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Jupiter Rowland @JupiterRowland
Germany (Real Reality™), Dorenas World (virtual reality), OSgrid (secondary virtual reality)
Online
Far-travelled on the Hypergrid and convinced of Roth2 v2. |
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"Only recently i was at Lliba and was asked to leave or change my appearance because I looked "too young". My avi AND me are 5'6 and I had on an athena petite body and an outfit very similar to the image above. Long sleeves, long pants. Not even any pink clothing. I thought it was crazy, but I agreed to leave."
This. This so very much.
Many people claim that the only thing that could flag an avatar underage is an automated childgate configured to a minimum of 180cm or 6'. They claim that avatars would never be considered underage just by their looks. Until someone writes that exactly this has happened to their own avatar.
Even then, some either don't believe it, or they think their avatar, while not fully conforming to OpenSim standards, is safe. Until it surprisingly, unexpectedly happens to their very own avatar.
Those who still keep denying it, and I guess they're still the vast majority here, have female avatars that fully conform to the "professional San Fernando Valley porn star meets Kardashian family member, and the whole Hypergrid is Malibu or Ibiza in summer always and everywhere" standard. I guess they're staring at the above image in disbelief that it's even possible to build such an avatar, much less that someone has actually done it and, worse yet, sticks with it as a daily driver.
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This. This so very much.
Many people claim that the only thing that could flag an avatar underage is an automated childgate configured to a minimum of 180cm or 6'. They claim that avatars would never be considered underage just by their looks. Until someone writes that exactly this has happened to their own avatar.
Even then, some either don't believe it, or they think their avatar, while not fully conforming to OpenSim standards, is safe. Until it surprisingly, unexpectedly happens to their very own avatar.
Those who still keep denying it, and I guess they're still the vast majority here, have female avatars that fully conform to the "professional San Fernando Valley porn star meets Kardashian family member, and the whole Hypergrid is Malibu or Ibiza in summer always and everywhere" standard. I guess they're staring at the above image in disbelief that it's even possible to build such an avatar, much less that someone has actually done it and, worse yet, sticks with it as a daily driver.
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PBR has me wondering.
On the one hand, Second Life has the best graphics of all virtual worlds already now, also due to how the resident creators go completely overboard with textures and meshes. Both the official viewer and the most popular viewer are based on way outdated OpenGL versions because Second Life itself doesn't support anything newer. Enough avatars within the FOV, and even an overclocked RTX 4090Ti won't be able to keep the world from turning into a slideshow.
Second Life doesn't even appeal to gamers with powerful machines, and I think a rather substantial number of users is still on the same 32-bit office-level machines they got themselves over a decade and a half ago because they haven't been able to afford anything newer ever since.
Not to mention that they're going mobile and, I think, VR as well. Remember that VR requires a constant 60fps on mobile, battery-powered hardware.
At the same time, they're introducing both PBR and 2K textures in what looks like an attempt at having the only virtual world whose graphics outclass Cyberpunk 2077. And Cyberpunk is notorious for barely running smoothly on absolute highest-end gaming machines while having a state-of-the-art graphics engine underneath. Second Life wants to pull this off on phones and headsets while using over 20-year-old OpenGL.
I guess we all know what 2K textures mean. They won't mean that creators will stitch four of their many 1K textures together to have fewer textures overall and more simple meshes. No, they'll rather replace each 1K texture with a 2K texture because so does the competition. Yes, on buttons on clothes. And when that stuff is ripped and taken over to OpenSim, the importers probably can't be bothered to scale the textures down.
When PBR is finalised, it might have a slow start because it'll require expensive extra software and more work. But once one big brand starts, or a small brand becomes big by having PBR before the established big brands, all big brands will have to follow suit on all their products, also because they say that PBR and non-PBR objects look terrible next to each other.
I'm not sure how quickly PBR will spread in OpenSim. If it starts on legal content made in and for OpenSim, nobody will know and care because that content won't be available on any of the two or three super-popular freebie sims.
As for SL content, until now, practically none of the importers could even be bothered to re-add normal maps or specular maps. That's why almost everything in OpenSim has flat and dull surfaces. So I wouldn't be so certain that they suddenly start adding normal maps, specular maps and PBR maps.
That is, until either a new freebie sim comes up or an old freebie sim re-emerges with PBR content. Exclusive and no-transfer, of course. Then PBR will become what EvoX is already now: a seemingly absolute necessity for the content it concerns. Everyone will have to offer PBR content. More recent freebie stores might start rushing to hang up PBR content, maybe even replace non-PBR content with PBR content. And just like EvoX now and BoM before EvoX, many won't know what it actually means, but it's probably the newest, hottest must-have now.
Those who actually turn PBR on will find that some sims will look rather jarring: Some content supports PBR, some SL mesh content right next to it is of the kind that has even got shadows painted on to bring near-photo-realistic graphics to those who use SL on potatoes, and maybe there are even good old prim buildings on the same sim. This will also be a sure-fire way to tell that the sim builder has PBR off, just like you can tell sims whose builders have their viewers permanently switched to midday or whose builders always fly and never walk on their own sims.
