extrude.ragu

Hello everyone!

I am pleased to announce that new Live-Streaming functionality is now in Open Beta.

Everyone is welcome to come test the functionality.

With our screen you can:-

• Share what you're up to with others
• Host lessons with videos
• Have movie nights!

How to stream to the screen (3 minutes)

1. Setup OBS Studio
    
   1. Download and install OBS Studio
   2. Download and extract our Stream Profile on your computer
   3. In OBS Studio, Import the Kokoro Academy - Classroom 1-A profile by going to Profile > Import in the top menu and choosing the extracted folder.
       
2. Start the server
    
   1. Go to Classroom 1-A in-world (First floor, left of main entrance)
   2. Pull down the screen, and select 'Stream'
   3. Wait for the screen to indicate the server has started.
       
3. Stream using the imported profile
    
   1. In OBS Studio, select the Streaming Profile you imported (Profile -> Kokoro Academy - Class 1-A)
   2. Ensure that you see an image and not a black square in OBS.
      You may need to set up a Display Source or use the 32bit version if no image.
   3. Click Start Streaming. You will see a green light when you are live.

That's it! Enjoy streaming to the screen!

This feature is still being tested. Let me know your experiences with it!

Hello Rusty~

Hello Alex~

It was nice meeting you before the other day, hope to see you again soon! 

Hello bun~

Hello Katrina

What product did you find?

Hello Macrina!

Welcome to Kokoro, thanks for helping with the building :3

I'll join 🙂

Tuesday and Fridays
from 9am to 2pm SLT

Saturdays
1am to 2pm SLT
Sundays 
1am to 6am SLT,
9am to 2pm SLT

About Creators Club

'But I don't know how to do that!'

Abandon all that holds you back and make a commitment.

'Today, I'm gonna figure it out!'

Creators club is a gym for your mind.

Join us and unlock new skills and make new like-minded creating friends!

Current Members

Ai (extrude.ragu) Club Organiser
Becky (beckay123x)
Nihara (niharanini)
Twi (twilightprincess333)
Jinx (royallyjinxed)
Macrina Crescendo(macrina.crescendo)

Meetings

Creators Club runs weekly at 7am SLT/PDT on Sunday. What's that in my local time?
Our first meeting will be held on the 17th of November

We're recruiting!

Ready to get creating? Join us!

This club has been approved, and is now recruiting members.

If you would like to sign up, please register your interest below and provide your general availability in SLT.

Hello Haida, Welcome to Kokoro!

Everyone, you must provide general availability in SLT to join the club. I am aware that life is unpredictable, but we still need to know general availability, espescially when you all have different timezones. Please provide your timezones.

This club has been approved, and is now recruiting members.

If you would like to sign up, please register your interest below and provide your general availability in SLT.

Just to clarify as there has been some confusion; This area is for introducing the real you.

If you're looking to introduce your roleplay character, please hang tight as we are developing a system for roleplay where character introductions should be stored.

Hello Katie, welcome to Kokoro!

(Please note, I changed the title of the topic because it is not suitable for the forum)

Hello lazy cat~

Ever wanted to run your very own school club?

Well, now you can! We are now accepting club proposals:

About Clubs

How to start a Club

~ Ai

What are Clubs?

Clubs are a place to meet and engage with like-minded people.

• Clubs may be roleplay focused, or be out of character.
• Every club has an organiser who manages activities and regular meet-ups.
• Clubs also have a sponsor (usually, a teacher) to help supervise and check on things from time to time.

Member etiquette

1. Always consult the organiser before inviting non-members to a club meeting.
2. Let the club organiser know when you are unable to attend at first opportunity.
3. Let the organiser know if you no longer wish to be a part of the club.

Joining Clubs

• You may sign up to clubs that are in the proposal phase by replying to it's thread in the proposals section.
• For already running clubs, you should consult the club organiser.

Starting Clubs

Learn how to start a club.

Notes

This is the first club proposal at Kokoro, it is an example of how a club is started. Read more here if you're interested in starting a club.
When you first create a thread in the proposals section, it will be approved by a moderator, and then appear here in the Club Proposals section.
Once approved, you'll be notified that it's time to start recruiting members. A moderator will then write something along the lines of:-

This club has been approved, and is now recruiting members.

If you would like to sign up, please register your interest below and provide your general availability in SLT.

(For real, this club really is now recruiting members. We're allowed to recruit a total of 8 members. It's first come, first served, so sign up below!)

Club Proposal Form

Club name

Creators Club

Activities

• We would be making stuff and learning together
• Each member will have their own project
• We'll work together and learn as we go!

Frequency

• We'll formally meet together once a week, for two hours
• We could have extra informal meets for members who are into it.

Organiser's General Availability

I am able to organise regular meet ups on the following days/times:

• Tuesday and Fridays between 9am SLT and 2pm SLT
• Saturday and Sundays between 1am SLT and 2pm SLT

Starting a Club

1. Initiate a club proposal:
    
   1. Fill out the club proposal form and post it in the Proposals section
   2. Your proposal will be reviewed, you will be informed in case any changes are necessary.
   3. Once accepted, the club will enter a two week recruitment period. During this time, applicants must each reply to the proposal supplying their general availability in SLT.
      No further action is required during this period, although it is suggested to go look for club members and get them to sign up!
       
