Better start saving up for a new graphics card.

Shadows and flexible sculpted prims are coming to Second Life. You can already try both, but prepare yourself for even more lag! The two new features are now available in two different SL browsers. TWO? Unfortunately, yes. You can try the shadow on SL 1.23 Release Candidate (download RC here. There's a simple setup you need to configure using advanced menu).

1. Enable the Advanced menu by hitting ctrl+alt+D (if you don't have it turned on).
2. Go to Advanced > Debug Settings.
3. Type in renderusefbo and set it to True
4. Type in renderdeferred and set it to True
5. Shadows!

The image is amazing! But, and there is always a but, immediately my AO started to work in slow-motion. I had another great deception when I tried to share my viewing with all my friends. The shadows didn't show in snapshots.



Conclusion: should you try it? Maybe not now, but remember this is a release candidate; that means the feature will be present in next SL version upgrade. I believe LL will fine tune it to work better in most graphics cards, and I hope they make it available in pictures too! Anyway, it will impact your computer performance so you should start to think about an update in the near future.

Flexible sculpted prims. One of the most anticipated upgrades in SL. This feature will certainly change a lot in the way we build. Those who were around for the sculpties revolution know the impact that I'm talking about. Imagine a skirt, that looks like a skirt, not cones or half cylinders grouped, and moves like a skirt. Or an avatar's tail that has an organic move. Now stop dreaming and test CoolViewer. CoolViewer is a 3rd party SL viewer that has many advantages of SL normal viewer - but this article is not about CoolViewer. The most famous and appreciated by the fashion community is the Worn tab. The technology is available there. You just need to find the flexi sculptures to see how they work.

The impact in your computer performance will be lower than in the shadows' case, but there will be lag.

Conclusion: should you try it? Not really, you can just watch the demo videos:





and wait for the official release. But if you are part of the fashion industry, in my opinion, you can't wait. It's time to test it and try to learn how to make your sculpties flexible. You don't want to be the last creator to have them available in your collection, do you?


Devon Chaffe