When I signed on to SL™ today, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dave Bellman of Animazoo had dropped a folder on me including some absolutely wonderful copy/no trans dances on me! Dave also included a note which had the following to say (and I hope he won’t mind me quoting him here…):

Hi Shannon,

First off, thanks for mentioning Animazoo’s ‘cute freebies ‘ in your blog. I’ve sent you a selection of dances to say thank you.

I read your article ‘A Plea (Not Meant To Start Sh–, But…)’ and felt I had to respond!

I run Animazoo animations, and I have recently converted ALL of my dances to copy/no trans. My AO anims have been available in either format for a long time now. I did this for exactly the reasons you mentioned in your blog - I get a lot of ppl coming to me asking for replacements after SL™ has somehow lost thier original copy. At one point, it was such a workload sorting out ppls losses (I always replace when asked) that I had to employ someone just to take care of the customer support requests! At that time, I was so peeved with Linden Labs that I started a complaint post in the forums:

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=247487

The thread is now one of the most heavily read and answered in the ‘Current Version Feedback’ section!

So, I wondered if you would consider updating your blog to mention the fact that here at Animazoo I am doing everything I possibly can to reduce inventory loss problems for my customers, including selling all my dances as copy/no transfer.

Kind Regards,

Dave Bellman
Animazoo animations

Dave, thank you! Thank you for being one of the animation merchants willing to help; thank you for providing copy/no transfer dances. Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you! It really does mean a lot to some of us! ;) And please accept my apologies if I appeared to be lumping Animazoo in the “no copy” category.

So for those of you who feel strongly, as I do, about having dances available in copy/no transfer versions, go hit up Dave Bellman, whose work you find @ Animazoo! Not only are there dances but there are AO animations (and excellent, fabulously realistic ones) and wonderful gesture-type animations as well. “Moonie” is used in one of my favorite HUDDLES macros. ;)

Over my years in SL™, I have been quite the collector of animations (and stuff in general, but that’s not the subject at hand, at the moment). Overrides, dances, modelling poses, gesture-related, I ♥ animations…

Back when Keiki Lemieux’s HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe was beginning to catch on, so to speak, I bought one, and began using it for handling dances, on-the-fly posing for snapshots, animation override, and oh, I don’t know, just ’bout everything else you can think of. ^.^ I absolutely adore it, it is the best animation tool EVER, no lie.

It’s also been the victim of some nasty bugs in SL™ of late, it seems. Detaching the HUDDLES has, for many, resulted in it disappearing. It seems that most of the time it’s when something else you wear on your HUD replaces it, or when you attempt to wear it directly from the ground, as far as I can see, but regardless, lots of folks are having their HUDDLES go *poof* into thin air.

This is, of course, completely not an issue with the HUDDLES, but an issue within SL™. It’s not the fault of the customer - it’s not necessarily something they can prevent, there are only some things they can avoid doing that MAY be related to the disappearance.

Let me tell you about the contents of my HUDDLES. Inside my HUDDLES there are animation override sets from Torrid, Vista Animations, Outrider, Av Puli, Tuli, Luth Brodie (Reel Expression), Juicy, Dilemma, ANIMAH, Cova, Unpop. In MOST situations I purchased entire packs of animations, not just singles, and spent anywhere from 200-300L to 1000L+.

Also in the contents of my HUDDLES are dances. A small handful of freebies (I have The Robot, for example, and a couple of cute freebies that came from Animazoo.) I have a small number of “vintage” animations by Owenimations, who back in the day was the height of cool. ;) A couple of Abranimations. And a metric assload of Sine Wave dances. There are some which I have yet to add to the HUDDLES, but that would be because my heart skips a beat or two every time I have to detach the HUDDLES and rez it on the ground to add something. From Sine Wave, I have the following:

all about me
black cherries
blueberry muffin
bright fever
butterscotch
caramel
cherry pips
cola bottle
crystal roses
danish
disco fever
double cream
double dip
full of it
funkcicle
funky dubious
galvanize
juke
kiss my buttons
lava palaver
line em up
live forever
milk and honey
open up
POGO
rock steady
room with a view
soap suds
space dust
spring loaded
sprite
thrilling
tick tock
too much fun
want some
wavy gravy
weloveyou-girl
weloveyou-boy.

