Disable Camera Constraints

Don't forget to watch this week's tip from Torley Linden about the " disable camera constraints".
I am using this feature already, but he has made a machinima from it. Check it out, as it can be very interested, and will make your second life a lot easier.

Opening Cannery Gallery

Wednesday was the opening of the Cannery Gallery, a huge project, where some of the best second life artists' works are exhibited. Despite the late hour for us Europeans, I felt obliged of attending this opening, as Shoshana had invited me, and I couldn't say no to her.;))
Arriving at the place , and while rezzing, I saw some barrels with fire in it, before the opening of a pretty good detailed building. It was already amazing, without making one move, to see how real all looked.
Inside Shoshana waited for the quests to arrive. She tried to contact me through voice, and after a while it worked. It was good to hear the voice of one of the initiators of this happening. She has a real nice, sympathetic, American sounded voice.;))
While the quest where arriving, I looked around a bit, and noticed that the place began to become laggy. Sho told us that there were already 52 people at the sim, and it was only the beginning. Some colleagues couldn't move at all, and left the place. I tried to stick around, and to explore the exhibition. But it was hard, especially for making pictures. After a while I gave up, I couldn't move anymore, and tp'd myself away.
But I am sure, I am returning. This place was so beautiful, never seen anything like it in SL.
And I advice you to do likewise, as this event will go on till November.

WindLight atmospheric rendering comes to Second Life!

Just to give you an idea of what we are missing, I post this machinima from Torley. This was made a few months back, when Windlight was coming to Second Life. And it was great!.
In the meanwhile, Voice made his entrance, and Torley promised us, that Windlight was coming back in August.
I am still waiting, and the month is nearly finished.
I see a lot of bug fixing, maintenance, grid off line, what is a good thing, as without these works we could not enjoy our second life.
But, how I miss the Windlight! We will have to be patient again, I guess.

SLart at the Cannery

Rezzable Productions Ltd. announces the upcoming opening of the Cannery Art Gallery, today at 15.00hrs SLT.
The opening of this unique gallery will be center of a Second Life-wide phenomenon, attract avatars from all over SL, and generate mainstream media attention. The exhibition will run until November.
Shoshana Epsilon and Vint Falken, both accomplished SL photographers and artists, are the curators for this show. The pair brought in photographers Melodious Source, Stephen Venkman, Collin Savon, Eerie Nephie, Kean Kelly, and Rob Danton. The entire SL photography community was drawn on to provide photos for the themed exhibits: darkness, romance, story, wings, pose, race, sounds, and tricks. Together, the body of work is colourful, powerful, and sensuous.

And I am honoured to tell you that a picture of mine was chosen by Shoshana, for the Story-theme.
Story
True art tells a story. It leaves the viewer wondering: What just happened? What will happen next? I want to know this person better. The final set of 5 pictures will present pieces of various stories. Visitors are welcome to leave comments suggesting the circumstances around the picture. These 5 photographs fire the imagination.

Chosen artists for ‘Story’ are Tyffany Flintoff, Looker Lumet, Arminius Heron, Loki Popinjay and Vint Falken.

I would say, go and visit the gallery, it will be worthwile, because not only the pictures will be interested to see, but also the buildings, looking at some previews.
Make your comment on the pictures, you can also vote for them.

For me, this is already a victory, being at the Cannery Gallery among other great artists and fellow Belgians, as there are, Bella March, Loki Popinjay and of course Vint Falken.

Opening Bruges!!

Just a couple of weeks away from the great opening of Bruges in Second Life. A date to remember.
On the Belgian SIM, Metacon, a consulting company, is almost ready with this extraordinary project.
As you all know, Bruges, a town in the Flanders, is also known as the Venice of the North.
I think this is going to be the most beautiful place on SL, the most realistic one. You have to see it. I posted already some pictures of it in the early stages, and then it was already looking promising.

Gosh, I hate the flash!

A few weeks ago I had to attend a party in RL. As being an amateur photographer, I always have my camera with me. It was a beautiful weather outside. The sun was shining, it was hot, one of the only days in August, but we enjoyed it. I took pictures outside of all the people as I used to do.
Only it was different. I could not choose the angle like I wanted to, I could not fly over the crowd to have a better view, I could not take a picture of someone on the other side.;(( It was difficult, to work like that, and it did even not getting better.
At the time we were invited inside, I had to take pictures of the tables. I started with a flash, gosh, I hate the flash. I saw immediately that the pictures were already overexposed. So I decided to take the pictures without flash, as I used to do in Second Life. But that was not the right decision, looking afterwards. The results were bad, very bad. The ones with flash were overexposed, the ones without were blurred. Gosh I hate that flash. Or was it because I was used to take pictures in SL and not in RL? Or was it because I am a lousy photographer?;)
I think I need urgently to take pictures again in RL, because apparently I am loosing my skills there.

Opening Avatrait with Codie

Last Saturday there was the opening of the new Avatrait building with the exposition of CodeBastard Redgrave in Second life. A lot of people were there, too much even to take nice pictures. I didn't take any of the fireworks, but can show you some of the people who attend this opening.
At the same time the opening was going live at the SLCC in Chicago.
We did even got visitors while they were at the convention.
I hope we will hear more of Avatrait, especially, because I have also pictures on their blog....;))

My second life and blogging.

