How I write.

When composing lectures or posts like this, it is at least a six step process for me.

The first is to listen to what others are asking to find topics. Often I have simple short answers and direct references with easy links.  When there are deeper and more interesting ideas unexpressed,  I gather together the knowledge and wisdom and ideas needed to answer the questions fully.   Then everything gets bound into a single document with little organization, just an olio of ideas.  Often things stay in this way for a long, long time until a delivery time and date is chosen.

The first draft can be very very long and repetitive, but it's taking my scroll of notes, copying it, and thinking about an organizational pattern that is suitable to the material.  Then it's shuffle the information around into an order that might work as a lecture or essay. 

After that at-least-third draft by now, the chore is to consider exactly who and when the information is to be delivered and what illustrations and examples to include for those who might have interest and tailoring the material for them, looking for references and citing what I find.  Now it is close to a final form, and it's copy it all again, and go thru for grammar, spelling , brevity, consistency and all those other things scholars honor.

Now, often the same material might work for two mediums, say a lecture in Second Life and a ethereal scroll(-ing webpage) online.   Then it's construct each format for its medium. In Second Life, in example, I can use objects in illustration, but not in a scroll(-ing webpage). Conversely, I can use images freely in scrolls, but not so easily in SL.

When making both a lecture and a scroll, I will prepare for a lecture by constructing a draft but not publishing the online page.  Then, at lecture time, I copy and paste from my scroll draft copiously.  During the lecture, I often receive insight and questions from the attendees that crystallize important points, or tell me what points need exposition, clarification or example.  I quickly provides those on the fly during the lecture slot if I can.  Then, after the lecture, those additions and amendments get edited into the scroll draft, and finally, the scroll can be released.  This page is an example of such a scroll: 
http://aulethesmith.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-history-of-elvish-weaponry-part-1.html

I could make illustrated classroom books like this one about Sheriwood in Second Life with book writers, but I dislike that medium due to the handling of images and loss of copyable text.  To compress data and image for a "page" degrades both the image and the text some, making the text non-copyable into other media (a good idea sometimes, but not always) and the information available only in this very specific context:

• computer on, in SL viewer, 
• logged into that account, 
• object rezzed, 
• camera oriented, and 
• little distraction  

That is a bit hard to achieve, compared to

• computer on
• browser open, 
• web page loaded

Often, when I find such things as images or note cards in SL, I will, with the author's permission only, mirror the book to a blog post like this: 

http://aulethesmith.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-create-rp.html

Multi Chan Hax

This is a mirror post of Mistress of Design's Random Rambling, Tips and Tricks advice on skin and clothing template tools forSecond Life. I'm exploring using it with Gimp per

Multi Chan Hax is all kinds of Awesome!

Multi Chan Hax is all kinds of awesome!!!

Why is Multi Chan Hax all kinds of awesome? Because it gives Second Life clothing and skin creators a whole range of different template layouts to choose from! With Multi Chan Hax you are no longer limited to texturing the standard head/upper/lower UV layouts.

“A mapping channel is basically UV data. It’s how a 2d texture gets translated onto the geometry of a 3d model. What MultiCH does is give Photoshop the ability to translate a texture to and from any single combination of the channels.”

This type of feature is usually limited to 3d software but Multi Chan Hax manages to blur that line and make the same features available in a 2d image editing programs. How cool is that?! For anyone who has ever complained about wanting a different layout to texture, this is basically the answer to your prayers! All you need is the MCH filter and the MCH files and you can make something respectable in less than half the time it would take to manually match it up pixel by pixel.

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Before you get too excited there are a few things I should mention. Multi Chan Hax is a 32bit Photoshop filter so it won’t be available from the filters menu if you choose to run a 64bit executable of Photoshop. Multi Chan Hax is also limited to Windows, so Mac and Linux users are out of the loop.

