Mesh Deformer Maybe Now?

[Cathy Foil]

I was just wondering if anyone else is hopeful that now that the Sunshine project is finally released grid wide that this might mean a few LL employees might be able to get the Mesh Deformer out sooner rather than later?

I can understand why LL has put so much effort and tied up so many employees to get server side baking up and running.  Quicker avatar texture loads will improve everyone's SL experience.

The Mesh Deformer won't effect everyone's SL experience but I bet you it will make a bigger impact on the SL economy.   I bet you sales of mesh clothing really takes off after the Mesh Deformer is in all the viewers.

Personally I don't log into SL nearly as often as I used to but the Mesh Deformer opens up so many interesting product possibilities it is really the only thing that keeps me coming back.

[Nalates Urriah]

Well, as much as I want the Deformer, I don't expect to see it anytime soon.

At today's Open Source User Group meeting I asked Oz Linden if we would soon see a Mesh Deformer Project viewer. The answer was: no. That is an over simplification of his answer.

It isn't all bad news. For almost a year Oz has been pushing the Deformer to management. They had not been willing to even start a design/implementation discussion. Now at least Oz says people are starting to talk about it. So, while there is no visible movement to those of us outside the Lab, there apparently is some movement inside. Liquid Mesh may be participating that. The Lindens say OpenSim adoption of the Deformer is not a factor in Linden plans. I'm not sure I believe that.

Many do not understand what has happened to the Deformer project, which is reaching its second birthday. I followed it closely and reported on events as they happened in my blog. See: Mesh Deformer. There is a lot of reading there to catch up.

The basic problem is the SL users wanted more than just the Deformer. When you work with the Deformer you see the problems with the current avatar. The mesh layout of polygons has problems and could have been modeled better, by today's standards. It was more than adequate at the time of creation.

The weighting of the avatar has some problems too. As clothes are made and weighted we see those problems.

Then there is the skeleton. Many modelers want custom skeletons. They need more bones for tails, extra legs, alien antenna... They want access to bones in the current avatar that we cannot currently animate. An animation system is needed for NPC's that use Pathfinding. Pathfinding is about half of what we need for good NPC's.

SL users wanted all these things fixed at the same time. Some argued to go ahead with the Deformer. Others said no, do it right and fix the whole avatar first. Another group argued fix the thing in steps. Many proponents of the different positions argued very well making rational points.

The result is the Lab decided they needed to stop and really consider what they were about to do. Since the 'simple' Deformer project has now grown into a mountain and is not in the budget and manpower plan... it went on hold. Where it remains today.

 

[Chosen Few]

---

Nalates Urriah wrote:

The mesh layout of polygons has problems and could have been modeled better, by today's standards. It was more than adequate at the time of creation.

---

Hi Nat.    Sorry, but I have to take issue with the above two sentences.  The avatar model was never what I'd have called "adequate".  It was poorly made in comparison with the standards of 10 years ago, and it remains just as poorly made today.  At the time it was created, there were any number of better-made human models available, which LL could have purchased, or they simply could have hired a more competent artist to make one from scratch.

As the story has been told to me by certain former Lindens, who shall remain nameless, the avatar was made by another former Linden, who shall also remain nameless here.  Long story short, the guy bit off more than he could chew when he took up the task of creating a morphable human model.  He'd overstated his abilities, and he ended up delivering a very sloppy product as a direct result.

Before that, avatars in SL (then called Linden World) were made from prims.  Stack a few spheres and cylinders together, snowman style, and you've got something you can represent yourself with in-world.  It's not hard to imagine how thrilled the Lindens must have been when one of their own said something to the effect of, "Hey guys, I can make it look like a person."  They'ed been staring at nothing but prims for months or years at that point, so it must have seemed like a godsend in comparison.  The question of whether or not it was actually a good quality polygonal model probably never even orrcurred to anyone untul much, much later.

Remember, this was back in the days when individual Lindens were allowed to work on whatever they wanted.  Had that particular person not taken it upon himself at that particular time to create an avatar model, it's very possible SL might have launched without one, and we'd all have been hopping around as snowmen, or bouncy balls, or rocket ships.  In that context, I suppose we can be grateful for at least the subpar human model that we did get.  But subpar it was, nonetheless (and still is).