It is not easy, being a blogger. Why do we blog? Most of the time because we like it, I think.
But it is hard not to look out for comments or the amount of views. And that makes life tough.
I have read several blogs from colleagues, having the same feeling.
I once said, that it won't matter if I receive comments or not, but I have to admit, even though I know I have some faithful readers, it is hard to keep on doing the thing that I am doing with this blog. I am not a writer, I am a photographer, an amateur photographer. I can not write, I just do this, because I wanted to do something new. But it takes time. Time that I don't have. I have to surf around the blogs every day, to see what is happening, to see what my friends were up too. But I can not do that every day anymore. I have a first life, as anyone else, and need to earn my living with that. And spending time during work on second life is not the way it should be done.
My main goal in second life was to have fun, to take snapshots, and to post processed them with photoshop, and in the meanwhile learning how to use this program.
Now I am busy in having articles for my blog, don't have time to post process my pictures anymore, don't have the time to even take the pictures......
So, I think I have to be smart for once, and leave this blog. Keep it open, and blog once and a while, but not frequently.
Also, if I look my articles from the beginning till now. There were not too many comments, so I believe this blog is not what you were all waiting for. It is not new, it is just another blog.
I will keep on blogging, when I want to share something, not for having my blog on top in every list.
The friends who know me, will find me anyhow, will see me also through my flickr stream, so there will not be so much difference. Except that I can spend a bit more time to my pictures, and, what is more important, to my work in first life, because I was neglecting that too much.
Thank you for your support, even though you were not commenting, I know I had faithful readers. Only this weekend, I think everyone was having a good time in first life, as they should be, instead of reading blogs.;))
I have a piece of land now in SL, I have a house, I have my friends, I have a lovely partner. That is all to it. Now focusing on my friends is the next thing to do, and having fun again.

Changing places

Well, this month there were quiet some changes for me in my second life. There was the moving from my little house to the bigger one, some personal stuff, where I will not talk about for now, and now I have my own piece of land. Finally.
It has taken some days to decide, and asked some friends for advice, but now it is so far. I bought it.
It is a little island of 2300 sq/m on the Strawberry estate of Coolz0r Courier, a view on the ocean, surrounded by water, sculpture artist as a neighbour, nice friends on the same island group, low lag. What more do you need?
A few months ago there was a proposal from Tiana Meriman, for a blogpile land, but unfortunately, we had not enough interested people, so I had to look out for something else.
For more than 6 months now I have been flying around without having my own place, without having the feeling to have a home, with exception of the last month where I have been renting a house.
The house that I rent now is very modern and nice, but I face a new decision now. What house should I put on that land? Should I buy the same house that I have now? Should I ask some friends to build one for me? Should I try to build one on my own? I can even make my own exposition gallery.
Perhaps you can give me some ideas.

Debug settings

We already had posts in the past about the debug settings in the second life viewer, see also the posts of Bella March referring the Renderglow and silent snapshots, but this one is also very interesting. Torley Linden posted it, and I want to share some with you. What I am interested in is of course the Windlight setting, but also the type animation. Nothing so annoying with a model who is typing while you are taking snapshots, even if you can freeze the frame.
I only take a few:

Torley's faves

• AutoLogin - Set this to TRUE to skip the login screen and automatically login using the last-entered username & password. Good for convenience, easier than using the shortcut command-line method (and if you don't know what that is, all the more reason to try this out). For privacy reasons, you generally will not want to use this on a shared computer.

• NotifyBoxColor and GroupNotifyBoxColor - Not in love with the blue shade of popup dialogs? You can click the Color swatch for this debug setting to change it. Lowering the Alpha value will make the boxes transparent. Try solid green (RGB of 0, 255, 0) with Alpha = 128 for a sci-fi tinge. And since these are separate values, you can make generic popup dialogs and group Notices different colors!

This one also could be interesting, need to check that out:

• PinTalkViewOpen - Don't like to get into long Instant Message sessions? Ever want to make it so pressing Enter in an IM window automatically closes it and focuses on the inworld chat bar (if it's open). This is the setting for you! Note: this doesn't work quite right on detached IM tabs.

• PlayTypingAnim - Ever want to disable that typing animation and sound that plays every time you start text-chatting? Setting this to FALSE is your answer. Very, very useful — watch the Video Tutorial!

• RenderDynamicReflections - Ever wanted to see "real mirrors" in Second Life? This will make shiny objects reflect their environment. Be careful, this is an unsupported graphics feature that will crash some systems, and not work as expected on others. It personally doesn't work well for me.

• RenderGlow - "Makes light sources glow." Good for lightsabers, plasma weapons, and other ethereal effects. This will be a standard and supported build parameter as of the WindLight viewer.

• ZoomTime - This has some cinematic usages good for filming machinima with. Set it to 10 seconds, then try to Alt-zoom around. Or go into Mouselook. Higher numbers will make the camera behavior smoother, lower numbers will make it more responsive.

