Torley Lives

You can already see why I adore beautiful sunsets in Second Life so much… and they've gotten even more beautiful in 1.7!

This piccie was taken from the aquafloor with water hidden through Debug menu (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-7). What's also to be found in Debug are the very handy options under World to change local time of day. What that means is, if it's dark and you wanna see in the light and build, you can go ahead and choose the "Force Sunset" option, and then Mr. Sunshine will come out (and it'll still be dark for others?it only affects your compy).

However, this does lead to a problem. What's that? Well, the wording is focusing. The picture above depicts a sunset. As defined in the dictionary as being, "The event or time of the daily disappearance of the sun below the western horizon." So that means the sun is GOING, not COMING!

Simply put, "Force Sunset" should be rechristened "Force Daylight".

Also, here's the other confuzzling thing: the Mouse Moves Sun right under it is great if you want to go into Mouselook and make the time of day anything you want?thanxies to cat sis Fleabite Beach for teaching me this!?but it's so darn JIGGLY. As I posted in the SL Forums:

For example, say you're taking a photo shoot with golden tinges just at sundown, and you crash. You wanna relog and maintain that consistency, but it takes a lot of tweaking. Timewaster! Should be a way to specify a time of SL day, perhaps, and the sun will lock to that.

I thot about this more. Infact, there is a current way, but it's limited to Region/Estate owners. What a sweet, cute little graphic!

Consider the possibilities: what if this were open to each and every Resident on a locally-defined basis?

Summing up, two things for FFS (Future Feature Suggestion):

1. "Force Sunset" changed to "Force Daylight"
2. Sunphase slider for all!
   

I visited Seagel Neville's house. He wasn't home, but he welcomed me from afar via IM anyhoo. You may have seen Seagel helping on the SL Forums, particularly with animation-related questions. He has a very unique sense of humor. Immediately, I point out how "normal" his house looks with a few ruff edges, but all around, on the grounds, you will find some assorted goodies for L$1 apiece. Such as… a surprising washing machine, a collection of belly dances, a faceanim cube utility, and a soroban aka abacus. BTW, if you want any of these, just IM me inworld (even if I'm offline). I distro!

At the supersale, I came across this cuddly-looking set of winterwear by TrinityLynn Skye. An environmentally-friendly, tremendously bright lightbulb lit up and I knew what to do with it then. Trinity was online and I IMed her to thank her for making such kewl things. I told her how I was going to wear it on the beaches of Caliente City, and she mused about people wearing it with bikinis. Little did I know what I'd be in for unomomento.

I find myself in the present tense, wearing a LF bikini?the first bikini I've ever worn in SL?and lounging out with Francis Chung, Launa Fauna, Garbage Prototype, and Lucas Spectre on a vintage mattress by the Vega docks. My feet are additionally kept warm by Heart Wishbringer's froggy slippers. And I suddenly have new hair. It all happens so very fast. The MUNIFICENT atop my head functions as a useful look into my brain.

(The sun wasn't actually this warm at the time?I used Mouse Moves Sun to give it a extra glowy kick.)

And then, it was time for Chage McCoy to have me over at church. It's supposed to be a recreation of a structure in Silent Hill 3, I'm not familiar with the source material, but the inside texturing was pretty nice.

Case in point, while evolving my current appearance: Cottonteil Muromachi sent me this ghetto PC with a keyboard strapped on top that shoots CD-ROMs. It's very videogamey, except I was wondering why it only shoots one at once. So, she sent me a newer revision, I corrected a Linden typo in the script and Torleyized, and there we go, our first collab?"Gojirlla PC (TORLEY MOD)". IT'S FREE! Lemme know if you want one. This thing is darn hard to photograph because of all the angles.

My good friend Nephilaine Protagonist now has HER OWN BLOG! Like Lillix sang, "It's about life, it's about fun!" Where? NEPHILAINE.COM?I've been tracking changes for the last few days and it's just shaping up really pretty. Great to keep track of all of her prolificism, including related projects like "The New Zero" with Torrid Midnight and Delairen Baysklef and a certain new automotive product which I will be no doubt talking more about soonish. All in all, a focal point of SLexcellence.

I went for a unicorn ride a few hours ago on Gnash Rambler's corral. He has a nice quarter of Nessus set up for his and his lady's enjoyment. (I was on the way to Jon Oddfellow's and uhhh kinda got lost. I'll be back.) It kind of reminded me of that clip from Blade Runner, or even the Enigma "Return to Innocence" video (if only Difang liked Michael Cretu). Unicorn chaser!