The fact that we're still stuck with it, ten years later, is of course ridiculous.

 

 

LL, if you're reading this, my offer from years ago is still on the table.  I'd be more than happy to create a really nice new avatar model for SL.  I've done plenty for other platforms.  You guys know how to get hold of me.

[Sassy Romano]

---

Nalates Urriah wrote:

The basic problem is the SL users wanted more than just the Deformer. 

... (removed: avatar model issues)

SL users wanted all these things fixed at the same time. 

---

Did we?  Or is that the summary of a very limited number of content creators that speak up in the JIRA?  I think so!

If we were to poll the general SL populace of facebook chatters, shoppers and others, would we get an overwhelming result biased towards them crying about the state of the current avatar model or would it be that their clothes didn't fit?  It's a HUGE generalisation to claim that "SL users wanted all these things fixed", they didn't.  A tiny weeny proportion of the content creator base (count them on one or two hands) wanted these things fixed and I don't believe that's sufficient to derail the process.  If it is then LL has its priorities very wrong (we've seen this before though too).

The customer wants their clothes to fit, LL has no revenue model around that.  THAT is what I perceive to be the basic problem for this and as a result they have zero staff on the project.  Bear in mind that the bean counting management will be working on two routes:-

 

• How do we make money?
• How do we save money?

The deformer doesn't provide direct input to either of those.  Plus a bit of "not invented here" syndrome.

Any changes to the avatar would surely need to be done without breaking existing content, that matra that we're often told has to be maintained.  If that is not the case then the issues are far bigger since it would invalidate so much of a users inventory that SL might as well start again, or run multiple avatar models in parallel. 

Given that workable deformer code exists and has done for a long time now, the effort of compiling it into a viewer build is trivial.  The sensible suggestion would be to implement the code as it stands today and then go about Avatar TNG with a completely separate model, deformer scope, clothing set and so on.

If someone buys a mesh avatar today, they don't expect to have all their existing clothing fit, I don't see why there can't be a whole new parallel avatar with new clothing.  People have a choice, just as we've always done.

 

[Chosen Few]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

or run multiple avatar models in parallel. 

---

That's precisely what I've been suggesting, for the better part of the last decade.  They can't just do away with the existing avatar, since as you rightly point out, to do so would be to render all content built for it useless. Also, from what I've been told, the existing avatar is deeply interwoven into the system, in ways it really shouldn't be, which make its removal nearly impossible, without a complete rewrite.  So, if and when we get a better avatar, it would need to be a new selectable option, coexisting right along side the old one.

Of course, if they implement custom skeletons, it almost becomes a moot point.  LL could effectively get out of the avatar design business altogether, since users would theoretically be able to create complete avatar systems on their own.  I suspect that that's probably the direction they'll go.

 

All that said, if it were up to me, I would just declare SL as we know it "complete", stop work on it, and start a brand new "SL 2.0" grid, with completely modern technology, from top to bottom.   No doubt a lot of people are glad it's NOT up to me.  However, I do believe that's going to have to happen, eventually.  There's only so long you can keep patching a leaky boat before you just need a new boat, and that's that.  So much potential functionality in SL is held back by the lingering results of shortsighted architectureal decisions that were made over a decade ago.  It sure would be nice to be able to break free of all that.

[Sassy Romano]

Exactly, which is why they should declare the current avatar frozen (well it's not exactly changing anyway), slap the deformer in the viewer, anything else delcared OUT OF SCOPE.  

It works within the bounds it was intended, deliver the damn thing.  It's just a re-compile, nothing to do, they don't even have to go out and write it.

[Perrie Juran]

When you say that there are "a lot of people who want this or that," that is really a misnomer.  When compared to the population of SL it's really a few vocal people.  The general population knows nothing of bones and polygons.  They just want to look good.  And it befuddles many that they have to hide their bodies (wear alphas) and that wearing Mesh clothes changes their appearance.  Amongst my circle of friends, adoption of Mesh clothes is almost zero for this reason.

