Tanning? My Ass!

I wish I had time to tan my ass. Hah! Okay so explanation on short-lived blogging hiatus? Yah, I don't think so... Just respect my decision. kkthnx

I have some ventage though and ya know I need a public outlet, it's how I roll.

WindLight - First let me start with WindLight [I'll post other vents I have on my mind later]... WTF! It was good the first time we had it, like really good. The only beef Hawks & I had with it was the av rendering effects hadn't progressed with the rest of the world's newness. One lil beef that we worked around with other great aspects that were offered... different skies, times of day, etc.

Then LL ganked it. Just up & ganked it from us. Out of sight out of mind? Newp - because we had Torley Linden taunting us for months with his pics on Snapzilla. As if I couldn't go on an uber long vent over just that alone. But I digress...

So we finally get it back many months after the gankage & it's nice, well the water is a huge improvement. It's the main reason for my Wowzers! Again it's given to us in the First Look Viewer... and we've had one or two updates to it. Each one making it horrible, in my opinion. I'm having awful rezzing issues, rendering is all fooked, sometimes water is missing & other times part of our house is invisible. So log into regular viewer Jelly, dur!

If only it were so simple. Hawks & I are working on JH Production projects that require us to use WindLight. Rendering or lack there of, makes it a lot tougher on us to film the way we want. Not to mention that outdoor FPS goes to shit in WindLight that makes it all the more tougher. So basically... GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! Fix WindLight for me please & don't blame my puter, it's a kick ass system built for a multi-tasker like myself that can run SL & many other applications. kkthnxbai

Pond Ponder-ing

Old news but WindLight is back & I love it. The improvements are amazing. The way the light dances on the water, the reflections, shadows, the colors... I think Hawks & I are in more awe over the water than the skies. Like he said the other day "It makes me want to jump in". You know what I think? I think it's time for some sort of water video. Mhm! I just need to find time to do one.
Hey babe! We're going jetskiing. :D

WindLight Wholesome Goodness

Okay everyone show of hands here, who misses WindLight? I do, I do! You know what makes it worse? Torley Linden's fantasmic pics all over Snapzilla making me feel so jellious. *sigh* So here's some uppity updates:
[cross-posted from Torley's Wiki]

[2007-08-20] When is First Look: WindLight coming out again?

Hopefully in a few weeks. I earlier hoped it would come out by the end of August, but it doesn't look like we'll hit that. The WindLight Team has been very busy fixing bugs (including those I've reported), and today, we just launched an internal testing round for Lindens (because previously, it was mainly just the WindLight Team using it). I apologize for the delay because I know how anxious a lot of you are, particularly from comments I've been getting on my snapshots.

Also for emphasis, you should know (if you don't already) that WindLight isn't just about "pretty skies" — performance improvements, rendering optimizations, and code cleanup to improve the viewer are an important part of it too. It's a false dichotomy that we spar between bug fixes vs. new features, and I am dogged (and obsessed) about improved performance & stability (aka P&S) for Second Life.

[2007-08-25] WindLight: Internal testing continues

Anyhoo, I continue to both formally test WindLight and informally use it everyday. Internal bug-churning continues; I recently announced, within Linden Lab, an internal First Look as it were, to precede the public FL. My concerns right now? Partially to do with aesthetics (subjective, I know... tricky tricky!) because I'm finding a number of scenes look too white or washed out, e.g. noon with local lighting. HARD to understand if I don't show pictures or if you're not actually using it, but...

We have fallback mode ("shaders off"), which doesn't have clouds, but still looks better than the current sky, and is supported even if your computer doesn't have a fancy graphics card. And it doesn't exhibit the really bright overcasting of the WindLight Shaders, so I toggle on/off for relative comparison. We'll keep adapting it, Pastrami Linden has been tweaking the default day cycle because he cares so passionately about making it photorealistic. Yes, photorealistic. The ripple water has gone through several iterations too: you may've heard reflections got added as an option (understandably, negates performance on slower computers), but the most recent one looks SEXIER than ever. (I can remember when we got the first ripple water added, it and it looked like "liquid bling".)

So, it's the weekend now. I'm casually sauntering inworld and doing everyday stuff. I'm also warmly concerned about overall performance, we have some bugs to work out with that because we earlier, and continue to find issues that counteract the gains done with the aforementioned optimizations. Everyone on the team wants us to be plus, positive with that, so not only do you have prettier skies, but a better experience (that's the word!) too. Wider testing tends to reveal more, so I'm looking forward to your help come public First Look re-release.

