.::SOLVED::.
Just to let you know

I have problems to log on to Second Life. I get following error message:

"We're having trouble connecting."

Does not matter what viewer I use and can not use my 2 alt accounts either.

SOLUTION

The problem was my D-Link routers. I have one DIR-615 and one DIR-635. D-Link have a built in flaw which means the date/time can't be set further than to 2012 December 31 11:59:59 PM. As long as no one touch the router it will work fine but I hade to reset my routers so the date settings got fucked up. Correct date settings on client computer and router is demanded by Linden Lab's to log on to Second Life.

This effects all D-Link network routers except:
DIR-655 Rev B1, DIR-857, DIR-865L, DIR-657, DIR-645, DGL-4500

This is a statement from D-Link dated before January 7th:

"We are currently working on the issue, for now, as a work around, we are suggesting for those customers that can, to set up NTP and move to that method of updating the time and date. Several F/W updates are coming and we should be able to move forward fixing this issue." READ MORE HERE

D-Link have faild to distribute updated firmware with working date/time settings. There is a work-around how ever. Most routers have NTP server time update. Do not use the D-Link ones default selectable, use time1.google.com. This will solve the problem. The "Copy Your Computer's Time Settings" does not work on most D-Link routers (which would be a good solution thoug most on line games with client software have issues with routers set to use NTP-servers)

I have put up some start articles about some 3D modeling tools that can be used for creating advanced objects in Second Life. These are not added in the ordinary blog because I want them to be dynamic and a part of what I hope will be a guide for Second Life residents interested in starting to create.

Be patient, I'm in no hurry my self and I do bits and pieces here and there. If you have a specific question about creating things in Second life (scripts are not my strongest side though) you can send me an email. Click HERE!

Latest non listed articles.

Blender ►
SculptyPaint ►
Wings 3D ►
Art Of Illusion ►
Autodesk Maya ►

I will add sub articles on all the software listed and also add plug-in's and eventually even tutorials how to get started. All in due time.
The main article "Sculpty & Mesh Creation" is reachable from the right side "CONTENT" menu.

Main Article ►

5th Annual SL Buddy Walk & EXPO March 17-31

The Buddy Walk® is a one-mile walk in which anyone can participate without special training. It is a wonderful, heart-warming event that celebrates the many abilities and accomplishments of people with Down syndrome. Whether you have Down Syndrome, know someone who does, or just want to show your support, come and join a Buddy Walk®.

New for this years SL Buddy Walk is the expo. In the real world the Buddy Walk is a one-mile walk raising awareness and collecting pledges to benefit Down Syndrome. In Second Life it will be a bit different, there will be a path to walk, but the main festivities will be the all day entertainment on the 21st and then a 2-week charity fair.

The first SL Buddy Walk took place 2008 and was an all music event with 4 live artists and 4 DJ's. At the first even they raised more than 55.000 L$. All donations will go directly to NDSS (the American National Down Syndrome Society).

Live Performance Program 21th of March

2pm SLT - Mankind Tracer
3pm SLT - CQ – Colorful Quiet
4pm SLT - Maximillion Kleene
5pm SLT - The Follow
6pm SLT - Porter Paquot
9pm SLT - Noma Falta
10pm SLT - Edward Kyomoon

Listed with reservations for changes.

SLURL ►

Website ►
Blog ►
FaceBook ►

There are several donation kiosk's around the grid.
If you can not find one, pleas visit the venue.

This entry has moved. I have created a new block to the right side named "CONTENT". This block will contain static multi page articles.

The sculpty and mesh main page under construction is found HERE ►

Centre of Business Developement conducted in January a survey focusing on the general opinions on Second Life seen from their perspective as merchants.

215 merchants participated and now CBD has compiled the results available to share in their blog. The results will probably not be a surprise to most residents, merchant or not. Rather, it confirms most of what you yourself feel is good and bad in Second Life.