We will, for the purposes of this plea, disregard the 2 “weloveyou” ones, since they ARE copyable, and further they didn’t cost me a thing. So, that means there are 36 dances in there that I paid for. We’ll average out their price to L$200/ea since prices there seem to be mostly L$250, but some have been L$150 and some have been L$350, if I recall correctly. This means that, right now, in my HUDDLES there is approximately L$7,200 worth of goods from Sine Wave.

If I lost my HUDDLES I’d mostly be completely SOL. I’ve had them all for a while, there is not likely to be easily accessed transaction history on either side (mine or theirs) for any of them anymore. I realize that more recently they’ve begun keeping records on their website, but still….

There’s a simple solution - wherein they could feel more at ease replacing lost goods. They could make them copy/no trans. As it stands right now, all Sine Wave dances are no copy/trans. It’s nice that you can give them as gifts if you are so inclined, I will admit that. But, aside from gifting, what’s so great about no copy animations?

Hmm. Nothing. If you’re a club owner, and you have a popular enough club that you would need to have say, 2-3 dance machines to support the numbers, you have to buy 2-3 copies. If you’re just an individual who happens to lose their HUDDLES/Chimera/whatever, tough luck, bub! All that the no copy animations equate to is more money for Sine Wave. That’s their right; the animations are their creations, and they have every right in the world to do exactly as they wish.

Sucks for the rest of us, though, huh?

So my plea? Give me an option. What’s a copy/no trans version for me going to hurt you? It doesn’t, except for in the wallet, because I’d never have to replace the animations if I lost my dance machine of choice. As someone who just recently had to reflag permissions on seven-hundred-sixy-eight skin files, I can tell you it didn’t even take an hour to do that, and if you made a copy the minute you uploaded to set different permissions on, it’s only a few seconds. No extra upload fees, just a little bit extra time. I’m sure I know someone who’d even be glad to help out with a special vendor to include the option.

But, like I said, I don’t mean to start sh-t but I know this is never going to happen… there’s too many extra L$ to be had by not giving your customers an option to have copy/no trans animations.

1. Don’t update regularly. Make sure your updates are wildly variable. Sometimes, post 2-3 times a day, and other times, don’t post for a week… or a month… or a year! ;)

2. Babble. Always babble. Never have anything interesting or intelligent to say.

3. When babbling, make sure that you are as serious-sounding as you can possibly be. Don’t make light of your babbling; treat it as if you were lecturing at the Sorbonne or something else equally lofty and important.

Note: I am not poking fun at anyone other than myself. :)

When I was creating my presets, I was basically trying to strike a balance between the old viewer and the new. Pretty skies, pretty lighting effects, but not quite so hyper-realistic shading on avatars. I think I succeeded; it’s a day cycle that I really like! And hey, maybe no one else agrees, and that’s ok, but since a few folks have asked me if they could try them out themselves, I thought I’d offer them up for download. :) You will have to extract them into the x:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\ folder (where “x” is your primary hard drive, or whatever drive you have SL™ installed on). Don’t worry about extracting them into the “skies” folder, because they are already setup to go there.

So here you go - you wanna try my WL settings for yourself, have at it! Not all of my presets are included, just my day cycle keys. For those of you that don’t know how to set up a custom day cycle, read on. :) For those of you that already know how, just skip the rest of the post.

Creating A Custom Day Cycle:

1. Open up the Day Cycle Editor by going to World -> Environment Settings -> Environment Editor -> Advanced Sky -> Day Cycle Editor (boy, Linden Lab, you really need to put in a shortcut to access this. That’s buried pretty deep!)

2. In the Day Cycle Editor, you will see a “timeline” for a 24 hour period. Each “key” time of day can be set to a preset of your choice.

