Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world

[arton Rotaru]

Will we watch c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate?

[Monalisa Robbiani]

CP was quickly populated by SL users and they soon started to shape CP in SL's image. First, real names were dropped, then FB login was dropped, and viola, the SL names popped up everywhere, you even had well known names hanging out at the entrance gates with Mentor tags over their heads. If CP had continued, they would have had griefers, adult content and agepay. But then, it went south even without it.

[arton Rotaru]

Yeah, same we will do with Betterworld, no matter if the Lab likes it or not. lol

[Qie Niangao]

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kiramanell wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I'm not saying this will or should happen, but one doesn't have to ignore anything Ebbe has said about the changes to conclude that a vast majority of SL content

could

be transparently available in SL2 without constraining that new platform to real backwards compatibility.

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Much as I'd love to see my many homes ported to SL2, at this point, it's hard to imagine even mesh, let alone prims, will come out looking unscathed 'on the other side.'

And if the new scripting language would require just a few tweaks to the old LSL to make stuff work again, then why even bother with an entirely new language at all?!

---

A new language for SL2 would be desirable for the same reasons there are multiple languages at all, even when they all compile down to the same machine code. I mean, LSL is really primitive just as a language, to say nothing of the library of functions in the API that it gets to use. Even within SL1, it would be completely possible to improve the language binding to that API -- and indeed that was the plan for a long time while Babbage was still at the lab.

I'm actually saying something more radical than that, however, which is that even if the future API is not a proper superset of the current library's functionality, enough of it will necessarily be present in one form or another that a very large share of real currently running scripts could be automatically recompiled in an environment that would make them work almost all the time.

As for built objects (as opposed to scripts or animations), it really is analogous to the "compile down to the same machine code". The requirement is to automatically produce something in the new representation that looks the same in the viewer as did the item in SL1. It doesn't have to use all the new features, and even if the representation is not very efficient it could still be practically useful. (That's a contentious claim -- but I never heard anybody argue that Mesh Studio should be blacklisted, so I'm not sure why suddenly the demand for such geometric purity.)

And in fact I am trying to explore the technical feasibility of making pretty much everything in one's SL1 inventory available on the new platform, with a one-time import on demand, without constraining technology choices for that new platform. And I'm allowing that it probably won't happen, but only for business reasons.

[Mony Lindman]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

"... to port an existing SL Avatar including its shape and textures ..."

Did you consider the baking of legacy outfit layers? I would guess that is unlikely to be replicated in the new world in a compatible way. I think the old avatars would be of limited use if they can't wear system clothes (might be wrong, maybe everyone alse wears entirely mesh and needs on;y one skin layer?). I guess you could get around that if you could get access to all the layer textures and composit them with photoshop/gimp or a purpose built utility. Wouldn't get the same flexibility, but might be useable, I suppose.

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The current procedure for mesh body parts is to have a series of onionlike layers that textured clothing can be applied to - instead of a shirt texture being combined with a skin texture it's added to one of the upper layers with the rest of that layer alpha'd out so the skin is visible beneath.

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I dont know how to explain this since im not a mesh guru but there ARE already in SL1 such "mesh clothing layers" that could be used also in SL 2 to wear OVER the mesh body and to apply system clothing textures on them. I repeat : system clothes TEXTURES , not the clothes themselves!

I better insert an image so you can see what i mean but they dont have to be so complex, just an upper , a lower, a jacket a skirt and socks , compatible with the system clothes templates :

 

The above image is from a free pack in SL but its made for petites and deforms the body when you wear it coz its not fitted mesh. However i tried a few normal system clothes textures on these and they fit exactly. I could even imagine that skin templates would work too.

I wish i could find such a thing for normal size avatars and/or fitted mesh because this is also a way to make mesh clothes in SL1 when you are not a mesh guru

[Gavin Hird]

You don't have to make it that complicated. 

What you do is create an avatar mesh with multiple UV maps, and to wear legacy skins and clothing (texture based), it is applied to the correct UV map. 

You see this in DAZ Studio's latest figures which have 6+ UV maps, and you apply skins from previous generation figures to the UV map that is correct for the skin or texture.