One thing worth mentioning does not surprise me but maybe it should. Mesh is both considered to be the worst and best thing that happened to Second Life creators over the past two years, according to the respondents.
I have a feeling that Linden Lab did not have the big picture really clear about mesh when they implemented it in Second Life. The great confusion about what mesh really is, how it can be used, how Linden Lab allows it to be used and the whole thing about Land Impact and upload costs calculation (no temp upload allowed) can in my opinion be fully credited Linden Lab's own obvious confusion. Many creators and residents have had negative feelings based on false assumptions as well as many over-enthusiastic mesh lovers have in their eagerness aggravated the situation and increased the pressure on the Second Life community in ways that hade an negative impact on business for many merchants.

Read the full summary HERE

Slight new design of the base cuts down prim count from 8 to 7 on the sculpted version. Take off the "foot" if it is not needed and it is only 6 prims. Mesh version has a land impact (Li) of 8 prims.

Features:

• Texture slide show
• Give inventory on click

To remove/add textures in the sign do like this:

1. Rightclick the sign and select "Edit".
2. Select tab "Content" in the object edit tool.
3. Delete the textures in content or add by draging them from your inventory.

If you want the textures to show in a specific order you might need to change the names of the textures. The slide show works in alphanumeric order.

Give Items:

The sign is designed to give items if if any item is placed in the signs content. It can how ever not give scripts or textures. If you want to give scripts or textures you can put them on a notecard notecards.
Items to give away on clicking the sign are added/deleted in the same way as textures for the slide show. How many textures and items you want to show/give is restricted by content memory/maximum restriction.

TIP!
Do not put to many items to give in the sign. Each given item is given separatly and the receiver gets one popup for each item. If you have many items, put them in a box so the receiver does not get "spamed".

Price: 125 L$

Buy this on SLM

sHouse BETA Many Moon Beach House

This little 80 prim sculpted beach house is my new project. I have been working on the design for a while and I am not done. I have texture ideas plus I am working on features and some design solutions along with building bug fixes.

The reason why I released a beta of this build is because some friends and eventually other people wanted to get hold of it "pronto". A distribution solution was to release it as beta.

The first non beta will be the v1.0. The release will contain all texture options. It will also have added features as curtains, blindes and tintable windows etc. I think this will be a build that I will continiu to develop after the v1.0 more than many of my other items. I have some ideas and because I do not like to overscript or use to many high resolution textures in my buildings I have some thinking/testing to do before I have finalized this creation.







I will come back with more information of future beta updates and when I release the full version.
The beta I charge 1.250 L$ for. I was going to let it go for 500 without updater but I changed my mind when the ones that asked for a quick beta release said they wanted updates so... 1.250 L$ for the beta and 1.750 L$ for full version.

The beta is 80 prims but the v1.0 will most likley end up in close to 100 prims.

Visit my rez station in-world SLURL

Check it out on SLM

Most v3 based Second life viewers does not show alpha textures (textures with transparency feature) correctly. For example values of transparency exept 0% or 100% cant show and becomes "solid".
Most viewers have a feature called Autiomatic Alpha Masks (non-deferred) as default. See image below.

To un-check this feature you do like this:

1. Enable "Advanced" menu by holding Ctrl + Alt and click letter D

2. Under "Advanced", check "Show Develop Menu".

3. Go to "Develop" > "Rendering" and uncheck "Automatig Alpha Masks (non-deferred).

Cerise Sorbet gave me an alternative solution in Second Life Forum.

1. Right click and select "Edit" the object with the texture.

2. Check "Select face".

3. Click the surface you want to "fix".

4. Go to the "Texture" tab in the edit tool.

5. Set "Transparency %" to 1.

Thank you Cerise!


Cerise's solution is simple and rather genius. It prevents the Automatic Alpha Mask process to start. It is not a optimal solution but it works.