Oh, by the way, I expect PBR to have one good side-effect: Baked-on shadows that clash with generated shadows will finally be a thing of the past, at least on new content.
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On the one hand, Second Life has the best graphics of all virtual worlds already now, also due to how the resident creators go completely overboard with textures and meshes. Both the official viewer and the most popular viewer are based on way outdated OpenGL versions because Second Life itself doesn't support anything newer. Enough avatars within the FOV, and even an overclocked RTX 4090Ti won't be able to keep the world from turning into a slideshow.
Second Life doesn't even appeal to gamers with powerful machines, and I think a rather substantial number of users is still on the same 32-bit office-level machines they got themselves over a decade and a half ago because they haven't been able to afford anything newer ever since.
Not to mention that they're going mobile and, I think, VR as well. Remember that VR requires a constant 60fps on mobile, battery-powered hardware.
At the same time, they're introducing both PBR and 2K textures in what looks like an attempt at having the only virtual world whose graphics outclass Cyberpunk 2077. And Cyberpunk is notorious for barely running smoothly on absolute highest-end gaming machines while having a state-of-the-art graphics engine underneath. Second Life wants to pull this off on phones and headsets while using over 20-year-old OpenGL.
I guess we all know what 2K textures mean. They won't mean that creators will stitch four of their many 1K textures together to have fewer textures overall and more simple meshes. No, they'll rather replace each 1K texture with a 2K texture because so does the competition. Yes, on buttons on clothes. And when that stuff is ripped and taken over to OpenSim, the importers probably can't be bothered to scale the textures down.
When PBR is finalised, it might have a slow start because it'll require expensive extra software and more work. But once one big brand starts, or a small brand becomes big by having PBR before the established big brands, all big brands will have to follow suit on all their products, also because they say that PBR and non-PBR objects look terrible next to each other.
I'm not sure how quickly PBR will spread in OpenSim. If it starts on legal content made in and for OpenSim, nobody will know and care because that content won't be available on any of the two or three super-popular freebie sims.
As for SL content, until now, practically none of the importers could even be bothered to re-add normal maps or specular maps. That's why almost everything in OpenSim has flat and dull surfaces. So I wouldn't be so certain that they suddenly start adding normal maps, specular maps and PBR maps.
That is, until either a new freebie sim comes up or an old freebie sim re-emerges with PBR content. Exclusive and no-transfer, of course. Then PBR will become what EvoX is already now: a seemingly absolute necessity for the content it concerns. Everyone will have to offer PBR content. More recent freebie stores might start rushing to hang up PBR content, maybe even replace non-PBR content with PBR content. And just like EvoX now and BoM before EvoX, many won't know what it actually means, but it's probably the newest, hottest must-have now.
Those who actually turn PBR on will find that some sims will look rather jarring: Some content supports PBR, some SL mesh content right next to it is of the kind that has even got shadows painted on to bring near-photo-realistic graphics to those who use SL on potatoes, and maybe there are even good old prim buildings on the same sim. This will also be a sure-fire way to tell that the sim builder has PBR off, just like you can tell sims whose builders have their viewers permanently switched to midday or whose builders always fly and never walk on their own sims.
Oh, by the way, I expect PBR to have one good side-effect: Baked-on shadows that clash with generated shadows will finally be a thing of the past, at least on new content.
Thank you for your comment Jupiter. I can't claim to understand PBR but I did wonder how the ancient and by now creaking OpenGL would cope with this development. It's quite paradoxical that the last people to spend any money on OpenGL was Linden Labs, some 20 years ago, and then they subsequently fired all those developers who have now moved on to other things, taking their knowledge with them. OpenGL is long overdue for updating, and LL should really invest in developing OpenGL to be fit for the next 20 years, except they no longer have the expertise, or indeed anyone who knows enough about how the current OpenGL works.
I'd be very surprised to discover anyone still using a 32 bit machine, even the vast majority of Linux users have made the change to 64 bit, and though there are still some distros available for 32 it, they are becoming fewer every day. But I'm sure that there are plenty who access virtual world environments on the laptop they bought from the middle aisle in Lidl as a special purchase one shopping day.
I've always found baked on shadows a bit of a fraud, though I can see their utility in a world without computer generated shadows, but I've switched on shadows as long as I've been in virtual worlds. I also use both normal and specular maps on my builds, not always successfully, but I do like their effect. I'm also not averse to building with prims. I like mesh, but I'm not always convinced of its superiority over prim builds in all use case scenarios - sometimes it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I still don't understand what all the fuss is about with EvoX: it seems to me to have something of the element of the Emperor's New Clothes, or proprietary lock-in as per some computer software. In either case, a little redundant in Opensim. BoM to me is just a nice way to be able to use all that bloody awful system clothing from circa 2007, though it is great for when changing skins, as it makes it far less of a hassle than was the case with pre BoM avatars. What really strikes me as a little weird are those traditionalists who still wander the metaverse with a system avatar, I can't blame them for not going for the black market imports, but surely the existence of Ruth & Roth 2.0 offer a way to look better in a way that is actually optimised to the limitations of OpenGL than the usual mesh avatar offerings.
PBR with just be overkill, but I have no doubt you're right, it will soon be a must have, even in Opensim.