The logic of the decision makers at LL befuddles me.  Pathfinding?  How many actually use it?  Materials?  An excellent idea.  But the cart is in front of the horse.  Place the Avatar on a couch made with materials and the the increased contrast highlights even more the need for improvements to the Avatar.  The Avatar appears even more cartoon like.

The real problem as I see it is we have a bunch of people working at Linden Lab who don't have a Second Life.  The proof of this to me is CHUI.  That it almost went live with out a Chat Bar.  That it was an eleventh hour addition that we had to throw hizzy fits to get included.  There is no way any one who has a Second Life can survive in SL without it.

I just don't get it.  I'm really tempted to say that if Oz really believed in the Deformer project, he'd have sold it to the powers that be.  I only don't because I don't know what he really thinks or what it is like for him to work with his bosses.

 

 

[Teagan Tobias]

There is one TPV that is testing the deformer, check out Kokua Viewer.

http://blog.kokuaviewer.org/

Not sure where they are in the testing but you can look and see.

[Medhue Simoni]

Hey Cathy!

InWorldz now has a viewer with the mesh deformer in it. So, any1 that wants to play with it and see the benefits can go there. I've been using InWorldz as my test grid for my new mesh Lycan Avatar. It's free to upload, so it just makes it easier to test new things on. I haven't trying the deformer there yet, as I been trying to get my avatar done.

[Medhue Simoni]

Hey dude! Did they finally release you from the chains? Just kidding!

I got a little different opinion of the SL avatar, and what LL should do about them for the future. Yeah, the SL avatar is not the mona lisa of avatars. There was a bit of genius in it all tho. Genius, in that, it is truely 1 of the few things that LL ever made that was ALMOST complete. Even by todays standards, there are more things that the SL avatar can do that no other avatar can come close to. If LL would have taken it only a few more steps, it would have been totally complete. Those few more steps would have been more polishing, more bones, and morph imports.

As far as a new avatar, sure, why not. Personally, I like to see them release a new avatar mesh, with more polygons, and with all the same features that the SL avatar has. Seeing how things have gone with LL over the years, I will suggest a quicker, more simple route. Take the SL skeleton, and just add some bone sets to it. We need tail bones, wing bones, ear bones, breast bones, fingers, and a jaw bone.

Or.... I'd suggest adding the ability to import meshes with skeletons, with a strict hierarchy that is separate from the SL skeleton, but attachable to the SL skeleton. So, for instance, if you needed a tail, you'd just attach a mesh tail with it's own skeleton and animations. This is a 2 for 1, as we get mesh objects with bones, imagine an animated npc, and we'd get all the extra bones we might need for any avatar you could think of.

[Cathy Foil]

Hi Medhue!

Thanks for reminding me of InWorldz.  I been meaning to get over there and play with the mesh deformer.  It's been more than a few months since I tested it in SL.

I love all your ideas in your posts here.

[Cathy Foil]

Hi Nalates,

I really like to know where the facts ends and your conjecture begins.

If everything you are saying is indeed what the Lindens are thinking and reasons for not releasing the Mesh Deformer then we are in a lot of trouble.

I hope the following is where you are conjecturing and is not in fact what is happening.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Nalates Urriah wrote:

The basic problem is the SL users wanted more than just the Deformer. When you work with the Deformer you see the problems with the current avatar. The mesh layout of polygons has problems and could have been modeled better, by today's standards. It was more than adequate at the time of creation.

The weighting of the avatar has some problems too. As clothes are made and weighted we see those problems.

Then there is the skeleton. Many modelers want custom skeletons. They need more bones for tails, extra legs, alien antenna... They want access to bones in the current avatar that we cannot currently animate. An animation system is needed for NPC's that use Pathfinding. Pathfinding is about half of what we need for good NPC's.

SL users wanted all these things fixed at the same time. Some argued to go ahead with the Deformer. Others said no, do it right and fix the whole avatar first. Another group argued fix the thing in steps. Many proponents of the different positions argued very well making rational points.

The result is the Lab decided they needed to stop and really consider what they were about to do. Since the 'simple' Deformer project has now grown into a mountain and is not in the budget and manpower plan... it went on hold. Where it remains today.

 

---

I agree with everyone who has posted here that the current default avatar is not going anywhere.  It would just break way too much content and be stupid if LL did away with it.

