GL Intercept

Written 13 June, 2007

GL Intercept

Back in the day I was something of a software pirate, defeating copy protection on floppy disks and cartridges for my VIC-20 (and then Commodore 64). I had hundreds of programs I and my friends broke and then never even loaded.

It was fun matching wits with the software companies, figuring out how they protected their software and then unprotecting it and giving copies to my friends.

Most recently I’ve been bypassing Symantec. It started when I renewed my anti-virus protection and it didn’t “take.” Symantec was absolutely non-responsive to my pleas via e-mail, telephone, and U.S. mail first to activate my protection and, later, to refund my money, so I decided to hack them. After all, I had already paid!

It took like five minutes. All I had to do was download the latest virus definitions to my desktop; set the clock on my computer back to a time when my protection was current; run the file installing the definitions; and then set the clock back to real time. Makes you wonder how much their virus software is really worth, doesn’t it?

I’ve been doing it to Symanec for years and telling others how to do it, and fuck you, Symantec. I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t ripped me off and then ignored me.

I no longer have quite the cavalier attitude toward intellectual property rights I had in my early years, but I have my limits, and when they’re surpassed, my pirating instincts are activated.

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Recently I read about something called GL Intercept, which is code that captures textures displayed to the screen in video games and even in Second Life. It consists of a set of files you place in your Second Life folder. When you run SL, GLI begins its work, capturing textures.

Or so they say.

Well, not exactly. I know it works because I tried it.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a new and for the most part empty island owned by my friend Aldo Zond, rezzed a Mystitool platform high in the sky, set out some prims and texturized them, logged off, and logged back on with GL Intercept activated. The frame rate was abysmal (think .5 fps), but I wasn’t there to walk around. I set Busy and walked away from the computer to clean the house for a while.

When I looked at the Images folder later, it was filled with thousands of files.

It would have taken forever to look at all those files, so I sorted them by size and killed those smaller than 64x64. Then I spent fifteen minutes highlighting and deleting blocks of files that were either empty or looked like images from the SL interface. With that done, I made another folder and dragged the interesting-looking files to it.

When I looked at that folder later, I found copies of the files I had pasted onto my prims—and of the grass and rock from the Mystitool platform—but I also found images of the Second Life moon and clouds, the body tattoos and body textures from my avatar, and even files of my eyes and jewelry (clothing textures would have shown up too, I’m sure, but I was doing this experiment sky-clad at 700 meters on an empty sim inside an opaque Mystitool platform.

GL Intercept had certainly been thorough!

The files were saved in .png format, with the images upside down (but not, for some reason, backwards as well). Some were as large as 2048x2048, reflecting the density of the originals. Files tended to be saved at different densities (128x128, 256x256, and 512x512 being the most common). I think this is because textures tend to rez in at progressively higher densities, and because (I seem to remember reading this somewhere) far-off textures are read at a lower density than those that are close by.

I trashed the images. I mean, most of them were my test textures, I already had the Mysti platform textures, and most of the rest were images from Second Life for which I had no particular need. My skin is modifiable and copyable, so there was no need to save the body tattoos, either, although I was tempted because the skin images were complete with nail color, which comes off whenever I wear socks or gloves.

I am, however, tempted to use GL Intercept in earnest.

I don’t plan to go hang out at Textures ‘R’ Us and rip them off, or at Bliss Gardens to grab the neato terrain textures.

Rather, I have a few textures for which I paid good money, and which are No Modify (some are even No Copy, which renders them perfectly useless!).

No Copy textures are a pain because they don’t show in the menu under textures. You apply them by dragging them directly onto one side of a prim. This causes the texture to shout out in surprise and pain. Since the texture must be applied to each and every side of every prim, it makes for a lot of screen spam.

How nice it would be to capture all of my No Modify textures! I could put them into multi-texture organizers (I’ll blog on that soon) and apply them to prims in conventional ways.

So one night soon, sky-clad at 700 meters inside an opaque Mystitool platform, I may be running GL Intercept.

Just to make my second life a little bit easier.

Sculpted Steps

Written 15 June, 2007

Sculpted Steps

My friend Peter Stindberg is quick with a URL. My Mystitool catches them and throws them on the screen. Symbiosis.

Yesterday Peter gave me the address of a set of sculpted steps. I downloaded them, gave him a copy, and we put the sculptie texture on prims.

I had trouble getting the size right, but Peter was good enough to give me his size and orientation coordinates, and I soon had steps.

I applied temple stone textures and put them in place on the last leg of the hike to the Pele temple, replacing a lava flow.

Way cool. Five prims and a whole flight of steps!

Thanks, Peter!

(I took this spider web down when Peter told me he was arachnophobic.)

Update

Written 15 June, 2007

Update

Well, the Wednesday update has come and gone, with new software to download. No Windlight skies. No voice. Friends online indicator broken. Attachments getting shoved up my a** every time I teleport. People getting Ruthed. Pose ball malfunctions. Lag (I especially hate it when I get scrambled in a teleport and drag a rescue folder onto my av and wind up bald and naked). Naked is okay. It’s the bald part I have trouble with.

I understand Windlight is off First Look and on the beta grid and voice is off beta and on First Look.

On the positive side, it’s been a while since local water last disappeared.

Zip Line

Written 14 June, 2007

Zip Line

Paris 1900 has a zip line that runs form the top of the Arc d'Triomphe to the street. Way fun.

Here are photos of Sweetie in action on the zip line.

I would sure love to have one of these on Pele!

Future Gardens

Written 14 June, 2007

Future Gardens

Last week Sweetie and I met a young man in Paris 1900; he took us to a place called Future Gardens, which is filled with intricate prim sculptures.

Our friend, whose name is Oren, said the guy who made the place is a professor of mathematics who has developed scripts to make recursive objects likes the ones shown here.

The sculptures were beautiful.

Pele Postal

What Can Brown Do For You?

Written 13 June, 2007

Pele Postal

I had occasion to send Sweetie a package in RL last week.

It was sort of a geek survival package—a flash drive with hot pix of Sweetie and me together, a headset to facilitate our late-night phone conversations, and a little day planner I had picked up for her at Frys for a song.

Even with relations between the United States and the Nation-State of Pele being what they are these days, I was surprised the USPS wouldn’t take my package. They I saw the sign on the wall—“Postmistress, state of Dreamland (the 51st state!), Imsonotadiva Bartlett.”

OMG. Diva is now overseeing our mails! Guess she got demoted.

And so I pulled out my trusty freebie UPS truck (yes, the one I’m always blowing up) and Browned the package to Sweetie.

Here’s a copy of the packing slip I enclosed. I knew Sweetie would get a kick out of it. And she did!

Shoes Up My Butt!

Written 13 June, 2007

Shoes Up My Butt!

I’m REALLY tired of my attachments coming loose when I cross sim borders. And the problem is still here with today's update.

More often than not, I arrived to find my hair and my shoes shoved up my ying-yang, and a lot of the time my jewelry too. My HUDs disappear, too—I don’t even want to THINK about up which body part they’ve been shoved.

When it first started to happen, I spent a lot of time chasing the various items I wear. Then I got the bright idea of putting everything into a single folder which I can drag onto me when I get scrambled. That works reasonably well, sometimes, although at other times things just won’t attach.

You know, local water is no longer disappearing. One would think the Lindens could find a way to fix this much more annoying problem.

Meanwhile, I need someone to help me extricate my shoes.

Tiki Man

Written 13 June, 2007

Tiki Man

Sweetie had the bright idea of putting a tiki man over the tunnel into which Pele's little train dives when it leaves the Gardens and dives into the Forsaken River. She made a mouth, complete with tongue and teeth, making the descent majorly scary as the train disappeared into the incipient Tiki man's mouth.

Then Sweetie got frustrated with making the rest of the head and I had one of my rare bright ideas; I created a cylindrical prim and skewed the top at about 30 degrees. That gave Mr. Tiki Man a rakish, tiki-like 'tude and made it easy to add eyes, ears, and a flat space to sit on top of his head.

Then Sweetie tweaked my work by giving Mr. Tiki Man mascara and a big copper earring with bling, and suddenly he was complete!

Kill the Wabbit!

Written 13 June, 2007

Kill the Wabbit!

The first two times Sweetie and I journeyed to Paris 1900 we didn't make it to the Moulin Rouge.

The third time was the charm.

I dressed appropriately for the period, I think (Photo 1; note the bored look!), even wearing a big hat.

In fact, the hat was so frigging big it was scary. Check this perspective! (Photo 2).

The M.R. was fabulous. Empty, but fabulous (Photo 3).

Sweetie being a performer, nothing would do but she get backstage.

Unfortunately, the way backstage was blocked by a "security device."

I won't embarass the maker by naming them, but they should be ashamed. All it was was a huge prim turned alpha.

Sweetie and I simply sat on the prim (Photo 4; Sweetie's true identity has been concealed), and then stood up and we were in the interdicted area.

Once backstage, it was me who was strangely affected. Overcome with the urge to perform, I whipped out the Athama I bought from Robin Wood and, making facial expressions with my emoter, began to perform Wagner (Photo 5).

Or, rather, Warner Brothers' spoof of Wagner from the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

You know, "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!"

In my best Elmer Fudd voice.

"Hehehe. Be vewy, vewy quiet! I'm bweaking into the Mouwin Wouge."