Why do meshes have to render for non-compliant viewers? So awkward....

[WADE1 Jya]

For those who can't see mesh.... they just see spheres & donuts rendered in place of the mesh items.

Currently it is impossible to make an environment with mesh which visitors with non-compatible viewers can also enjoy. In developing sim spaces, I feel forced to make a seperate mesh area... and parallel to this, a non-mesh area --- and there is still the problem that if non-mesh viewer users go in the mesh area or even have it in their periphery view from a distance -- things looks real ugly!

These donuts & spheres get hugely in the way! It would be nice if mesh could just not render at all for the people on old viewers (since this is obviously going to take months or years to get everyone updated on mesh viewers!). In the meantime, why can't the meshes just be invisible for them?

If mesh simply did not render for incompatible viewers, then we could easily overlay mesh experiences in our sims without worry of inconveniencing those who can only see prims & sculpties.

Isn't simply not rendering mesh for incompatible viewers a much better option?

[WADE1 Jya]

For those who can't see mesh.... they just see spheres & donuts rendered in place of the mesh items.

Currently it is impossible to make an environment with mesh which visitors with non-compatible viewers can also enjoy. In developing sim spaces, I feel forced to make a seperate mesh area... and parallel to this, a non-mesh area --- and there is still the problem that if non-mesh viewer users go in the mesh area or even have it in their periphery view from a distance -- things looks real ugly!

These donuts & spheres get hugely in the way! It would be nice if mesh could just not render at all for the people on old viewers (since this is obviously going to take months or years to get everyone updated on mesh viewers!). In the meantime, why can't the meshes just be invisible for them?

If mesh simply did not render for incompatible viewers, then we could easily overlay mesh experiences in our sims without worry of inconveniencing those who can only see prims & sculpties.

Isn't simply not rendering mesh for incompatible viewers a much better option?

[Dante Tucker]

I'm not sure if there is enough time left before everyone has mesh for you to really worry about this. With all the major third party viewers having added, or almost ready to add mesh. And LLs release viewer already supporting it.

[Freya Mokusei]

But.. then how will we know that we need to upgrade? :matte-motes-nerdy:

There'll be no indication of mesh ever having hit the grid, and we will have to assume that people are running around naked because someone told them they're wearing some new kind of cloth sold to them by a cunning trickster!

There'll be anarchy in the streets! Everyone will start criticising everyone elses invisible fashion-sense.

[Dante Tucker]

The phoenix team is kinda looking like a bunch of dummies right now. They claimed it wouldn't be possible to add mesh to a 1.x based viewer. Well this has already been done in the newest private beta version of Astra viewer, and Sigularity is claiming they will be next.

So there will not even be a need to move to V2/V3 soon.

[Trix Braveheart]

Sounds like a plan, but, wouldn't we be left with something like what happened when Phoenix added their extra attachment points and everyone saw those attachments hanging about the sim somewhere, unattached to the avatar?

Jessica Lyon did a blog post on Phoenix about how meshes looked to the non compliant viewers, some of them looked completely indescipherable while others, well were closer. Is that a by product of the LOD settings or something completely different? 

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=MeshEnabled_vs_NonMeshEnabled

I looked at these again and you're right what everyone else sees is ugly, :smileyhappy:

Hopefully mesh will give those still hanging on to the old style viewer the impetus to update to a compliant viewer...if they still have a hate on for Linden, Firestorm I guess. It's too bad so many of them took one look at the very first version of viewer 2 and never went back. I'll agree that that first version was a radical change but Linden has listened to the issues people brought up and I think it got much better each new edition.

/me climbs down off her soapbox and blushes...sorry

[WADE1 Jya]

I hope you're right Dante & we find in future this is a moot point to consider. Maybe this awkward stage is over surprisingly soon...

I'm still of the opinion that it will take a very long time before even 50% of the grid is on enabled viewers, let alone everybody being enabled.

Seems a lot of people don't even know what mesh is, don't care to find out about it, and will only update when/if forced to. As a developer it is going to get more & more difficult to cater to this crowd. I do want to make the nicest experiences for all... until everybody is caught up.

[Dante Tucker]

I base my confidence on having already seen this situation... when sculpties came out

[Penny Patton]

Remember when sculpts first hit? 