There is so many things in to this subject that I desided to not put the whole G-buffer and alpha layer algoritm thing in here. I might come back to the issue later.

GRAND OPENING?

The Empty Store Story

I put my in-world store to rest some months ago because I grew tired of LL's 2012 "brake what little is working" hysteria. Sim issues, scripts stoped working, temporary breakdowns and permanent changes that was not announced etc.

Any-ho... I put the whole place in to a rezzer thinking "when I got tired of the floosies on the nude beach I can always play shop keep again". Well every thing would be peachy fine but you guys know Murphy? Well this time it was God'ish intervention by Mr Casper.

I did rez my store and... WO-HO! My vendors disappeared and Caspervend Holovend's sent me messages like this one...

[05:18] iStyle Grand A88 Vendor v1.51: Sorry, this vendor is too old to use.

FUCK!

MicroSoft, Apple and Caspervend...
I so fucking hate this Godly intervention that is so fucking unnecessary. Caspervend did forcefully de-rez my vendors placed in my store in specific positions around my huge TP-circle perfectly aligned with my signs and rez platforms/vendor. This is not enough. To get several of my builds to work when rezzed I hade to make special rez-boxes for the vendors so customers could try things like my grand pianos as they should work if they bought them. Now I hade to try to find these bloody special made rez-boxes I made and I suddenly realized... YAY! I saved a copy of my vendor in my inventory with the rez-box in to be safe and deleted the fucking original "unnecessary" rez-boxes. Sigh! Thats mee keeping the probably most tidy inventory in SL.

So I went to Caspervend sim and WOW there was Mr Casper him self. I sent him an IM asking how I could rez the Holovend thingies without them disappearing. I wanted the positions and the rez-boxes specially made for my rezzers to be able to quickly set up the updated vendors.
Well according to Mr Smarty-Casper-Pant there is no problem to fix. FUCK!!! Not for him no, but for me! To me his fancy de-rez trick cost me hours of totally unnecessary work. "There is nothing to fix" MY ASS!

I dont care if Mr Casper told me a year ago that my vendors will stop working... I don't care shit about that. What pisses me off is that he make a thing that de-rezzes with MY items I made inside to. 95% of the cases it may not make any differance but hey, news flash. If things possibly can go wrong, guess what... THEY DO!

Mr Casper would easily be able to just disable the outdated rezzers and make them send message every time when clicking them saying "Dude, get an update! This is smoked" but NOT de-rez it!

So this is the story about my re-opening of my store... I have a sniper house rezzer up for house rezzing and for a while I have a updated Holovend for rezzing some of my go-go cages but I will look for a simpler rezzer or build my own. It is not that hard if not in need of fancy internet features.

So one question pop's up in my head... Did I do the right thing taking down my store?

YAY! great happiness in SL-land.

Contagious Republic, the creator of SculptCrafter, has sent out a update. I just loaded it in to my Prim Dispenser and it seams to work perfect.

I was eager to update my beloved Prim Dispenser HUD. I never ever do SL without my SculptCrafter HUD. One never know when a quick build need to be done as sculpty or mesh. This is how I updated my HUD.

• I changed the name of the disc from "Full SculptCrafter v6.313" to "Full SculptCrafter" and I made it all white, 50% transparent and x1.000 y1.000 z1.000 in size but this is according to my taste.

• I rezzed my HUD on ground close to my feets (it is bit tiny) and I changed the name of it to include the version of the disc I put in it so the name would look like "iStyle Sculpt PrimDispenser HUD v3.0/6.313".

• I take the disc in to inventory and then I drag it from there in to the content of my HUD.

DONE!

Great YAY-ness today. I think I will put the flag out and celebrate!

LINKS
• Buy SculptCrafter on Second Life Marketplace
• Official sculptCrafter Web Site
• SLURL to Easy3DBuild Sandbox and get free SculptCraft version

Get iStyle Prim Dispenser For Free Here.
Download PDF-File Here.