3. Click on the little wedge-shaped piece for 12am. Below the wedge-shaped slider there is a “Key Preset” drop-down box.

4. In the Key Preset drop-down, with 12am selected on the timeline, choose “SCMidnight.”

5. Repeat this steps 3 and 4 for 3am, 6am (sunrise), 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm (sunset), and 9pm, except in the “Key Preset” drop-down, choose the appropriate preset. (SCSunrise, for example for 6am).

6. Fiddle with “Length of Cycle” if you are so inclined, but when you are done press “Save Test Day.”

7. Close down all your environment windows, and try forcing sunset, sunrise, noon, or midnight. ( World -> Environment Settings -> [choose time of day you want to force], or use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl Y for noon, or Ctrl N for sunset.

This is not normally a problem for me, I don’t usually go about breaking things… but WordPress kept screaming at me to update to 2.5.1 even though I had (about fifty freakin’ times) and it was annoying me. So I did it the fifty-first time (same thing, every time) and for some reason it went absolutely haywire - so, I downloaded WordPress again, deleted all the files from my server, and reuploaded.

Only, I forgot to back up a few things. D’oh!

And WordPress still thinks it needs an upgrade.

However, I also have noticed an alarming trend in head size vs. body size, eye size vs. head size, and hip widths. Don’t get me wrong here, I have a “hippy” avatar, and again, everybody’s ideal is different. And that’s wonderful! You can look however you want to in SL™, and that’s a great thing. BUT, there are some things to keep in mind if you don’t want to appear somehow alien. (Um, unless you know, you’re going for alien.)

Now, in my personal opinion, almost everyone in SL™ is way too tall, including me! But, it gets tiresome dancing in midair, and/or having to adjust every kiss pose set you buy so that you suck face, rather than suck forehead or chin. Height is not so bad though, since nearly everyone is so tall, but I submit that despite everyone being 6′-7′ tall, we can still have some reasonable proportions.

Let’s start with faces.

In general your eyes should be halfway down your head. Your head should then be approximately five eyes wide. (Imagine one eye on either side of your actual eyes, and one eye in between.) Your nose should have its bottom halfway between your eyes and your chin. Mouth should then be halfway between bottom of nose and chin. The corners of your mouth should align approximately with the center of your eyes. Ears should align at the top with your eyebrows and at the bottom with the bottom of your nose.

Now I realize that these “rules” of proportion make it sound like you are limited in what you can do with a face. But that’s not at all true. These are just approximate guidelines - they don’t have to be exact, and then you have subtle variations like fullness of lips, width of nose, upturn of nose, the tilt of the eye, etc.

Moving on to the body, etc…

On average, a human being is approximately 6-8 “heads” tall. Shoulders should be nearly wide enough to sit three of your heads on. I know we females like to be a bit on the “leggy” side, and that’s alright - but as a guideline you should be about 4 “heads” from hip to toes, 2 “heads” from chest to navel (and with 1 “head” for your actual head, that puts you right in between 6-8 heads tall :p).

Now, the size of a woman’s chest and hips can vary quite a lot, but I would gently, gently (I said EFFING GENTLY) “encourage” that you not give yourself a wasp’s waist in combination with a hippo’s hind end, but this could be one of those moments where my ideal and your ideal are widely different.

I’m not going to cover hands and feet - not really - but keep in mind in terms of arm length, that with your arms straight out to your sides, from end of middle finger to end of middle finger should be approximately your full height. :) Obviously everyone in SL™ sets their foot size rather small because otherwise we look like doofuses in prim shoes - BUT hand size, well your hands approximate size from wrist to middle fingertip should be about as long as your head is high.

Again, I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t be creative if you are so inclined, but if you want a well-proportioned human shape, these are good guidelines. ;) I’ve seen a lot of fairly famous (and I won’t name names, really, I’m not looking for that particular bit of drama) who have obscenely large heads on obscenely small bodies - and it makes them look eerily alien to me.