 

[Masami Kuramoto]

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Mony Lindman wrote:

Hmmm that's a little too technical for my "artistic brain" lol but still very interesting. I wonder why there are only small , mostly private grids there and none of the bigger Open Sim worlds like Inworldz or Avination..

I supose its because of those legal issues you mentioned. But LL could bring some order into that chaos also ..

Added in edit : Or even better, SL could use that technology or a similar and better protected one to connect with the bigger grids in Open Sim.

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The time when Linden Lab had the opportunity to become the hypergrid's central bank and central marketplace has passed. That role is now being played by Kitely. OpenSim is no longer compatible with Second Life anyway; the scripting languages are different, and Linden Lab's viewer would crash right after teleporting to an OpenSim varregion. With only a small development team left to maintain Second Life, Linden Lab is unlikely to catch up with OpenSim and fill the feature gap between them.

And to be honest, even if LL still had the capacity to merge SL into the hypergrid, I doubt that the OpenSim community would welcome them. The hypergrid is run by artists/techies who left the old world behind for good reason. They are happy to build their own worlds from scratch without interference from Linden Lab.

 

[Gavin Hird]

No. it is not played by Kitely. :-)

Kitely connected to other grids via Hypergrid only a few weeks ago, and is a latecomer to the party. 

[Drongle McMahon]

Yes. I suppose you could use mesh layers, but I wouldn't count that as using the default avatar. I's really a highly modified one. Do they work perfectly with all the sliders? Are they perfectly rigged for all animations etc?

[Gavin Hird]

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

Yes. I suppose you could use mesh layers, but I wouldn't count that as using the default avatar. I's really a highly modified one. Do they work perfectly with all the sliders? Are they perfectly rigged for all animations etc?

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Well that is another challenge, because the avatar would have to have all the morph targets of the original avatar mesh, and depending on the topo of the new avatar that could be only approximations or even difficult to make.

It is easier to implement if the new avatar was an evolution of the old avatar, but I suspect the topo will be quite a bit different. 

[Drongle McMahon]

I don't think that would help. All the system clothes for each body segment use the same UV map. So mthat only needs one for the old system clothes. You could combine that with the a different one for new clothes, if they provide the facility for alternate UV maps and a means (GUI and/or script) of specifying which to use. However, that would not help with compositing the different layers or responding to the clothing slider settings, as far as I can see. Anyway, I know almost nothing about SL clothes. I haven't changed mine for five years pr so. So I won't say any more.

[Gavin Hird]

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Hellespont Hoorenbeek wrote:

Im absolutely not spending money in Second Life anymore dont know if you heard but Linden Lab will pull the plug and stop broadcasting the grid when it becomes unprofitable, In my opinion it allready goes down the hill since 2011. Lately since the news is out people massifly abandoning sims and mainland prices are because of that low to buy in L$.

I have zero faith Second Life will make it to SL12B "Second Life 12th Birthday" next year, As Linden Lab will start to work on some sort of new failure grid that would be as they say way better then it ever will be for Second Life.

Either your keeping faith and put money in a deadbleeding concept or be smart and dont spend a dollar/Euro anylonger keeping fait and think things will be ok would be the same as you using drugs.

Second Life will die face it, it is just a mather of when can be tomorrow can be next year when SL2 is released!

I was lucky to have my sim sold befor this news came out otherwise im sure nobody would buy it from me so at the end im laughing Linden Lab in the face, You guys dont hurt me anymore with stupid releases and silly news!

 

Im off to real life now:)

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Buh bye!

[Gavin Hird]

TBH I think it is close to pointless to apply the morph targets for the 7k poly current avatar onto a higher resolution avatar mesh. Since the current avatar is quite crude in many parts of the body, it will look butt ugly whichever way you cut it on a new avatar mesh. 

I suspect there will be significant bleed for old skins if they try to apply it to a new mesh – particularly in the face where the mapping and topo will be most detailed. 

[madjim]

No, I am not falling to pieces and in need of mending - I am inviting all of you to join me in a new, better world I am building.

Like Mr Altberg, I do not have the first clue what it will be like, or how it will be made, but I promise you it will be better than the world you have now.

Do not worry about your possessions, and do not worry about crass mercantile entrepreneurialism; you will be provided with everything you need to survive, nay, thrive, from the goodness we have already accumulated in our treasure trove..

