an open letter to Ebbe Altberg

hi Ebbe. welcome to our crazy virtual world. i hope it’s treating you well. i have to say – i am very encouraged by your changes to the lab. the transparency. the return of lindens. and especially your recent words regarding the terms of service. i understand that crafting a legal document is a difficult […]

goodbye, second life

i just deleted my sim. i’ve had it for what, eight years now? i am forced to. i have no choice. because the second life terms of service, as it is currently written, lets LL steal all of my intellectual property. shame on you LL. shame on you. shame on you. shame on you. i […]

speedy delivery

the team over at inworldz recently asked if i could help them integrate the clothing deformer into their new mesh viewer. which is nice, i think, because people really want to fit their clothing. and so far they can’t. but the inworldz guys took it a step further – they asked if there was anything […]

are my shirts pressed, yet?

quick announcement – i’m releasing version 0.3 of the deformer code. primary changes: 1) should now apply cleanly to recent linden viewer code, 2) deformation tables are computed in the background on another thread, so no frame stalls. enjoy. EDIT: version 0.3.2 fixes several issues detailed in the comments.

crimes against humanity: tailoring

a lot of people have asked me what i think of the new TPV policy. honestly – it’s hard to know what to think – because it’s hard to know what the heck the policy is. the only thing that is certain is that the rule as written doesn’t begin to describe what the rule […]

may i get these clothes pressed?

i’m headed out on vacation next week but i want to get another release of the deformer code out for testing. it has a fix for the problem of “crumpling.” (thanks to Elie Spot for helping me debug the problem.) it turns out that looking at the closest vertex isn’t enough – we need to […]

about that tailor
god?

Charlar – i’d like to explain to you why your statements were out of line. one, of course, is your needlessly abrasive and combative tone.  (my name is Qarl, by the way.)  and two is the whole “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” but perhaps the most disturbing thing is the fact that you […]

thank you, back

recently – a very kind soul sent me a chunk of money to say thank you for my deformer work. it means a lot to me – to know my work is so valued, and respected. to say thank you back – i’m releasing my alignment tool under LL’s contributor agreement, so they may include […]

virtual tailoring

happy new year! code

how to make a million dollars

if you compare the feature-set of linden lab’s second life grid and the various open source grids – only one serious difference emerges: the economy. linden lab provides a robust, secure, easily accessible means for transferring small amounts of money between its users – and the effects of this fabulous tool are evident EVERYWHERE in […]

002

our second session has come and gone, somewhat successfully i think – things always go better when your audience is armed. we covered implicit surfaces, renderman/pixie, displacement shaders, and more of my wacky cellular simulation. the turnout was pretty good too. if you’d like to attend the next one, or just receive updates, drop me […]

sigh…

i heard through the grapevine that the lab won’t consider bringing me back because of my blog post last year detailing the unethical and inept decision making behind my termination – specifically the audio recording. look guys – you dicked me over, plain and simple. i’m sure the recording was embarrassing for you – but […]

openings?
cleaning up

and they said i don’t know how to fix bugs. feh.

setting things straight

it makes me completely crazy that there’s no alignment tool in the second life viewer. so i made one. third party viewers (imprudence, Kirsten’s, etc, etc, etc) please feel free to include this code into yours. linden lab? well… my rates are very reasonable.

thank you

all your kind words have meant a lot to me, and my family. THANK YOU. truly. K.

and a linden is slain

well, linden lab cut me loose today. they’ve been hinting at it ever since the layoffs last month. try as i might i wasn’t able to change their minds. honestly, i’m completely baffled at the decision, as are all my coworkers (and my boss, and…) i mean, it wasn’t because i do a bad job. […]

windows

in my office (in the real world) i have a window into my office (in the virtual world.) it stays open 24/7, so when i’m at my desk, i can see my desk. similarly, in my office (in the virtual world) i have a window into my office (in the real world.) depending on your […]

let there be (good) light

the lighting in our renderer just got a whole lot better.

vote damnit

i’m taking off work tomorrow to do “get out the vote” calling. i mean, this election is REALLY important, right? even if you have only 15 minutes to spare: it’s super easy – just click and dial your phone. i hope you’ll join me. K. PS: feeling apathetic about the election? read this and get […]

please evaluate my performance

every three months or so – the linden family gathers together for what is know as review day. we ask each other to evaluate the good and the bad of our performance. all of these reviews are gathered together and published on our internal wiki. this time around, i’d like the residents to participate in […]

caves reloaded

i just finished a VERY fun podcast interview about the caves (and procedural art in general) with the “brooklyn is watching” folk. if you’ve got a few minutes to kill, Karl-Bob sez check it out.

Chouchou

Chouchou. avatar band. check ’em out.

SL vs. myst

i had a debate last year with an old friend. i said you could remake myst island within the second life universe. he didn’t believe me. one year later and i think we could do riven. (hallucinogen by Light Waves, photo by Torley)

plopp

very interesting – plopp now has sculptie export. check it out.

the blimps are dead! long live the blimps!

my blimps have been offline for more than six months – utterly unacceptable i think. the plan is to relaunch them soon. but first they need a new design. something in sculpties, perhaps. something steam-punk maybe. with one part 20,000 leagues under the sea? perhaps giant flying squids? i leave it to you. and a […]

primscripts

now you have two ways to assemble sculptie primsets. my qLab assembler, or Eddy Stryker’s libsl assembler. all you need are these files. the little tyke above was taken directly from turbosquid. he’s pretty identical to his maya rendering: perchance will someone step-up to create a blender exporter? Jeffrey Gomez, are you listening?

ruining the picnic

it was only a matter of time, i s’pose, once the sculpties were released and the grid filled with apples and oranges and bananas, that someone would try to ruin our picnic. no worries, we have plenty of yummies. so! what new cool toys do were have here? first you need an ant. my friend […]

As and Os

here at “the lab” developers are responsible for picking their own direction. each week we write a company-wide email discussing what we’ve done in the previous week – and what we hope to accomplish in the next week. our accomplishments and objectives. As&Os. lately in the press i’ve seen the LL developers bashed for not […]