A note to other designers: I won’t say that this affects my decisions on what to buy very often, except when it comes to hair. If I suspect for one minute that you’re going to suggest to me that I should choose to have an eerily large head to wear your hair right out of the box, I’m likely to just go somewhere where the designer has a better sense of proportion, whether I can modify it or not. ;) Just sayin’.

I’m also not sayin’ my av is anywhere near perfect - but due to my own personal tastes I have made an effort to make sure she is reasonably within these guidelines, though some tweaking here and there may be in order. :)

In SL™, though, where you can be anything you want to be, I do highly encourage experimentation, and if you want to roam the grid as an alien life form, I’m all for it. (Just don’t be a naked alien life form in PG areas, please?)

I am rarely the first to say hello. I am rarely the first to say anything! I am an SL™ Mentor, but I do so quietly, away from crowded Welcome Areas and Orientation Islands. It even took me months to warm up to chatting in the MM group channel.

It takes me ages to make friends, because I am too quiet, too reserved, to put myself out there. I love meeting new people, but it takes me a while to warm up and feel comfortable. Around friends, I can be very outspoken, and have an excellent (if I do say so myself) sense of humor. I will laugh long and loud, joke and tease (good-naturedly, of course. I’m really never intentionally mean to anyone) and am lots of fun to have around.

The problem is, it really does take ages for me to warm up to people to that point. There have been countless times where my shyness has caused me to be branded “snobby” and/or “cold.”

On the up side, although I do not always enjoy being alone, I rarely find myself unable to be when I want to be. It gives me a lot of time to write, to paint, to draw, to read, and do the things I love doing. Which is not to say that I don’t love being around people, too, because I do. Except around those that I am close to, however, I tend to be more an observer than anything.

But there are always the drawbacks… the awkwardness around new people, the desire to get to know someone I find fascinating that is overpowered by my inability to strike up a simple conversation.

I’m working on this, because, although I can see the advantages in being the quiet, observant type, I have missed many opportunities to get to know some wonderful people that, for all I know, may have turned out to be very good friends, indeed.

In some ways, SL™ helps a little with this particular problem of mine. For one, at least for initial contact, I can “hide” behind my avatar. I can tell myself that whatever someone says or thinks about my av, that doesn’t really matter, because it’s not me. The only problem with this, is that, I am me, wherever I am. I am acutely aware of the difference between SL™ and RL, but, that does not mean that I can really detach myself in quite that extent from my av. I don’t say or do things in SL™ that are not, or do not come from, very real thoughts of mine. I don’t make friends in SL™ that I don’t number among my friends, in general. I don’t differentiate that way. I’ve tried at times, but I just can’t. If I call you my friend, you’re my friend. Wherever you are, or however I met you.

However, again on the positive side, I often have a lot of time to observe someone before a conversation is begun. I can see how they interact with others, determine whether they have a good sense of humor, whether or not they are kind, long before they start talking to me. At times, this has helped me make the determination of whether or not I’m really willing to step out of my comfort zone and make friends or not.

I am me, and mostly I am happy with me. I am not perfect, though, and there are things that I am working on. This hopelessly shy aspect of my personality is one of those things that I am working on. I think I can still take pleasure in being an observer, without being too terrified to say hello ever. ;)

So, even though I feel that I am wasting my breath… still I have to open my mouth. :)

… [R]ecently, [Mental Mentors] came under close scrutiny by the Content Creation community after Cel Edman’s sculpty packs were released to over 800 members on the Mental Mentor channel. The Sculpty packs have served to help countless people across Second Life® and I always admired Cel for helping make sculpties more accessible for all. It was at this time I questioned whether I should stay in Mental Mentors, but as one of the group leaders made an apology and it seemed a genuine mistake, I let it slide.

We’re all entitled to mistakes, right?

Every week, the Mental Mentors send out a “Freebie Box” which is aimed at providing materials to help mentors help the community. A great idea!