LOTS LOTS LOTS of changes have been made since last public FL: WindLight so please don't base final judgment on that. A number of crashes were fixed. (We hate those!) I know shiny was dull in early releases, well now, it shines. Even better, it uses less CPU power ("single-pass shiny"). A lot of known WindLight issues were already fixed internally, and in our release notes, we'll document all the other changes that happened behind-the-scenes so you get a more comprehensive understanding of the work that went into WindLight.

[2007-08-27] WindLight: Ripple water custom settings

Like the sky, we've added the ability to customize the look of ripple water. Like the sky, it's viewer-side for now but we eventually want to make this all share-able assets like any inventory item. I'm having a great time changing parameters like the glassiness of the water, not to mention you can alter the normal map to come out with some really tripped-out FX. Keep referring to my Flickr photostream for more examples — I'm so excited for the time when you get to enjoy this hands-on!

Also, it looks like (subjectively) stuff with WindLight shaders on is still too bright at certain times like noon. Pastrami, Bridie, hopefully some QA engineers, and I will be going on a "shader safari" to investigate further this week.

To those of you who sent in questions re: deprecating scripting calls, we haven't decided what we'll do with some of them yet. Some will stay for the time being like llCloud, because we're keeping the classic cloud layer (see VWR-960) until such time we have a full 3D replacement, dubbed Nimble, for 'em. We do want to make a lot of the finer bits scriptable — imagine a rock concert scripted with songs to coincide with dramatic sky changes? But that is further down the road and relies on current work to be done first... so let's keep going. :)

I miss WindLight

This is one of my favorite WindLight pics. Tonight I was taking some time to clean up my computer's photo album and decided to actually do something with this pic. Viola! *beams with PSP pride* lol

As Seen on T.V.

I saw this on Torley's blog this a.m and had to give it a shot too. From the Simpsons Movie website — create your own avatar! JellyBean in Springfield. Huzzah!

Back in WindLight
It still crashes on me but I was able to spend almost 43 whole minutes in before I crashed. I miss WindLight. I know the night settings aren't that great but it rocks in daylight settings for scenic pics. I have no clue when LL will be giving it back to us in normal everyday SL. Hopefully soon. The whole Live Viewer testing then taking it away to test Voice was a little confusing. I can only imagine how they plan to roll out both of those to norm SL, it seems as if it'd be a chaotic mess. Only time will tell. Think it'll take a year? Ana takes some great WindLight pics on her blog. You should def check them out.

New Toys - Fun for the whole family!
Yesterday Hawks & I picked up the Jump Boots by Disembodied Hand at Steam-Powered Ind. after seeing them blogged on Style Disorder. I dropped so much $L there it isn't even funny. I bought myself... the Fem Pack, gas mask, Skinners Elbow Pads, Tribal Warrior set, Junkyard Warrior set, Trudeau Top hat and of course the kick ass jump boots. Oh gosh! They are so much fun. We even had a jumping contest. Even full of attachments, I jumped further, like 44 meters from Hawks.

I partnered the boots up with my Boom Lash and without aiming, I hit Hawks twice. :( Sorry baby! Figures when I aim at David, I always miss. I have a feeling Hawks may make a rule of no throwing toys in the house. :/ I think the best solution to this issue would be to just get him his own Boom Lash so that we're on a more even playing field. :p Sounds only fair-ish to me. :D

Getting Down with the Thickness
Hawks & I spent the morning exploring the SecondFest activities. Main stage was thick with people. A few asking why their chims weren't working. *Jelly points to the NO Script icon* We had missed out on the bands for yesterday playing live. I was under the impression that this would be a party all weekend type of deal. Apparently I was wrong because some asshat decided the festivities should be on Britain Summer Time zone. Honestly take an SL population poll, how many actually operate on that time zone? When all else fails, use SL time. DUH! *huffs & puffs* I *think* we have it figured out in time for the Pet Shop Boys performance tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

JH Report Show III
I can't say we're all over it because well, we've been distracted by shiny things. The JH Report Shows I & II are up on the new podcast link, and we'll be getting our asses in motion with the ocean on Show III asap. Stay tuned!

Kissiepops & Huggles

Peanut Butta, Jelleh & Bananas

Damn me! Damn me! Damn me!
I really wanted to sleep in today. My body is still sooo use to getting up around 7 a.m. I even tried forcing myself back to sleep but bleh, no go. So here it is... Hawks has already gone to bed & I'm just sorta here. I'm tired, but do I go to bed? If I go to bed will I be able to sleep in? Screw it I'm having a Bud Light. I think I deserve it today. :p Hopefully tomorrow the pool will be open & Summer Vaca - Day 2 won't suck so hard. By the way... it's uber hawt in Hawaii at the moment. I'm freaking melting! Oh yes... AND I stepped on a prickly weed hidden in the grass, it hurt. Bleh.

