner making those little zig zag folds. I would play the video just a few secs, stop it and try to do what was just shown. I continued this till I understood the steps of how. I must have had Blender on my Desktop for over two years before that. What also makes it a challenge is that you have to learn all the aspects, the modeling, texturing, rigging, and animating. What you learn is that Blender has lots of modifiers when enabled create the magic, even decimate cleaning up the model. Then you have multiple addons that work alongside blender to give more features. I love addons and use many different ones (that you also have to learn.) Make sure you have plenty of time too because it takes years and then you still have more learning to do. There has been basic blender classes but many don't focus on what each person needs to learn. I would love to help guide you any way that I can, it would benefit you the best is if we work on where you are at currently - a step at a time. I could give you tips as you progress. There are good videos you just have to search them out, and make sure you play them a few secs then stop and do what was just shown helps.
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Thanks for your kind offer Marianna, and I will probably get in touch with you about learning the basics. However, video tutorials leave me cold, I just cannot get on with them as I am very much a text focused person, either that or see and do, and I just can't get that from a video, usually made by a well meaning person who doesn't have the first clue who their audience is, but that goes for a lot of the written tutorials too. Of course, there are examples of near excellence, but they are few and far between.

However, for me it'd be great to be able to set up the Blender interface to reflect its usage for Opensim creation, in the way that Aine Caoimhe showed how to do as she says it makes things far less complicated.

For my part, I would, once I have become proficient, write step by step tutorials for all I have learned. I have written tutorials for setting up things in Linux, including running an instance of Opensim, as well as setting up the driver and other software needed to use my pen display on Linux that isn't officially supposed to work on Linux
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Yes, I have written a few howto articles about what interested me, in hopes that it would interest others. All the basic tutorials have already been written and are available at Blender. Learn the basics first at Blender, the GUI, Addons, Modifiers, get familiar with the dashboard and where to find things is important. As you learn then yes please do write an article for the rest of us, we are all still learning too. I use RhinoGold which is now MatrixGold, most of my Blender work is converting, rigging, I have several garment addons with neat libraries of assets, Blenderkit is another great library of assets. some texture work I am still learning to do that too. If we all share what we learn it will benefit all of us. I will write more articles in the future too.
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There are RP grids, but I suspect that most of them are private affairs that might not even be HG enabled. Second Life is horrendously expensive and there are some RP games that just don't work that well on a sim or two at the extortionate rates that Linden Labs charge. Anything in Second Life pales almost into insignificance when you can have a 2560x2560 var for your pirate or naval warfare RP running for at least full year for the cost of a month's tier for an SL sim if someone home hosts the server. I came across a few such communities when I first arrived in Opensim more than a decade ago, RP communities that had latched on to the fact that with a modicum of technical ability they could have so much more than they had in Second Life for a fraction of the cost.
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Anyone who threatens to call the Metropolitan Police or the UK government is bound to have several screws loose, (mind you, that still makes them substantially saner than anyone actually in the current UK government!). Anyone considering contacting the Metropolitan Police would be better off phoning the Keystone Cops, and would probably get a better response. Probably the best thing to do with such people is to just ignore them or block them if it's disturbing you in any way. Those engaging with such people are as bad, so perhaps they also need to take a step back and consider the rest of us. Personally it all seems like a bit of a storm in a teacup, but I'm not particularly triggered by these things, and anyway regard The Box as a bit of a cess pit at the best of times. If there is one thing that we should all do is learn to respect people. We may not agree, indeed, there is no need to agree, but we should be mature enough to be able to discuss anything, agree or disagree without drama, abuse or insulting behaviour.
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I think that anything related to the truth on this region is a mere coincidence, as there was certainly no intent to present the truth or even a truth.
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Anyone but an idiot would have seem the influence of Qanon all over the place with the ludicrous conspiracy theories being peddled. Engage your brain, do a little reading around on the internet (not the conspiracy sites themselves, unless you're a real masochist). You're of course free to believe what you want, but if you read the actual UN document referred to on the region where they claim that the UN and WHO are promoting paedophillia you'll soon see how it's all lies.
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We can agree to disagree without calling those who thinks differently than you an "idiot". Thanks for sharing your opinion.
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I speak as I find and to suggest that anyone who has swallowed the Qanon crap as thinking differently is stretching things somewhat. If those people actually thought instead of regurgitating utter nonsense then quite clearly all the dangerous Qanon conspiracy theories wouldn't have got anywhere. However, Qanon and various conspiracy theories seem to have gone down well with redneck MAGA Trump supporters and the far-right.
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Yeah, anyone believing the crap peddled on this region deserves all they get. I always thought that it was a somewhat tragic, yet poetic justice when I heard reports of so many Covid deniers succumbing, clearly an example of Darwinism in action, or maybe perhaps idiocy would be a little more apt a word.

