Lordfly Digeridoo trips the light fantastic with dynamic shadows + His pros and cons

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

He's been a Resident of Second Life® for nearly six years (rezzed on July 21, 2003), so it's saying something when virtual architect, builder and podcaster Lordfly Digeridoo takes such pleasure in playing with dynamic shadows, expected to hit our optional viewer any day now. Just look at him cut a rug!


Lordfly: "Dynamic per-pixel shadows, spotlights, and the ability to project textures onto arbitrary surfaces"

Want to do a little Alpha-testing yourself? Pick up KirstenLee Cinquetti's S17 viewer sporting a very thoughtful single-click installation feature for the non-nerds amongst us, but have a look at her blogpost and the ensuing discussion in comments before you tinker under the hood.

"So what, in your view, are the pros and cons of dynamic shadows?" I asked Lordfly, and this is what he said:

Pros: More realistic depiction of the simulation allows less uncanny-valley moments (brain automatically searches for depth and shading cues, adding this in greatly enhances realism), graphics engine takes another step towards keeping up with other major engines (we're now finally at Unreal Tournament... 2004).

Cons: More forum drama, people ragequitting over no support on their 5-year old laptops, content creator confusion over whether to build for the lowest common denominator or not (hint: baked shadows look fine, generally, even with dynamic shadows over them).

O Tannen Bomb, O Tannen Bomb... A friendly Christmas assault

Merry Christmas, y'all! - Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Jopsy Pendragon cannot resist the impulse to create, and he's had many irons on the fire lately, especially since he expanded the Particle Laboratory and put his ingenious Porgon 1800 (the Particle Organ) on the market.

When it comes to Jopsy, I've come to expect vivid, brilliant particles dancing in the air to music, or self-guided tutorials on how to make them as well as the best particle textures on the grid. But he's not above having a little fun with us!



The Tannen Bomb is a bit of merriment Jopsy started to make on a lark three years ago, and finally got around to finishing on Wednesday. It's a short-lived build, so make your way over there in the next few days, and take advantage of the temporary lift on forced teleports at Teal, too, (teleport directly from here).

In a nutshell... well, nah, I'm not going to tell you exactly what happens. Just go with friends, launch the Tannen Bomb... and let it surprise you.




In this shot, I'm wearing American resident Eshi Otawara's Christmas Edition Smokey Tux dress, and soror Nishi's splendid mistletoe antlers

I am still plagued by that snapshot bug, so I appreciate Jopsy's help with pics.