Helpful Tip from Devlin Kiranov

Lucky Kitty Devlin Kiranov sent a note card with a great tip for improving SL performance when rendering sculpies! Thanks, Devlin!

Sculpted prims are now a huge part of Second Life's Abilities to Create! If your not using them because of the lag you think it creates or the Blobbyness some sculpted prims seem to be at distances, then this tip is the Amazing Fix to that!

There is an Amazing Fix for this, that will not only help your Sculpted Prim Viewing Pleasure and not use up all your resources.

Debugging your LOD settings is something that can and will make all your sculpts hold the intended detail better.

Follow these easy steps:

1. Show the "Advanced" menu with Ctrl-Alt-D, or Opt-Ctrl-D on a Mac.
2. Select "debug settings" near the bottom.
3. In the blank space, copy and paste the word:

RenderVolumeLODFactor

4. In the box below, set the number. The recommended setting is as high as 4 to have all your sculpts looking as the creator intended.

Unlike increasing your draw distance, this will NOT create lag for yourself or those around you! And it will improve the look of all sculpts.

Enjoy and pass this around, so everyone can enjoy the creativity as it should be.

Hair Editing/Adjusting

Quick post here. Hair marketer Calla recommends Linden Lifestyles' blog post "Hair Editing 101: The Ultimate Salon Guide for Beginners"(Web) and now I do, too. Very nice.

Inventory Organization Tips Part 2

Lots of discussion this morning in the group IM about using boxes to store your inventory to cut the over all volume. Linden Labs^® recommends that you rez a cube, name it, and stuff inventory into it. Then you take the cube into your Inventory which is now cleaner, sleeker, and prevents butt sag. Until you go to open the cube and find all your stuff (or a portion of it) "Missing From Database."

Nearly all my 2007 Halloween and Christmas items stored thusly cannot be retrieved by the usual recommend means (Web) or through the special intervention the Lindens (several have tried). Some items I bought but many I made so the support crew is really stumped by the loss though they admitted it happens.

What about commercially made storage boxes like those from THiNC (SLurl)? Some of my lost items were in simple cubes (well, nicely decorated and I added hover text so I would know what the box was without editing when it was rezzed) and some were in these Inventory Organizers. Like the cubes I made, these have hover text to describe the contents, but they actually show item names as you use little arrows to "scroll" through the box's contents. No more right-clicking and choosing Open from the pie menu. Golly what a time saver! When the item you want is shown, simply click the box and it copies the item you want into your inventory. Honestly, if you are used to editing the contents of a prim, you can save money and time over the commercially made boxes. Read more about the boxes on the Web and make up your own mind, though.

Regardless of the method you choose, though, take this advice:

(1) Keep the box contents to fewer than 80 items. THiNC recommends under 100. The more you have inside the greater the strain on the database servers.

(2) Regularly unpack and repack the boxes. Or at least look inside them. Inventory is based on UUID codes and those can be stripped off if an item isn't seen for a while. This could happen more often as new asset server protocols come into effect (Web).

(3) Try to avoid putting items into boxes then boxing these boxes or more. Like making a photocopy of a photocopy, degradation can occur.

(4) Don't empty your trash then purge your cache, especially if you switch between viewers often (like the official viewer, the RC viewers, the OnRez viewer, or others). They don't necessarily share database information on your computer though they are supposed to do so. Empty then purge during different sessions.

(5) Get some land and rez all your stuff there. Or at least a copy of your stuff. Economically, not the best idea, but if something disappears from your land the Lab has a much easier time recovering it. Maybe rez your storage boxes on that land. Premium accounts can have up to 512m² of land without paying extra. Think how much stuff you could store in 117 prims on such a lot. Talk about a frickin' huge closet! Can't afford land but you work for someone that has some? Ask to use 100 or so prims instead of a portion of your pay. Odds are they can spare some space for well-thought of employees.

(6) Seriously consider an Alt avatar as I mentioned in a previous post (Web). The ultimate storage box and they can wear the clothes you send over.

Inventory Organization Tips Part 1

Another Kitty shouted out in the group IM for me to post inventory organization tips so I rattled off a few quick ones. Here they are, expanded for the blog:

Don't accept half the freebies you get. You won't wear them anyway. (Okies, this was snarky, but I'm always hearing about people who seem to gather stuff just because they can.)

If you don't recall what it looks like a month after you get it, delete it. Better yet, donate it to a noob if the item is transferable. Tell them it's a gift from The Lucky Kitty Crew and create some goodwill.

Put dates on folders for the last time you wore something. Haven't worn it in 6 months? Delete it or give it away.