You can keep your names, but you must keep them secret, and share them only with those you must trust, those who will deal with your contributions to the new world, for your riches from this world will not be needed in the better world because everything will be provided to you; there will be unlimited Kool-Aid, for example.

I will not bore you, as Mr Altberg has, with half-truths and ambiguous promises about specifics that will be irrelevant when the better world comes to pass, because you have obviously had enough of that sort of thing in the last 100 or so pages.

Instead, I will GUARANTEE you a better world, full of Joy - and other obliging women with different names as well. Or men if that is what you want. Or animals even. But not bayonets.

All you have to do is to register now on my feed: my.secondlife.com/madjim where I will soon be publishing everything you need to know about the better world to come, and how much of your possessions you will have to offer to become one of the chosen.

Make sure you answer the registration questions correctly. It is your responsibility to have an education sufficient to comprehend the consequences of your commitments, and to take the time to ensure that your responses are not only accurate, but cogent. Incoherence will not prevent you from joining me on this wonderful journey, but you may end up serving the drinks and mopping the bar floor, while others are enjoying a better life.

Father "You can't take it with you" Jim

Exceptions: Gavin can't join us because he's too cynically insightful, and Dresden cant because he's so beautiful that the girls will all be fighting over him, which will waste everyone's time . . .

[Gavin Hird]

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madjim wrote:

No, I am not falling to pieces and in need of mending - I am inviting all of you to join me in a new, better world I am building.

Like Mr Altberg, I do not have the first clue what it will be like, or how it will be made, but I promise you it will be better than the world you have now.

Do not worry about your possessions, and do not worry about crass mercantile entrepreneurialism; you will be provided with everything you need to survive, nay, thrive, from the goodness we have already accumulated in our treasure trove..

You can keep your names, but you must keep them secret, and share them only with those you must trust, those who will deal with your contributions to the new world, for your riches from this world will not be needed in the better world because everything will be provided to you; there will be unlimited Kool-Aid, for example.

I will not bore you, as Mr Altberg has, with half-truths and ambiguous promises about specifics that will be irrelevant when the better world comes to pass, because you have obviously had enough of that sort of thing in the last 100 or so pages.

Instead, I will GUARANTEE you a better world, full of Joy - and other obliging women with different names as well. Or men if that is what you want. Or animals even. But not bayonets.

All you have to do is to register now on my feed: my.secondlife.com/madjim where I will soon be publishing everything you need to know about the better world to come, and how much of your possessions you will have to offer to become one of the chosen.

Make sure you answer the registration questions correctly. It is your responsibility to have an education sufficient to comprehend the consequences of your commitments, and to take the time to ensure that your responses are not only accurate, but cogent. Incoherence will not prevent you from joining me on this wonderful journey, but you may end up serving the drinks and mopping the bar floor, while others are enjoying a better life.

Father "You can't take it with you" Jim

Exceptions: Gavin can't join us because he's too cynically insightful, and Dresden cant because he's so beautiful that the girls will all be fighting over him, which will waste everyone's time . . .

---

You say you declare the Virtual Calphate where you will wage Jirahad on all virtual Kufrs, and those who fall in the struggle will have 78 virtual virgins?  (last bit sounds a bit like the standard SL avatar come to think about it...)

[Gavin Hird]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

---

You say you declare the Virtual Calphate where you will wage Jirahad on all virtual Kufrs, and those who fall in the struggle will have 78 virtual virgins?  (last bit sounds a bit like the standard SL avatar come to think about it...)

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Sorry, got a bit carried away with the very hot off the press news the Caliphate has just been declared by ISIS. Interesting times virtual or real...

 

[Innula Zenovka]

If your new virtual world includes forums like this one, will they have a facilty for users to block trolls who are not sufficiently amusing?

[Dresden Ceriano]

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madjim wrote:

Dresden cant because he's so beautiful that the girls will all be fighting over him, which will waste everyone's time . . .

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I know that's right...

...Dres

[Gaia Clary]

Admittedly i thought more about mesh based clothes. However i still believe you could get pretty far (even with baked textures ) with just a bit of extra effort if that is desired at all. But trying to get into more details now would let us step into the large room of wild guesses. Which may also be fun, but too time consuming. So maybe lets wait and see what features the better world will have to offer, then think about how to handle this.