Or is it? It was Cel Edman’s sculpty packs that were released in this box in the first place.. The measure put in place to stop such an incident happening again was that the group administrator would now check all the items submitted for the box to make sure they were okay to be sent out.

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is a great idea to send out the freebie boxes! :) We as members of MM do need to be careful with what we submit for the freebie boxes, and there is a matter of personal accountability to discuss, as well. While we can ask, and expect our admins & officers to check content before they actually pack it up and ship it out, we can not expect them to be familiar with all content in SL™ or who it was all made by.

A freebie box sent out this week contained full permission plant objects by Blazed Undercity. The textures on these plants looked awfully familiar.. as builders and landscapers, me and my sister Rrishanna Regina immediately recognised them as being the same textures as used by the Heart Garden Centre.

Now Heart Garden Centre is one of the biggest names in SL™ – you won’t go for long without seeing plants made by these two talented designers. So an IM to Lilith Heart and she came over to our home to take a look at the objects which had been sent out on the Mental Mentors channel.

Lilith immediately confirmed that they were indeed her own textures, which may have been copybotted or ripped using a third party program. As someone who has recently seen his own furniture ripped and stolen, and being sold in Second Life®, I could relate to Lilith and felt for her.. when you see content which you’ve worked on for days/weeks ripped off in just moments and being distributed without your consent, it really is heartbreaking.

Me and Rrish immediately let the two group owners know of the situation, and the group administrator began talking to Lilith about what had happened. I was IMing one of the group owners – my concern wasn’t so much about the situation specifically as that was for Lilith to take up with the group owners.

My issue was for how Mental Mentors would react to this issue. My own thoughts were that the freebie box that gets sent out needed a rethink. I offered a simple suggestion – creations made by mentors themselves can be the only objects sent out in the freebie box. As a designer in SL™, the thought of my own creations being ripped off and sent out in a mentor channel disturbs me.

This was indeed an unfortunate situation, and one that I am very sure that no one meant to have happen. However, none of the officers or admins deliberately sent out stolen content, and when it was pointed out that there was a problem, by Prad & Rrishanna, the officers of MM made it a point to send out a notice making it clear that there was a problem, and what we had been asked to do by Lilith (delete the questionable content).

For the record though, while I had seen many of their creations around the grid (Heart Garden Centre’s), I never knew of the business by name at all until just a few weeks ago, and I have been in SL™ since 2004. So, it is not unreasonable to give the officer(s) of MM the benefit of the doubt, and say that they were not familiar with the textures.

Mentors are there to set an example for SL™ residents to follow and be there to guide and advise those who need it. To me, the Mental Mentors group was failing to carry out its duties appropriately. It appeared that nothing had been learned from Cel Edman’s attempt to draw attention to theft in SL™. This was further affirmed when the co-owner of the Mental Mentors group said this to me:

“it is better for you to find your item than for it to be places you do not see it”

Did I read that right? Am I really supposed to be happy that my content could be distributed to 800+ people, but it’s okay because I know where it’s being distributed.. it’s only a mentor channel full of active members who will then pass the item onto other people..?

First and foremost, the Mental Mentors group is not an official mentor group. You have to be a mentor to belong to Mental Mentors, but you do not have to be a Mental Mentor to be a Second Life® Mentor. No, you are not “supposed” to be happy that anyone’s illegitimately obtained content could be distributed to anyone, 800+ Mental Mentors or otherwise. I do not condone sharing pirated, illegitimate, stolen, or unauthorized content in any manner, be it through a group or otherwise. No one should be happy about anyone’s content being stolen and/or redistributed in an unauthorized manner, mentor or not.

But again, you can not expect the officers & admins alone to know where all the content in SL™ comes from, you can only ask that they respond to a problem if they see it themselves, or have it pointed out to them. You can not hold someone accountable for what they do not know. That is unreasonable.