 

Tho I'm pretty sure when sculpts arrived LL made the upgrade to sculpt compatible viewers mandatory. I'm actually fairly surprised they didn't do the same thing with mesh. Ideally they'd have kept the TPV community in the loop enough to follow up with mesh compatible TPVs soon after release or left open a grace period window before making mesh a mandatory feature.

 

Excluding things like text viewers, of course.

[Freya Mokusei]

Some sculpt-related data:

Sculpts were made official on 23 May 2007, coinciding with SL v1.16.0

Nicholaz' Viewer (the first TPV that I can remember) was released on 2 June 2007, and based off of an already-sculpt-compatible v1.16.0

 

http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Version_1.16.0

http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/2007/06/release-day-nicholaz-edition-16e.html

 

ETA: Meant to reply to the OP. This is just general information for those interested, and not directed at anyone in particular

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Dante Tucker wrote:

I'm not sure if there is enough time left before everyone has mesh for you to really worry about this. With all the major third party viewers having added, or almost ready to add mesh. And LLs release viewer already supporting it.

---

All the major third party viewers have added mesh? I don't think that's true. The most popular viewer is still Phoenix. Firestorm is an entirely different animal and is nowhere near as widespread.

Phoenix does not and probably never will support mesh, and most Phoenix users are unwilling (or in some cases unable) to make the switch to Firestorm with its ugly v2/3 interface. Which means that mesh creators will have a loooong time to worry about viewer compatibility.

[arton Rotaru]

Cool VL Viewer v1.26.1 has mesh support also. 

 

[arton Rotaru]

---

WADE1 Jya wrote:

 

Isn't simply

not rendering

mesh for incompatible viewers a much better option?

---

The problem with this is, the physics representation will be still there. People will bump into them, and blocked without knowing why.

[DanielRavenNest Noe]

A good percentage of the visitors to my little mesh avatar shop who were using Phoenix thought it *was* mesh enabled, cause, like Phoenix can do everything, right?  Well, obviously they are misinformed, so I now have a "download viewer 3.0 here" sign in the shop.  I will add signs for all the other viewers once they get stable.  So to answer the original post's question, non mesh viewers need to show them as ugly prims so the users know they have a non-mesh viewer.

[Jacki Silverfall]

Mesh clothes would be invisible, naked avatars, interesting :smileysurprised:

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

---

WADE1 Jya wrote:

For those who can't see mesh.... they just see spheres & donuts rendered in place of the mesh items.

I feel forced to make a seperate mesh area... and parallel to this, a non-mesh area --- and there is still the problem that if non-mesh viewer users go in the mesh area or even have it in their periphery view from a distance --

things looks real ugly!

---

Don't worry about this ... it may be ugly, but those who don't update can just suffer with the ugly for a while.

 

Isn't simply not rendering mesh for incompatible viewers a much better option?

 Too hard to program, and I'd be annoyed if my mesh dress VANISHED for anyone with an older viewer.

[Charlar Linden]

if only to show that I don't do only mesh enablement workaround forum posts, I'll reply to this with some details:

• We show mesh objects as a Prim placeholder for non-mesh enabled viewers. The type of prim is based on the number of textures used, because we need faces to hold each texture. We had a fancy solution, but in the end actual features and bug fixes trumped them in priority.
• Not showing them at all is problematic for a reasons including naked avatars and invisible collision. 
• I can't speak to TPV adoption timelines, although I will say that they had access to our code throughout development.
• Regarding lack of support for newer features (like mesh) in v1.x based viewers; I can't speak to people who continue to ride horses down Main St. and curse at the those horseless carriages swerving around them.

Cheers

Charlar

 

[Rusalka Writer]

Charlar FTW!

[Oblong Crumb]

I think it will take a long while for people to get it.! 

In the importer window there could have been a field for alternate item UUID for people without mesh suport? I suppose that would mean server code changes though and its too late in the day now.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Charlar Linden wrote:

 

• Not showing them at all is problematic for a reasons including naked avatars and invisible collision. 

 

---

 

And you didn't think that turning dresses into lifebelts like this...

...could also be a problem for female avatars who don't wear a bra underneath?

 

 

---

Charlar Linden wrote:

 

• Regarding lack of support for newer features (like mesh) in v1.x based viewers; I can't speak to people who continue to ride horses down Main St. and curse at the those horseless carriages swerving around them.