First Look: WindLight viewer only.These will be available as part of the "main viewer" in the future. Until then:

• RenderDynamicLOD - Stuff retains its detail when you zoom out. Terrain will be as smooth as it is when viewed up-close. This comes at a performance cost, tho, and I've noticed weirdness with stuff staying stuck at lower Levels of Draw.

• RenderUseFarClip - Slows performance but lets you see further away with the same draw distance. Excellent to toggle on while making richly-detailed shots.

Het-Grid: less downtime and stable releases

First of all, what is Het-Grid?

Second Life wiki: "Het-Grid is short for Heterogenous Grid, a grid for which there is more than one version of server code running at the same time. Different versions of the server code may change which features are available on a particular region. Examples of server side features include how scripts are interpreted and run or how physics is simulated. This means that your viewer may play well with certain features, but not be able to access other features.

Viewer versions are different from server versions. The "viewer" is what we call the client application that you download onto your personal computer. The viewer is responsible for client side features such as drawing everything your avatar sees on your computer. The server is responsible for simulating how your avatar plays with other objects and avatars in that region.

The possibilities of having multiple server versions on the grid is important to residents of Second Life because depending on which region you go to, your experience may change. You will receive a notification when you enter a region with a different version than the region you came from so that you can judge for yourself whether or not you want to stay in that region. Beta regions are running versions that are being tested. If you enter a beta region, you may experience a significant difference in performance, so it is important to read release notes on beta regions before doing anything like inventory access.

Server versions and viewer versions are both grouped by common functionality. We call these groupings channels. Examples of server channels are "Second Life Server" which contains general improvements to the main Second Life server code and "Mono Beta Server" which contains a set of beta versions that make improvements to a new Mono script execution system. Examples of viewer channels are "Second Life Viewer" which contains general improvements to the main Second Life viewer code and "Firstlook" which contains a set of versions that provide new features that are in development. The first new feature to appear in the First Look channel was 3D Voice."

So far the explanation of the Het-Grid.

According Second opinion's newsletter, almost all future viewer updates for Second Life will be optional, so you can upgrade whenever you want.

Het-Grid will provide Second Life a smoother transition between both small and major patch releases. Linden Lab understands that by having separate beta grids, we aren't able to fully test new versions of Second Life viewers and servers. With Het-Grid, we will be able to release new server versions to small areas of the Main Grid for testing. This allows Residents to beta test new server upgrades without having to disconnect from the primary Second Life grid and empowers Linden Lab to update the Second Life servers without creating grid-wide downtime. So, viewer and server versions will be forward and backward compatible.

With the ability to keep the same viewer versions when you want to and with your help on the new beta servers, Linden Lab hopes to give everybody a much smoother experience in Second Life.

Let's hope this will stabilize the grid, because no one is waiting for another downtime as we had yesterday evening, for the Europeans that is.

SLCC 2007

The third annual Second Life Community Convention is being held at the downtown Hilton in Chicago, August 24-26th. There are four tracks this year: Social/Entertainment, Business, Education, and Machinima, guaranteeing there will be something of interest for everyone! You can register at http://www.SLConvention.org/register/ or find out more information at http://www.SLConvenion.org .

The Avatrait Gallery will also be there with a simulcast to the convention In Chicago. Avatrait Gallery in SL will be seen at the display (probably the largest display at the convention), on a very large screen, presenting also this months featured artist CodeBastard Redgrave.
All the artist of avatrait will be presented, even some pictures of mine will be shown in RL at the convention.
This will be the first time that my work will be exposed in RL. I am really honoured. So, despite some negative reactions on my works lately, they must be not that bad.;))
I know I am not the artist in photoshop, due to the limited time I have, but I try to catch things and people in a different angle, and that is what my work is all about. I try to do as less rework as possible. More works will be shown soon also at the Avatrait Gallery.

Re-, Re-, Re-, Re-, Resolved

Did you also see it, the posts on the Linden Blog ? Lately they all start with Resolved. This means they have severe problems over there.
No news about the Windlight though, which was supposed to come this month in the Second Life viewer.
They all are very busy to solve one problem after another.
Yet ,today we saw a different title: Re-, Resolved. This would mean they have solved a problem that occurred previously, was solved, but than happened again.
So what can we expect in the future?
Titles as Re-, Re-, Re-, Re-, Resolved will be daily news, I suppose.;))
Always look on the bright side of life, I would say. Gosh, we love SL!;))

How to fix overexposed images in Photoshop

Well, this tutorial is not exactly for images in Second life, but recently, I had to make some pictures in RL, and because of the "beautiful weather" in Belgium lately, I had to use my flash light on my Canon.
I hate to take pictures with a flash light, but had no option at the time. Of course some of the close ups where overexposed, and I thought it could be interested too for other readers of this blog.

The easiest way to fix an overexposed photo is to open it in Photoshop and choose Image> Adjustments> Shadow/Highlight (CS-only. For pre-CS look below). You'll see an immediate change in your photo and it will probably be too extreme, but just use this setting as a starting point. Photoshop ships with defaults that are often way over the top. Just play with the Amount Slider and the Tonal Width Slider in both the Shadows and the Highlights until you find just the right balance. And that's it!

