Month: April 2019

UPDATED! Reggie Watts to Perform in Sansar April 25th

Reggie Watts, the well-known vocal artist, beatboxer, musician and comedian, will be performing at a show in Sansar tomorrow, April 25th, 2019, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time/Sansar time. And it’s free!

Reggie, who has already performed numerous times in AltspaceVR, will be performing a brand new live show:

Join comedian, musician, and voiceover artist REGGIE WATTS (The Late Late Show with James Corden, Conan, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and so much more) as he pushes the limits of sound, space, and time with DISINFORMATION STRATEGIES: a brand new live show and virtual concert that anyone, anywhere in the world can attend. Your chance to not only get a front row seat to a DJ set from Reggie, but to experience live music in a bold, breathtaking, immersive new way – all without ever leaving your home! Sixty minutes. Infinite possibilities. 

You will need to install the Sansar client software on your computer and create an account to see this show. Here’s a guide on how to get started. On the day of the event, open up Sansar and navigate to the Atlas (look for the Go button on the left-hand-side menu). Once there, click on the DISINFORMATIONAL STRATEGIES experience to join. The doors will open up to 90 minutes ahead of the show.

See you there!

UPDATE April 25th: Here’s a brief promotional trailer for the upcoming event:

The Mesh Project Releases New Male and Female Mesh Bodies for Second Life Avatars: Why I Won’t Be Buying One

UPDATE July 25th, 2019: This blogpost has been flagged for violations of Google AdSense Program policies, which has led to it being extensively censored.

The Mesh Project (TMP for short) was among the first companies to offer mesh male and female bodies in Second Life, releasing their first products back in 2013. However, they were expensive, in part because they essentially had the mesh body market to themselves and could get away with charging high prices.

Also, their shopping experience was truly horrible, requiring the extensive use of HUDs both to purchase and style items (read this blogpost for an example). You also had to buy credits in blocks to make any purchases, instead of paying for things directly. And that meant you often had unspent credits left over, which was irritating. Although they were among the first to offer mesh avatar bodies, over time most people moved to other vendors, such as Maitreya, Belleza, Slink, and Signature.

Many people were expecting The Mesh Project to eventually fold. Hence my surprise when they announced new mesh bodies for male and female avatars recently. I decided to visit their sim and take a look.

One thing that I did like about the TMP male body was that it was not overly-muscled, as you see on so many other male mesh bodies. Here is the old, freebie version of the male TMP body, paired with an Akeruka mesh head (this picture is tastefully blurred to keep my blog PG 😉 ):

I took this avatar to the new version of The Shops, just to see what the new Legacy body looks like. Here’s what the demo version looks like, with the included shape, from the front and the back:

Again, this is a very attractive, not overly-muscular male mesh body. The detail on the hands and feet is particularly well-done. The body comes with Bento hands, and you get a HUD with many different skin tones and a large number of alpha selections to make just about anything fit. Which is good, because none of the older TMP clothes are compatible with these new bodies at all.

HOWEVER.

I will not be buying either the new Legacy TMP mesh bodies or the refreshed original (so-called “Classic”) version. Why? Because they are L$5,000 (about US$20.00) each. Yes, that’s right. They are almost twice as expensive as most of the other, much more popular male and female mesh bodies on the market (Maitreya, Belleza, Slink, and Signature). If they are trying to break into the market again, they aren’t going to succeed a this price point.

While The Mesh Project may finally have gotten rid of their horrible shopping system (hallelujah!), their high prices make absolutely no sense when there are cheaper alternatives out there which have much, much more designer support. While charging high prices may have worked back when TMP were the only game in town, that strategy is not going to work in today’s competitive mesh body marketplace. Sorry, TMP. No sale.

New Podcast Interview with Philip Rosedale

Philip Rosedale

The Stayin’ Alive in Technology podcast’s most recent episode is a detailed, wide-ranging, hour-long interview with the virtual world visionary and Second Life and High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale. The topics which Philip and his interviewer, former Linden Lab staffer Melinda Byerley, cover range from the very earliest days of Linden Lab to his thoughts about the so-called “3D web”. Have a listen:

How to Do Cam Shopping in Second Life: Yes, You Can Cam Shop from the Next Sim at Crowded SL Sales Events!

You might not be aware that the Blueberry store is celebrating its 7th anniversary in Second Life. The Blueberry Store VIP group is free to join for a limited time, and you can pick some lovely group gifts for free in the lobby of the store. But wait, there’s more!

In the current group notices of the Blueberry Store VIP group, there is a HUD which you can wear and click to get L$250 free credit for the Blueberry store applied to your avatar’s account. The credit is good for 28 days only, but you might want to use it before the 50% Off Sale ends at midnight SL time on April 24th, as your store credits will go twice as far!

However, there’s a big problem. Unless you are a Premium member, you are simply not going to get into that absolutely jam-packed sim that houses the Blueberry store. It’s on a sim which can only accommodate 30 avatars at a time, and everybody and their dog is trying to get in right now and scoop up the bargains. Even the Teleport Hammer ain’t gonna help you here. But if you want to hit that 50% off sale before it ends, what can you do? (Short of upgrading to a Premium SL membership, which gives you priority access to packed sims. And believe me, if you are an avid shopper, it’s worth the upgrade just for that perk alone.)

And this is where cam shopping comes in. What is cam shopping? It’s long-distance shopping, using your SL camera to find and buy an item you want from across the boundary between two sims (here is a summary of the camera controls in Firestorm and the camera keyboard shortcuts). Here’s a diagram which explains how cam shopping works:

Yes, that’s right, you don’t even need to be in the same sim in order to do your shopping at crowded events! Now, before you can cam shop, there’s a couple of settings you do need to check and adjust on your Firestorm viewer (again, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what the equivalent settings are for the default SL viewer). In Firestorm, press Ctrl-Alt-D to turn on the Advanced menu along the top of your viewer. Then, in the drop-down menu under Advanced, make sure that Limit Select Distance has no check mark next to it, and Disable Camera Constraints does have a check mark next to it:

If you don’t don’t have those two settings correct, you will not be able to cam shop!

So, in the case of the Blueberry sale on the Lenox and Blueberry sim, you can probably get more easily into the Palau sim next door, and do your cam shopping from there!

Don’t thank me, it’s all a public service, etc. etc.