The Multi Chan Hax filter works with any program capable of loading the 8bf filter format so that means a handful of programs other than Photoshop should be able to make good use of it. PaintShop Pro is one of them and GIMP can too, with the help of a PSPI which is a GIMP plug-in that runs 3rd-party Photoshop filters, such as this one.

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If you want to follow along you will need to grab a few things:

Chip’s Templates or Robin’s Templates

Multi Chan Hax- Filter

Multi Chan Hax- Files

Flaming Pear’s- Solidify filter

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PhotoShop Plug-In Translator for Gimp

MultiChan Hax- A Temporary New Home

March 21, 2012

Earlier this week the TechSlop wiki went down and it might take a while to be sorted. Abu Nasu has graciously allowed me to host the MCH filter and files on his behalf until it’s fixed.

I’ve managed to grab a copy of the MCH Repository page through googles cache system which means I can leave the details and description to The Master himself.

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MultiChan Hax Filter

You will need to install this filter into Photoshops plugins directory before you can use the files below.

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SL_legpatternwerapfull01_c2

Designed for creating patterned stockings. The ratio is 1:2, so watch out for that. (This is the filter used in the two-part MCH video)

SL_mucho23chans

One day I got into the mood to do a bunch of mapping channels. So I did a bunch of channels. Some head shots, legs, torso stuff, and things. Can’t say for sure what all of channels are what because I didn’t take any notes on them. However, I do remember a few. The very first channel is all head, upper, and torso with each tucked away in a corner. Channels 21, 22, and 23 are the individual head, upper, and torso chunks.

SL_legsx2

Contains two different MCH files for legs. One of the MCH files in this rar was used in Map Chan Hax Leg Seams. The other one is more like the default mapping and may be more intuitive.

SL_shouldersx2

Contains two different MCH files for working with the shoulder areas. One has 2 channels and the other has 3.

SL_head02

This is the MCH file that is almost identical to the one used in the Multi Chan Hax Head tutorial.

SL_jacketwaist01

A quick little ditty for matching upper and lower for the jacket layer. Designed for documents with a ratio of 2:1, so start with 1024×512 or so. The upper will be on the left and the lower will be on the right. After that, chop it out and go. There are two different seam channels that are very similar. One has the front in the middle and the other has the back in the middle for full wrap-around goodness. Didn’t cover the entire jacket layer, but I did get the bulk of the seam between upper and lower. I used the default female mesh and that had some effect on the operations. Should be okay to use for male design, but I haven’t tested it specifically for male distortion

SLarm_female_c6a

Description: Several mapping channels for working with the female arm.

SLarm_male_c6a

Several mapping channels for working with the male arm.

SL_skirt01_c3

Really quick cylindrical mapping channel for the SL skirt. Quick as they are, they work uber dandy for SL skirt seams.

SL_maletorsoplanar01

Real quick planar mapping on the male torso. No arms, no legs, or head. Just quick planar on the front and back of the male torso. The first channel has the default mappings, and the second channel has the planars. The second channel is mostly like the first, but the back is extremely lower. I could have laid second over the first, but that would lead to confusion. With the back extremely lower, easy to see which channel you are looking at with a glance. Should be pretty decent for placing logos and similar on the front and back. Remember that the mapping is planar and thing will distort as the 3d mesh curves around.

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Thanks for posting, Claire!

the Game of Bumps

Children's games often train skills of coordination and speed. This is "tag", re-invented for Second Life as a simple and fun way to master control of your avatar in active areas.

BUMPS

The Basic Rule: When "it" bumps you, you have to bump someone else, then say you did so in chat to make someone the new "it"

Object: to avoid being bumped by and therefore becoming "it". As "it", to accept the role in chat and then bump another and announce who the new "it" is in chat.

Equipment: any area roughly 40m across. It need not be utterly clear of obstacles nor fully delineated.

Players: any number greater than two.

Preparation

The group chooses a player to be the first "it". Traditionally, this role belongs to the player who suggests the game or whoever was "it" at the end of the last game.