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I'd be very surprised to discover anyone still using a 32 bit machine, even the vast majority of Linux users have made the change to 64 bit, and though there are still some distros available for 32 it, they are becoming fewer every day. But I'm sure that there are plenty who access virtual world environments on the laptop they bought from the middle aisle in Lidl as a special purchase one shopping day.
I've always found baked on shadows a bit of a fraud, though I can see their utility in a world without computer generated shadows, but I've switched on shadows as long as I've been in virtual worlds. I also use both normal and specular maps on my builds, not always successfully, but I do like their effect. I'm also not averse to building with prims. I like mesh, but I'm not always convinced of its superiority over prim builds in all use case scenarios - sometimes it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I still don't understand what all the fuss is about with EvoX: it seems to me to have something of the element of the Emperor's New Clothes, or proprietary lock-in as per some computer software. In either case, a little redundant in Opensim. BoM to me is just a nice way to be able to use all that bloody awful system clothing from circa 2007, though it is great for when changing skins, as it makes it far less of a hassle than was the case with pre BoM avatars. What really strikes me as a little weird are those traditionalists who still wander the metaverse with a system avatar, I can't blame them for not going for the black market imports, but surely the existence of Ruth & Roth 2.0 offer a way to look better in a way that is actually optimised to the limitations of OpenGL than the usual mesh avatar offerings.
PBR with just be overkill, but I have no doubt you're right, it will soon be a must have, even in Opensim.
Many OpenSim users actually still don't know what BoM even is. But "BoM" was slapped on all those new SL bodies and SL heads that showed up in the Hypergrid in the early 2020s, so it was simply considered a code for "this is the new hotness now, and everything that doesn't have it on itself is old and busted".
Hardly anyone actually fleshes BoM out. The new old way of putting on skins and make-up and tattoos is either seen as a nuisance but one that you have to put up with, or people got themselves an Athena 6 and a Catwa BoM head and use skin appliers and tattoo appliers on them.
Only very very few BoM avatars actually wear layer clothes. That's mostly because the concept of layer clothes has been declared obsolete in 2015, and absolutely everything, no matter how skin-tight, absolutely has had to be mesh ever since, no exception. Since Athena 6, there has hardly been any layer clothing imported from SL. One "Free Bakes on Mesh" box with layer lingerie and layer stockings. One third-party box with mesh lingerie plus layer stockings. That's all. And nobody ever wears either. One of the reasons why nobody had come up with the idea to steal layer tights from SL; the other reason is because maybe half a dozen avatars all over the Hypergrid would wear tights in the first place.
What layer clothes have been around before the arrival of Athena 6 is being snubbed even more. People only want the newest, the best, the hottest stuff. And those old layer clothes aren't just old technology, they're "seriously old crap" that nobody would want to be caught wearing.
The concept of alpha masks in combination with BoM is completely alien here. First of all, "everybody knows" that alpha masks don't work on mesh bodies. That's what they've been learning since 2015.
Then, even those who may suspect that BoM might include alpha mask support for mesh bodies "learn" that this is allegedly not the case. And that's only because they try it with Athena 6 or Adonis 4, and the alpha modes on these bodies are completely botched, so alpha masks actually do not work on them specifically. At the same time, alpha masks work on Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 out perfectly of the box, but nobody uses these bodies, so nobody knows.
Lastly, the general attitude here is that alpha cuts are a more advanced technology and therefore the successor of alpha masks, having fully superseded alpha masks and rendered alpha masks obsolete. Wanting to use alpha masks on a BoM mesh body from the 2020s is akin to wanting to wear Linda Kellie layer clothes on a BoM mesh body from 2020s. Never mind that Ruth2 v4 is actually bundled with Linda Kellie underwear. And never mind that mesh bodies in SL have quickly become available without tiny alpha cuts and with full alpha mask support instead because, after all, alpha cuts are nothing but an ugly and performance-hogging hack for alpha-ing because alpha masks didn't work on pre-BoM mesh bodies.
What EvoX is and means, I think many OpenSim users don't know that either. But it's being aggressively marketed, and it's on all the newest and hottest mesh heads and skins. So it has to be the new hotness that you absolutely have to have. If EvoX is juxtaposed with BoM by having EvoX and BoM heads next to each other on the same store wall, this also creates the impression that EvoX is the new hotness to BoM's old and busted because BoM has been around for longer, and EvoX "clearly isn't" BoM.
So you absolutely have to have EvoX nowadays. Outfitting a new avatar with something that isn't the newest, hottest shit is generally understood as cluelessness about what the newest, hottest shit is. Sometimes, even refusing to upgrade your avatar to the newest, hottest shit is.
The next big thing will be something like EvoX 2K. Same as EvoX, but with 2K textures.
Fortunately, classic avatar layers, skins included, only support diffuse maps, but no bump maps, no specular maps and definitely no PBR maps. So unless bump maps, specular maps and PBR maps are firmly applied to the body or the head, and BoM can't mess with them, BoM or EvoX can't be combined with PBR. At least it won't be possible to market PBR skins because PBR skins aren't possible.