My Shrine
Okay not technically *mine* it belongs to the owner of the land. It just so happens to be one of the very first places of beauty that Aka & I stumbled across in SL.
Every so often I find myself navigating back there to see if it still stands & what changes have been happening around it. Today was one of those "every so oftens". Aka & I are heading for our 3 year rezz day in SL (7/29/2004 & 7/30/2004) and it's nice to go back to visit your beginnings. Dayum we're freaking old. TSO who? What? It's been so long, I can't seem to remmy.

Amazingly Torley
I continue to be amazed by the pics sent by Torley Linden, the Watermelon Linden. I try to take the cool pics using WindLight but just can't get the same random effects Torley does. I think I need to screw around with slider & settings some more. Thank goodness Snap of the Zilla is fixed. I do have a couple bugs that I want to suggest getting fixed:
*Client crashes if using View - Land Owners
*Glowing eyes in dark settings

SLG - 2007
I give up... haha! The coverage is so plentiful that I cannot even keep up. Just like RL, I'm easily lost. I think Rosie has decided she'll silently run. I guess that means, I'll silently support? Rofl. Wrath has been doing a pretty good job keeping me informed via Wrath Paine in: The Inside Scoop® SLelections 2007 Updates. Thanks & a yay for that. There are many people jumping in & out of the race and most are pretty funny to read, while others confuse the freaking poop outta me. Keep up the great works all.. I'm highly entertained. Anyone find Zoe yet? I worry & will keep her & her family in my SL prayers. :)

Don't hold him back now...
Yay Hawks! Not only did he blog once, but he blogged twice within minimal time in one day! I'm so proud! New trend? Probably not. If I'm not careful though, I think he's proven if he had to, he could out blog me. ME!?! :o *gasp*

CHEESE INTERMISSION:
*CHEEEEEESE* Omg! I got it! DJ CHEESE ON 93.1 THE ZONE! Wuwu!

But who will feed the monkey?
I really need to learn how to build with sculpted primmage. All I wanna make is a banana, to start anyways. Why is that so freaking hard? I tried using Blender & ended up with a legless turtle. Granted it was the cutest legless turtle ever, I couldn't bring it into SL because A. I have no idea where it went once saved and B. I wouldn't know what to do once I got it in. Isn't that like a sculpty initiation? Make a banana, and you're in for sure!?
Huzzah to Twiddler though for his most helpful post ever - Fun Sculpty Tutorials. Now it's just a matter of watching them & actually comprehending them. Wish me Gluck!

Tongue Biting & Tringo
Okay so I've learned that if I am at Tringo, I'm going to run into people I'd love to bash publicly just for the sure fun of it. Particularly one individual who talks in general chat just to hear himself speak. Most of what he says isn't even witty or remotely funny, which leaves him to being just downright annoying. There was once a time where I could tolerate such useless type strokes, I guess I really am getting old. Now I have found that I had to use my good old "mute" button just to save myself the temptation of running my mouth. Sigh... Sometimes you just have to have self control, right?

Okay the Bud Light hit me... Bedtime... Sweetest Dreams!

Hawks w/ Ketchup

So life being engaged to a blogger makes life interesting to say the least, most particularly when I mention that I probably need to be blogging something. Low and behold, instantaneously, I am provided with not ten, but eleven topics I should be blogging about. They are as follows:

[21:16] JB: 1. snap of the zilla is working
[21:16] JB: 2. People mind your own damned bizz
[21:17] JB: 3. Wedding Plan Update (i.e build progress, hen/buck parties, rehearsal dinner, weekend sleep over)
[21:18] JB: 4. Clay fails at life
[21:19] JB: 5. hawks tringo - join the group
[21:19] JB: 6. Lance named official Hawks/Jelly host
[21:20] JB: 7. Dreamer up for Tringo Host of the Year Award - What will she wear?
[21:21] JB: 8. Hawks Thought Corner - Neighbor resolve
[21:21] JB: 9. Hawks' Tom Cruise impression via blog
[21:23] JB: 10. Things to do/Things we did - The Div (The Diversionarium) Word games, social games, and creative fun. Friendly, non-commercial.
[21:25] JB: 11. SL Fixes (ignore the shiny & hold on tight - we're fucked)

So basically as you can see in the space of 9 minutes the queen of the blogroll churned out 11 topics for blogging...