If you don't have CS, then the following trick will help you achieve similar results.
Step 1 — New Layer
Open your photo and make a copy of the Background Layer by choosing Layer> Duplicate Layer, or by dragging it to the New Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Step 2 — Change The Blend Mode
In the Layers palette change the Blend Mode of the new layer from Normal to Multiply. This will darken the photo uniformly.

Step 3 — Repeat
Now repeat the entire procedure again. Create a new layer, change the blend mode to multiply, and then take a look at the result. Continue doing this until you go from "it's almost perfect" to "it's ruined!"

Step 4 — Lower The Opacity
Now leave that last layer active even though it's taken you too far and lower the Opacity using the slider at the top right of the layers palette. This lowers the intensity of the effect. When you've found the right amount, you can flatten your image.

Step 5 — Flatten And Save
Choose Layer> Flatten or use the palette’s flyout menu and choose Flatten Image. That's it. Save your file (File> Save) and you're done.

I hope this explanation can help you to fix some pictures you made.

For a change : snapshot from a male.

Most of the time I take snapshots from beautiful women on the grid. Now, for a change I found a male "subject" (sorry Pieter) which caught my eyes, and thought was a nice look to put in my collection of Second Life's snapshots.
Pieter, the male subject, reporter of "secondlifecrew.be", has been a friend of mine for quiet some time, but Sunday, at the Spin Lounge, he had that look with the cigaret in his mouth......I could not resist to take some snapshots of him. The neko ears are hardly to see, but they are there.
You see, I can also take pictures from the opposite sexe.;))

Party at the Spin Lounge

Every Sunday, the always lovely Spinneke and Coolz0r are the hosts for a party in the Second Life's Sky club Spin Lounge.
And as usual, there are always a lot of people there to join the party and "kick some ass".
The sexy dancers, all dressed the same with wings, are jumping up and down the pole, to please the visitors.
Why not visit the club on Sunday evening, as this is the only night the club opens for a very special weekly occasion.

Blogger gathering August 18th

Yesterday, in fact last night, there was again a Second Life Blogger Party. This time the hosts were Jellybean and Hawksrock.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of people, so we all had some trouble of lagginess. This was even more difficult for the photographers among us, because it is very difficult to move your camera, when the place is so crowded. I even crashed without noticing . I only heard the voice of Vint. The chat was gone, I couldn't make a move, no IM....I was crashing. What I could do, surprisingly, was tell Vint that I was going to reboot the system. That worked!!?
I logged back in, and took some pictures before wishing everyone goodnight, as for the Europeans it was already late, or should I say early.....and the next morning was supposed to be a working day.
It was only this evening that I could see, if had taken some shots or not. And, as you can see, I don't think I have missed one. Only some of them are too bad to show, because the persons were not rezzed enough.
You can also see the machinima of the party on Tiana's blog.
The rest of pictures are to be seen on my flickr stream.

Did you know....

....that the WWF opened their island on Second life last week. It is a beautiful place where you can talk with the animals about a durable way of living in harmony together.
"Ever wondered what life would be like on a desert island?
Well nothing will have prepared you for this!
Pack your virtual suitcase and head for Conservation Island, a place where an orangutan will sell you an ice cream and a floating panda will be your friend."
It's all new and it's all happening on Conservation Island, WWF's strangest home in the virtual world of Second Life...

Voice works...voice doesn't work....voice works

I was so happy last Friday that I found a way to make my voice work. But it did not last long.
When I logged out from second life, I found out that my voice did work because a test module was still open.:(
I know, I am not the smartest guy with pc, I learn every day.
I was looking through my settings in the configuration screen, and was trying some things out, when someone shouted:" hey Looker your voice sounds nice." I thought, how can that be, I did nothing, and was only in the test module of audio settings. I even did not change anything. Ok, I was happy at the time, so I pushed the button saying "Apply" and thought everything was alright.
Back to SL, I saw that it wasn't, I couldn't still not say anything with being heard on the grid.
Back to the settings of audio. Back in testing, and everything worked. Strange huh?
After some tries to push "Apply" and back to SL, I thought I had find it, as I did close the audio window, and my voice was still alive in SL. Great!! I even IM'd some friends saying that everything was fixed. But my enthusiasm was very low, when I later logged out. I saw that there was still a window open from testing audio.;(
Now I am back to the start, figuring out, how I can set that right without having this window open every time I want to say something in SL.
Not totally from the start though, as I already did say a few things, and I can have my voice heard on the grid.

UPDATE 08-20: This weekend I managed to find the correct setting for my voice to work on Second Life.
In my configuration settings there was a program "3D AUDIO". I have activated this setting and........I had a voice in Second Life!
UPDATE 08-22: I have voice alright, but not thanks to that "3D AUDIO", because after one day I even had no voice and sound anymore through my headset. I did turn that program off, reboot, and I still have Voice now. Sorry for those who thought to have found a solution, I still can not help you, as I don't know what changed in my settings.

