Huge Upgrade for Kitto Flora's Steam Train: Part II

Chey Admires Her New Steam Train

The scripts in version 2 of Kitto Flora's little steam train were completely rewritten to take advantage of new features in Linden Scripting Language. As a result the engine now has a script time of about .06 ms, as opposed to .35 for version 2. It tracks better than version 2 and the carriages follow more closely.

Unlike version 2, version 3 is phantom while running, which means it ignores objects that block the tracks. Even after everything had been moved well clear of the rails I would occasionally get IMs from the engine telling me something was impeding its progress and where that object could be found. Usually the culprit was a huge hot, smoking temp-on-rez boulders that had been flung into the air by the volcano Pele. Phantom status also stops the collision warnings I was always getting from my Mystitool when I rode version 2.

The only no copy part of Kitto's train set is, for obvious reasons, the engine. Version 3 was smart enough to know when it was lost and could be set to IM its owner, giving its location. Version 3 comes with a rezzer that can rez or derez engines. Unlike version 2, which used a notecard, version 3 uses a blue menu for configuration. The owner can set the engine's speed, its loudness, the length of the column of smoke it generates, and set custom textures for the sides of the engine's boiler and cab.

Huge Upgrade for Kitto Flora's Steam Train: Part I

I Test the Track

One morning in early 2007, when I was new in Second Life, I was riding the SL Railroad around the mainland. At one of the stops I saw a cute little steam train for sale. I believe the price was $1200L.

I bought it in black, and over the next several years picked up versions in red and green, a Yule train, and a diesel.

JIRA

Chey and Boris Linden Attempt to Solve the Mystery of the Inflating Prim Count

Boris Linden checked in with me last night to follow up on a JIRA (bug report) I filed about the multiplying prims in the Gilded Gobbler.

JIRA is Linden Lab's way of tracking problems and erratic behavior with the software of Second Life. I have to say the response to my case was prompt and effective.

My JIRA was BUG-6547, Setting Prim Faces to Alpha Masking Dramatically Inflates Land Impact When in Prim Physics Shape. It was soon referred to another, earlier JIRA, MATBUG-13,  Alpha Masking Can Dramatically Inflate Physics Land Impact. It seems increased land impact is expected behavior when alpha masking is used, even when the object is set to Prim shape.

It seems to me this opens a can of worms. Until now a 1:1 Prim/Land Impact ratio has prevailed for objects set to Prim physics shape. Not it seems we'll need to check to make sure this is true-- every time we change anything in the Edit window.

Not cool.

Hippos

From Second Life Wikia:

Oh the great hippo! Stomper of gnomes! Savior of all Second Life! How we worship thee!

The tale of the hippo began simply enough in a forum thread by Darwin Appleby in which he strikes a long lasting topic about hippos, which became one of the longest lasting threads on the SL forums. It was then carried over into the grid when Hikaru Yamamoto started a zoo in which a small hippo family could be found. This small yet humble family loved to be fed by visitors and soon became a crowd favorite! Soon enough hippo statues and avatars began to appear through-out the grid! This hippo mania did not end with the residents themselves. Instead, it was caught by the Lindens themselves and seeped into the core of Second Life (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-H)! Whenever bugs were found (planted by evil gnomes) the hippos would be unleashed and they would skip through SL stopping the bugs and gnomes while residents were kept out (hippos are very shy about their job)!

Some may have forgotten about the beloved hippo, but to others the hippos shall never die! Living on as the legendary folk heros that they really are!

Do not forget to celebrate SL National Hippo Day on Febuary 15th!

HIPPO was also the name of a Linden-made object that you could put keywords into and it would detect other people wearing HIPPOs that had the same keywords in them as well. Example: Oz Spade has "cats" in his HIPPO, Bob Boberson has "cats" in his HIPPO, Oz walks past Bob, and both of their HIPPOs light up. The HIPPOs still work, but are not used by many residents, becoming one of those things that "never really caught on".