The players choose an ending time of the game. All players are prohibited flying in the game.

Suggested: Each player opens the "Bumps, pushes & hits" window in the "help" menu, so one can see who made contact with oneself, or wears a script that tells when such things happen.

Optional: Each player can activate a radar or a map, either thru a viewer or a HUD (like Mystitool), so one might see who is close and who is not.

Playing Bumps

~ "It" chats a sentence saying "I am it".
~ "It" attempts to physically bump another player by avatar.
~ Other players move inside the playing area to avoid "it".

~ When "it" actually bumps another, their hit windows will confirm it.
~ "It" must chat, by any sentence he chooses, the name of who he bumped within hearing (20m) of the one he bumped.
~ Others and "it" may move and repeat that that idea until:

~ The one bumped acknowledges "it" in chat.
~ He or she becomes the new "it" and play continues as above.

Ending the game.

Anyone may, but the person who suggested the game must announce in chat "5 minutes left", "one minute left", "ten seconds left" and "Good Game."
The last "it" loses the game, but that hardly matters, does it? Now enjoy sharing what happened.

Irregularities:

"It" crashing appears to others as "it" disappearing, or going motionless. When this happens, or "it" must leave for a while, the others should gather in the center of the playing area and choose a new "it". Traditionally, "it" is assigned to the one who bumped the crashed "it" or the first "it".

Being "Out of Bounds" incurs no penalty because it isn't much fun. One should simply return to the playing area directly when discovered out of bounds. One can still bump or be bumped while out of bounds.

One can quit the game by going out of bounds and stating "not playing" as often as needed, but it is bad manners to re-enter the game after quitting.

When flying is noticed, the one flying should immediately return straight to the ground with "page down" only. If "it" is under the descending flyer, the bump counts and may be called. If "it" is the flyer, no bumps need be acknowledged until "it" lands and spends 10 seconds motionless.

Missing chat: One may, if bumped, accept "it" before the old "it" announces one was bumped, but it's better to remind the old "it" he or she needs to announce who was bumped. Handle someone not replying to a chatted bump after several chats as "it" crashing.

Players joining mid-game can learn the basic rule as they play if others guide them thus: When "it" bumps you, you have to bump someone else, then say you did so in chat to make them the new "it".

Strategies,
with links to more complete player guides:

The real object of the game is to improve the players ability to move, chat, and view the world screen in rapid succession. In more detail:

To move, use the keyboard arrows (or ASDF if your chat is closed) alone or in combination with shift and/or your mouse. To activate running, use Menu/World/Always Run, or Ctrl-R toggle.

Views include the default view where you see your avatars back, mouse-look where you see thru the avatars eyes, and custom focus views. Try using mouse-look (activated by mouse-scrolling your view into your avatar's head or pressing M with chat closed) and regular view (activated by escape key or M in mouse-look) and Custom focus. Each one of these might be preferable to you at different times, and each allows different custom options.

Chatting begins in mouse-look with the Enter key, then type your chat and press Enter again to send. If out of mouse-look, click your chat window, then type your chat and press Enter to send. If you can see another player's name-box floating over their head, they can hear you in regular chat. If the name-box has dimmed to invisibility, they are out of normal chat range, and you must move close to them or send a "shout" (using control-Enter). One can repeat the last thing said with control-up (ctrl-↑) then pressing Enter.

Game Variations:

~Voice can make an easier game if all have voice on and use it instead of chatting who bumped whom and who is it.

~Automating bumps would make an easier game if each player wears a scripted object that says bumps in chat, so "it" need not chat the bump. The new "it" must still chat that they are "it" unless all wear a script that keeps track of "it" by chat, float text and/or particle emission.

~RSVP: whenever anyone chats your name (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in your hearing, by itself or in a sentence, you must immediately chat a reply. This will leave you unable to move until you have completed your chat, and vulnerable to bumps.