Btw my original motivation to write here at all was that i got a bit worried about the sheer amount of myth in this thread and i wanted to add some practical thoughts to show that not all is such bad...

I personally am just curious about how the new world will work. I mean we all know that it is by far too early to make any plans (and now please don't chime in and tell "no plans is bad" as i think having no plans can be actually very good :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: )

I see it more like a public brain storming stage. And i just love much more to think about what could possibly be done, than to lament about what could possibly fail.

[DevinVaughn]

Letter to Ebbe

Thank you for listening to users. I’m going to keep this short and sweet with my wishlist for SL2:

 

1) AVATARS

Thoughts:

I’m very excited about the improvements I am hearing for SL2! Continuing the Ability for custom meshes, but adding custom skeletons will be dream for makers of anything that is not the adult human female Ruth. 

Questions:

What about ability to make custom avatars seem alive? Will facial expressions, eye movement, and hand movement, or even toe movement ability come solely from the SL2 end, or will it be problem to solve for new  creators of new mesh/skeletons, and/or weight mapping?  Will SL2 have tools like an ability to add a morph targets to their custom mesh so that hands can morph movement, and face can morph expressions? Or is there some other idea in the works to create more lifelike characters?

 

2) FREEDOM

Thoughts:

Secondlife is like the Wild Wild West to me. We have an empty land to build whatever on it. We police our own. And it’s not tainted with RL political agendas and propaganda. 

Questions:

I fully expect the new virtual worlds coming from Google or Facebook to datamine it’s users just like they do now on their search and social networks. Will SL2 keep it’s user’s lives, email, GPS location, viewing and shopping habits private like in SL1, or will it be information collected for sale? 

 

3) MOTION SICKNESS

Thoughts:

All the hype about the VR headsets ignores the fact a lot of people can’t tolerate it without getting motion sickness. 

Questions:

Will SL2 depend so heavily on VR headsets that those who can’t use it get left behind? Will SL2 continue to use camera shortcuts like SL1, so people are not forced into using mouselook or VR, or forced into low camera perspective locks that cause maze walking sickness? Will it be possible to “Cam Shop” in SL2? (that means my avatar stays when I left it, and I shoot my camera all over the place to look around and even purchase things far away, and there is no motion sickness, or lag, in doing things this way).

 

4) LAND

Thoughts:

Right now only a sim owner can set the textures of the land. Land and SL water is ground level only

Questions:

Will a parcel owner, no matter how small, be able to set the textures and landscape the land they own? Will it be possible to make walkable 3rd dimensional lands in the sky? What about SL water in the sky?

 

5) PREMIUM

Thoughts: 

I am a member and I happy to support LL. I think it’s a good deal.

Questions:

What plans are in store for SL2 and Premium members? Will they be separate membership, or the same or will SL2 drop membership? Are you taking suggestions and idea for Premium?

 

6) LIVE EVENTS 

Thoughts:

Right now you can only get so many people in a sim before there a major problems. For example, during the opening a big shopping event, people can’t get in because the sim is too full. On a live performance for dancing, music, or fashion show: the actors/dancers fail to rez, animations are choppy, performers who walk will have AO fail and have rubber band snapback lag. Audience members will crash and so will performers. What’s the point of a live show when no one can see the performance and the performance can’t be performed?

Questions:

Will SL2 have solutions to getting a lot of people on one sim without lag, render errors, crashes to people or the sim? Will there be tools like “render avatars on stage only” or will sims and SL2 work completely differently?

 

7) LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS

Thoughts:

It’s unique to SL that I can work people from other countries who don’t speak English in real time. The auto translator is a miracle! And that fails to communicate, I can just pantomime what I mean or show a picture, just like I would in RL.

Questions:

Will SL2 retain ways to translate languages? Or are there other ideas to improve auto translation?

 

8) PHOTOGRAPHY

Thoughts:

SL Photography is pretty amazing. I left other forms of 3d rendering for SL because it’s so much faster in SL.