Eaglewolf can sing!!!

I was just witness of a life concert by Eaglewolf, you know the knight of Doornroosje. We were trying voice in second life, and he started to sing a few songs with his guitar.
Even the neighbours could hear it, and came over to hear this talented singer!!
I know now what to do for Doornroosje. To set up a life concert with EagleWolf!!!
And I can assure you, prepare yourself for this unique concert. We will post later for specific dates and information, but I can tell you, don't miss this event.

And no, my voice did not work, so I still need to find a solution to that issue.
This post is in fact a way of convincing Eaglewolf to co-operate in this event.;)

What's in a name?

Where does the name Looker Lumet come from? Why did I choose this name. I wanted to post this already for quiet some time, but I read Mygs' blogpost, and I noticed I was already too late.;) Someone has beaten me to it.:)
Ok, some years back I was looking for some songs on the internet, some information about artists, and, as usual, you have to register yourself for being able to enter a certain site. So I did it with the name Looker, as I was looking for information.
I kept this name for several other websites, when I had to log in to Second Life. No difficulty to choose my first name, but which second name would I choose?
Going trough the LL list I didn't find anything interesting until I stumbled on Lumet. Thinking of Sydey Lumet, the movie director, I thought this would be nice.
Looker Lumet, and I like the sound of it too.
Now the irony is that Looker is in fact also a movie, directed by Michael Crighton.
So both names, Looker and Lumet are names from the movie industry, but in my case, they have nothing to do with that, it was just based on my first idea of looking for information.

Did you know....

...that you can be held accountable, along with all the other members of a particular group, for any debts the group may run up.
For example, when the group owns land, and wanted to be listed in "Places", the costs will not be accounted to the owner, but to all members of the group, and there will be, and is, no warning that you may be accountable for such costs when you join the group.
So, next time someone offers you a membership to a group, remember to read the fine print first.;)
(from The hidden danger of Groups)

I am a knight !!

I have been posting in the past several articles about "Doornroosje", a place where it is good to be, where you can have a chat, where you can dance, where you have a laughter. In a few words, the place to be, if you like to be among friends.
After a lot of things that happened in the past, Doornroosje is finally ready again, but still not finished, as long as EagleWolf keeps the inspiration to build.
There were some quarrels with the neighbours, who did not like the dance floor, in the middle of the island, before the castle, and wanted to see Doornroosje leave. But they don't know EagleWolf.
His mastermind figured something out. There is still a castle of sleeping beauty (Doornroosje) but he put the castle upon another "castle". In this second castle he built a dream place for everyone of us.
When you open the door of the castle, after you have arrived at the harbour, you enter the big building, where you can go upstairs to the main castle, or you can got to the theatre, with his dance floor, bar, chat corner.....
Upstairs you will find a cosy garden for the romantic souls among us, and behind the waterfall you step into the cellars of the castle.
This is of course only a preview. Everyone is already invited, but I will post later some details of the theatre and the other facilities.
EagleWolf has asked me to become a member of the board of Doornroosje, and I accepted immediately. It is even an honour to be a knight of this group.
We will do our very best to make this place, a place to be for everyone who need a good time and laughter once and a while,who need a dance, or a chat among friends.

Changing houses

I was renting a house for a couple of weeks in Second Life, but recently Merrily and I decided to change our houses. Our old house was very small, but cosy, but we had uninvited visitors (read griefers), as we lived nearby a club, I suppose.
Now we have found a new little house, and are not yet finished to put all the things into the house that we wishes, for two reasons. The first reason is that we have not enough prims to put it all in the house, and secondly, the house is quiet big.;)
We have found a solution to reduce our first problem. We are learning to build things on our own, and maybe they are not yet the high design as we wished, but I think Merrily did already a pretty good job with the table and the seats in the living room. Even the seats have there own animation.W00t!
We were visiting so many shops, where we did find very nice things, but with too many prims that we could afford, so we decided to build on our own.
I am happy to give you already a little preview, and maybe within a couple of months, when we still rent this place, we could organize a blogger party?! Wouldn't that be great?

Why is Voice not working?

It is now some time that Voice was introduced in second life. I have been trying this feature every day, but still with no outcome.
I had even downloaded the first look, some time ago, but did not have the opportunity to test it. I am convinced that it has something to do with my settings, but don't know which setting.
I am already used to it, that something doesn't work with me, but am still positive thinking that there is a solution to every problem. So, is somebody so kind enough to help me out here. What am I doing wrong?
I can hear everybody, but can not talk. That is, I can talk, but no one hears me. ;)
I have tried my headset with "skype", and that works. So it must be in the settings of SL.