So now to cover the before mentioned topics...

1. Snapzilla is up and running again, so we are getting our pics through except for the occasional lack of an email address it is working almost flawlessly again, so yay to that!!
2. If you think this references you, then it probably does this time around, so quit being a pain. Also, skype doesn’t bite.
3. Yep after bringing up that rushing through the wedding will eliminate the fun of having something to look forward to, we have slowed down a bit. Therefore, while Aka continues to make huge progress on the build, we are now working on incorporating all the fun events we can leading up to it (ie bachelor/bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinner, and sleepover?? I dunno how that one works exactly, so I best ask some questions.)
4. We kinda feel bad for our neighbor Clay who has this little patch of green land, where he just sort of stands at random times during the day. Clay get out and meet some people, or at least plant a flower or a tree, try Tai-chi, or something... kkthnx
5. I am building momentum for Hawk's Tringo, so feel free to look up the group and join ~*Hawk's Tringo*~ and then you can receive updates as to when games are being played. I am hoping to host the first "official" game at some point next week.
6. Yesterday, while dancing at a T1 Jazz event hosted by Lance Jansen, Lance was telling us how excited he is about Jelly and I becoming DJ's... He mentioned he would like to do anything he can to help out, so we started the first hinting at his being our host... no solid bite yet, but we will keep working on him.
7. She is currently winning by a landslide in the exit polls, and my money is on boots and something black.
8. Yay for translation, and trying to speak the same language. The neighbor ended up being super cool, and we are incredibly excited about having the beach back!
9. Saves the pic of him sliding across the doorway in his underwear for a later post… tbd.
10. I am gonna cover our latest exploits in a diff post… but still good idea, hun.

11. Jelly and I actually hold different opinions on Windlight and after the initial oooo’s and ahhhh’s wore off, I have actually quit using it altogether. I actually think Windlight is a great metaphor for SL in general. If you make the sky pretty enough, no one will notice that people are orange or have glowing eyeballs. Ooooo look at the shiny things, inability to TP, terrible lag, and lack of search abilities.

I be loving it, I be loving it!

Neko - The Kitten
A couple weeks ago, we saved a cute little kitten from the pet store cage. We named her Neko (pronounced Knee-Co, not Neck-Co, specifically cause it makes me giggle to say it wrong). She is a feisty little calico who has yet to "meow". Anyways, I wub her, and thought I'd share that bit of RL info cause uh, like I can and stuff not because you care.

Wedding Plans
Obviously we've decided on light pink & lavender for the wedding coordinating colors. Currently wedding buildage has come to a stand still as Aka hasn't much time online & since her move, our time zones are uber bad. We still need the invitations, altar, seating, pose balls, a prettiful waterfall and umm... bows. Yes! Bows!

It's on the to-do list. Really. We're getting there, slowly. Might help if we set a definite date too. Flying by the seat of our pants I'd say. The build thus far is loverly though, huh?


Vote Rosie for SLG 07'
A vote for Rosie is a vote for umm... Okay so we really really haven't gotten that far. We did discuss it, a little. Haha! I just want Rosie to run cause I'm chickenshit? Yah, that's probably it. Completely. Cheeese!
Rosie Shark: hell I don't even have a cause
You: mhm u do... TO BE POPULAR & BULLY, PUSH, ERRR I MEAN SUGGEST DESIGNERS HAVE *NEW* release walls
Rosie Shark: omg ur killing me smalls! lol that's my grand mission?
You: basically
Rosie Shark: new release walls? Seems kinda weak
You: and to appoint ur vice govenor (me)
Rosie Shark: lol vice govenor
You: yes
Rosie Shark: why don't u just run?
Rosie Shark: ur pink
Rosie Shark: sure thing
You: I cant handle full responsibility
You: stressful
You: but I can act as ur mouth piece
Rosie Shark: perfect
Rosie Shark: log me in and do the work?
You: sure - works for me
Rosie Shark: no pink hair tho
You: ROSIE SHARK - Help me, help you, help me (and Jelly)
Rosie Shark: lol
Rosie Shark: Vote US... our lipgloss be POPPIn
Rosie Shark: omg let's dual run!
Rosie Shark: two for the price of one? eh?
You: LOL Yes

WindLight
I still like it, just less on night settings. Speaking of, it's late, I'm spent & sweetest creams...

Happy Friday! :)