The discussion that really needs to take place inside LL is how best to maximize the advantages of the Mesh Deformer.  Chosen and Medhue have already pointed out a few thing that can be done without having to get rid of the original default mesh or system.

Here are a few ideas I thought of.  One of course don't get rid of the original default mesh.  In stead of adding a new LL designed mesh just designate an attachment point or create a new attachment point as a custom avatar mesh attachment point.  Any mesh attached to this point would automatically be textured with the skin and all the tattoo textures the avatar is already wearing.  This way LL never needs to create a new avatar but the content creators would be able to create an infinite number of them.  As long as they used the basic UV layout pattern of the original default avatar all the skins and tattoo layers would work perfectly. 

I also propose a two step deform process instead of the current single step deformer method.  This I don't think would really require much coding on LL or Qarl's part.  What I propose is when a custom avatar mesh is attached, to the new attachment point, it becomes the deformer for deforming any other deformable mesh that is attached to any other attachment point.

What do I mean by two step deformer process?  The default avatar mesh deforms the attached custom avatar mesh and in turn the custom avatar mesh deforms the rest.  It would not cause any noticeable lag because Qarl just made the deformer 21 times faster than before.

So say you had a non human custom avatar mesh.  Using this system clothes would still fit the avatar because it is being deformed by the custom mesh not the default avatar.  If a content creator didn't want the default avatar mesh to deform their custom avatar mesh but still wanted all other mesh to deform to it all they have to do is upload the custom avatar mesh with the setting for the mesh deformer turned off.

I use an older version of Maya when I create mesh and sculpties and have often used one deformer to deform the mesh and a second deformer to deform the first deformer so it is a system that I know is possible.

Even if the two step deformer system wasn't implement in the original release of the Mesh Deformer I don't see why or how it would break any deformer mesh content once it was so there is no reason to delay releasing he Mesh Deformer as it is now.

I really wish Qarl would chime in here and tell us what is reasonably possible and what is not.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Cathy Foil wrote:

Hi Nalates,

I really like to know where the facts ends and your conjecture begins.

If everything you are saying is indeed what the Lindens are thinking and reasons for not releasing the Mesh Deformer then we are in a lot of trouble.

I hope the following is where you are conjecturing and is not in fact what is happening.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Nalates Urriah wrote:

The basic problem is the SL users wanted more than just the Deformer. When you work with the Deformer you see the problems with the current avatar. The mesh layout of polygons has problems and could have been modeled better, by today's standards. It was more than adequate at the time of creation.

The weighting of the avatar has some problems too. As clothes are made and weighted we see those problems.

Then there is the skeleton. Many modelers want custom skeletons. They need more bones for tails, extra legs, alien antenna... They want access to bones in the current avatar that we cannot currently animate. An animation system is needed for NPC's that use Pathfinding. Pathfinding is about half of what we need for good NPC's.

SL users wanted all these things fixed at the same time. Some argued to go ahead with the Deformer. Others said no, do it right and fix the whole avatar first. Another group argued fix the thing in steps. Many proponents of the different positions argued very well making rational points.

The result is the Lab decided they needed to stop and really consider what they were about to do. Since the 'simple' Deformer project has now grown into a mountain and is not in the budget and manpower plan... it went on hold. Where it remains today.

 

---

---

That was part of my point when I said "the general population knows nothing of bones and polygons."

While I would not expect Nalates to confirm or deny, unless she has a Linden leaking in her ear, a lot of what she says is nothing more or less than conjecture.

Conjecture stated as fact only confuses or misleads people.

Regardless of the why, and I have my own personal opinions as to why, LL needs to get off their fat behinds, stop investing resources that only a miniscule part of the residents care about (Pathfinding, materials, etc) and focus in on the things that more than anything will improve the user experience.

Two of those things are SIM crossings (which I know they are working on) and improving Avatar Appearance via Avatar 2.0 and the Mesh Deformer.

Yes, I know it's my opinion, but making peripherals a priority is a mistake.