Open the map and use the Landmarks drop-down to see how many duplicate landmarks you have. Then delete them from Inventory. I almost never keep LMs anyway as I use Properties* to find the maker of the object and get the latest location for their shop from their profile. Done with LMs? Do a search for all things you have in duplicate. Gilly Wycliffe suggested scripts like Hover Text and Giver scripts. Also search for Object. Do this in a sandbox so you can rez the item to see if you should keep it. Rename it if you do keep it. Got more suggestions of things to search for? Leave a comment.)

Whether you have someone on your Friend list or not, when you have a person's Calling Card your inventory is scanned and that can cause your avie to freeze for a moment. Delete all the Calling Cards you have for folks NOT on your friends list. Maybe delete them all? I have a note card full of names from cards I've deleted and when. The few cards I have are from folks I've known for a very long time or have passed away in Real Life.

Many folks suggested using multiple inventory windows (Click File in the Inventory pane then New Window) to make moving things easier. Many suggested multiple folders. As you can see in this pic (click it for a larger view) I put folders inside Clothing to separate types of outfits. Then I marked outfits with (FAV) for a favorite set so I can search for just them and some say w/pic because I'm adding pictures to each outfit so I can see what it looks like before I wear it. That contributes to inventory bulk and can cost L$10 per image, but its often faster than constantly changing outfits. Think of it as looking through your closet. It balances time and inventory size. Starting today I'm going to add the date idea that I mentioned earlier. I also have folders for Separates: Shirts, Separates: Pants & Shorts, and the like for items that are not part of outfits.

You may have noticed a sub-folder called **New Stuff at the top of my Clothing folder. I put any new clothes, packed or unpacked, in there until I can try them on or otherwise sort them. This builds on Bewkie Effingham's advice to sort things right away. Otherwise everything ends up in the bottom of your Objects folder. I do much the same with other folders such as Note Cards, Landmarks, Objects, etc. And I have an Objects (Storage) folder to put my copies of everything (yes, that adds to bulk, but if I delete an outfit from Clothes and I have a copy .... see?).

Last big tip: Transfer everything you don't use regularly to your backup Avie. What? Don't have one? Even Linden Labs^® recommends you have one. Anything that is transferable doesn't go to my Objects (Storage) folder, it goes to my backup avie (so yes, I have two alts, but one doesn't "play" ... he/she/it just holds things). The item doesn't have to be copyable, just transferable. And I don't mean an Alt that you regularly use in SL. They have their own inventory problems.

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* Properties: Right-click any item in your inventory and choose Properties from the pie-menu. Then look at the Creator Profile. If they are bright they list their store location(s) in Picks even if they don't use Classifieds. This doesn't work with Objects sometimes so you may need to rez the item in-world. If you are wearing the item, right-click it and choose Edit. Is someone else wearing it or has it rezzed in-world? Right-click the item and keep choosing More... until you can Inspect. Then look at the Creator Profile. Inspect works only with prim items, not skins or the like.

n00bie frEEbie b0nanza

Have you looked into your basic, Linden Labs©℠®™-supplied inventory? Tons of new avatars there! A couple are from Grendel's Children! Check them out and read this blog post from Vint Falken.

update 18 June 2008: If you tried any of these avatars before today, check the folders again for updates.

Where the Heck did this come from?

Knowing what an object "really" is or knowing who made it can be very handy. For example, the Isle of Lesbos prohibits weapons and some ladies frequently try to tell us "but, hon, it's only decorative!" Or you don't want to ask someone where they got that nifty doohickyjiggerthingy they are wearing but you want one so badly you'll melt without it.

This is where "Inspect" comes in handy. Simply right-click on the object (sorry, doesn't work with mesh layers like skin or clothes) and choose More. If you don't see Inspect in the next menu, choose More again then choose Inspect. A window pops up showing the name of each prim, who owns them, and the creator of each prim.

If you want to visit the creator's shop, click the See Creator Profile ... button and check their Picks or Classified.

Second Life's™ own Torley Linden has a video tutorial demonstrating this feature on YouTube. And an earlier post on this blog describes a similar technique for gathering the same info. But no matter which way you do it, gathering the information can be quite useful. If only to keep you from melting.

Sneaky Trick 1

Sometimes you run across a multiple-prize chair that doesn't show the prize to be won, like this one pictured here, or like the Santa's Lap timed chairs that pop up during the Holidays. It is pretty easy to check what the prizes are and here is how:

➀ Right-click on the chair and choose Edit.

➁ Right-click on the chair and choose Edit again!

You may need to click the More >>> button

➂ In the Edit pane, choose the Content Tab

There's all the goodies! Now make a list or just compare to what you have already won.