Specifically regarding the quote stating “it is better for you to find your own item than for it to be places you do not see it” what I read is pretty much exactly what it says, but to hopefully clarify how I interpreted it, I will rephrase: “If your content has been stolen, it is better that you find it than for it to be out there in the wild without you knowing about it.” And this is true. If you do not know it has been stolen, how can you do anything about that? How can you file a DMCA notice, how can you get the thief to stop selling it, and claiming it as their own? So, I’m afraid I would have to say, that in my opinion you did not read that right.

A notice did go out that night about members of the group being “advised” not to send objects which they did not make themselves.. a weak notice, which gave no apology and did not explain why such a decision would be beneficial to the group. I then received a confrontational IM from one of the group owners that I “had gotten my wish” and the freebie box had been axed. Which wasn’t my wish, and wasn’t what had actually happened, but I wasn’t in the mood to fight over something as pointless as that.

Here is your so-called “weak” notice that, you say did not include an explanation. From a notecard dated 2008-03-24, two days before your blog post.

Good Evening Mentals,

Its come to our attention that in the contents of Nature Package - Arrangements which was passed out on 3-24-08, that the creator that made the palms allegedly stole the textures of Lilith Heart. This has not been proven yet and Lilith will handle it on her side. What she is asking is as a courtesy to her, if you would all please just delete them she will be most grateful. This is why it is so important that when you send me items that we would prefer for YOU to be the creator of the items. We also do love to see your creativity. If you have a dear friend that would like to donate an item we will gladly take it please make sure to ask them for what perms they would like it passed with. Send me in a folder the item and the notecard so that it can go out with the perms notecard in the MM Goodie Box. Unfortunately things like this will happen in SL™. Again nothing been proven so please do not mention anyone as a thief to others. The item was NOT stolen it was created by someone else. If the textures were used of others that we cant possibly know.

Thank you all for being so understanding in this matter.

I’m sorry, but I do see an explanation there as to what happened, and that explanation makes it clear to me why they would prefer that we Mentals send out our own creations. The card, quite rightly, explains that there is an instance of alleged theft, and also clearly states what we, who might have received the package are being asked to do. (Delete!) It doesn’t seem to me, at all, to be a weak explanation or weak apology. It also states that the item was NOT stolen - which is also technically correct. The textures may have been stolen by the person that created them, but the items as delivered to the group were not prims created by someone that had been exploited in some manner. While you, Lilith Heart, and 10,000 other members may be 110% sure that those textures were stolen from Lilith, that is not for those of us who have never compared them to originals to say. So, to be technically correct, the notecard states that the item wasn’t stolen, and that the textures were allegedly stolen.

Yes – the item wasn’t made my Lilith. We can deduce that from the object being created by “Blazed Undercity”. However, the textures used on the object are exactly the same as those used by Lilith.. and seeing as Lilith creates all her own textures, I think that’s a little too co-incidental. It seems more likely to me that Lilith’s textures were ripped, placed on prims and then distributed.

Again, you recognized the textures, but I wouldn’t have. I took a peek at the items in that box before I got the notice letting everyone know that those items should be deleted. I wouldn’t have known them to belong to anyone other than the person whose name was on the prims, if it hadn’t been pointed out. Perhaps that is because I am not a landscaper or builder. I have only purchased one set of things from Heart Garden Centre ever, and those would be the only items I personally could ever specifically identify as belonging to Lilith Heart. I’m sorry, I guess, that I am not as informed as you. But, it was a good thing that you were that informed! Why? Because you spotted the problem and went to the people that should know. In my opinion, in you leaving Mental Mentors, Prad, all you’ve really done is removed a set of vigilant eyes that might be able to help spot more problems if they happen, and let people know about them.

As for the Group Owner stating that only 50 mentors may have looked in the box, I think that’s a ludicrous point to be making. Does it really matter how many people look at it? It’s there and it’s devaluing the work that content creators do in SL™.. it makes me sad that mentors can actually think like this, and I’m not even sure I want to carry on creating in SL™.

I agree with you here, Prad. It makes no difference at all if it were 5, 50, 500 or 5000. However, we do not live in a world where precogs lounge around in a pool all day making prophecies about who might be thieves - so we can’t stop things before they happen. We can take action when something does happen, though. We also can not expect people to do anything about things that they are unaware of!