I was particularly incensed by the claim that the UN and WHO are promoting paedophilia - there is literally no evidence to support this ludicrous and disgusting claim. I know, because I have read all the UN literature, and indeed, the document concerned isn't actually a document published by the UN anyway) and as it happens is only a guideline document anyway. In all cases that I have seen this ludicrous claim has been used to justify opposition to teaching children and young people information that could literally save their lives, or, at the very least, prevent them from becoming pregnant, acquiring STDs or being sexually abused. That any even moderately intelligent person could for a moment believe that whole education systems could teach children that it's okay to be abused is quite simply monstrous. There is a group in Wales where I live called Public Child Protection Wales who are peddling this crap, and they have lost at least one court case when they tried to prevent the compulsory teaching of sex education in schools in Wales. There is no parental opt out option, and all children are to be educated in an age appropriate manner. This education does not include anything that is detrimental in the way that PCPW and other of their ilk, this side, or the other side of the pond.

Perhaps the religous right wack jobs who are promoting this shit are worried that the world's education systems will educate children to recognise when they are being abused, whether that is sexually or psychologically.

And as far as there being some mysterious world order based on he WEF, conspirators should give their heads a wobble and actually look at the state of the world: they'd soon see that the world is nowhere near under the control of one mysterious body, and there are plenty of places where there is a large degree of friction and many, many others where countries live in mutual respect, doing their own thing, nd indeed, many of them broke away from bigger political entities in order to do just that. If anything, the notion of a world order controlled by anyone or any shady group rapidly seems totally bananas.

Paradoxically, it's people such as Trump who are those who would seek to dominate the world order, which given the propensity of these wack jobs who support him to believe in conspiracy theories, is quite ironic.

I think that until proved otherwise, this socialist, agnostic lesbian woman will remain on the side of the sane and treat all those who believe in the crap peddled on this region with the contempt it deserves. I have a brain, and quite simply my intelligence was insulted.
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"Yeah, anyone believing the crap peddled on this region deserves all they get" - what's the supposed to mean exactly? Don't both with a reply. It's obvious what side of the line in the sand you're standing on. Go bully someone else. Those of us who don't believe in Fauci and friends are not strangers into being bullied into silence. Go try to sensor and bully someone else who disagrees with you. AND YES many of US SUPPORT TRUMP! The world was much better with him at the helm ... NO WARS! A fact nobody can argue or deny. It was worth all the "hurt feelings".
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It's clear where I stand simply because i made it very clear. Did I mention censorship? As a matter of fact I believe that people should be able to speak their minds, and then be held accountable for what they say. As for bullying, surely your lot on the extreme right have the upper hand on that, denying women abortions and supporting that fascist demagogue Trump. It's particularly galling when I see women supporting a misogynist the calibre of Trump. Hopefully justice will prevail and the orange bastard will be banged up for a long time.

