SL is very complicated for beginners

[LlazarusLlong]

It's not English language that's the problem here. It's arcane jargon invented by those who apparently are semi-literate, and have a vested interest in maintaining a position of seeming technical superiority over those who have not scaled the barriers to entry erected by those who feel comfortable with historical errors of misdirection and FUD.

Which in a circular way brings us back to the op's complaint.

[Qie Niangao]

Oh, if only jargon were the problem!

A perfect example, the "invisiprim", which by any other name would stink as foul. "Antivisiprim" describes more precisely how they worked, in the limited and specialized cases where they worked. Oh, if only it was the language of SL that was confusing.

Today's argot is tomorrow's vernacular, and language is simply the product of countless imperfect attempts to communicate, since grunting cavemen. Humans are fantastically adept at rubbing off the rough edges of language, but in contrast our digital artifacts are brittle and instead accrete layers of complexity until they're too unwieldy to use. 

[Penny Patton]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

And frogs should have been born with wings so they wouldn't bump their butts when they jump. But those indisputable facts don't do either the newbie or the frog any good

because they didn't happen.

So, what do you do about it?

---

The point I weas making was that the justifications of SL's difficult learning curve was somehow necessary for the creative possibilities to exist is a fallacy.

But how would I deal with this situation? I'd disable invisiprims consistently, for everyone. This would not "change the world" in any meaningful way because the way invisiprims were disabled they wind up simply being invisible, and there are a plethora of freely available avatar masks available so that no one could claim any existing content was broken. At least no more than it already is.

 

 That way, new and casual users don't need to learn about invisiprims at all.  It's not like they're used in new content.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Oh,

if only

jargon were the problem!

A perfect example, the "invisiprim", which by any other name would stink as foul. "Antivisiprim" describes more precisely how they worked, in the limited and specialized cases where they worked. .

---

I think you have just demonstrated that, in this case, it is precisely the imbecilic jargon which is the problem.

[Penny Patton]

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Celestiall Nightfire wrote:

Oh, that's right, because you didn't address the rest of my comment.  lol

 

 

Plus, no one "shouted down" the OP!  Just nonsense.  You were making a hyperbolic statement to lead into your hammering point that you always go on, and on, about.  (Sheesh, do you know how many times I've seen you post your avatar pics?  Good grief woman, like a broken record)

---

The posts are right there for anyone to see. Half of them dismissing and mocking the OP's post. Calling them a slow learner and impatient, claimingthat SL's difficult learning curve is necessary. Not to mention, but if you read a little more thoroughly you'd see people were continuing to do so after my post as well. Just saying.

And yeah, there's a lot of people complaining LL needs to fix SL, but more often than not the complaints are confused and misdirected, with a lot of people, such as yourself, complaining that the people who actually do understand the technical issues causing their problems are "like a broken record".

Which is funny, because I'll go like six months to a year without touching these forums, come back for a week or two, then wander off again, and yet somehow I'm still posting about these issues too much for your liking.

 But yeah, you're right, I'm totally the problem here. You sure told me! :matte-motes-whistle:

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

Penny Patton wrote:

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

And frogs should have been born with wings so they wouldn't bump their butts when they jump. But those indisputable facts don't do either the newbie or the frog any good

because they didn't happen.

So, what do you do about it?

---

The point I weas making was that the justifications of SL's difficult learning curve was somehow necessary for the creative possibilities to exist is a fallacy.

But how would I deal with this situation? I'd disable invisiprims consistently, for everyone. This would not "change the world" in any meaningful way because the way invisiprims were disabled they wind up simply being invisible, and there are a plethora of freely available avatar masks available so that no one could claim any existing content was broken. At least no more than it already is.

 

 That way, new and casual users don't need to learn about invisiprims at all.  It's not like they're used in new content.

---

There - you've actually made a decision to do something instead of just saying, "Well, you should have done this back then."

And you've just broken boats - nice ones, costing multiple thousands of Lindens and worth it - that use invisiprims to hide the water that would appear inside their hulls below their waterlines. Masks won't work to do that. Que sera, sera...

Now you should outline your plans for either removing all invisiprim-using clothing from the market or seamlessly providing alpha masks for them.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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LlazarusLlong wrote:

It's not English language that's the problem here. It's arcane jargon invented by those who apparently are semi-literate, and have a vested interest in maintaining a position of seeming technical superiority over those who have not scaled the barriers to entry erected by those who feel comfortable with historical errors of misdirection and FUD.

Which in a circular way brings us back to the op's complaint.

---

Yes, clear standard language is vital for a quality argument.

FUD - is that Anglo-Saxon?

[LlazarusLlong]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

FUD - is that Anglo-Saxon?

---

It's an ironic use of an IBMese acronym.

It's what their marketing policy used to involve - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

Except it's neither ironic nor an acronym in their proper senses.

[Celestiall Nightfire]

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Penny Patton wrote:

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Celestiall Nightfire wrote:

Oh, that's right, because you didn't address the rest of my comment.  lol

 

 

Plus, no one "shouted down" the OP!  Just nonsense.  You were making a hyperbolic statement to lead into your hammering point that you always go on, and on, about.  (Sheesh, do you know how many times I've seen you post your avatar pics?  Good grief woman, like a broken record)

---

The posts are right there for anyone to see. Half of them dismissing and mocking the OP's post. Calling them a slow learner and impatient, claimingthat SL's difficult learning curve is necessary. Not to mention, but if you read a little more thoroughly you'd see people were continuing to do so after my post as well. Just saying.

And yeah, there's a lot of people complaining LL needs to fix SL, but more often than not the complaints are confused and misdirected, with a lot of people, such as yourself, complaining that the people who actually do understand the technical issues causing their problems are "like a broken record".

Which is funny, because I'll go like six months to a year without touching these forums, come back for a week or two, then wander off again, and yet somehow I'm still posting about these issues too much for your liking.

 But yeah, you're right, I'm totally the problem here. You sure told me! :matte-motes-whistle:

---

Penny, you read others as dismissing and mocking...but I didn't see them that way.  I saw them as agreeing with the poster.  

 

Also, you have some odd idea that only *you* understand the technical issues?   That other's don't see it, understand it, or try to communicate with LL.  Well, you're wrong.   

 

The broken record, is an apt description. You constantly harp on things that we all know, and so does LL.  Geez, you're not some harbinger of enlightenment.  

 

Then to end it up, you trot out the sarcasm (which before you thought it was bad to be dismissing and mocking?!

 

As for the scale and body proportions....I first saw Ishtara Rothschild post about these *years* ago in the forums.  She did a complete break down of the issue, with a detailed drawing similar to The Vitruvian Man.    Only, after she posted all her excellent pics, detail, and suggestions did I ever see anyone else approach the subject the same way.  Then others started.  You're not some idea originator, nor the bearer of light here. 

 

I get it that you think you're right, and anyone questioning you, is wrong.  But, have you considered that other people might know things too?  That other people also have communicated to LL?  That others are doing as much as more than you are to try and remedy things?   Also, have you considered that the issues you harp on about just aren't that big a deal to the other SL residents?   I could go on, but I doubt you'll care, as you're dismissive of anyone who challenges your broken record- thread highjacking here in the forums.

 

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

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LlazarusLlong wrote:

I think you have just demonstrated that, in this case, it is precisely the imbecilic jargon which is the problem.

---

I can't guess whether you're just not reading what I'm writing, not understanding, or weirdly confusing the sign for the signified. Again, no choice of pretty words could paper-over the clumsy complexity of much SL technology. (Incidentally, no tech-savvy observer mistakes this to indicate technological advancement -- quite the opposite.)

As to sign v. signified, there's an interesting theory to be had about technology itself being shaped by the language used to name it, a sort of Sapir-Whorf for silicon. Dissertations surely await, followed by jobs at NIST.

[Vivienne Schell]

"If anyone doubts this, just go download the current version of Daz Studio. These days in 3D art you can fit almost anything to anything. Last year when fitted mesh was coming out I noted the 'button issue' of "fitted" and deformer solutions - that fine details which pop out of an outfit and are not part of the rigging will lose shape when deformed. Daz has, somehow, solved this for most cases."

Interesting. Is DAZ a multiple user online environment? Did I miss something? Oh no, wait. It´s a single user desktop app. Oh my.

"Linden lab fundamentally does not understand the visual."

They do in the real time multiple user online game sandbox sense and within the the technological limits of real time multiple user onlne sandbox game sense, which includes massive bandwidth, database and local PC rendering stress. You obviously don´t. You seem to think that Autodesk or whatever 3D creativity applications - and the superhighpoly output one can achieve with such suites -  can be simply applied to something completely different as Second Life is. You´re dead wrong. Linden Lab did a pretty good job with beating the hell out of OpenGL and optimizing the dataflow for SL purpose, in fact.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

As to sign v. signified, there's an interesting theory to be had about technology itself being shaped by the language used to name it, a sort of Sapir-Whorf for silicon. Dissertations surely await, followed by jobs at NIST.

---

We used to have dicussions about this back in the 70s, at about the same time as constructions like DONTGOTO and COMEFROM were being proposed as logical extensions to FORTRAN by its supporters who thought Dijkstra and his structured programming was the road to hell. Of course, anti-structuralists' intransigence led to the grammatically excrutiating "object-oriented" languages - which was a good thing. Wasn't it?

Our other recurring argument about whether the next level up language after C would be D (since C's precursor was B, some argued the alphabetic imperative) or P (since B and C were both successors to BCPL) was proved inaccurate in both respects by history, dammit!

[Vivienne Schell]

Penny gets one thing right. Whichis that the complex conception of Second LIfe (it´s not only a game, but a sandbox, soicailising environment, and whatever else one can imagine) requires a certain level of complexity regarding user interface design

Fact is, you did not learn to tie your shoes within one hour, nor did you learn to drive a car within one hour.

The essential problem Second Life has is that such a supercomplex conception as Second Life is build on does not fit into the mainstream online habits anymore. I doubt that the recent mainstream audience would ever accept a learning curve which requires more than one or two hours of their precious time anymore. Second Life was born into a time where even the internet browsers were all but easy to handle for the user. In a time, where the internet user was willing to learn a thing. But the times have changed. We´ve seen a lot of simplifications meanwhile, wherever mainstream is targeted,  not only in computing.

I doubt that Penny´s demand for "better tools" will help there. Even "Better Tools" require learning the tools. "Less tools" is the mainstream answer. Second Life has too many tools for too many and too different possible user activities basically, that´s the problem. Not only the quality of the tools.

 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

Okay, so let's assume (for the sake of discussion) that your point is correct; that there are far too many tools in the basic SL Viewer. Also let's assume that the interface is too complicated resulting in people exceeding their limited attention span (1-2 hours).

Accepting these two points, please profer a solution .. a detailed solution .. that can fix these two intertwined issues. I'd also like to hear your reasoning as to why LL should reshape SL to be more appealing to a customer base that is interested in instant entertainment, instant gratification, and unwilling to spend any of their own money to obtain them.

[Vivienne Schell]

There are not only too many tools, but too many possible user directions. I cannot offfer a detailed solution for Second Life, because reducing SL to a "core" or a "core" target audience performing a "core" activity would certainly destroy what Second Life makes Second Life. The result would be something completely different.

And don´t get me wrong, I do not favor a "reshaping" of Second Life for mainstream acceptance at all. My point is that within the contemporary market environment and technological limits Second Life as is (as a conception) does very well. There might be some ways to improve what there is marginally, but I do not think that these improvements will make Second Life a mainstream compatible  application.

The core question is. Do you want a niche existance or do you want mainstream success? I am fine with the niche, but obviously decisive folks are not...

 

[Darrius Gothly]

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Vivienne Schell wrote:

[snip] .. The core question is. Do you want a niche existance or do you want mainstream success? I am fine with the niche, but obviously decisive folks are not... 

---

Exactly my stance as well. I am particularly prone to reciting "Old Sayings" and various truisms, so at this juncture I find myself wanting to repeat Aesop's Fable of the dog with a bone in its mouth crossing a small bridge. The dog got so greedy, wanting not only the bone it had but also the one in the mouth of the dog reflection in the water, that it dropped its bone and lost both.

IMHO the "decisive folks" at LL need to recognize that a stable platform with a steady and predictable cash flow can be much more enjoyable and successful than scorching the earth in pursuit of the "Big Win". Maybe I'm just more conservative, or perhaps I'm smarter about such things (ducks for cover), but it seems to me that LL has spent way too much trying to win the Lottery .. and not nearly enough time plugging the leaks and holes in their existing house.

[Qie Niangao]

I'm reminded of Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, who always argued for more specialized and longer learning-curve interfaces -- which position had some influence until Steve Jobs' Mac with its one-button mouse demonstrated the unexpected virtue of ignorance. Well, some unexpected virtue anyway.

What I've been carping about mostly is that those of us with SL last names can harken back to the enjoyment of learning SL. However much a fun challenge that may have been for us, that was nothing compared to the befuddling barriers that new arrivals face today. It's not that SL hasn't been sufficiently dumbed-down tor mass appeal, but that it's done just the opposite, and it's a miracle that anybody is persistent enough to uncover which of several mystic rituals might now change their avatar's t-shirt.

[Vivienne Schell]

" LL has spent way too much trying to win the Lottery .. and not nearly enough time plugging the leaks and holes in their existing house"

Remember, it´s Silicon Valley we´re talking about. Winning the lottery is a big deal there. Especially for former Yahoo executives.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Vivienne Schell wrote:

Fact is, you did not learn to tie your shoes within one hour,

---

I learned it in a couple of minutes, before my swimming exam.

My left handed father tought me, so I do it backwards.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

---

Vivienne Schell wrote:

Fact is, you did not learn to tie your shoes within one hour,

---

I learned it in a couple of minutes, before my swimming exam.

My left handed father tought me, so I do it backwards.

---

And, if you're like me, you learned it wrong...

Learning the right way has been a challenge!

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

Vivienne Schell wrote:

"If anyone doubts this, just go download the current version of Daz Studio. These days in 3D art you can fit almost anything to anything. Last year when fitted mesh was coming out I noted the 'button issue' of "fitted" and deformer solutions - that fine details which pop out of an outfit and are not part of the rigging will lose shape when deformed. Daz has, somehow, solved this for most cases."

Interesting. Is DAZ a multiple user online environment? Did I miss something? Oh no, wait. It´s a single user desktop app. Oh my.

"Linden lab fundamentally does not understand the visual."

They do in the real time multiple user online game sandbox sense and within the the technological limits of real time multiple user onlne sandbox game sense, which includes massive bandwidth, database and local PC rendering stress.

---

I noted Daz for the deformer issue. You're trying to stretch that as if it was my example for all other points when it was not.

The technical limitatins of deforming an item around another remain the same whether its for high poly art or low poly gaming. What changes is issues of scale - and on this one, in gaming the scale is less an issue, as you should be working with a lot fewer polygons: a lot fewer data points to track.

In fact... there are plugins for Daz and Poser both to use them to produce content for game design.

 

For the understanding of the visual and putting so much of a world together - look to my other example: Everquest Next Landmark.

 

Granted my note that LL does not understand the visual was in the post where I noted Daz, and my example of someone who does understand the visual was in a later post... But the Daz example was about the issue with the limitations and choices made around fitted mesh.

The note that LLs fails to understand the visual was a general statement related to so much of the way the UI of SL is unecessarily complicated as a result of... choices made by people who are not visual thnkers.

 

 

 

[arton Rotaru]

Well, Daz may provide something for games, but as we know (:matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:) SL is not a game. Indeed, the mechanics are pretty much the same as within a game, though, what works well in a game, doesn't mean it's beneficial in Second Life as well. Since Skinning is usually done on the CPU, and Second Life has been and is pretty much CPU bottlenecked already, due to the sheer amount of content, it would be only a wise decision to implement the method which is cheaper on the CPU. Even if the results aren't as good, and the artistic work is more complicated.

Doesn't help much if you have access to superior tools, but in the end nobody can move anymore in-world.

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

So Vivienne was right afterall. Not minutes, not hours, but decades it took me to learn to tie my shoelaces, at least correctly.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

So after a day (and putting on my laced shoes a couple of times) I noticed the guy in the video still has it all wrong. You don't have to loop the other way, that leaves the loops perpendicular to the tie just as much as how he (and I) did it at first. The trick is not to loop the second loop completely around the first one, but to stick it through the hole right away. My god this is complicated, even for veterans. (But at least I didn't have to retie my laces today) ((and he is right about the laces looking better!))

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

My god this is complicated, even for veterans.

---

Especially for veterans!

I've tried to do it his way and it's just too difficult to break my old habit. So, I've tried making a slight change to my old way. It's clumsy, but gets the bow to lay in the right direction. I only tie my laces this new way when I'm going someplace special.

;-).