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Hardly anyone actually fleshes BoM out. The new old way of putting on skins and make-up and tattoos is either seen as a nuisance but one that you have to put up with, or people got themselves an Athena 6 and a Catwa BoM head and use skin appliers and tattoo appliers on them.
Only very very few BoM avatars actually wear layer clothes. That's mostly because the concept of layer clothes has been declared obsolete in 2015, and absolutely everything, no matter how skin-tight, absolutely has had to be mesh ever since, no exception. Since Athena 6, there has hardly been any layer clothing imported from SL. One "Free Bakes on Mesh" box with layer lingerie and layer stockings. One third-party box with mesh lingerie plus layer stockings. That's all. And nobody ever wears either. One of the reasons why nobody had come up with the idea to steal layer tights from SL; the other reason is because maybe half a dozen avatars all over the Hypergrid would wear tights in the first place.
What layer clothes have been around before the arrival of Athena 6 is being snubbed even more. People only want the newest, the best, the hottest stuff. And those old layer clothes aren't just old technology, they're "seriously old crap" that nobody would want to be caught wearing.
The concept of alpha masks in combination with BoM is completely alien here. First of all, "everybody knows" that alpha masks don't work on mesh bodies. That's what they've been learning since 2015.
Then, even those who may suspect that BoM might include alpha mask support for mesh bodies "learn" that this is allegedly not the case. And that's only because they try it with Athena 6 or Adonis 4, and the alpha modes on these bodies are completely botched, so alpha masks actually do not work on them specifically. At the same time, alpha masks work on Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 out perfectly of the box, but nobody uses these bodies, so nobody knows.
Lastly, the general attitude here is that alpha cuts are a more advanced technology and therefore the successor of alpha masks, having fully superseded alpha masks and rendered alpha masks obsolete. Wanting to use alpha masks on a BoM mesh body from the 2020s is akin to wanting to wear Linda Kellie layer clothes on a BoM mesh body from 2020s. Never mind that Ruth2 v4 is actually bundled with Linda Kellie underwear. And never mind that mesh bodies in SL have quickly become available without tiny alpha cuts and with full alpha mask support instead because, after all, alpha cuts are nothing but an ugly and performance-hogging hack for alpha-ing because alpha masks didn't work on pre-BoM mesh bodies.
What EvoX is and means, I think many OpenSim users don't know that either. But it's being aggressively marketed, and it's on all the newest and hottest mesh heads and skins. So it has to be the new hotness that you absolutely have to have. If EvoX is juxtaposed with BoM by having EvoX and BoM heads next to each other on the same store wall, this also creates the impression that EvoX is the new hotness to BoM's old and busted because BoM has been around for longer, and EvoX "clearly isn't" BoM.
So you absolutely have to have EvoX nowadays. Outfitting a new avatar with something that isn't the newest, hottest shit is generally understood as cluelessness about what the newest, hottest shit is. Sometimes, even refusing to upgrade your avatar to the newest, hottest shit is.
The next big thing will be something like EvoX 2K. Same as EvoX, but with 2K textures.
Fortunately, classic avatar layers, skins included, only support diffuse maps, but no bump maps, no specular maps and definitely no PBR maps. So unless bump maps, specular maps and PBR maps are firmly applied to the body or the head, and BoM can't mess with them, BoM or EvoX can't be combined with PBR. At least it won't be possible to market PBR skins because PBR skins aren't possible.
Hardware isn't the only reason why people run the 32bit viewer. I still run a 32 SL viewer for the simple reason that I want to keep my OS and SL installations completely separate, and there only way I can reasonably achieve that is to run 32 bit for SL, and 64 bit for OS. That won't be a problem after my next hardware upgrade and I ditch windows altogether.
As for EvoX ... I fail to see the appeal. Perhaps it's just my old eyes, but the EvoX textures don't look good enough to me to warrant departing from the 'standard' skin. And, of course, I find it incredibly amusing that the high tech EvoX heads seem to use exactly the same skin layout that heads use in DAZ3D.
I use a system avatar quite frequently when I'm HGing all over the place. It rezzes faster, no matter what grid I land on, and being old school I attract less attention :)
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As for EvoX ... I fail to see the appeal. Perhaps it's just my old eyes, but the EvoX textures don't look good enough to me to warrant departing from the 'standard' skin. And, of course, I find it incredibly amusing that the high tech EvoX heads seem to use exactly the same skin layout that heads use in DAZ3D.
I use a system avatar quite frequently when I'm HGing all over the place. It rezzes faster, no matter what grid I land on, and being old school I attract less attention :)
The Linden Lab devs have been talking about moving to Vulkan in the last few years. That should have happened well before even tackling PBR and 2k textures! Many GPUs as far back as the 900 series from Nvidia and their AMD equivalents are compatible with Vulkan. If that move happened first, then PBR and 2k textures becoming part of the SL engine would make perfect sense, and could be scaled enough to work with plenty of PC's. Of course, upgrades would be a likely necessity. I'm on a 1050 GPU/8th Gen i7 H CPU on a laptop and SL is kinda variable, depending on which sim I'm on. OS on the other hand is mostly a smoother experience for me. I do have 32 GB of DDR4 RAM so most of the time I don't experience too much texture thrashing... keeping shadows off is the usual thing to do to speed up things, along with 128m or less of draw distance.