~No tag backs, where "it" may not bump the person who bumped him or her, works best in a group larger than five.

~No running creates a slower-paced game; shrink the playing area to 25x25.

~Flying, when allowed and encouraged, is best played in a thick 40x40x40 box.

~ Rezzing. For an advanced group, encourage players to rez barriers in the playing area. Owners of the items may move, delete or change their own barriers at any time, of course. Simplest to allow only creating and editing non-scripted, non-physical default prims during the game, but the group may choose to allow anything, including scripted or physical items to appear and disappear.

Have Fun

Fair warning: in many areas, bumping another avatar might be grounds for a complaint to the management. Don't play Bumps in busy, public areas where non-players may get you in trouble.

Mental Feng Shui

Regardless of all the reasons why this is a bad chain e-mail, I actually like what it has to say:


ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.

FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN! . . . When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. . When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY- ONE. Spend some time alone.

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Heralding Business Ethics

~From a Second Life content creator, this paraphrased question~

An new but talented artist is doing some advertising pieces for me. She hasn't given me a price yet, but I do not think she will ask what I'm willing to pay. Should I encourage her to to charge more than she asks?

Short answer: No. Pay a completion bonus instead.

Long Answer: ~~ A short primer in business Ethics~~

Here is a spectrum with many, many points but five major colors:

Charity: you freely give money for little or no product at all. You provide fantastic products and services for next to nothing.

Soft Business: you pay generously for the things you need and want. You charge low for a superior product

Fair Business: you pay fair and charge fairly for fair service and products that are as good as the competition.

Hard Business: you dicker to get the best product for the least money. You provide nearly adequately for high prices.

Criminality: you get things you don't pay for. You provide a dangerous product for inflated fees.

One can run different areas of life differently without much difficulty: "Charity to family, fair business to everyone else" is a common example. One can, like SL, run a Hard Business, but market itself as a Charity. "Legal" isn't really a consideration, since you can be "legally criminal", say, if you are an insurance or fossil fuel company. Maybe gambling is "criminal", but perhaps casinos and lotteries really are selling entertainment as a hard business. The variations are endless and interesting to think about.

Now, where you put your dealings on this scale is largely a matter of personal decision, with a few modifying factors like corporate climate, zeitgeist, personal competence and current affluence. You can also decide who you will deal with and who you will avoid, with a few exceptions, like government. You can give your business to folks you respect. You can walk away when you are treated hard. The one thing you CANNOT do is decide what ethical style of business another person is going to run. Advise, yes. Set an example, yes. Encourage, yes. You can even enact or enforce laws to discourage criminal and hard business practices (unions were founded to discourage hard employers), but that only changes the playing field, not the intent of the players. Intentions can only be changed by the intender.

I like to run Fair to Soft Business, with some Charity, except where I have good skill but do not enjoy the work or people, then I run a Hard Business. Now, here's the point: for any style of business, but especially soft/charity folks, it's a slippery slope to encourage someone else to run a harder business and charge more than they already do. She might raise prices out of your budget. She might be treating you as a charity by choice. You often do not know, and can only rarely pry into that. You can still be soft charitable.

The soft/charity way to pay someone who is undercharging you is to pay them their usual fee early and eagerly, then pay a bonus or tip at completion, too. If she's not even that far and she does not have a usual price, then you (soft charity) make her a fair offer first. That favors the negotiation process toward her. (The Hard and Criminal business negotiating tactic is to either make your first offer hugely in your favor, or wait for the adversary to make the first offer.) When she accepts or names a price, accept it yourself so she saves face in an easy dicker, and you can still pay a bonus at the end of the job.

Love, Arth.

Chat relay Herald

Asked:

"Is it a breach of TOS for to relay a SL conversation to you?"

I did a tiny bit of research. I'd already posted some of this. Second Life's Community Standards says, among other things:

"Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited."

