Category Archives: Rants

Chellynne Talks about Stuff!

Bakes on Mesh Update

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Bakes on Mesh Update!

I went to the Creators Meeting today, and it looks like we’re starting to finally get through to the Lindens about the importance of an API at launch.
(See the meeting here: https://youtu.be/1RG-GX3u3jg?t=384)

If you’ve not heard the news, Linden Labs is working on something called Bakes on Mesh. The long and the sort of it is that they want to let Mesh Users use System Layers on Mesh!
This is frankly very good news. It should cut down dramatically on a variety of issues, such as alpha clitches, massive overheads for Mesh Makers and all those old items that still need to get converted to Appliers!
You can read what the Lindens have to say about this here: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/420617-bakes-on-mesh-feedback-thread/

There are plenty of other issues to still hammer out, how to handle Materials, how to handle Asymmetrical Appliers, etc, however, as many of you know, the one I feel is most pressing is the NEED to have an API to insert textures into the Stacks. Frankly, It’s the hill I plan to die on.

Why? So I can still make something to get all your appliers onto your bodies and keep Applier Creators from having to convert their entire stock back to System Layers…. we’ve had to deal with one conversion, lets not do it again.

Frankly, This is something EVERYONE should care about.

1) Customers, if you don’t want to have to toss a bunch of stuff again like you did when you switched to a Mesh Body, you need them to let us have this.
2) Applier Creators, I’m sure you know how much easier it is to create appliers then System layers. You also know how long it would take you to rebox all your skins, makeups and anything else you didn’t put in a System layer! So again, you need them to do this!!
3) Mesh Makers, I know you’re excited to trim your Onion Layers down, or even toss them all, but without this API, your customers are going to be stuck waiting on Skin Makers to redo their entire Stock of textures. Remember what your pretty feet look like with the wrong texture on them?

Let’s not do this again shall we? 

Hands, Feet and Eyes pretty much guarantee Skin makers are going to have to rebox all their stuff in order to support Bakes on Mesh with textures that don’t look like crap.  So lets make sure they don’t have to do that.. AGAIN.  The Lindens seem to be finally getting it, but we need to make sure they know how important this is.  So make sure you get your voices heard!

How to Get Involved:

 

Frankly, if they do it right, Bakes on Mesh can be AWESOME. We could be looking at a future where System Layers and Appliers could be used on ANY mesh, opening up a bunch of scripting possibilities. So let’s make sure that happens!!

About Bakes on Mesh

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DEBUNKING Bakes on Mesh!

Dun dun DUNNNN….! Ok, not really debunking! Frankly bakes on mesh is going to be great. I’m a HUGE fan. You’ll finally be able to wear as many tattoos, moles, makeup and other body mods as you want! Skin makers will be able to give you tattoos that let you mix and match your facial features! Calorie Free Bacon will rain from the sky! Ok, not that last one.. but still some great stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=345&v=co8TYa8RHcs has a good video explaining the virtues. But there are some misunderstandings running around we need to discuss.

First, Onion Layers are not going away yet.

Why? Because the new system doesn’t support Materials. Simple as that.

Materials don’t see a TON of use with clothing/makeup/etc, it does however almost universally get used by high-end mesh bodies to add detail to their look. It’d be rather silly to see skin materials on a t-shirt, so any Mesh Body that wants to get rid of their Onion Layers will need to abandon Materials at the same time, drastically reducing the appearance of their body.  I don’t think that’s a trade-off any serious creator will want to make, or that customers will want them to make.

What this WON’T be an issue for is tattoos and some makeup. It makes perfect sense for the shimmer of skin to not be blocked by a tattoo.  Actually, this will be quite an improvement as before matte tattoos on top of shimmery skin could create a rather odd look. Now it’ll all be baked in UNDER the shimmer!  Still, at least 1-2 layers will have to stick around if Mesh Makers want to maintain their Meshes current gloriously shimmery appearance.

Alpha Sections Can’t go yet either.

As much as I’d love to see Alpha HUDs die. (Srsly, I’ve always hated them. ), as long as there are Onion Layers, we’ll still need the annoying things since alphas won’t be applied to them!

You’ll still need to make/accept Appliers.

Trust me, I’d love to move onto other projects. I’ve been making and remaking the same script for years now, but we’ll still need appliers for a variety of things:

  • Nails
  • Neckblenders
  • Lashes
  • Materials
  • Asymmetrical Clothing/Skins
  • Anything you don’t want to look completely painted on.
  • Items like Ears, Stand-Alone Hands/Feet, Lips and Implants.

Even if you’re not involved with any of the above things, you’ll still need to make the appliers because someone might be trying to use your product with a product that is.

So what is the point!?
Even with its limitations, Bakes on Mesh promises some awesome perks.