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Well, I think that, unless they're really small, classic layer-and-prim avatars have the "privilege" of being considered old-fashioned weirdos or perpetually stuck under a rock before being considered underage.
Oh, and Juno's outfits that are considered granny looks usually don't include socks. They rather include too long skirts in combination with nylon without visible garters because it's a pair of tights. Plus medium-height heels which therefore aren't high enough. Also, jackets that don't fall into one of the usual two categories (midriff-baring short jackets, black leather biker jackets).
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Oh, and Juno's outfits that are considered granny looks usually don't include socks. They rather include too long skirts in combination with nylon without visible garters because it's a pair of tights. Plus medium-height heels which therefore aren't high enough. Also, jackets that don't fall into one of the usual two categories (midriff-baring short jackets, black leather biker jackets).
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Sim owners declaring avatars underage just by their looks can go and actually has gone further than you might imagine.
I know someone whose female avatar was kicked and banned from a sim for the combination of being under 6' (no childgate, just visual "child avatar recognition"), Athena Petite and wearing too much pink. Wearing too much pink. I'm not even kidding. And the avatar does look quite sexy otherwise.
And I think I actually recall a discussion on what makes an underage avatar. Hair style was mentioned, as was skin tone.
I mean, as long as you're a regular Athena of at least 6' with a deep tan and a long lush mane, perpetually scantily clad in what little skin-tight clothing is required and always walking on spike heels of not unter 6", you've got nothing to fear.
But deviate far enough to the wrong side (and Legacy, eBody Reborn and Decadence-HG are not the wrong side), and you might get into trouble.
Also, keep in mind that the child avatar definition that you know from the past is likely not to stay the same. Especially since that SL drama, sim owners are raising the defences. The definition will become more extreme.
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I know someone whose female avatar was kicked and banned from a sim for the combination of being under 6' (no childgate, just visual "child avatar recognition"), Athena Petite and wearing too much pink. Wearing too much pink. I'm not even kidding. And the avatar does look quite sexy otherwise.
And I think I actually recall a discussion on what makes an underage avatar. Hair style was mentioned, as was skin tone.
I mean, as long as you're a regular Athena of at least 6' with a deep tan and a long lush mane, perpetually scantily clad in what little skin-tight clothing is required and always walking on spike heels of not unter 6", you've got nothing to fear.
But deviate far enough to the wrong side (and Legacy, eBody Reborn and Decadence-HG are not the wrong side), and you might get into trouble.
Also, keep in mind that the child avatar definition that you know from the past is likely not to stay the same. Especially since that SL drama, sim owners are raising the defences. The definition will become more extreme.
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When the eBody Reborn hype started, I unironically expected Athena to be demoted to teen and Athena Petite to be declared pre-teen at best.
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"My point being: it isn't child avatars that are the problem, it's the community and it's appetite for harassment. It is that the OSW/opensim community is so completely hostile/toxic and it has such a high tolerance for harassment -combined with an unwillingness to address harassment effectively."
That's it exactly, and I keep having to tell people: OSW does not have moderation. OSW does not have "staff" in the traditional community staff sense. OSW's staff, AFAIK, is only Satyr. Satyr is only a tech admin and developer at which he admittedly excels. But he is not fit for moderation. He isn't interested in moderation either. He has stated several times that he wants us to deal with any kinds of trouble ourselves, and be it things that are clearly illegal. He has told me that he normally never bans anyone. As rarely as he's here, he never knows what's going on either, and he has never been in touch with the community. And he doesn't have time to moderate everything himself in real-time 24/7.
At the same time, he isn't even interested in establishing moderation at all. Neither does he implement moderation tools, nor does he appoint moderators, nor does he even define community rules as guides for moderation. This site has two rules for sims, both of which are frequently and blatantly broken with no repercussions whatsoever, and exactly zero rules for users.
In other words: On OSW, you can get away with everything. And I mean absolutely everything. AFAIR, OSW itself came under attack a while ago. Others would have called the authorities for investigations. Satyr simply restored the site and shrugged it off.
That's why it's so attractive to troublemakers. I dare say that not few people are only in OpenSim to cause trouble and harass others because it's so easy and with exactly zero consequences for themselves.
I mean, we, the community, can't do anything ourselves with no moderation tools to do it with. Ignoring doesn't work as has been demonstrated over and over again. The only countermeasure against troublemakers at our hands is retaliation, and that usually makes things only worse.
And I think I'm the only OSW user who has been here for several years while still only having one account.
"From where I stand, kid avatars are simply the red flag de jour; but any issue would work. This community loves them some pitchforks and torches!"
That, too. Only that most other issues lead to aggressive counter-attacks rather than attacks. I mean, it's hard to harass bot-using sim owners if there are always at least seven avatars on your own sim and always right after it has started, that number barely fluctuates up, and you claim it's regular visitor traffic. And you can't speak up against copybotting and content theft from SL if the only thing on your own avatar that's legal is the alpha'd-out system body. So you defend both tooth and nail instead with massive counter-attacks.