Dancing at the Purple Moon (with Renderglow)

Anti gambling policy, update by Linden Blog

As you all could read, there is an update of the gambling policy on the Linden blog. It should be an explanation on what can and what isn't allowed anymore.
"If you aren’t sure, ask yourself if your game meets the criteria in the policy: Linden dollars are paid in, the outcome is random, Linden dollars or something else of value is paid out. Ultimately you’ll need to decide if you’re comfortable that your game or activity is legal within the policy."
Ok, we can see what they mean, but I also see that there are still some questions left, and not all is very clear, looking at the comments following the blog.
Interesting thought though, on one hand the Linden dollar has no value, and now there are explaining that everything that is to be won and has some kind of value, is forbidden.
Also one in of the comments someone asked some more explanation about sploders, which is very popular among club visitors, and is not very clear apparently, if that is allowed or not.

"I would also like a definitive answer regarding sploders.
Can it be considered wagering when the object in question merely returns money that has has been paid into it, albeit redistributed?
Can it be considered wagering when you know you will be paid by the object, you just aren't sure exactly how much?
Having read and re-read both relevant blog posts, it is my considered opinion that the policy concerns itself only with situations where one would pay into something with no guarantee of any return whatsoever.
This is not the case with sploders as I noted above, but a definitive answer would be appreciated."

The Lindens' are doing their very best to explain the situation, but it seems very difficult for all of us to understand, why and what, and especially, was this new rule really necessary?

Quiet Snapshot to Disk

In the very beginning that I logged in to Second life, it was fun to take pictures with the sound of a real reflex camera. Now I hate that sound and animation.
There is a feature, to get rid of that sound, called "quiet snapshot to disk" in "Tools", but to be honest, I don't think that works. I have marked it, but whenever I take a shot, and that is quiet often, I hear, and everybody else too, that awful sound.
Is there another solution? Is this only with me?Do I have to change something in the settings?

Classified advertisement extension in Second Life (2)

On August 2nd I posted an article referring the Linden blog and its comments, especially the one from Grey Blankes. Now he has left a message, a comment on my blog, and I thought it would be interested enough to put it on the main page, as probably no one would ever notice his comment.;)

"I have consulted an attorney on the subject of non-fulfillment of service and the possibility of damages compensated.

Overall due to consistent ineptitude of Linden Labs, of which i consider failure to provide anytime search is down for more than 4 hours of any given day or any 2 consecutive hours during peak usage. Also I consider anytime i cannot conduct business such as when I can't build, script or upload, or anytime my regions are unavailable for hours at a time, thats failure to deliver service.

And I will be bringing this issue to LL attention within the week. The plan is simple, I will not seek damages for myself or anyone else if LL agrees to prorate service unavailability based upon agreed terms.

The possible damages to be filed between myself and 27 other residents that own major business within second life could total more than 2.2 million USD. LL could be in real trouble, and will be forced to address usability issues that have been ignored since June 2006."

After having seen the issue's they had the past days, with unavailability of one of their servers, maybe the Lindens will rather think of retirement, after having read all the complaints of residents.
What started as to be a wonderful technology, and it still is, can become the worst nightmare for Linden Lab. But in fact, that is no news.;))

Awards Photocontest NEW MARDES (2)

Yesterday evening there was the virtual distribution of the awards for the photo contest, at the Vacature SIM in Second Life.
The three winners were present , although I was a little bit late, due to login problems (again). it took me a half hour to get in. Luckily for me AnnSophie did wait for me, and so did Vint and Loki, who were the first to arrive at the place.
I assume that everyone was a little bit thirsty, or could not wait to start dancing, as the actual handing over of the prices was done in a few minutes. Congrats to all contestants again!
And afterwards, well......yes.....there was a party with again, a contest, for best dressed male and female. And who won..........yes indeed, again Vint falken and Looker Lumet.
Nice organisation though from AnnSophie, Vacature and secondlifecrew.be. I hope it will not be a "one time" event.

Second Life Citroën

I wonder if Citroën would find new buyers with this movie, or even with the presence on Second Life.

We see more and more RL companies coming to second life. So they must have seen some potential in the residents. But the question is, are you looking for those kind of commercials? Is this what you are looking for in SL? I don't think so. This discussion has been made several times, and yet, the companies still find their way to the grid, and think therefore that it has some commercial impact on our (2nd) lives. I would like you to comment what are your thoughts on RL companies coming to SL, and using SL for commercial advertising.

Tube2SL Youtube Film Producer 2007 Contest

Read in SL-Newspaper.

Enter Now!!! Tube2SL is seeking entrants for our YouTube Film Contest.
Show your YouTube video in our Second Life cinema daily.
Second Life residents will vote for their favorite.
WHAT and WHERE: Enter your real life production, animation or Second Life machinima of less then 10 minutes duration for daily showing in the Tube2SL cinema in the Second Life sim of Glenmore ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/Glenmore/39/174/54 ) Pornography is not accepted.
WHEN: Entry deadline is 9/14/07. 2 weeks of voting ends 9/29/07 kicking off a weekend long event showcasing our entrants and our cinema. On 9/30, awards including cash prizes will be given out by Mr Marcus Parker-Rhodes animator and former assistant to Terry Gilliam during the making of Monty Pythons Flying Circus.
Top prize is 25,000 Linden Dollars (about 100 US Dollars) and a free daily showing for 3 months.
HOW: Send and email to barbcarson@tube2SL.com with the url of your YouTube video. We will retrieve it and convert it to play on our realistic big screens in Second Life.
CONTACT: My name is Barb Carson and I am the person to contact with questions regarding Tube2SL.