 

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, I pretty much agree with you. No1 knows why. Nat can make up as many excuses as she wants, but none of them are valid excuses. Personally, I'm not going to knock LL for the pathfinding or materials projects, because I think they are important. At the same time tho, there are other things that could be just as or more important. For me, it is always the time spent that blows me away. LL takes a ridiculous amount of time to do anything. We've had mesh for 2 years now and we still don't have objects with skeletons. Heck, for mesh, they basically spent a year coming up with that whole Land Impact system, which every single creator in SL hates.

Now, with LL refusing to let 3rd parties do their thing, we are left with 1 extremely slow dev process. IMHO, if LL just left the policy alone, they would have gotten materials for free. They already got the deformer for free. LL is thinking about AOs now, and they got Firestorms internal AO for free. Let's not forget jiggle physics and anim files. LL could have spent their time on the parts that only LL can do. Getting LL involved at any point in the process when a 3rd party is working on something is just a huge time and money waste. LL's a corp tho, and they feel naked without all the power. Notice, that everytime LL gets a big head, we get screwed. The biggest thing that annoys me tho, is that LL made a move that they have no actual power to do. They were like the tiny guy yelling at a crowd of giants. For them to enforce any of the BS, they'd only be hurting themselves. Even now, they don't realize all the things they, and we, gain by giving the 3rd party viewers freedom.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Heck, for mesh, they basically spent a year coming up with that whole Land Impact system,

which every single creator in SL hates

.

---

I didn't know I hated that...

The difference between the TPV devs and LL is that LL has to run a business. They can't just add all the "cool stuff" and forget about integrating it properly or leaving out the final touches. Remember the avatar physics from the Emerald viewer for instance? That was a nice idea but a total mess, I'm glad LL didn't use that. What TPV devs would have done with a material system I don't even want to think about.

[Teagan Tobias]

Perrie said:

Regardless of the why, and I have my own personal opinions as to why, LL needs to get off their fat behinds, stop investing resources that only a miniscule part of the residents care about (Pathfinding, materials, etc) and focus in on the things that more than anything will improve the user experience.

 

OK Mr. Perrie, you've gone to far this time. I think every one is way more than a little interested in Material to use with Patchfinding. Anything that will make it so we can mend our clothing if something happens to it I am here to tell you is very important and you better not get in my way of getting it.

Uh, wait a second, someone is tapping me on the shoulder...

Pathfinding... Materials... what the hell is Pathfinding and Materials? (no really, what is it?)

[Medhue Simoni]

---

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Heck, for mesh, they basically spent a year coming up with that whole Land Impact system,

which every single creator in SL hates

.

---

I didn't know I hated that...

The difference between the TPV devs and LL is that LL has to run a business. They can't just add all the "cool stuff" and forget about integrating it properly or leaving out the final touches. Remember the avatar physics from the Emerald viewer for instance? That was a nice idea but a total mess, I'm glad LL didn't use that. What TPV devs would have done with a material system I don't even want to think about.

---

If I recall, it is the guys that make the Exodus viewer that kickstarted the Materials project, and helped LL with it. Of course, I don't even recall where I hear this stuff. My point is tho, that the 3rd party devs bang out all the major kinks, or how something can be done, and they have decent size test groups to try out the feature. LL doesn't waste any money trying out different things and getting nowhere. LL takes no risks. The 3rd party viewers take on all the risk and head banging crap. They also workout how the feature affects the UI and other things. After a year or so in the hands of the 3rd party dev, the feature has either proven itself to be wanted/needed/useful, or proven to be a waste of time. LL can then implement the best features and tweak them.

I'm not blaming the LL devs for the slow turn over. As far as I see it, that's just the way it works in a decent size corporation. It's not the devs making the decisions. Heck, the final decision could be layers and layers back in a corp, and it takes time for each layer to get informed. In a 3rd party dev team, it's mainly the dev making most of the decisions, hence things move at lightning speed compared to in a corporate structure.