[14:25] Group Administrator: To bad for Prad…. he will have to get over it. Lots love the box and lets not forget that Mentors dont get paid, some dont have money to buy items. We have many gracious friends, creators that DO send us their items.

Mentors don’t get paid, so they should be allowed to distribute stolen content?!? That kinda did it for me.. the owners and administrator of the group obviously have no regard for the hard work that content creators put into their creations and aren’t interested in supporting IP rights.

They are giving the majority of Mentors in SL™ a bad name and that makes me sad. So many mentors support the creators and IP rights, and are against theft. I’ve now left Mental Mentors as I cannot be a part of a group that has no regard for IP rights behind closed doors.

NO! There is no excuse for using, selling, giving away, or sharing stolen content! I agree with your sentiments here, too, Prad. Again, though, like I said, in removing yourself from the group, you’ve removed someone who might be better able to help spot problems than some others. At least in some departments. ;)

However… you say that “so many mentors support the creators and IP rights, and are against theft,” but you seem to not give that same credit if Mentals is added into the equation. I assure you, I support content creators in SL™ - it is in my own personal best interest to do so! But, even if I were not a creator, I admire so many of the talented people who create the things we wear, live in, drive around in, etc that I would hate to see someone else’s hard work taken and used to make a quick buck by someone else.

In fairness, it is not all of Mental Mentors that does not support IP rights. Many Mental Mentors are also content creators. Many who are not still support those that are. It is not anybody in Mental Mentors who is giving “all” Mental Mentors a bad name. It is those who paint all Mental Mentors with the same broad brush as those members they feel are not doing the right thing that are giving us “all” a bad name.

Both Creators and Mentors play a vital role in Second Life®, and I am proud to participate in both programs. Both need to be united to help make Second Life® work.

Wholeheartedly agreed.

What very few ever mention, though, is how customizable WL is on its own. In days past, you had two daytime settings that were available to you so that your av would be charmingly “lit” without making use of face and/or body lights. Sunrise, and sunset. With WL, that is no longer the case! If you want it to, any time of day can be as well-lit or deeply-shadowed as you want it to be!

(Warning: If you expand this post, you will find some nudity on this page. Avatar nudity, and well, you really can’t see anything, because her hair hangs down over her chest… but it is there.)

I rarely run local lighting. Why? Because, to be honest with you I’m not a fan of face lights/body lights. It’s very detrimental to performance, particularly in crowded places, for me. I only turn on local lighting in the instances where it can help me enhance a photograph I’m taking. Even at that, I use little. Now, I am nowhere near the photographer that some Residents I know are! I take simple snapshots to showcase things I’ve created. I take a silly snapshot with my friends now and then. I am not by any means a pro, so a pro will probably be able to articulate the virtues of local lighting for photographs to you in such a manner that you can see how wonderful it is.

I’m not that person. ;)

What I do know is, that when I first started using Windlight - to get used to it, back when it was beta and then release candidate - I had the same issues that many of my friends did. Lighting too harsh on avatars, beautiful skies, but ugly avs! So, I took the time to play with the lighting presets, and eventually found a point that for me, was a happy compromise between the high realism of Windlight lighting and the old viewer’s method. What I like, maybe not everyone will like, but I did want to take a few minutes to show you what you can do with nothing more than WL settings.

Below you will find my personal settings that I use - including “key frames” from my day cycle. They work well for me, that’s all I can say. :)

Windlight: Day Cycle Sunrise - This is my default day cycle sunrise. It’s pretty similar to the sunset (below) but, obviously the sun shines stronger on my (unpictured) back side. :p

Windlight: Day Cycle Sunset - This is my default day cycle sunset. I like it, it’s rosy and warm, but it doesn’t shade avatars (or really anything) very harshly (well, honestly not much at all. Just ambient lighting for colors.)