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That's it exactly, and I keep having to tell people: OSW does not have moderation. OSW does not have "staff" in the traditional community staff sense. OSW's staff, AFAIK, is only Satyr. Satyr is only a tech admin and developer at which he admittedly excels. But he is not fit for moderation. He isn't interested in moderation either. He has stated several times that he wants us to deal with any kinds of trouble ourselves, and be it things that are clearly illegal. He has told me that he normally never bans anyone. As rarely as he's here, he never knows what's going on either, and he has never been in touch with the community. And he doesn't have time to moderate everything himself in real-time 24/7.
At the same time, he isn't even interested in establishing moderation at all. Neither does he implement moderation tools, nor does he appoint moderators, nor does he even define community rules as guides for moderation. This site has two rules for sims, both of which are frequently and blatantly broken with no repercussions whatsoever, and exactly zero rules for users.
In other words: On OSW, you can get away with everything. And I mean absolutely everything. AFAIR, OSW itself came under attack a while ago. Others would have called the authorities for investigations. Satyr simply restored the site and shrugged it off.
That's why it's so attractive to troublemakers. I dare say that not few people are only in OpenSim to cause trouble and harass others because it's so easy and with exactly zero consequences for themselves.
I mean, we, the community, can't do anything ourselves with no moderation tools to do it with. Ignoring doesn't work as has been demonstrated over and over again. The only countermeasure against troublemakers at our hands is retaliation, and that usually makes things only worse.
And I think I'm the only OSW user who has been here for several years while still only having one account.
"From where I stand, kid avatars are simply the red flag de jour; but any issue would work. This community loves them some pitchforks and torches!"
That, too. Only that most other issues lead to aggressive counter-attacks rather than attacks. I mean, it's hard to harass bot-using sim owners if there are always at least seven avatars on your own sim and always right after it has started, that number barely fluctuates up, and you claim it's regular visitor traffic. And you can't speak up against copybotting and content theft from SL if the only thing on your own avatar that's legal is the alpha'd-out system body. So you defend both tooth and nail instead with massive counter-attacks.
"And I think I'm the only OSW user who has been here for several years while still only having one account."
Naw, I only have this "Arielle" account and it has been close to 10 years. I signed up within 12 hours of Satyr opening the site.
Like Harper says, it does seem like targeted harassment on child avatars because its been the main thrust of topics for a while now. I guess the community got tired of crying about the unlicensed content here but knowing forums and how they work in cycles about topics to complain about, I'm sure it will come back around :)
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Naw, I only have this "Arielle" account and it has been close to 10 years. I signed up within 12 hours of Satyr opening the site.
Like Harper says, it does seem like targeted harassment on child avatars because its been the main thrust of topics for a while now. I guess the community got tired of crying about the unlicensed content here but knowing forums and how they work in cycles about topics to complain about, I'm sure it will come back around :)
The solution would be to start an OSW alternative but when people do start one no one uses it -instead preferring to stay here. Several have been done, Kubwa (?) had one, unless I'm mistaken hyacinth has one at the moment, and there is also one at 8chan.moe that hasn't been updated for months and months. So whatever the reasons are for continuing to wallow in the filth here...it's a dynamic that I don't anticipate changing unless OSW shuts down or goes pay only or something.
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I hope their sysadmin hasn't rewritten the entire CLI, so at least IAR and OAR exports can still be done without having to reverse-engineer the grid software.
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Any plans for the content offered at Welcome? Like all the clothes?
Granted, what Alia Soulstar has put up was gathered together throughout the Hypergrid. A lot of mesh clothes, including all male mesh clothes, are from Klamotto and not necessarily clean, although some are. But while the male layer clothes are all standard Linda Kellie fare that can still easily be found elsewhere, the female layer clothes installed by Alia seem to have all become exclusives to 3RG Welcome meanwhile, especially the underwear and the swimsuits.
And then there are Dawn Greymyst's boxes, especially the Clutterfly mesh clothes with HUD-controlled custom textures. It'd be a pity to see them go to waste when the grid shuts down.
Yes, they aren't the newest hotness. Yes, they aren't rigged for the hottest SL mesh bodies, at least not all of them. Yes, many consider layer clothes outdated. Yes, some call for all content older than a few months to be thrown out of all shops on the Hypergrid. And yes, some still call for a total boycott of any and all content related to Linda Kellie.
But then there are those who refuse to put anything illegal on their avatars. Finding clothes and accessories that are both legal and fit sufficiently well on legal mesh bodies is detective work and often requires sheer luck.
I've seen too much old but legal and still useful content vanish for good when sims shut down, when grids shut down or when sims were rebuilt. It hurts even more if you never even had the chance to pick up the sales boxes and save them which is the case at 3RG Welcome.
So I hope that at least the clean and exclusive stuff will be saved and offered someplace else.
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Granted, what Alia Soulstar has put up was gathered together throughout the Hypergrid. A lot of mesh clothes, including all male mesh clothes, are from Klamotto and not necessarily clean, although some are. But while the male layer clothes are all standard Linda Kellie fare that can still easily be found elsewhere, the female layer clothes installed by Alia seem to have all become exclusives to 3RG Welcome meanwhile, especially the underwear and the swimsuits.