2. Decide on meeting times and location
    
   1. You will be asked to decide on meeting times in SLT for your club, along with the location.
   2. A successful club proposal will have a minimum of 4 members (excluding the organiser) who are able to attend the club meetings. Clubs may have a maximum of 8 members (excluding the organiser)
   3. All recruited club members must have an availability that falls in the proposed meeting time for the club
       
3. Opening your club
    
   1. A public and private forum area will be created for your club
      1. You must maintain a list of members in the public area and inform your club sponsor in the event of new members
      2. The public area may be used for people to ask about your club, or to provide any information/news/events
      3. The private area is for any private club member discussions and is not visible to non-club members
   2. You may make posters for your club, they may be applied to hallway noticeboards and classroom noticeboards
      (You must use Kokoro's supplied mesh paper, prim posters will be returned!)
   3. Get ready for your first meet! Have fun!

Club Proposal Form
Copy and fill out the below into a new thread in the proposals section

Club name
Supply a club name that briefly summarizes what your club would be about

Activities
What activities would members be taking part in, by joining the club?

Frequency
How frequently would club activities occur?

Organiser's General Availability
Describe your general week-by-week Monday to Sunday availability in SLT

I'm planning to put in place a process to start school clubs so that we can have some activities at the school.

Tell me your opinions on how clubs should be managed below!

Some questions that are on my mind:-

• Do you think we should have minimum members, organizers, event frequency etc? If so, what do you think the requirements should be?
• Should clubs have themes and goals?
• When should we review clubs to make sure that clubs are still active etc?

If you have other thoughts, let me know those as well!

Welcome to Kokoro!

Look forward to seeing you inworld ^^

Scripted some gates for the sports areas that emulate the physics of a hinged door.

Added some new hedges

Did a bit of decorating around the back of the school

Added some more textures to the Gazebo

Fixed bug in Kokoro Academy HUD leading to incorrect timeout error message when Windlight Override is turned off.

In Progress

• Implementing system to display count of Website Notifications/Latest Post on entering sim
• Implementing Red5 Streaming Server to enable anime nights/streaming to classroom projector screens via OBS

New circular grass mesh for placing around trees, helps them blend into the ground nicer. Normals are edited so the shading is the same as the floor despite being at 90deg to it

Sucked up my pride and got Photoshop subscription, so I'll be texturing again this week 🙂 I've started with the Gazebo fence

This document is a draft! Some information is missing or incomplete.

This guide is intended for creators who are making mesh models/textures/audio for Kokoro. 

We maintain high standards of content to ensure an enjoyable experience for visitors visiting Kokoro. 

All permanent builds at Kokoro are required to meet these standards for quality assurance purposes. These standards don't apply to temporary builds. 

Mesh models

Visitors should be able to enjoy Kokoro regardless of if their viewers graphics preset is set to Ultra, High, Medium and Low. We do not test/officially support the Lowest graphics preset. 

Custom LoD models

All models must be able to pass the LoD2-64 challenge - No noticeable pop in from the perspective of a user with a LoD setting of 2 and a draw distance of 64m in the context of the objects expected placement. To meet this:

1. Mesh models should always be created with a High, Medium, Low custom mesh model, lowest may be left on generated except on small models (less than 0.5m in any direction) 
2. Custom created LoD models must degenerate in a way that considers their surroundings
3. Each LoD model should have approximately ¼ of the vertices of its predecessor. For example, a highest model with 400 vertices would have a medium of ~100, low of around ~25.

Land Impact (LI) 

Maintaining region capacity is important for the continued capacity of Kokoro for it's builds.

Land impact of models is multiplied considerably by the volume (length x width x height). Many models can have their LI significantly reduced by splitting the mesh into a linkset of 0.5Li pieces. This also has a performance benefit in allowing smaller parts of a large model to drop to lower lod models faster.

When possible, rotating the individual links in the set in the modelling application to fit into a smaller bounding box will also have land impact benefits.

The vast majority of models should have 1 material per link, as adding extra materials multiplies the Land Impact significantly.

Textures

Sizes

To avoid texture thrashing (The viewer running out of memory and blurring random textures). UV maps should be space optimized (no large unused areas) and all textures should be kept as small as possible.

Alpha

Material faces using Alpha Blending are GPU-Heavy and are not to be used on props that are used outside of instance rooms, only Alpha Masking should be used.

Aesthetic considerations

Textures should be kept simple in keeping with the anime feel. There should be a low level of visual noise and contrast in textures should be reduced towards their average color.

Secondlife does not have the best shaders and not all users will use the advanced lighting model, therefore any textures with a reflective/metallic quality should use our faux shiny effect. (Contact for details)

Our textures do not have baked shadows to avoid interfering with Advanced Lighting Model, but do have normalized Ambient Occlusion multiplied over the diffuse. 

Ambient occlusion should be baked with a floor mesh present to ensure the shading looks appropriate for the objects surroundings. 

Our textures are designed to look natural and easy on the eyes and should almost never have a saturation level above 60.

Audio

Our audio is designed to ensure that we can have 'quiet' and 'loud' sounds.

File normalization

To ensure we have control over audio volume, all audio must be normalized to a volume of -0.1db prior to upload. This can be done with software such as Audacity etc.

Volume settings

Audio in Secondlife is played at a volume from level 0.1 to 1.0. 

1. Quiet sounds (eg, a mouse) at Kokoro in general should use volumes between 0.2 and 0.4. 
2. Most normal sounds (Eg, bird chirp, door closing thud) should be between 0.4 - 0.6
3. Any sounds above 0.6 is reserved for loud objects such as Belle (Kokoro's school bell that should be heard island wide).

Audio Range limiting

Due to a bug in some viewers, even the quietest sounds can sometimes be heard sim wide if not range limited. Therefore, instead of using llPlaySound, the following custom function should be used:-