When I do custom work, for small gaming or video production companies, I'm usually dealing with the owner/leader, and I get almost immediate response to approvals and whatnot. When I've done contract work for small corps, it's always layers and layers of approvals. Typically, it works like this. You spend 3 days on something and hand it in for approval. 3 days later, if you are lucky, they tell you they want something totally different now. You spend 3 more days, and the process goes on again. It's almost as painful to watch as it is to deal with. lol

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

If I recall, it is the guys that make the Exodus viewer that kickstarted the Materials project, and helped LL with it. Of course, I don't even recall where I hear this stuff. My point is tho, that the 3rd party devs bang out all the major kinks, or how something can be done, and they have decent size test groups to try out the feature. LL doesn't waste any money trying out different things and getting nowhere. LL takes no risks. The 3rd party viewers take on all the risk and head banging crap. They also workout how the feature affects the UI and other things. After a year or so in the hands of the 3rd party dev, the feature has either proven itself to be wanted/needed/useful, or proven to be a waste of time. LL can then implement the best features and tweak them.

---

That's not how I think the material system was developed. According to this page (might be where you got the info), LL was involved from very early in the process. The point I was trying to make was it's easy to propose something and make a proto version. According to the article, that took only a month. It took another full year to get it working properly, with several parties working on it. If LL hadn't been involved, I'm sure it would have taken less time, but the result would have been a mess.

I'm not underestimating or trivialising all the work non-LL people have done, it's just that LL needs to get involved and the material project shows that when that's done, the project gets done.

TPV devs can still work on and propose new features, as long as it results in "a shared experience". This is a very stretchable term. I don't think a feature like the material viewer would break any shared experience. A deformer however, making mesh fit in one viewer and not in the next, will break a shared experience.

As I've said months ago, if it was easy to implement the deformer properly and all the work is already done, why on earth would LL not release it to the public? I don't appreciate the way LL communicates about this feature, but if they do not release it they must have a very good reason.

Both merchants/creators and users will appreciate the deformer. If everything is coded and working, time can't be an obstacle either. So it's either LL picking on Qarl and all others involved, or it's something else. I bet it's the latter.

[Sassy Romano]

---

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

 I don't think a feature like the material viewer would break any shared experience. A deformer however, making mesh fit in one viewer and not in the next, will break a shared experience.

---

This is where I don't understand what is actually meant to be part of the shared experience in the first place.

If I create something that is wholly enhanced for materials, then only someone with advanced lighting enabled is going to see that properly as it is intended.  The others will just not get anything like the same.

How is that a shared experience?

Lets also not forget that any viewer without SSA support will not have the same view of the world as others so LL quite happily broke their "shared experience"  Their angle is "well if you use the LL viewer, the experience is fine" (even though that still doesn't address my example with materials above).  So I just don't get the issue, if an LL viewer had deformer support, LL doesn't have to worry about any of the TPV's as it's up to them to catch up.  I use the phrase "catch up" loosely here.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

As I said, it's "stretchable". I sure wouldn't claim I could categorise all possible features.

When done "right", specular and normal maps enhance the looks of an object with just a diffuse texture. If the object isn't usable without the extra maps (missing text you need to see to play a game for example), the object isn't made as it should. It's not the viewer causing the issues, it's the object. To me it's the same as objects built with rediculous deforming LoDs to keep the LI low, where people need to turn up their RenderVolumeLODFactor to 4 or higher. A good object to me is an object that looks at least acceptable on any (default) graphics setting.

I have no idea how many viewers are out there without SSA support, but I'm pretty sure they will be fased out or abandoned by the population soon.

If Linden Lab would implement the deformer, of course the experience would be the shared across all viewers supporting it. The thing is, LL doesn't use the deformer, so obviously the experience is not shared. I already said I can only guess why LL refuses to release the code in their viewer, but I'm sure they have a better reason than annoying everyone who wants it.

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, that's just it. LL doesn't say why.

InWorldz is now using the deformer. We'll see how it works out there. If I were LL, I'd be watching it closely. The problem that other worlds have, is getting creators to create on their grid. Those grids can't grow if their users don't have items to decorate with or dress up their avatars. It's a very smart move by the Inworldz people to bring the deformer in. If creators and users are more satisfied with the items they buy in InWorldz, then LL will definitely start to lose more and more people. As it is, InWorldz has been innovating at almost lightning speed, and isn't really far behind SL right now. LL might really regret not taking the deformer project seriously.