Windlight: Sunset - Less Rosy Glow - This setting is almost the same as my sunset and sunrise settings, except that the ambient light has been balanced out to remove a lot of the rosy/red cast. This is not a part of my day cycle, but an extra preset that is useful to me now and then.

Windlight - Noon - Well… “noon” in SL™ has never been my favorite time of the day. erm, sorry. Noon always casts less-than-esthetically-pleasing shadows on the face, imo.

Above is an example of something that is possible with WL. I made use of a custom “moonlight” setting for the original snapshot. There definitely was Photoshop involved, I think that’s evident, but Windlight was used to give me the “base” of the lighting that splashes across the front of my avatar.

At any rate, the point of this post is not to showcase the silly things I make in PS, etc, but to show you that so much is possible with WL, if you just take the time to play with it, to get to know it. I promise you, it can be your friend!

Before I go any further, I would like to thank those who are talking about this subject without bashing the group(s) involved as a whole. Yes, I’m talking to you Codie♥, and a handful of others. A small handful. I mean it wholeheartedly when I say thank you - because the Mentor and/or Mental Mentor bashing is getting tough to swallow.

Well, tough to swallow? More like impossible, and I’m not going to just swallow it anymore.

I’m a Second Life® Mentor. I’m also a Mental Mentor. Second Life® Mentors are an officially-sanctioned group. Mental Mentors are not. Mental Mentors is a third-party group that is meant to allow those of us who like to be chatty with our fellow mentors to do so. It’s also a “safe” place to ask for help with problems from other mentors. There is an officially-sanctioned “Q&A” group for Mentors, that would be Second Life® Mentor Q&A.

Apparently, one member of Mental Mentors sent out some sculpties that were created by Cel Edman via a group notice in Mental Mentors. This would mean that about 800 people got the offer. Those 800 people could then be redistributing the content of said package anywhere and everywhere. I say this only to make it 100% clear that I know how serious this issue is. I am a content creator myself, and I would be heartbroken if my things were released to the masses full permission without my consent. For me, it’s the without my consent part that is so key, but I do understand the financial implications as well. (For the record: my shop exists for one reason and one reason only, and that is to earn myself the tickets to the Netherlands I’m so dying for to go see the one I love. So finance, yes, that matters to me, too.)

Now, here we are, and Mentors/Mental Mentors are being painted with one very broad brush in a very, very unflattering light. I understand the anger and frustration that comes from feeling like Linden Lab™’s permissions system and DMCA procedures don’t do much to actually protect your content. I understand feeling powerless to stop people from disregarding your terms of use. I understand all of that very, very well. What I don’t understand is, basically laying the blame for it all at the feet of 800 people, 799 of whom did not choose to send out full permission items to a group without copyright notices in tact. (Which would make it clear to those 799 that they weren’t really even meant to have them in the first place, let alone share them with anyone else.)

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I don’t see the flaws in the Mentor system as a whole - because I do. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that all Mentors are perfect - because we’re not. What I am asking you to do - telling you to do - is to stop painting me with the same brush that you’re choosing to paint the one person responsible for the notice with. I have purchased products from Cel Edman legitimately - and I will continue to do so, as his sculpts are some of the finest in Second Life®. I will not ever, ever redistribute what I’ve purchased from Cel Edman as-is. (Or any other full permission texture pack that I’ve purchased which explicitly states that it is not meant to be redistributed!) We are not one big ball of evil content thieves, you know. We’re a group of Mentors who like to be able to talk to one another, that’s all. We are all flawed, imperfect beings - but we are not all flawed in the same ways. We are not a hive mind; we are not the damn Borg. (That part was supposed to make you laugh, ok?)

I’d also like to share with you what I know of the person who actually is responsible for passing out the sculpts. He is not a bad person. He is kind, friendly, funny and willing to go out of his way to help someone out. I do feel that he should not have passed out items that were not meant to be passed out in that manner, but I do not feel that he deserves to be nailed to a cross, either. If we all got nailed to crosses for errors in judgment, who wouldn’t have holes in their wrists & feet?