Let me make it crystal clear. I will always draw attention to things that i disagree with, things that seek to enslave people, such as the kind of crap on your region. I will expose those who distort and manipulate religion to peddle their warped ideologies, prey on the feeble-minded and gullible.
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But what an awful choice of beer though. I'm a strict Budweiser drinker, and I mean this stuff https://budweiserbudvar.com/uk/# and not the vastly inferior concoction of a similar name drunk by people not in the know!
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I'm interested, as I am always on the look for interesting visuals and use normal and specular maps quite frequently in my builds. I'm not a gamer, so I'm largely unaware of what is happening in that field apart from the odd video I see of game action. I like the fact that OS allows many graphical options and the platform is certainly capable of supporting spectacular visuals, as the work of Bryn Oh and Cherry Manga and others demonstrates.
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Thank you for your explanation. I did read how Vulkan would allow much more for less in terms of hardware resources compared to OpenGL which has been seen as lacking for quite some time now. But your easy-to-understand explanation of what PBR is and does is most welcome.
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Thank you for your comment Jupiter. I can't claim to understand PBR but I did wonder how the ancient and by now creaking OpenGL would cope with this development. It's quite paradoxical that the last people to spend any money on OpenGL was Linden Labs, some 20 years ago, and then they subsequently fired all those developers who have now moved on to other things, taking their knowledge with them. OpenGL is long overdue for updating, and LL should really invest in developing OpenGL to be fit for the next 20 years, except they no longer have the expertise, or indeed anyone who knows enough about how the current OpenGL works.

I'd be very surprised to discover anyone still using a 32 bit machine, even the vast majority of Linux users have made the change to 64 bit, and though there are still some distros available for 32 it, they are becoming fewer every day. But I'm sure that there are plenty who access virtual world environments on the laptop they bought from the middle aisle in Lidl as a special purchase one shopping day.

I've always found baked on shadows a bit of a fraud, though I can see their utility in a world without computer generated shadows, but I've switched on shadows as long as I've been in virtual worlds. I also use both normal and specular maps on my builds, not always successfully, but I do like their effect. I'm also not averse to building with prims. I like mesh, but I'm not always convinced of its superiority over prim builds in all use case scenarios - sometimes it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I still don't understand what all the fuss is about with EvoX: it seems to me to have something of the element of the Emperor's New Clothes, or proprietary lock-in as per some computer software. In either case, a little redundant in Opensim. BoM to me is just a nice way to be able to use all that bloody awful system clothing from circa 2007, though it is great for when changing skins, as it makes it far less of a hassle than was the case with pre BoM avatars. What really strikes me as a little weird are those traditionalists who still wander the metaverse with a system avatar, I can't blame them for not going for the black market imports, but surely the existence of Ruth & Roth 2.0 offer a way to look better in a way that is actually optimised to the limitations of OpenGL than the usual mesh avatar offerings.

PBR with just be overkill, but I have no doubt you're right, it will soon be a must have, even in Opensim.
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Many OpenSim users actually still don't know what BoM even is. But "BoM" was slapped on all those new SL bodies and SL heads that showed up in the Hypergrid in the early 2020s, so it was simply considered a code for "this is the new hotness now, and everything that doesn't have it on itself is old and busted".

Hardly anyone actually fleshes BoM out. The new old way of putting on skins and make-up and tattoos is either seen as a nuisance but one that you have to put up with, or people got themselves an Athena 6 and a Catwa BoM head and use skin appliers and tattoo appliers on them.

Only very very few BoM avatars actually wear layer clothes. That's mostly because the concept of layer clothes has been declared obsolete in 2015, and absolutely everything, no matter how skin-tight, absolutely has had to be mesh ever since, no exception. Since Athena 6, there has hardly been any layer clothing imported from SL. One "Free Bakes on Mesh" box with layer lingerie and layer stockings. One third-party box with mesh lingerie plus layer stockings. That's all. And nobody ever wears either. One of the reasons why nobody had come up with the idea to steal layer tights from SL; the other reason is because maybe half a dozen avatars all over the Hypergrid would wear tights in the first place.