The only rational reason that I can think of for LL ignoring the deformer, is that something they have cooked up might not be compatible. In almost every meeting, or announcement, or public statement made by LL this past year, eludes to things they are doing that they CAN'T talk about. This worries me greatly, because it means they are investing time and money into something they aren't showing us. These kinds of things never work out for LL. If they aren't showing us, there is a very good/bad reason why. This kind of stuff extremely perplexes me. Why must they hide everything? SL is not some game that is coming out next year. It's an ongoing world that has developers inside of it, and businesses that need to know WTF is going on here.

Thank god we now have other worlds that aren't owned by LL.

[Medhue Simoni]

---

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Heck, for mesh, they basically spent a year coming up with that whole Land Impact system,

which every single creator in SL hates

.

---

I didn't know I hated that...

The difference between the TPV devs and LL is that LL has to run a business. They can't just add all the "cool stuff" and forget about integrating it properly or leaving out the final touches. Remember the avatar physics from the Emerald viewer for instance? That was a nice idea but a total mess, I'm glad LL didn't use that. What TPV devs would have done with a material system I don't even want to think about.

---

I'll just point out that when LL did implement the avatar physics, it didn't take a year. It happened so fast, people were like, "holy cow, we have boob physics". It might have been a mess, but the concept was worked out and the 3rd party viewer showed LL how important it was to the community. I can say the same for all the other features that LL brought in from 3rd party viewers. Not a year for LL to develop, but months.

Me, I don't even use 3rd party viewers. I always use the official SL viewer. So, I'm not some 3rd party viewer fanboy.

[Sassy Romano]

Non SSA viewer will disappear of course but my point with those two examples is that the "shared experience" is very different between two people, one who has graphics on ultra, the other who doesn't and that LL have "broken" an experience in the past so history of never doing it can't be claimed.

As far as the desire for shared experience, why does LL care really if i'm seen with mesh that someone else can't see properly?  We coped quite well while LL had mesh available in the viewer and the dominant TPV didn't.

What I find more ironic at the moment is how much time was spent on project sunshine yet for me to change an item of clothing, it can now take 45 to 60 seconds for that render change to happen and if you visit a busy region where the majority of avatars are wearing mesh, all the mesh and its associate textures are the bit that remains grey for a while.  Most of the avatar that is rendered by SSA is presented as transparent for the parts covered by mesh, due to there being no deformer and needing an alpha.

Such irony!  Don't bother with the deformer, concentrate on SSA just to render heads and hands, oh wait, then someone uses mesh hands, feet and heads, don't need SSA at all there.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

I'll just point out that when LL did implement the avatar physics, it didn't take a year. It happened so fast, people were like, "holy cow, we have boob physics". It might have been a mess, but the concept was worked out and the 3rd party viewer showed LL how important it was to the community. I can say the same for all the other features that LL brought in from 3rd party viewers. Not a year for LL to develop, but months.

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Hmm, I'm not so sure about that.

Emerald viewer,

Look at the dates. Also the implementation was completely different, in Emerald you could control every boob in sight with the sliders, in the LL viewer you control only your own.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

 

As far as the desire for shared experience, why does LL care really if i'm seen with mesh that someone else can't see properly?  We coped quite well while LL had mesh available in the viewer and the dominant TPV didn't.

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At the time that was probably the case, because for some reason the majority of the SL population is terrified of change. Nobody seemed to like the idea of mesh, except some creators who knew what it actually meant for the appearance and performance of SL. Mesh wasn't that widespread, it is now. If you can't see mesh at this point, you'll have a terrible time dwelling SL.

More importantly, it's not one small non-shared experience feature that will break SL. When one anomaly is stacked on top of another, it's an entirely different situation.

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Such irony!  Don't bother with the deformer, concentrate on SSA just to render heads and hands, oh wait, then someone uses mesh hands, feet and heads, don't need SSA at all there.

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That's not entirely true, the alpha masks shipped with all your favorite mesh clothing get baked correctly now, it's part of the SSA.

The render bake really needed to be fixed. the last couple of months before SSA I was unable to wear tattoos and I was not alone. One of the three baked avatar textures always stayed blurry. I haven't seen that since the change. Plenty of things I don't like about how LL handles things, but fixing this issue before implementing "cool things" I really do appreciate.