  • Skin makers will be able to offer more options by including tattoos with their skins. Mix eyes, lips and nose options! Add Tummy Options!
  • You will no longer be limited to a single tattoo per zone! Put 30 on there if you want!
  • Alpha Glitching should go WAYYYYY down. With the major offenders (Tattoos/makeup), baked into the skin, we should see far fewer alpha headaches.
  • There will be less lag as most users will have fewer textures to download.
  • Edit: Apparently there’s also plans to eventually be able to use this with Animesh/rezed items. Which will be absolutely awesome. >.>
  • There will be a lower bar for Entry for aspiring Mesh Makers.

That Last one actually has me super excited. Meshes don’t need to start out full featured.  This’ll allow creators to dip their toes into Mesh Making without having to come get a script from me.  It won’t work great with Materials, but it’ll work until you’re ready to make the leap to a more featured product with layers and alphas and such.

Conclusions:

As I said before, Baked on Mesh is going to be awesome. Just don’t expect it to completely replace everything that has gone before.

  • If you’re an Applier Creator, keep making those appliers, but start also including System Layers. I’m going to keep poking them for API solutions that will let appliers be inserted into the baked stack, but for now, assume that’s not going to happen.
  • If you’re a mesh maker, just add a “Bake Skin” button to your hud.  Have it set the skin to Alpha_Mode_Masking and texture it with the BAKED IDs and you’re done.  If you need the UUIDs, PM me. I’ll get you set up.
  • If you’re a customer, I don’t have much advice for you atm. Getting Bakes Released + Getting all the Skin Makers updated could take months, or it could take years. Just keep your ears and eyes open.

 

Important Links

Omega Solutions 2017

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State of the Omega 2017

Once upon a time, I kept you guys updated about every little plan I had. I can’t really do that anymore… too many little things to be done, and too many things I’m not allowed to disclose. However I would like to give a brief “State of the Omega” and summary of what is to come!

First… How are we now? Well….Omega is doing great!

  • Mesh Adoptions: Last year we landed most of the remaining Major Mesh brands that had ignored us in the Past. Slink, Lelutka, Loud Mouth, Nyam Nyam along with practically every new SLUV mesh that was released in 2016. Frankly the Mesh Count has ballooned up so high I no longer have a definite figure to give you! x.x  There’s still a couple Mesh Designers not on board, but we love them anyways and eagerly await hearing from them at some point.
  • Pre-Installed Rates: More and More designers are opting for Pre-Installed Since I reduced the group discount! Huzza!
  • Neckblender: This past year we also introduced a standardized Neckblender that would work on heads and bodys, and have managed to convince almost every new Mesh Maker with a Neck bit to use it! There’s still a couple OLD meshes that could benefit from the neckblender that haven’t added it, and 1 head maker who hasn’t gotten around to updating to it, but for the most part we’re good on that front.
  • Cosmetic Appliers: The Explosion of new heads forced us to quickly come up with an applier solution a more usefull and specific then “Makeup” or “Tattoo”.  What came about was a 7 zone system with a 3 button applier hud. So far, it has worked wonderfully for the most part, although we’ve run into the problem of people not skinning the way the instructions indicate. As a result we’ve released layer converters and made updates to the routing hud to make it easier to deal with unlabeled appliers. We’ll also be working on some changes in the future to further reduce this customer burden. (see the to-do list bellow!)
  • New Storage System: There is now an Installer Storage System Built into the Routing HUD to store the installers you use! Moving forward we’ll be nudging as many Creators toward Plug-ins rather then Relays as possible to take advantage of this fact.

Continue reading »

Protecting your Work – Applier Creators

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Protecting your Work – Applier Creators

Ok, so if you’re like me, you’ve been noticing a rash of ripped materials appearing lately. LL seems to be having a hard time keeping up with it.
So in the meantime, here’s some info to help keep your Omega Appliers safe!

First the Tech Bits.

  • Use Proper Permissions:
    • Remember to set all Config Notecards to No-Copy/No-Mod to prevent them from being read.
    • Remember to set all Config Scripts to No-Mod/no-trans. (No-copy is unnecessary).
    • Set other applier scripts itself to no-trans.
    • Set the applier prims to no-mod/no-trans.
  • Remove the Configs: You can delete the Config Scripts and Notecards after they’ve been loaded into the applier script, this is highly recommended. Just make sure you:
    • Test the applier to make sure it’s still working after deleting the Config.
    • Set the Prim to No-Modify to prevent data loss from scripts getting reset by your customer.
  • Use Breast Textures:  Omega uses a super secure alternating channel for all its textures except the upper body, which uses the channels used by all implants. If you’d like to avoid sending your full upper textures over this channel, there is a slot for a partial breast texture that can be sent to implants so that the full upper texture can use the secure channel instead.
  • Avoid unsafe appliers:  Because Appliers ARE our business, we’ve made sure we have the most secure appliers in the business short of using an external server. We’ve gone so far as to make some mesh makers hate us (ok be ..maybe just mildly annoyed by us) because we demanded they fix their internal security in order to get Omega Support. However, while we’ve gone to bat over security when it affects our appliers, we have no say on how they treat THEIR appliers, so applier security varies a great deal! So if it’s not a brand you trust, use Omega Instead!