What layer clothes have been around before the arrival of Athena 6 is being snubbed even more. People only want the newest, the best, the hottest stuff. And those old layer clothes aren't just old technology, they're "seriously old crap" that nobody would want to be caught wearing.

The concept of alpha masks in combination with BoM is completely alien here. First of all, "everybody knows" that alpha masks don't work on mesh bodies. That's what they've been learning since 2015.

Then, even those who may suspect that BoM might include alpha mask support for mesh bodies "learn" that this is allegedly not the case. And that's only because they try it with Athena 6 or Adonis 4, and the alpha modes on these bodies are completely botched, so alpha masks actually do not work on them specifically. At the same time, alpha masks work on Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 out perfectly of the box, but nobody uses these bodies, so nobody knows.

Lastly, the general attitude here is that alpha cuts are a more advanced technology and therefore the successor of alpha masks, having fully superseded alpha masks and rendered alpha masks obsolete. Wanting to use alpha masks on a BoM mesh body from the 2020s is akin to wanting to wear Linda Kellie layer clothes on a BoM mesh body from 2020s. Never mind that Ruth2 v4 is actually bundled with Linda Kellie underwear. And never mind that mesh bodies in SL have quickly become available without tiny alpha cuts and with full alpha mask support instead because, after all, alpha cuts are nothing but an ugly and performance-hogging hack for alpha-ing because alpha masks didn't work on pre-BoM mesh bodies.

What EvoX is and means, I think many OpenSim users don't know that either. But it's being aggressively marketed, and it's on all the newest and hottest mesh heads and skins. So it has to be the new hotness that you absolutely have to have. If EvoX is juxtaposed with BoM by having EvoX and BoM heads next to each other on the same store wall, this also creates the impression that EvoX is the new hotness to BoM's old and busted because BoM has been around for longer, and EvoX "clearly isn't" BoM.

So you absolutely have to have EvoX nowadays. Outfitting a new avatar with something that isn't the newest, hottest shit is generally understood as cluelessness about what the newest, hottest shit is. Sometimes, even refusing to upgrade your avatar to the newest, hottest shit is.

The next big thing will be something like EvoX 2K. Same as EvoX, but with 2K textures.

Fortunately, classic avatar layers, skins included, only support diffuse maps, but no bump maps, no specular maps and definitely no PBR maps. So unless bump maps, specular maps and PBR maps are firmly applied to the body or the head, and BoM can't mess with them, BoM or EvoX can't be combined with PBR. At least it won't be possible to market PBR skins because PBR skins aren't possible.
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Hardware isn't the only reason why people run the 32bit viewer. I still run a 32 SL viewer for the simple reason that I want to keep my OS and SL installations completely separate, and there only way I can reasonably achieve that is to run 32 bit for SL, and 64 bit for OS. That won't be a problem after my next hardware upgrade and I ditch windows altogether.

As for EvoX ... I fail to see the appeal. Perhaps it's just my old eyes, but the EvoX textures don't look good enough to me to warrant departing from the 'standard' skin. And, of course, I find it incredibly amusing that the high tech EvoX heads seem to use exactly the same skin layout that heads use in DAZ3D.

