Archive for the ‘Public service announcements’ Category

After a big release like this one, I want to remind everyone that any bugs you find and can reliably reproduce, will be corrected but only if I am made aware of it 🙂

It is in the resources section if anyone wants it.

It’s handy I swear!

No one will miss it.

I would like to add, maybe a dozen drawings to the KDC Doodles & Strikes, so send me your suggestions, I’ll pick the best ones and add them in the next update!

[wd_contact_form id=”12″]

The past two weeks have been extremely stressful due to some RL issues that are taking a toll on my “sanity”, it’s sapping my energy and my drive and I struggle to remain somewhat productive.

Summary of the good stuff:

• The body doodle & impact engine for avatar 2.0 is pretty much code complete, that is, the prototype has all the required features implemented and it appears to work without any bugs. I will explain what it actually consists of at some point I swear…
• I’ve also started a “cleanup” on the documentation wiki, the translation function was a bit broken and I’m trying to make some of the illustrations clearer and to remove outdated instructions, filling up some of the missing pages too.

I will be away for a few days, if you have a problem with any of my products, you can drop me an IM in world: all my IMs are forwarded to email. Alternatively, use the contact form, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Those who follow my products have probably noticed a slight change in my product picture template, so I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to explain it a little.

Primitives where a nice and “simple” metric, the problem is that they did not account for many important factors. And I don’t think it’s enough to “just” present the prim count/land impact anymore.

Land Impact

This estimates the object complexity and the burden it places on the region, the physical shape’s complexity is what impacts this value the most, objects that are very small or very big are negatively impacted. It’s the replacement for the old primitive count, and while it is available for most products, there are numerous ways to lower this metric to a point where it doesn’t mean much anymore.

Script count

They have a huge impact on the health of a region. Many avatar accessories have more than 10 scripts to do seemingly mundane functions.

Script count is only one side of the story, it doesn’t tell us how complex those scripts are or how much strain they put on a region, but it will give you an idea of how much memory your object is using.

Draw Weight

This metric is a measure of how taxing this object will be for your (and everyone’s) graphic card and accounts for everything graphical including (but not limited to):

• polygon count.
• material settings.
• texture count.
• texture size.
• whether a mesh is rigged or not.
• animated textures.
• flexi-prims.

You don’t need to know the exact formula, a lower value is almost always better for your SecondLife experience. If you are curious about the draw weight of something you are wearing, simply right-click > edit it and click on “More info”, the “Display Weight” is what you are looking for.

How do I use this?

I Believe that, It is better for SecondLife as a whole if you have all the information available before you decide to support a designer. You don’t have to be a 3D expert to make an educated purchase, but designers should provide more data than the  primitive count.

Wherever and whoever you are 🙂

The parent company of Desura and IndieRoyale appears to have filed for bankruptcy and there has been some issues with Desura not paying developers. I would advise everyone to activate their remaining steam keys and grab their DRM free installers while it is still possible.

I really really need to finish the migration to the new one as that was two whole days of items not getting delivered at all. If it happened to you, IM me and I’ll give you your purchase.