And really, what is more pleasant than pals sitting in the sunrise? Whelp, a pleasanter sunrise. And that is what we have now. Note even with the crappy JPEG compression, there is beautiful smoothness in the transition from black-yellow-orange-red. More beautiful skylines!

Second Life may one day be the new home of a prominent Japanicelt community. Kilt-wearing Otaku drawing comparisons between William Wallace and samurai.

YAYZERAMA! I really like the new way schtuff loads in, in 1.7?1.7.1. (2) specifically, compared to 1.6.x. It inspired me to say…

"I was knocked off-kilter, askew like an environmentally-friendly telephone book in the midst of an acid rainstorm. And then one dot seven dot one space bracketopen two bracketclose came and I got my groove back. For mine eyes-in-hand, as ears-in-foot, the Great Gray Gridstorm of '05 had subsided, and there was bountiful, beautiful color to be seen in scenes everywhere. And that's when I noticed I got my groove back (intentional), that emphatic bounce of my main coreline, injection into the bloodstream of the primal pixels?some stray frays remained in decay, but like an oak battered by ghosts of dishonorable "warriors", the trunk is so thick and it keeps on growing even if some branches get torn off. We cannot be divided.

I entered back, inworld, battle cry 27-10-2086, dropped myself in the middle of intense textural zones and camscanned around. Idled myself between the empty space of the Instant Messaging window and the wind was silent at my feet, showing no disrespect. Like an insectoid drum 'n' bass track commanding the clattering snares and rubbery bass only Buddha's palm could thrust forth, the textures began loading, streaming forth, proximity mines to the aboriginal arrowhead of my mouse pointer, the tempo increasing pace as a ghastly chant phonemetrically interpred as 'yeow-hai-yeoo-vaytay' drenching the blue skies, elixir of azure, as I tip my hat because there is peace. And explosions everywhere!

A pause, like a comma, then a longer pause, like a semicolon; and then the sun smiles upon us all, and even if you have yet to feel the warmth, it still shines overhead, magnitudes of zoom from one classical movement of the interface to another. This is your personal elementalelectrofunk calling your name. I smile some more.

I beam off, headed back like cosmic diamonds from the carbon soul, resistant like a lonely monk's seven children who've lost touch with the true origin of the style, then snap back together, two electronite shock troops pulsing and scanning the digital landscape as I bow my head in honor of the elder gods, and again repeat the experiment in a cluster of textures, throwing them back without much effort and watching the resolutions increase, more hi-fi than the street ghetto stereo sound, pure in its essence to deliver the knowledge of this platform boot. This is no accident, this is a deliberate vital strike to the form of the lag hag, wicked evil that she is, frail like a paper towel in a commode, as I spin around again, watching the rippleshock wave bend the unlearned stupidity into sharp lines that could cut the morale of an ox?it bisects it in such a way that the bells of the prosperous clocktower beam forth their divine truth like crystal stairs, ascending each one with the erudite philosophies of drunken sages.

I'm here in cyberspace now."

What that means is:

• I can really feel a positive difference. Things may not necessarily "load in faster" per se (doesn't seem to be a YUGE jump in my bandwidth usage), but they feel like they do. The perceptual intent is mint.

• I went to some dense shopping areas JAM-PACKED with textures that used to slug me down. Now, I feel more elastic upon entering these zones, and when I place my cursor at a given spot, it seems to give priority not only to what I'm pointing at, but what's around it too. This also appears to apply in proximity?i.e. I camscan far away from my physical location and point in the middle of a wall full of dressy images, and they rez in significantly faster than I've ever seen before.

• I've made mention before that even if the graphics lag, the text shouldn't; textual communication should still be speedy and "pipelined" a different way. (For example, typing quickly to tell your friends "My av is lagged and I can't come to meet you at the other end of the danceloor just yet!) The overall UI feels more responsive to me during moments of "lagdrag", with the exception perhaps of a current bug that seems to require me to double-, even triple-click on tabs to select them when I have low FPS. I've filed a report. Onwards ho!

• I'll emphasize this again: repeatedly, and I tested this a lot, it seems a LOT smoother to browse in stores now… "waiting for the textures to load" certainly isn't as problematic for me as it used to be. Instead of single drops from a clogged tap at nite, we can get more of a nice torrential rapid now.

Really enthused, awesomely thrilled am I. This uplifts my spirit and sends me into transwarp again. I can imagine, and in fact have already experienced, how much better this is gonna make my existence on SL. To those of who still having problems that didn't exist under 1.6.x, I truely with you all the best and hope you will get to taste these benefits too!