And then there are Dawn Greymyst's boxes, especially the Clutterfly mesh clothes with HUD-controlled custom textures. It'd be a pity to see them go to waste when the grid shuts down.
Yes, they aren't the newest hotness. Yes, they aren't rigged for the hottest SL mesh bodies, at least not all of them. Yes, many consider layer clothes outdated. Yes, some call for all content older than a few months to be thrown out of all shops on the Hypergrid. And yes, some still call for a total boycott of any and all content related to Linda Kellie.
But then there are those who refuse to put anything illegal on their avatars. Finding clothes and accessories that are both legal and fit sufficiently well on legal mesh bodies is detective work and often requires sheer luck.
I've seen too much old but legal and still useful content vanish for good when sims shut down, when grids shut down or when sims were rebuilt. It hurts even more if you never even had the chance to pick up the sales boxes and save them which is the case at 3RG Welcome.
So I hope that at least the clean and exclusive stuff will be saved and offered someplace else.
Like I say, I hope they get the OARs and IARs. I for one like the old classic standard avatar stuff and fitmesh. LOL I've never been the newest hotness and that's ok with me. But more than anything I hope the good folks of 3RG are able to keep their community together in some form. It is an historic grid in the OpenSim.
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Juno has all the Clutterfly clothes plus the underwear and the swimsuits, and she has god mode to "fix" the strange permission settings. But she has only got the folders with the loose items, and she'd rather not repackage everything.
And if that stuff isn't rezzed anywhere on any sim in any grid, chances are higher that it'll perish due to wonky asset servers.
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And if that stuff isn't rezzed anywhere on any sim in any grid, chances are higher that it'll perish due to wonky asset servers.
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FYI: Outworldz has loads of brick textures waiting to be used.
I haven't tested the normal maps that were probably generated from the textures yet, but they're there. A few brick textures even come with "hand-made" normal maps and specular maps.
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I haven't tested the normal maps that were probably generated from the textures yet, but they're there. A few brick textures even come with "hand-made" normal maps and specular maps.
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Do you need something to generate NPC-defining notecards from an avatar?
Valerie NatureInSim has something that can do that at ValLands. https://opensimworld.com/hop/89519
Or do you need something to automatically rez moving NPCs?
Then maybe SFposer can cover that, developed by OSW's owner, Satyr Aeon. https://opensimworld.com/library?view=44 It's basically a sit animation controller very similar to PMAC, basically something like AVsitter if you're more familiar with that. But it can go way beyond PMAC and AVsitter in its possibilites while being more lightweight than both.
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Valerie NatureInSim has something that can do that at ValLands. https://opensimworld.com/hop/89519
Or do you need something to automatically rez moving NPCs?
Then maybe SFposer can cover that, developed by OSW's owner, Satyr Aeon. https://opensimworld.com/library?view=44 It's basically a sit animation controller very similar to PMAC, basically something like AVsitter if you're more familiar with that. But it can go way beyond PMAC and AVsitter in its possibilites while being more lightweight than both.
Thank you so much :) I am learning by trial and error. I have found that I can take some of the animesh and change or add to their scripts with some thing I have in i nventory. That works OK but a bit limited. I want to be able to make NPC from Avitars and be able to have them Do different things . Say Belly dance but it is several of the animations rather than one. As I said so far it has been all trial and error. I do like the idea of being able to control them. I have a Genie bottle that I can create a copy of my Avi and rezz her but Can't do anything else' She "Breathes " but that is about it. I picked up the Action NPC thing yesterday and the NPC appearance card maker. I THOUGHT I had it all figured out but back to square 1 *sighs
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The other system I mentioned which is just a bunch of scripts from outworldz will allow you to generate the appearance from your avatar, then using the inbuilt recorder you can make it walk from where it spawns to a location then play animations or sit on objects. You can program it to say things, and change its outfit if you made more then one appearance note card.
You could make it walk into a changing room, then change into a new outfit, then walk back out and do something else.
When you have recorded a list if things for it to do, I will put the list in a note card and you can then see how the commands work, and add some more without having to rerecord the whole thing. All the commands were on the website i linked to.
in the end I found it easier to just write out the note card manually if it didn't involve making a path to walk along.
I ultimately ended up using the chat command script to listen for commands, and made a script say things to control the NPC. I made a script with a sensor to detect when an avatar was nearby and the script would say a bunch of commands to make the NPC do stuff.
NPC's are frustrating to figure out, but its quite satisfying when you finally get them to do things in a convincing manor.
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You could make it walk into a changing room, then change into a new outfit, then walk back out and do something else.
When you have recorded a list if things for it to do, I will put the list in a note card and you can then see how the commands work, and add some more without having to rerecord the whole thing. All the commands were on the website i linked to.
in the end I found it easier to just write out the note card manually if it didn't involve making a path to walk along.
I ultimately ended up using the chat command script to listen for commands, and made a script say things to control the NPC. I made a script with a sensor to detect when an avatar was nearby and the script would say a bunch of commands to make the NPC do stuff.
NPC's are frustrating to figure out, but its quite satisfying when you finally get them to do things in a convincing manor.