Did you know...

......that, just as in RL, a divorce is more expensive than a marriage. If you want a partnership in Second Life, you can send a proposal to another avatar, but a real partnering, will cost you 10 L$ each. If one of the partners would like to divorce, it will cost him/her 25L$.
So you see, Second Life reflects more and more RL. :-)

Real Estate in Second Life

I am interested in buying a piece of land in Second Life, and was searching for information when my eye crossed the Wikipedia on real estate in Second Life.

Premium members can own land (up to 512 m² without additional fees). Owning larger areas of land incurs an additional fee (which Linden Lab calls "Land Use Fee" but acknowledges that it is often referred to as "Tier") ranging from US$5 a month up to US$195 a month for "an entire region", but in reality it is actually charged for owning up to 65536m² regardless of how many regions this land is based in. This pricing refers to "mainland", i.e., land that is on an Estate owned by Linden Lab.

There is a separate type of land known as Private Estate, consisting of one or more Private Islands or Regions, which has a completely separate set of regulations and pricing. The initial purchase of each private region can only be made by one Resident and not jointly by a group of Residents, and that Resident is termed the Estate Owner. The Owner may in turn appoint Estate or Region Managers, which may even be a Resident without a Premium Account.

Land purchased in Private Estates actually remains in the ownership of the Estate Owner as far as Linden Lab is concerned and so they will not involve themselves in disputes between Estate Owners and other Residents. This means, for example, that an Estate Owner can take back land that has been paid for and Linden Lab will not arbitrate in the dispute.

Land may be owned by a Resident without a Premium Account and without impacting on the tier level of their Linden Lab Land Use Fee. Each Private Region costs US$1675 to purchase, followed by US$295 maintenance fee for each subsequent month.

Looking at the official Linden Lab, an island would also cost the same.

Interesting information when you are about to look for some land, and you don't have a premium account.

Love , to be loved, immortality.

I have been reading some blogs this morning, and I couldn't help myself to see a mutual subject in some posts. Joonie Jatho is talking about the three little words "I love you" , where she's asking herself what would those three words mean to someone else, and do they have a different meaning.
And with reading this article, I suddenly remembered the post of Tiana Meriman, where she let the world to know that she loves Zoe, which is a wonderful thing for both of them. In the comments Zoe asks herself if it is even possible to love in second life. Well, I think yes, it is possible, in very different ways although, but it is possible. And it is great to be loved by someone.
If it is as a friend, or just a bit more than just a friend, in both ways you should be thankful to have people who care.
But as we are talking about loving other avatars, what does this mean in RL? Does that reflects our lives in RL? And what would happen when in SL someone should "die", or when Second Life should suddenly stop to exist. Would the person still live through his blog, through his memory? Dalien made this interesting thought on his blog.

Rezz party Dalien Talbot

Yesterday evening there was a rezz party at the Paradise Lost for Dalien Talbot. Waw, already a year in Second Life. that must be quiet an achievement. I am only half his age.;) Congrats Dalien once again!

As we could expect, most of the attendees were well known friends and bloggers.

Vint surprised me by taking some of my pictures for the flyer, but the result is quiet good, I must admit, although my name is well hidden in the right corner.;)
So who will be next to celebrate? I feel like I am a youngster, a beginner. I have still some months to go, before it will be my turn. I hope I can make it, with all the troubles I have encountered lately.

Virtual terrorists in Second Life ?

I was reading the newspaper this morning, when I suddenly saw an article about Second Life, referring to the Sunday Times.

“Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life, the internet virtual world, to hunt for recruits and mimic real-life terrorism.
Police and the intelligence services are concerned that it may have been infiltrated by extremists to proselytize, communicate and transfer money to one another. Radicals may also be responsible for “virtual” terrorist attacks in which buildings depicted on the website are blown up.
Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian government’s High Tech Crime Centre, said jihadists may also be using the virtual reality world to master skills such as reconnaissance and surveillance. “We need to start thinking about living, working and protecting two worlds and two realities,” he told a security industry conference in Sydney. “

So now the media have found another story to shock the world with Second Life.

The particular concern should go about the anonymity of Second Life members who can use false names for their digital personas, known as avatars, to disguise their real identity and provide false contact details in the real world. Some radicals, had given themselves “innocuous” titles, while others had provocative jihadist names such as Irhabi007 (Arabic for Terrorist007).

Recently, inhabitants of the virtual world have experienced a more sinister phenomenon - virtual terrorist attacks against buildings and avatars. A recent attack took place at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Second Life base. A number of these attacks, known as “griefings”, have been launched by what industry insiders say are “geeky teenagers” giving themselves names such as the Second Life Liberation Army.

So now some experts are thinking that these attacks may have been committed by real Islamic radicals.

Also according the text, Linden is not aware of any exchange of money by jihadists, but could not rule out the possibility. They, Linden lab, are unaware of any extremists using Second Life.

Did you expect something else?

So now, after the sex scandals, the child role play’s, now this?