Next…the Bigger Picture

Use Peoples Laziness:
All Viewers…Firestorm, SL Viewer, and other viewers I don’t care about cause they aren’t Firestorm…..are just 3D Web Browsers akin to Chrome, Firefox, and Explorer. And just like their 2D brethren, they have no means of protecting your textures from those who know how to get to them. No special viewer is needed. Meshes being Mod, No Mod, etc doesn’t matter in the least. There is no hud to detect this activity, there is NOTHING SL can do to prevent Mr “I took CIS classes in Jr College” from getting at your textures.  We do everything we can to make sure that most people can’t get them via OUR sloppiness, but there’s just nothing that can be done to prevent theft whether you provide appliers or not.

Thankfully, however… just because it’s doable… doesn’t mean it’s not a pain in the ass.  Most means of theft involve getting a potentially dangerous viewer, looking at lines of code or installing little bits of code in places of your computer that 99% of us didn’t know even existed. It can be rather time-consuming, and in some cases, computer/account threatening.  Not because LL does anything about it, but because the required tools are made by hackers and thieves, and you don’t know what they’ve put in there! And the less experienced with it you are, the less likely it is you’ll know what will damage your computer and what will not!

This means one of the most important things you can do to secure your appliers (after the technical bits above!) is to just make sure it’s not worth peoples time to steal!

  • First… practice kindness: Make sure you’re kind to your customers and competitors.  Most folks are good people, but even good people occasionally do bad things if they can justify it with “They were an asshole!”. So avoid the SL Drama Traps. Make yourself known for how well you treat others, whether they’re customers or competitors!
  • Have Good Applier Support:  The biggest excuse/reason I hear for ripping or learning how to? (before I ban their asses from my sim and groups?) Someone didn’t have an applier for the mesh bit they were wearing!
    That’s why it’s super important that you:

    • Make Omega appliers. This will keep users of MOST mesh bodies from giving in to that temptation!
      There are very few mesh bodies that don’t take an Omega Applier!
    • Appliers for anything popular that isn’t covered by Omega but you’ve been asked about frequently.  You can ignore requests about non-sluv meshes and no-mod meshes without free/public dev kit access, since ripping your textures won’t help with these meshes, but any Mesh that is SLUV and Modifiable, either manually or via a public Dev Kit/Personal HUD is a temptation if it doesn’t already have an Omega Kit.
    • If you find a SLUV Mesh that doesn’t take Omega, poke them and ask them to get an Omega kit done! Even if you make appliers for them, ensuring they get Omega-fied helps protect others work, which in turn protects yours.
    • Keep your Appliers Reasonably Priced, and if practical, just roll the cost of them into the product itself. This can be difficult

Frankly, MOST people are mostly honest as long as you don’t tempt them too hard.  They have no issues spending a little money here and there to support creators they like.  They just want to get all these mesh pieces to look right together. If you make it easier to throw some Ls at what they want rather then learn how to rip, 99.99% of the time… people will throw the Ls!!  So Make it easy to throw Ls!

Don’t Publicize Stolen content:
I see it a lot. Angry Creators and consumers on social media crying foul because of a shop selling ripped content. And I don’t blame them. They are totally justified by their wrath. But If you’ve ever opened a shop, you know getting attention at first is HARD. Even awesome creators have to go through that curve of building up word of mouth. So why assume ripped content on the MP is going to get much attention?…. unless of course… people advertise for them! Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised, if some of these posts are started by the rippers themselves! These posts spread fast and go far, so it’s a fantastic way to advertise what you’re selling!

  • If you see one of these posts, tell them to remove the links! Especially if it’s YOUR stuff on the line!
  • If you see one of these shops, notify the creator so they can do a report/DMCA and then keep it to yourself!
    If you want to vent on Facebook, do it! But leave the links and seller names out of it! Don’t help these creeps!

Lastly… remember to stay focused!
This goes for all creators… not just Applier Creators. It SUCKS when people steal things from you… it can break your spirit…make you question why you put in the WORK….. but remember you are a business. Maybe a tiny one, maybe a big one. Either way the goal is not to prevent theft.. but to sell! Theft can obviously cut into sales, but not as much as alienated customers or loss of creation time.  So while you’ll want to take any PRACTICAL steps to stop thieves, just make sure the steps you take don’t cut into your sales, either by pissing off your customers or taking away from your creation time! Better to sell 1000 Units and have 1000 more stolen… then to sell 10 and have no thefts at all!

But that’s all I gotta say on the matter. Be safe my pretties. And Happy Creating!

Read More about Copybotting in this Article by Caspervend!

In case it is not clear please note that we at Omega DO NOT condone Ripping, UUID snagging or any other means of acquiring UUIDs without the creator’s consent. I don’t care if the creator is an asshole and/or has/hasn’t followed all our security tips. There is ZERO excuse for UUID/Texture Theft, even for personal use. Anyone caught suggesting otherwise or peddling services for such in our chats/blogs/to our group members/on our sim/ect is subject to immediate ejection from all our Groups/Lands.