So Linden Labs prohibits copying conversation to me without consent under this "disclosure" rule. It used to be stricter, then looser, now this. In practice, the Lab does not seek out infractions; they only respond to complaints. Then, if evidence is present, they may issue warnings, suspension or expulsion for repeated malfeasance.

Federal and most state laws do not support this policy: non-confidential information is not required to be held in confidence by either party. Your conversations in SL even if held in Encoded IM, are registered in the SL servers, so federal privacy laws cannot apply. The Lab opted for a stricter policy.

Some Residents post in their profiles: "By this line in my profile, you give me consent to post or share any conversation". While this is an interesting legal ploy, I find it distasteful. Never do I see the complimentary post, allowing anyone to post what they say at will. As a solution, when discussing my own personal matters with other residents, I will ask any recipient (regardless of my seeing that line in their profile or not) to maintain confidentiality for my chat with, "Can you keep this to yourself, please?" thus revoking any permissions they may have assumed for themselves.

The Short Answer: Don't re-post.

For absolute legal safety, share nothing (no IM, no group chat, no world chat, no e-mail).

For any public disclosure or quote, get express consent to distribute.
"May I share your remarks with my advisers?" gives limited permission.
"May I quote you?" gives very broad permission.

To refer to a conversation you do not have permission to quote, alter the text to be non-identified or paraphrased, then you are not posting a log.

Yours, Arth.

Herald Names

This is a mirror post from a Second Life Notecard by Wolwaner Jervil.
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Since Viewer 2.3 and change to single login names we have some confusion about what name is used,

Definitions:
Username: The one you use to login with - your unique name in Secondlife. It cannot be changed.
Displayname: The name you can freely choose once a week - it is NOT unique.
Single Username: a Username with "Resident" as lastname (by default since November 2010). It cannot be changed.


Lets assume the following:
(1) Old resident: Wolwaner Jervil with a Display Name of Wolwaner
(2) New Resident: Wolwaner with a Display Name of Wol

All settings only belong to my viewer -
others cannot influence the way I see them!

*********************************************
Old Viewers upt to SL Viewer 2.2 will show:
(1) Wolwaner Jervil - the original login name chosen
(2) Wolwaner Resident - the lastname "Resident" is the default for single login names for compatibility reasons.
This also applies to Radars and all other objects that display names until they are changed to include the single login and display names.

*********************************************
SL Viewer 2.3 has different behavior, depending on the setting used.
Preferences -> General -> View Display Names checked
Preferences -> General -> Usernames checked
(1) is shown as Wolwaner and below we see wolwaner.jervil
(2) is shown as Wol and below we see Wolwaner
IM Windows: we see Displayname (username): (1) Wolwaner (wolwaner.jervil), (2) Wol (wolwaner)

Preferences -> General -> View Display Names unchecked
Preferences -> General -> Usernames checked
(1) is shown as Wolwaner Jervil
(2) is shown as Wolwaner
IM Windows: we see (1) Wolwaner Jervil and (2) Wolwaner
This Version is essentially the same as it is in previous viewers

Preferences -> General -> View Display Names checked
Preferences -> General -> Usernames unchecked
(1) is shown as Wolwaner
(2) is shown as Wol
IM Windows: we see Displayname (username): (1) Wolwaner (wolwaner.jervil), (2) Wol (wolwaner)

Preferences -> General -> View Display Names unchecked
Preferences -> General -> Usernames unchecked
(1) is shown as Wolwaner Jervil
(2) is shown as Wolwaner
IM Windows: we see (1) Wolwaner Jervil and (2) Wolwaner
This Version is essentially the same as it is in previous viewers

So basically we can switch between the Username display like it was in previous Viewers, we can use the display names only - this seems to be the roleplay implementation and we can use both.

NOTE: Only the usernames are kept unique. So when using display names you might be able to see 2 or even more Wolwaners in the future - what a shame to my unique name creation.

Hope this helps to understand the differences - have fun with all kind of names now.

Greetings
Wol
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