I use a system avatar quite frequently when I'm HGing all over the place. It rezzes faster, no matter what grid I land on, and being old school I attract less attention :)
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Hmmm... OpenGL and further upgrades, I thought Vulkan was to be the way forward and is a continuation of OpenGL and perhaps I am incorrect.
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The Linden Lab devs have been talking about moving to Vulkan in the last few years. That should have happened well before even tackling PBR and 2k textures! Many GPUs as far back as the 900 series from Nvidia and their AMD equivalents are compatible with Vulkan. If that move happened first, then PBR and 2k textures becoming part of the SL engine would make perfect sense, and could be scaled enough to work with plenty of PC's. Of course, upgrades would be a likely necessity. I'm on a 1050 GPU/8th Gen i7 H CPU on a laptop and SL is kinda variable, depending on which sim I'm on. OS on the other hand is mostly a smoother experience for me. I do have 32 GB of DDR4 RAM so most of the time I don't experience too much texture thrashing... keeping shadows off is the usual thing to do to speed up things, along with 128m or less of draw distance.
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Thank you for your kind comment.
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Hardware costs are an increasingly important consideration. I find that my setup, with an Intel Core i3-3220 CPU 3.30Ghz x 4 with 16 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR struggles on Second Life these days, but performs well on Opensim. I know it's hardly cutting edge hardware, but it's now approaching the situation where relatively high end hardware is required to enjoy all the bells and whistles, which is especially problematic when many users are using hardware that's designed to web surf and watch movies. I'm fairly convinced that the reason behind the failure of Sansar and High Fidelity was partially related to the requirement for relatively high end hardware.
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Me too, my avatar is 5' 7" tall. As a matter of fact, the average height for a woman in the developed world is around 5' 4" and not the apparently obligatory 7' of Opensim!
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Looks like it could be a nice avatar, however, there is no head in the package and the included shape means that using almost any other head means that the eyes are huge and bulging. Not a good look! Shape is no modify, too, so can't be changed without using god mode.
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Thank you Suzi ..... the Head is Lelutka . GAIA
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Thanks, I'll try and find it on my next shopping trip :)
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There was a similar sense of concern when Meta 7 closed in 2011. Many Opensim grids reviewed and made it clear in their ToS that child sexual ageplay was unacceptable and it partially the reason why so many grids ban child avatars. Easier to just avoid the risk.
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I was in OS when Meta closed. Many users came to OSG and repeated the same behavior that lead to Meta 7 bring closed. This lead to the child AV panic still going on to this day.
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I made the mistake of visiting Meta7 once, I never went again. The given reason for Meta7 being closed always seemed a bit suspect to me, another company using a logo similar to Meta7 claiming copyright issues when Meta7 predated both the other company and their use of a similar logo? Seemed a bit strange to me, but paedo stuff, well there you go, that's why, eh?
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Among other issues, they had RL CP openly on display. From https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2011/04/meta7-to-shut-do...

"The grid was also accused of condoning pedophilia and child pornography by Sojourner...and in a shocking YouTube video (which has since been marked private)."

"Last year [2010], grid administrator Daniel Meta posted in the grid’s online forum (registration required), admitting that “Meta7 is mostly known as sexual and especially sexual ageplay grid.”

D. Meta said that it was not a "smart idea to run around in public places with group tags like ‘Daddy’s little plaything,’". As a result, "the grid rolled out a new Terms of Service...forbidding explicit group names and descriptions".

This is something grids that allow child AV should police, for both their residents and visitors.
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Yeah, I remember reading that back in 2011.
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or are under 7' (2,13m) tall. I've had some trouble in a few places because my avatar is only 5' 6" (1,52m) despite her rather prominent chest!
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In that case I'd want to know who they were and why they were upskirting?
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Get them all signed up to vote Dee, democracy depends on it...
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Linda Kellie's creations certainly vary a lot, but some of it remains very good. Not matter what, back in the days when Opensim was new Linda Kellie was about the only creator producing in volume. It should also be remembered that Linda gave it all for free and completely waived any proprietorial rights allowing anyone to do anything with stuff she made.

Like us all Linda certainly had her moments as a person, and there was certainly some 'drama' around her (again, we ar all subject to or of drama from time to time) and those calling her the worst of names are those talentless individuals who can only import pirated stuff wheras Linda created all her own content.

I didn't always agree with Linda's stance on things, but she stuck to her principles and argued her case, despite the huge emotional toll that took as she was often being trolled in a none too nice way. No one deserves that and there are people who remain blocked by me because of hateful, misogynistic statements about her.
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I have a dedicated Google Drive I use for OAR storage, and also back up to DVD as well as having an HDD clone of my working disk. Using a USB stick is also an option, but remember to plug the USB stick into your PC/laptop every few months to keep data rot at bay.
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