Questions:

Will there be improvements to photography in SL2? One thing on my wish list is better control of my camera. I would to break it being linked to my avatar. If my avatar moves, the camera is moved out of position. This can be a pain. Firestorm has some advanced tools for controlling shadows. My graphics card can only handle so much, so I hoping SL2 will be able to do amazing things without drawing too much from the graphics card. Will SL2 introduce subsurface scattering? Or any other plans to take SL photography to the next level?

  

THANK YOU!

DevinVaughn

http://devinvaughn.blogspot.com/

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Gaia Clary wrote:

> Avatars

will be radically improved as well so a lot TBD

This probably means the new system Avatar (should there be any) will work differently. But the import of legacy avatars should be possible, they are just another mesh character and can not participate in the new features. So... it could be done (see also my previous post)...

---

This is all I want.  Ebbe said that our identities should be transferable to the new platform... he obviously meant our names and friend lists.  My contention is that the way my avatar looks right now is also an important part of my identity and, as such, it would be nice to be able to retain that look upon entering the new world, if only initially.  Nice being read as psychologically and emotionally satisfying.

I sure I'm not alone and almost as sure that there are a good number of SL users who are just as psychologically and emotionally invested in their current avatar's look as I... clunky as it may be.  I believe that enabling us to retain our look would go a long way toward easing our entrances into the brave new world.

Then, of course, once we realize how much better we could look, we'd make the decision to transition to the new avatar, but only once we were ready to do so.  It simply wouldn't seem like as much of a slap in the face as would showing up looking like a complete, albeit improved, noob.

It would most definitely be good business practice for LL to do all they can to capitalize on the emotional investment of their user base in the old platform, while trying to get them to transition to the new one.

...Dres

[madjim]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

If your new virtual world includes forums like this one, will they have a facilty for users to block trolls who are not sufficiently amusing?

---

Benny Hill movies will be provided for people like you, with no discernible sense of humour.

Father "One size fits all" Jim

[madjim]

I forgot to say, there will be no emotion sickness in my better life.

Father "Do I have a seconder for that emotion?" Jim

Also, you will be able to speak any language you like. But nobody will take any notice of you unless you speak English. Well.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Gaia Clary wrote:

Admittedly i thought more about mesh based clothes. However i still believe you could get pretty far (even with baked textures ) with just a bit of extra effort

if that is desired at all

. But trying to get into more details now would let us step into the large room of wild guesses. Which may also be fun, but too time consuming. So maybe lets wait and see what features the better world will have to offer, then think about how to handle this.

Btw my original motivation to write here at all was that i got a bit worried about the sheer amount of myth in this thread and i wanted to add some practical thoughts to show that not all is such bad...

I personally am just curious about how the new world will work. I mean we all know that it is by far too early to make any plans (and now please don't chime in and tell "

no plans is bad

" as i think having no plans can be actually very good :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: )

I see it more like a public brain storming stage. And i just love much more to think about what could possibly be done, than to lament about what could possibly fail.

---

I've been giving a bit of thought to how things may work out.    One of the few things we know for sure is that the scripting language won't be LSL.    This is something that's of particular interest and concern to me, obviously, so I've been investigating C#, since that's widely spoken of as the most likely replacement.

I won't bore people with the technical details, but certainly C# seems to make it a lot easier to do stuff that's difficult, if not impossible,  with LSL, and to do it a lot more efficiently.   There's a lot we scripters will be able to do (or, at least, do it better), to my mind, with new weapons, vehicles and non-player characters with C# (or similar languages).

Combine this with the fact Ebbe's talking about making land less expensive to maintain in SL2 (while imposing a sort of sales tax, at least on Marketplace sales) and with the fact we may find that, in SL2, crossing region boundaries in vehicles is a bit less hazardous, and we may well find that, at least initially, SL2 provides an opportunity to set up particular experiences in SL2 that aren't available in SL1, and which people who spend most of their time in SL1 can use when they want to.

I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to spend all, or even much, of my time playing with vehicles in SL1, because of the limitations of which we're all too aware.   But I can certainly see myself dropping into SL2 quite frequently to play at being an intrepid steampunk aviatatrix or to explore the ocean and encounter strange (and interactive) monsters of the deep (yes, R'lyeh).

 

[Indigo Mertel]

Ebbe, can you share something about what graphic engine will LL use for SL2? Are you going to use Unity, by chance? Or, will you develop your own?