Is this just another story, or should we really be concerned?

Awards Photocontest NEW MARDES

Last June there was a contest at the New Mardes club of AnnSophie Maertens, where I already have blogged about.
The awards will be virtually handed over to the winners on Thursday, August 9th, 19.30 hrs. (Belgian time) at the Vacature Sim in Second Life. And I will be there, not only because I won the contest, but also because my problems are solved now, thanks to Alex Burgess, who sent me a link to a blog, which did it.
After the official ceremony(hmmm), there will be a party (w00t) with DJ Kiyoshi Nishi.
Everyone is invited!

HELP! HELP!

Since yesterday morning I have been trying to log in to the grid of Second Life, but unfortunately, something goes wrong, I wasn't successfully so far.
When connecting I receive the message, while the bar says "Waiting for region handshake", "Unable to connect. Login packet never received by login server"
I thought the Lindens were trying something new, but apparently, after contacting some of my friends, it seemed that I was the only one to suffer from this.
At first I even did not have connection to the website. I could surf through the web, but not the specific site of Second Life.
Maybe it was a wrong installed update. So I deleted the program, reinstalled it. Nothing....
I disconnected my connection to the Internet, as I work with a wireless connection to ADSL. Plugged out everything that was to be plugged out. Reinstall. Nothing....
I tried it continuously for more than 5 hours, till I was to tired and went to bed.
This morning I tried again. Again that same message.
Is this the end to my second life? Is this the end of Looker Lumet? I hope not, but I am desperate. Is there someone between my readers who have some suggestion? Now I really need some comments of you out there!
I have some important appointments in SL, but will miss them when I am not able to log in again.
So, please, as I know, I don't have to expect support from the Lindens, because I don't have a premium account, can somebody help me out here?
And if we like Second Life? Yet I know what it is, not to be able to log in. Terrible!!

Opening night at Codie's

Yesterday, or better, a couple of hours ago, there was the start of Codie's Gallery opening. From the start there were a lot of people there, most of them known from flickr. But it was extremely laggy, therefore I couldn't make a lot of pictures, and I even crashed in between.
So in the small time I was there I managed to take some snapshots of some friends of mine.
In the meanwhile, you still can visit this opening, as it will continue for 24 hrs. This means that they have still a couple of hours to go with quest deejay's.

Voice live in Second Life

Waw, now everyone can use the voice viewer everywhere in Second Life. It is an optional feature, so you can manage it by yourselves. Read the post here.
And what is more important to me personally, Linden blog announces officially that Windlight is coming to the grid.
I can not wait to try it out!!

Using "virtualPhotographer" in Second Life Pics (possible alternative for Renderglow)

A little while ago, Bella March made a comment on one of my pictures in my flickrstream, saying that the Renderglow effect was nice in that particular picture.

I have answered her that it was not with Renderglow , but that I would make a tutorial about it when I had the time. I still don’t have the time really, but managed to make some examples with a picture I made some time ago, with Windlight. As I have read on Torley Linden’s blog, we can expect the Windlight back on the grid in Second Life within the month. Let us hope he is right about it.

I have been using virtualPhotographer for quiet some time now, and am satisfying with the results, as you can easily adjust the effect to your wishes, and you don’t have to spend a lot of time, going through every single setting to get the same result.

What’s more is that you can download virtualPhotographer for free and use it in different software programs, as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, and even Photosuite from MGI. I have those programs but only used it in Photoshop. I have even downloaded the extra packs, and the results of those are to be seen in my previous post “Surfparty at Strawberry”

“virtualPhotographer includes over 50 presets that automatically apply combinations of film grain, color modification, B/W, soft focus, high contrast and many artistic effects to achieve the same professional-looking images that used to take hours of photo editing.

virtualPhotographer is designed to allow photographers familiar with traditional camera usage and terminology to easily create photographically rich and artistic results from their digital images.

The operating principle of virtualPhotographer is to offer many "one-click" photo-effect options that give, or get close to, a desired result. If needed, simple adjustments can then be made to get exactly the shot being sought.”

Just download the program, decompress the folder and drag it in the “Plugins” folder of your Photo editing program.

To start the virtualPhotographer, simply load a picture in your software program, and select the “optikverve labs” “virtualPhotographer” option in the “Filter” menu.

“The ideal way to use virtualPhotographer is first apply all of the Presets to your image to see which ones look best. Then, if needed, fine tune the other controls to get the exact results you want. Once you have applied the first Preset you can quickly move through all the other Presets by using the DOWN arrow and UP arrow keys on your keyboard, or the scroll-wheel on your mouse if you have one. This will move to the next Preset and apply it automatically. Make sure the Preset pop-down menu is closed but selected for this to work correctly, otherwise the arrow keys will simple scroll through the pop-down menu list to the next Preset if it is open but will not apply the effect.”

If you have also put the extra .vph files in your “Plugin” folder, you can load these settings in the virtualPhotographer with the button “LOAD” and then, if you are happy with the result click “PROCESS”. Don’t worry you can still adjust the contrast or so to make the picture just as you wanted.

Have fun with it!