another blog, another place

Yes, I moved to a different place. I just prefer my own stuff and that place is run on the same server my streams are running. I keep this blog around – for authentication on the linden blob and for emergency situations when my own server is down, so if you use a stream from me, keep an eye up on this place. Otherwise see you on radio boomslang!

Architecture’s Second Life

Archinect : Features : Architecture’s Second Life talks about the often boring SL architecture, 3D graffitti, new ideas, and a lot of other things. Worthwhile to read, and could be quite inspiring maybe. See Mainland chaos from their angle – instead of a weird and ugly mix of sucky buildings, it might just be something different.

How Many Machines?

If you like me were stumped by the different numbers flying around about machine counts at Lindenlab, read Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians, especially the comments by several Lindenlab people. It boils down to about 1500 physical machines, with up to dual core-duo woodcrest CPUs, adding up to about 4100 cores. Of course, for Lindenlab the number of cores is more important than the number of machines (despite the obvious requirement to keep the ratio of cores per machine as high as practically doable, to reduce energy consumption), as it’s the cores that run the simulator software.

Working with Raw Terrain Files

Terrain, or The Only Mesh in SL is an article that shows some ways to work with the raw terrain files. Maybe I should play with that a bit on the Lummerland terrain.

Sim Neighbours

Sim Neighbours is a central database of sims and their neighbours – neighbours in the sense that those sims share a common server machine.

Swarming Beasts

Ever fancied a flock of birds in a tree? Bees around your beehive? Fish in your pond? There is a nice swarming algorithm in the scripting forums.

how to do plane physics

Valen Industries have a very interesting whitepaper on plane physics online. For classic planes I would says this is a must-read, as it tells you how to improve the physics from the more toy-physics of the vehicle system to more natural behaviour.