It is all so very interesting. I love learning new things. This that you are speaking of now sounds like what I am looking for. I need several NPC's all different But that is just my Avi changing. Different themes, Holidays and what have you.
Thank you so much :)
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Thank you so much :)
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It's even better if you see it in-world.
Oh, and it can handle a full HG Safari as its audience without breaking down.
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Oh, and it can handle a full HG Safari as its audience without breaking down.
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To quote myself from just a bit further down:
Aaack Aardvark's Arcadia Shop has a Cthulhu plushie, if that's something for you.
https://opensimworld.com/hop/86546
https://opensimworld.com/post/85835
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Aaack Aardvark's Arcadia Shop has a Cthulhu plushie, if that's something for you.
https://opensimworld.com/hop/86546
https://opensimworld.com/post/85835
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Aaack Aardvark made a club lights system and an illuminated dance floor and offers both at his Arcadia Shop. https://opensimworld.com/hop/86546
Also, you may want to take a look at the big DJ stations made by Nebadon Izumi at his Oni Kenkon Creations shop at Wright Plaza, although they look more like someone's producing music on them. https://opensimworld.com/hop/75040
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Also, you may want to take a look at the big DJ stations made by Nebadon Izumi at his Oni Kenkon Creations shop at Wright Plaza, although they look more like someone's producing music on them. https://opensimworld.com/hop/75040
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Craft-World founder Tosha Tyran offers some self-made Japanese furniture at Riverford. The shop is at the harbour, and its entrance is decorated with a Torii gate. hop://craft-world.org:8002/Riverford/116/169/23
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Aaack Aardvark's Arcadia Shop has a Cthulhu plushie, if that's something for you.
https://opensimworld.com/hop/86546
https://opensimworld.com/post/85835
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https://opensimworld.com/hop/86546
https://opensimworld.com/post/85835
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Of course, they have a captivating allure, akin to the intricate dance of light upon a kaleidoscope.
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This is not only about what Patch Linden has allegedly done. This is about the existence of sexual ageplay in Second Life itself which has been spoken about outside the SL bubble for the first time.
SL users are now ramping up their fight against sexual ageplay, also because Linden Lab obviously doesn't do jack against it.
OpenSim users feel like they have to do the same, also because there's no Linden Lab ruling over and overseeing all of OpenSim which is entirely governed by its own community. It's up to them and only them to combat sexual ageplay because they can't ask anyone else to do that for them.
This, in turn, will lead to a whole lot more collateral damage of which many more will claim it isn't collateral in the first place.
Child avatars will be more and more suspicious and banned from more and more places.
The Adult rating will be re-defined as "G-rated, but no child avatars allowed" more and more to the point that especially newbies will think this definition is official and end up deeply disturbed when they come across naked avatars on Adult sims.
Also, the criteria of what makes an avatar "underage-looking", which are ridiculous already now in the long-standing anti-ageplay paranoia, will be raised. I mean, sim owners already kick and ban avatars not only for being under 1.70m, but for having freckles or too small boobs or for wearing the wrong hairstyle, too brightly coloured clothes or too much pink without being a Jessica Biatchi look-alike. Many more sim owners will do this, they'll raise the minimum avatar height regardless of looks otherwise, and they'll add more criteria on top. I expect 6" heels and an even larger minimum breast size to become mandatory for female avatars in the near future as well as a deep suntan for both sexes.
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SL users are now ramping up their fight against sexual ageplay, also because Linden Lab obviously doesn't do jack against it.
OpenSim users feel like they have to do the same, also because there's no Linden Lab ruling over and overseeing all of OpenSim which is entirely governed by its own community. It's up to them and only them to combat sexual ageplay because they can't ask anyone else to do that for them.
This, in turn, will lead to a whole lot more collateral damage of which many more will claim it isn't collateral in the first place.
Child avatars will be more and more suspicious and banned from more and more places.
The Adult rating will be re-defined as "G-rated, but no child avatars allowed" more and more to the point that especially newbies will think this definition is official and end up deeply disturbed when they come across naked avatars on Adult sims.
Also, the criteria of what makes an avatar "underage-looking", which are ridiculous already now in the long-standing anti-ageplay paranoia, will be raised. I mean, sim owners already kick and ban avatars not only for being under 1.70m, but for having freckles or too small boobs or for wearing the wrong hairstyle, too brightly coloured clothes or too much pink without being a Jessica Biatchi look-alike. Many more sim owners will do this, they'll raise the minimum avatar height regardless of looks otherwise, and they'll add more criteria on top. I expect 6" heels and an even larger minimum breast size to become mandatory for female avatars in the near future as well as a deep suntan for both sexes.
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Unfortunately, unless sim owners use a completely warped definition of what's "underage-looking" and what isn't. Already now, female avatars are considered underage if they wear too bright colours, or if they've got freckles, probably even if they're wearing flat sneakers instead of the usual 6' spike heels.
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or are under 7' (2,13m) tall. I've had some trouble in a few places because my avatar is only 5' 6" (1,52m) despite her rather prominent chest!
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I was tempted to say it's a custom build by and for Dereos, but if these things exist in other grids as well...
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