 

---

 

I wonder what is more akin to a lame old mare: viewer 3 with its greatly dumbed down, yet slow and unresponsive interface and its frequent crashes, or the fast and performant SL client that third party devs have managed to turn viewer 1 into? And I also wonder if those horseless carriages had ever become popular if they had leaked oil like viewer 3 leaks memory.

Aside from that, your paying customers have told you what kind of interface we'd like to see in viewer 2 / 3. But as of yet, it has not been implemented, because the Lab always knows better than its customers. If you want us to give up our trusted horses and ride around in your crash-happy death trap, you know what you have to do: Listen to your customers for once in your lives and implement an alternative, v1 style UI. That's all it would take.

Good thing that Rodvik has promised to do something about the abominable v3 UI sometime in 2012. After Tateru Nino informed him about the many problems with v2/3, which apparently no LL employee could be bothered to do. I guess mesh enthusiasts will have to wait until then. Perhaps Rodvik should also continue where M left off with the staff cuts and hire some talented folks who are willing to listen to the customers instead of insulting them.

[Medhue Simoni]

First, let me say, all criticisms about the official v3 are valid. That being said, there are many aspects of v3 that I very much like. With Kirsten's and Firestorm evolving into a blend of the 2 SL viewers, I'm feeling alot more comfortable with everything. Especially what Kirsten and Firestorm did with the sidebar.

This brings me to my ranting sections, lol. The interface problems with the sidebar were not unsolvable. Any1 that used the 2 difference interfaces can easily see why v2 was a huge problem. Here is my take on this. The sidebar destroys all custom interfaces, and it will not move to the front when selected. The simple fact that it does not move forward, consumes space, as you can not put anything over it and still use it.

Both Firestorm, and Kirsten's have corrected all that mess, but LL still seems to be clueless to what the issue is.

OH, I have to comment on the selection wheel. I used to think it was dumb, and was kind of happy to see it gone. Now tho, I see how much better it is than the list we get now. Just the muscle memory of clicking alone makes it many times more comfortable. With the list, you always have to pay attention and read the list, as you will end up doing something you don't want to do.

As for mesh and who can't see it. I don't care. You can't see the mesh, that is your problem. I'm not going to put up signs to explain it all to you, especially when the only people that can't see it are probably using Pheonix, and are not newbies.

The more creators give in to the viewer war instead of just making the best stuff they can, the longer the war goes on.

[Ashasekayi Ra]

---

Charlar Linden wrote:

 

• Regarding lack of support for newer features (like mesh) in v1.x based viewers; I can't speak to people who continue to ride horses down Main St. and curse at the those horseless carriages swerving around them.

Cheers

Charlar

 

---

Good one Charlar

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Yeah, it's so great that the Lindens tell some of their customers that they can't speak to them. I'll keep that in mind. 

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

The longer LL refuse to listen to their customers, the longer the viewer war goes on.

---

 FIFY.

[Coby Foden]

I posted something on other thread: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Fashion/What-is-everyone-s-thoughts-about-mesh-clothing/m-p/1102809#M2818

Some higlights from that posting here:

Viewer V2/V3 haters: It's different, the UI design is "out of this world". But it's learnable and it's usable (if your computer can run it). It just takes some effort to learn the different UI. Why not give it real try? Two minutes is not enough... :smileytongue: Use it for many days. Besides Linden Lab viewer there are third party viewers (like Firestorm) with a lot better design and features.

My computer cannot run V2/V3 viewer sayers: There are now some third party V1 viewers which can render mesh. Why not give them a try? (Cool VL viewer, even Radegast has now graphics which can render all present SL features).

I love my old V1 viewer and I don't want to upgrade: Well, it's your choice, which baffles me... :matte-motes-agape:

My computer is very old and cannot run SL properly with any viewer: Time to save money and upgrade! Nothing else can be done. Sorry.

Hint for enjoyable SL experience: The faster and the more resourceful your computer is, the less problems there will be in SL. Few months ago I upgraded mine. Now the viewer based lag is almost non existent. I have high frame rates with all the graphics upped. I hardly ever crash with any viewer. A huge difference compared to my old computer in which viewers crashed ever so often.

Mesh creators, please fill the grid with mesh. The more mesh there is, the more reason people have to upgrade their ancient viewers. Thank you. :smileyhappy: