Another mesh vs. non-mesh thread.

[ChinRey]

41 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Yeah, Chin, and we are back to philosophy. Hard to tell if mesh really helped Second Life, or not. I could claim that it did, because Second Life is STILL alive and kicking. I could claim it did not, because Second Life shrunk pretty much since "The Mesh" was introduced.

I don't actually think mesh in itself is a problem, it's how it is used and how it is implemented in Second Life. I've done a number of asset performance tests (including the Arcade Change one I mentioned in another thread) and some of the results are ... strange. Linden Lab was obviously in a hurry when they developed the mesh software for Second Life. They didn't analyze the task well enough and they saw it only from a programmers' point of view and forgot to involve 3D modellers who could see it from a more practical point of view. Also of course, they had to try to adapt it somehow to a system that was never meant to handle mesh.

Then there's the shortage of documentation. No, actually that's not right, LL has a lot of documentation about mesh. But it's hard to find and like most of LL's user manuals it's written is this extremely verbose wall-of-text style and often in a rather programmerish language.

The documentation issue is one reason why there's so much inefficient mesh in SL. It's especially problematic since Second Life mesh is rather peculiar. I've seen lots of professional 3D modellers with years of experience building for other platforms really struggling to figure out how mesh works in SL.

Another reason is that many SL builders tired (and still try) to build with mesh the same way they used to build with prims. Those two materials are very different and often require completely different approaches. I've seen some of the same in Sansar recently. Some of the builders brought in from Second Life tend to try to build there the same way they build in SL because, well because that's how they've always done it and it simply doesn't occur to them that things are different on a different platform. A game maker I know once said about the Unreal Engine that you can make anything you like with it but if you don't want to make a shootup action game you're really fighting against the program. I think it's the same story with all 3D platforms. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. If you let it play on its strengths, you can do wonders, if you force it to expose its weak sides, you're going to struggle. Second Life is unusual in that it's really two different platforms, it's the early prim based one and the new mesh SL. Mesh wasn't jsut a new material to work with, it was a paradigm shift. That's been very ahrd for everybody to adapt to.

 

1 hour ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Certainly less demanding environments, like Minecraft (extreme), or IMVU (moderate), are much more mainstream compatible as the "meshed up" Second Life is, but that´s another story.

IMVU is all mesh and has always been all mesh. And that's pobably the big difference, it was made for mesh right fromt he start so ti can use the material far more effectively.

 

40 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

I loved to make things in SL when I was in-world. The sandbox platform I was in felt like a blank piece of paper. I suppose what I expected in SL's future was a transformative set of prim tools. Not just... go use blender. I like blender, I've made things but it's clunky. I had to watch a few lessons to make simple things. With prims, boom, I made a car. When I first tried Google's Sketchup, boom, I made a fully furnished house.

That's the paradigm shift I was talking about. The old Prim SL is a builders' world where everybody can let their imagination go wild. The new Mesh SL is a buyers' world.

[Pamela Galli]

I would say it is now a modeler's world, and not necessarily modelers who are a part of SL. A lot of content is purchased somewhere outside of SL and simply uploaded. A far cry from when people who made things were exclusively people already in SL -- they were first residents and consumers, and decided to build. Those days are long gone. 

 

[Vivienne Schell]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

IMVU is all mesh and has always been all mesh. And that's pobably the big difference, it was made for mesh right fromt he start so ti can use the material far more effectively.

IMVU does not even use half of the shaders SL uses, it´s extremely restricted in regards to anything which might lag the renderer - starting with polygons, lighting, background projections and ending with textures. Mesh does not make the difference, it´s the entire visual environment which makes the difference. And what the client can "do" in that environment. The more sophisticated possible activities (like animated movement) and the more "nice looking" and complex the environment is, the harder it is to render. That´s what makes IMVU less demanding - simplification and restriction. While the cube in SL is exactly the same cube and remains the same cube in IMVU - and yes, in Sansar, too...

Maybe you are right with your suggestion that the "mesh engine" in Second Life is not the best, but still. It works. I see the weaknesses elsewhere, for example LOD: Many imports become victim of the Land Impact issue, which tends to convince people that it´s better to import a cube which distorts as soon as one moves 2 m away - because 1 LI is better than the 10 LI it would take to import a more "resistant" cube. While the more "resistant" cube certainly would "lag" the client a little bit more, but would serve the visual quality better as the less "resistant" cube, because Second Life with it´s "world" approach and "world" visuality does not restrict itself to the very limited space of a localized "experience".

The most "laggy" things are attachments, anyway, but the attachment problem was a problem with prims and sculpts and mesh did not make it better. You can create (prim) or upload (mesh) and then attach a blinging, glowing gazillion poly item plastered with a bunch of 1024x1024 alpha textures which kills the viewer of anyone near you - without any penalty (OK, jellybeans...but i doubt that "social" finger pointing can solve the problem sufficently).

The "weakness" of Second Life, IMHO, is it´s wide ranging creative (and open for abuse) freedom and the hope for "common sense". Not so much the renderer or the "mesh implementation". Or prims. Or mesh imports. While this "weakness" is also a strength in many other ways.

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Vivienne Schell

[Chic Aeon]

This is extremely odd  as I clicked on a topic in my unread list talking bout a lot of creators uploading purchased mesh into SL. When my click took me to this thread, I cannot find that post even though I searched via viewer.

ANYWAY, uploading purchased models (like Turbosquid etc.) is completely against the Second Live Terms of Service. Apparently it will not be in Sansar since a Golden Gate Bridge purchased from Turbosquid (and noted in the audio) was featured on an official infomercial.

I am wondering where that post went.

HMMMMM. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I am wondering where that post went

 

Pamela's post, two above yours.

[Vivienne Schell]

25 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Apparently it will not be in Sansar since a Golden Gate Bridge purchased from Turbosquid (and noted in the audio) was featured on an official infomercial.

Well, their initial presentaion of SL mesh imports featured, besides other things of uncetain origin, a copy of the HULK. Yes, that green monster...

/me shrugs

Edited May 6, 2017 by Vivienne Schell

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Pamela's post, two above yours.

Well I swear that I looked hard AND did a search for "I would say" as that was what I saw in the notices.  Odd still, but thanks :D.  

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Well, their initial presentaion of SL mesh imports featured, besides other things of uncetain origin, a copy of the HULK. Yes, that green monster...

/me shrugs

Yep I remember that. It did not bode well.

[Qie Niangao]

11 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

ANYWAY, uploading purchased models (like Turbosquid etc.) is completely against the Second Live Terms of Service.

I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't that depend on the Turbosquid license terms? I know nothing about the terms of those sites, though, so maybe that's what I'm missing. But otherwise, is there a general ban on all 3rd party model upload, regardless of license? (Surely not, though, right?)

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't that depend on the Turbosquid license terms? I know nothing about the terms of those sites, though, so maybe that's what I'm missing. But otherwise, is there a general ban on all 3rd party model upload, regardless of license? (Surely not, though, right?)

Yes, third party uploads have been against the LL TOS since August 2013 (looking that up -yep). HUGE DEAL. Many creators left (for other reasons than you couldn't upload any mesh that you didn't have full copyrights too).  I was even on a TV show about that along with some lawyers and other folks.  I didn't upload anything  except two sign textures for a sim I ran for eight months.  Eventually I went with the resistance is futile bit. Some third party free sites even banned SL folks from using their textures, brushes etc. -- in spirit of course since they would have no way of knowing what folks were going to do with said textures, brushes, vectors etc. 

I suspect the thousand post threads are still somewhere in the archives. 

Here is my page from that time. Happily I have found that Google can find things that I wrote faster than I can LOL.

http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/p/linden-labs-change-in-tos-august-2013.html

Hard to believe people have forgotten all about this. ^^   

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Chic Aeon
added a dash

[Drake1 Nightfire]

23 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Yes, third party uploads have been against the LL TOS since August 2013 (looking that up -yep). HUGE DEAL. Many creators left (for other reasons than you couldn't upload any mesh that you didn't have full copyrights too).  I was even on a TV show about that along with some lawyers and other folks.  I didn't upload anything  except two sign textures for a sim I ran for eight months.  Eventually I went with the resistance is futile bit. Some third party free sites even banned SL folks from using their textures, brushes etc. -- in spirit of course since they would have no way of knowing what folks were going to do with said textures, brushes, vectors etc. 

I suspect the thousand post threads are still somewhere in the archives. 

Here is my page from that time. Happily I have found that Google can find things that I wrote faster than I can LOL.

http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/p/linden-labs-change-in-tos-august-2013.html

Hard to believe people have forgotten all about this. ^^   

 

Yes, LL forbids the upload of third party content UNLESS you have full rights. If you have full rights you can upload them. It isn't against the TOS to do so. Your wording is very poor and akin to FUD. If a user has full rights to a mesh or image they purchased, they can upload it to SL. 

[Pamela Galli]

22 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Yes, LL forbids the upload of third party content UNLESS you have full rights. If you have full rights you can upload them. It isn't against the TOS to do so. Your wording is very poor and akin to FUD. If a user has full rights to a mesh or image they purchased, they can upload it to SL. 

That's what she said isn't it?

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Yes, LL forbids the upload of third party content UNLESS you have full rights. If you have full rights you can upload them. It isn't against the TOS to do so. Your wording is very poor and akin to FUD. If a user has full rights to a mesh or image they purchased, they can upload it to SL. 

I think you need to do some research on copyrights.  The whole point (well much) of the August 2013 TOS change was giving Linden lab copyrights to creators items.  Not full copyrights but enough that they could sell them legally on other platforms or use them for their own. They owned Desura at one time and many people thought they were going to sell SL creator files using that platform. That didn't happen and whatever the actual purpose behind the change in the TOS really doesn't matter now.  But it was made clear (although it was never clear if the whole TOS was legal) that the only items that you could legally upload were public domain items or ones you had full copyrights too, not "royaty free" items.  There are gray areas for sure, and if you want to start another thread on this then go forth.  

Check the ARCHIVES to see what was going on then and read section 2.3 now. The point was (and is) that the change in the Linden Lab TOS made it impossible for the TOS of other providers to be followed. Namely it gave Linden Lab the right to resell any of "our" products, thus negating the TOS of the other companies. Here is one example (screenshot taken today) from Textures.com -- then CGtextures.

 

 

You can choose to interpret the TOS any way you want. I am just repeating what the attorneys said.  

Edited May 6, 2017 by Chic Aeon
moving screenshot

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Pamela Galli said:

That's what she said isn't it?

Yes, but the problem is that people don't understand the terms royalty free and copyright and what you are allowed to DO and NOT DO depending on a company's TOS. I had real life copyright issues and so much homework was mandatory.

Some folks believe that if you buy a painting you have the right to reproduce that painting on coffee cups for example. UNLESS the person ALSO bought that right along with the painting, the original copyright holder still holds that right. We, according to the LL TOS still have primary copyrights to our work. The big problem was (and is ) that The Lab can pretty much to anything they want with our work. I doubt they ever would because that would herald the end of the platform and they are not stupid people :D. That's a good thing for us. 

TurboSquid is a ROYALTY FREE site where you can purchase items for many uses (apparently for Sansar) BUT the file needs to be CONTAINED and ONLY USED within that platform. According to the 2013 TOS that is no longer guaranteed. From what I understand of Sansar, work will be "published" meaning that it would be contained within that platform.

Screenshot from Turbosquid taken today. Easy enough to go there and read what their terms are :D.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Chic Aeon

[Qie Niangao]

Okay, I'm being dense. First, I absolutely get it that LL insists we must have all necessary rights to whatever we upload -- that we're not violating the terms of our license with a third party rights holder. And I recall that LL changed its ToS to give a whole bunch of rights to the Lab for any content we upload, and that this was a huge area of dispute.

But do I understand correctly that the problem with uploading licensed content is a matter of conflict between those third party licenses and the Lab's license? I seem to recall that some of those third parties pre-emptively stated that they interpret LL's terms to be in conflict with their license (I see now that Chic cited CGtextures as an example of this), so SL uploaders are already on notice that they better not be uploading that content.

And I can certainly imagine some lawyers may have advised that a third party must grant a "full rights" license for content to be safe to upload to Second Life. And "otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever" looks like pretty "full" rights, I guess. Or... maybe there's even an actual court ruling on specifically LL's Terms, so do we know of such a case?

Or is there specific language in the ToS that I'm still missing that directly forbids third party uploads without "full rights" -- as opposed to that being a conclusion implied by the rights LL grants itself in the Terms?

I guess, for example, if a third party did the exact opposite of CGtextures and specifically granted license to upload content for Second Life in accordance with LL's ToS (but specifically disallow, say, publishing on your own website), would upload of that content violate the SL ToS because of some specific language?

[Chase01]

Turbosquid specifically prohibits use of its products in second life. I remember reading it sometime back so I dug it up in their TOS. This is direct from TS.

Using TurboSquid products in Virtual Worlds.
This use is prohibited if the virtual world-type is an open MMO, like Second Life. However, the use is allowed if the MMO is a closed MMO, like World of Warcraft. More specifically, the 3D model may not be exported or sold.

 

 

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

20 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

Yep I remember that. It did not bode well.

Omg I forgot about this video..I think I first seen it pop up over at the Xstreet forums..

wow that was awhile ago for sure..

hehehehe

 

 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

In all those cases when people wear an outfit that covers everything except for the hands and the head, it's totally unnecessary to wear a mesh body (just mesh hands and a mesh head). I suspect, however, that in most of these cases, people still wear those mesh bodies too, just with a lot of mesh parts set to alpha. Invisible mesh parts are rendered by your computer just as much as visible parts, so it's just extra work for your computer (and anyone else's).

[ChinRey]

On 6.5.2017 at 4:01 PM, Qie Niangao said:

I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't that depend on the Turbosquid license terms?

 

22 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Yes, third party uploads have been against the LL TOS since August 2013 (looking that up -yep).

You are both are right. Turbosquid forbids uploads to grid based virtual realities unless the seller has specifically given permission to do so.

Linden Lab's 2013 revision of the Second Life ToS really means you can't upload anything unless you are the sole copyright holder. The reason is that by uploading to SL you also give LL extensive rights to use the content and you obviously can't give such a permission if it's not yours to give.

In other words, if you buy something at Turbosquid and upload it to Second Life, you violate both Turbosquid's and Second Life's ToS. Whether LL really wants to enforce their ToS that strictly is another question of course but Turbosquid certainly will if they become aware of it.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Invisible mesh parts are rendered by your computer just as much as visible parts, so it's just extra work for your computer (and anyone else's).

Probably not as much but yes, during some of the load tests I've mentioned several times on this forum, I was amazed at how much extra load invisible faces and polys add to the gpu load. They shouldn't. Any fully transåarent triangle ought to be culled very early in the rendering pipeline but they obviously aren't. This is especially critical for flexible objects, system avatar, fitted mesh and flexiprims since the shape, size, position and rotation of those polys have to be recalculated for each and every frame.

[Chic Aeon]

20 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I guess, for example, if a third party did the exact opposite of CGtextures and specifically granted license to upload content for Second Life in accordance with LL's ToS (but specifically disallow, say, publishing on your own website), would upload of that content violate the SL ToS because of some specific language?

Well, following your logic  still, the UPLOADING person even with permission to upload to Second Life (which I doubt any "royalty free"  site would give) would still not hold the PRIMARY COPYRIGHT. There CAN be cases where the primary copyright holder sells their sole rights to someone -- take for example someone doing work for hire and making dress templates for a SINGLE SL user. In that case (not a lawyer) then since the person buying ALL the rights HAS those rights they can upload without being against the terms of service.  That is mentioned left-handedly in the LL TOS (at least as I read it). 

That is the only case that I can think of that keeps within the TOS. Public Domain goods (and most likely CCO items although that is still a bit gray) are "legal" -- again so far as I can tell from listening to the RL attorneys (but they didn't always agree either).

It isn't like The Lab is going to actually ENFORCE their rules; we know at least from history that is very unlikely. But people uploading from third party resellers are breaking the LL TOS as well as (in all the sites I checked) the TOS of the 3D resellers. 

[Qie Niangao]

4 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

It isn't like The Lab is going to actually ENFORCE their rules; we know at least from history that is very unlikely. But people uploading from third party resellers are breaking the LL TOS as well as (in all the sites I checked) the TOS of the 3D resellers. 

First, thanks for all the patient explanations. As I read the LL Terms, I don't see them intending "all your IP are belong to us" so much as lazy lawyer language for "no matter what happens, it's not our fault." Seems like they may have found this language in some utterly irrelevant place (social network, perhaps?) and figured no matter what losing business venture they try next, they'll be safe, even if they "port" some SL content on purpose or otherwise.

And now they're launching a product proudly devoid of all SL content, rendering the whole exercise moot. C'est la vie.

But who would pay for specifically relevant Terms when there's nobody negotiating the other side? (Don't even let me get started on non-mutual NDAs.)

Anyway, I do see openly-stated third-party model uploads (particularly vehicles), and just wondered if there was some way those could be legit. I guess, unless they started out as public domain there's slim chance of that.

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

There CAN be cases where the primary copyright holder sells their sole rights to someone

That can't happen with a CC0, CC3 or a GPL 3 license. They explicitly state that the license is " irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met ". Not all open source licenses mention that but software licenses are governed by contract laws and it's usually very difficult for one party to revoke a contract as long as the other party hasn't violated it.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

First, thanks for all the patient explanations. As I read the LL Terms, I don't see them intending "all your IP are belong to us" so much as lazy lawyer language for "no matter what happens, it's not our fault." Seems like they may have found this language in some utterly irrelevant place (social network, perhaps?) and figured no matter what losing business venture they try next, they'll be safe, even if they "port" some SL content on purpose or otherwise.

Yes, you're probably right. I don't think LL ever intended to exploit those rights they demand, they just wanted to cover their own back as well as possible. It does matter though because it's a question of trust. Can you trust that the current LL won't take advantage of those extended rights they force upon content creators? For an independent content creator or a small business I'm sure the answer is yes but can you trust whoever is in charge of LL in a few years? When you can't even know who that may be? Everybody has to make up their own minds about that.

For larger companies, the kind with their own legal department and stuff, it's a no-brainer. That ToS is simply not one it's possible for them to accept. They may overlook it though.

Edited May 7, 2017 by ChinRey
Minor rephrasing and typo corrections

[Chic Aeon]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

(Don't even let me get started on non-mutual NDAs.)

Anyway, I do see openly-stated third-party model uploads (particularly vehicles), and just wondered if there was some way those could be legit. I guess, unless they started out as public domain there's slim chance of that.

Non-mutal NDAs like creators giving ALL their rights away?  :D. Yes, well LOL.  (that is a sort of inside joke folks.)

They COULD possibly have upload the vehicles BEFORE the TOS. I actually have a few items still on the Marketplace from that era. Likely not though