The Ctrl-Alt-Shift-H easter egg was removed from the main viewer in version 1.21, leading to a resident protest centered around the JIRA entry (VWR-11118) asking for the shortcut back. Soft Linden challenged residents to get 1000 votes on the JIRA entry to see it reinstated. The hippos finally returned after a long and difficult gestation in version 2.0, now as floating text, but only when the Develop menu (Ctrl-Alt-Q) is switched on.

Here's the original thread.

You must do this...

If you are using a PC, press SHIFT_CTRL_ALT_H. Repeatedly.

Just do it. I will explain later.

Years ago I placed a Devotion poseball at the landing point for Whimsy. It's fairly popular; in fact, some couples never get past the enttrance!

The other day Sweetie and I were laughing about a couple that had been on Devotion for hours. "They're missing our lovely sim!" I said, "although they do pick up free hard hats." Sweetie told me I should install a Devotion Poseball Monitoring System.

And so I wrote a script that will say in chat, after they have been on Devotion for six minutes, "Just to let you know, we're timing you guys on this poseball! Going for a record, are we?: After that, they get a random message once every four minutes. "Jeez, guys, get a room, why don't you?" or You guys are AFK, right?"

Of course we don't care how long someone stays on our poseballs. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Materials World

For the past several days, Sweetie has been experimenting with materials. She has been taking unremarkable areas on Whimsy and making them gorgeous. She started with three big planters up at our captured asteroid at 4000 meters. It's my first experience with materials, and she is making my jaw drop!

Click the photos to enlarge them.

Above, reflections from the sun and the moon and lanterns she has strategically placed play over pools of water with great effect.

In the photo above you can see twin strips of light caused by candles she has placed on a rock.

Here the moon and light from a burning tiki torch create beautiful reflections.

My desktop is quite powerful, but my video card can't quite handle Advanced Lighting. It works well enough, however, for taking photos.

Click Read More for photos of sunrises and sunsets. They're beautiful, for the water catches the sun.

Sitting on the Sungate (Sweetie's Photos)

It was ridiculously easy to create these sits for the Whimsy Sungate.

I rezzed two prims, turned them into spheres, reduced their size to 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 meters, set the texture to blank, made one blue (for men) and one red (for women), and added some shine.

I then dropped a simple sit script in the prim and added a sit sound the script called for. I had to tweak the scripts a bit (for one thing the script didn't turn the balls alpha when avatars sat) , but the most difficult part was finding appropriate poses.

I settled on a female pose that gently lowers the avatar to her knees, and an insouciant male pose in which three of the avatar's limbs hang into space. And I was done.

I'm going to build a script dispensing device at our Suborbital Asteroid Retreat up at 4000 meters, but I'm going to rework the script so it automatically calls a pose placed in the ball so no scripting will need to be done (other than resetting the scrip; some to think of it, I'll have the script reset itself whenever the prim's contents are changed. If you would like a pose-ready ball, send me a notecard or an IM and I'll be happy to send you one. Just remember it might be a day or two before I can whip the script into shape. When you get your full-perm copy, just drop an animation into it and hope for the best.

Fun on Xubi's Rez Day

Sweetie's rez day party has come and gone. We had a great time with friends and acquaintances, dancing and conversing high in the skies above Whimsy while fireworks and he Aurora Borealis fought it out for visual supremacy.

Our DJ was the lovely and talented Sparrow Letov, who plays music which, surprisingly, both Sweetie and I like. She's the only DJ ever to have achieved that!

I love this photo of her. My rule when taking snapshots of dancing avatars is to snap away. If you're lucky, you will eventually get a keeper!

We had a great time talking about the olden days of Second Life and pulling examples of blingy, badly-constructed shoes from our inventories. Sweetie took the day with this mismatched pair of footwear.

Darlingmonster Ember wore the. best. tail. ever.

Fnordian Link came, but got away before I could get a photo of him.

After things wound down I swept up the confetti and Sweetie and I dropped to the mainland and enjoyed posts I installed on her sungate just this morning.

All in all, it was a great rez day for Sweetie.