Bakes on Mesh Feedback Thread

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Textures and meshs.

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe."

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

Except, in this case, they literally are.  We're talking about Clothing Assets.  Clothing and skins.  Digital Clothing, and skins.

Do you have a drivers' license for your digital cars? A permit for your digital guns? 

[Mel Vanbeeck]

I came a bit late to today's meeting catching what seemed to be the second half of a debate over the subject of whether it would be worth the energy for the Lindens to create the script functions to support baked mesh from appliers.

The people who seemed to be against script support seemed to be saying that it's normal for the entire grid to have their entire inventory become obsolete when a new technology hits the grid, and that this effort is to be expected of SL businesses. The issue of the appliers that people have already purchased did not seem to enter into the consideration at all.

The issue here is whether the Lindens will invest the energy into releasing bake mesh in a way that will allow people to continue to make use of the many appliers they already own. It is a finite amount of effort required to do this, and  the difference between doing it and not doing it is a substantial amount of SL's products either working or not working with future mesh products.

The desired outcome of this project is that mesh body parts will not have onion skins on them (each onion skin being a complete duplicate of the base mesh). Both designers and customers will determine whether they need those onion skin layers. If the script functions to inject into the bake are not created, there will be many very good reasons to continue supporting appliers via onion skins. Designers will create what they will create (perhaps supporting both bake and onion skins), but users who want to continue to use their possibly hundreds of dollars worth of appliers will use a version of their body or head which supports the onion skins. If the script functions are created properly, the only reason to continue wearing onion skins would be proper materials support. If the bake system is modified to support materials scripted appliers, then there will be zero reasons for anyone to continue wearing onion skin avatars.

It's not a question of whether this is valuable. It absolutely is. It's just a question of whether LL wants to take the time to do this for their users.

One of the major struggles of SL is new user experience. Absorbing all of the details of system compatibility, proprietary technologies, and just the basics of how things are built and how things work is a fight that often leads people to give up rather than stick around. Without script support for baked mesh, there is one more invalid combo that needs to be understood both by new users, and old users whose current inventory of skins and makeup all come from appliers.

In my opinion, there is absolutely no excuse for releasing baked mesh without script support. Doing so would only demonstrate a total disregard for the designers and customers of SL and the value of their inventories - and a major lack of understanding of the current marketplace.

[Theresa Tennyson]

49 minutes ago, Mel Vanbeeck said:

I came a bit late to today's meeting catching what seemed to be the second half of a debate over the subject of whether it would be worth the energy for the Lindens to create the script functions to support baked mesh from appliers.

The people who seemed to be against script support seemed to be saying that it's normal for the entire grid to have their entire inventory become obsolete when a new technology hits the grid, and that this effort is to be expected of SL businesses. The issue of the appliers that people have already purchased did not seem to enter into the consideration at all.

The issue here is whether the Lindens will invest the energy into releasing bake mesh in a way that will allow people to continue to make use of the many appliers they already own. It is a finite amount of effort required to do this, and  the difference between doing it and not doing it is a substantial amount of SL's products either working or not working with future mesh products.

 

This is different from current mesh bodies not working with existing skins when they were released how? ( oh, besides the fact that there were many more skins rendered obsolescent when mesh bodies were introduced than there are appliers which will be rendered obsolescent when bakes-on-mesh is released.)

Were the people who were "against script support" against it, or just not willing to wait for it?

[Chellynne Bailey]

18 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

This is different from current mesh bodies not working with existing skins when they were released how? ( oh, besides the fact that there were many more skins rendered obsolescent when mesh bodies were introduced than there are appliers which will be rendered obsolescent when bakes-on-mesh is released.)

 

It's only different in that a) It's much more sudden and b) now we've seen what this sort of transition does. It was a *****ty implementation releasing Rigged Mesh without BoM at the same time. They could have saved it too if they'd done BoM Before or With Fitted Mesh. People were still doing System Layers then. But instead, they Went Rigged --> Fitted --> Bento --> Animesh --> BoM, ensuring they'd waited long enough for people to stop making System Layers.

I was not around, but I've been told people complained about this when Rigging first came out. BoM is not a new idea. But because they didn't listen, we saw huge spikes in piracy, hundreds of thousands of products had to be reboxed or turn obsolete. There are still products on the MP that don't have applier support, that are essentially "lost" and getting dressed is a nightmare to navigate for new users.   I still have to explain to people repeatedly that no, it's no ok to rip content "for my own use".

And now we're talking about doing the exact same thing AGAIN.  All the crappy side effects of going to mesh we had last time, the piracy, the confused customers, the reboxing.. oh god the reboxing.... we're doing it all over again.   Just like last time, if they'd thought a bit more comprehensively and introduced BoM at the same time as rigged mesh, things would have been great, but they didn't.  Now this time, they are again trying to put out just the bare minimum and it's going to send us through the same *****ty cycle we had last time. And now it's going to be even MORE complex explaining to customers what goes with what.  The Learning curve on SL is already ridiculous. It's why we have no growth anymore.   We can't keep lumping new things onto the pile of things a user needs to know just to get dressed.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 minutes ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

We can't keep lumping new things onto the pile of things a user needs to know just to get dressed.
 

What's new about it? It's basically the way Second Life avatars were dressed since 2003, and how the starter avatars still are. I see chatter in a number of groups (including the Omega group, by the way) from people who are champing at the bit for bakes-on-mesh to be released the way it is.

And as far as the existing appliers go, cossacks aren't going to go through everyone's inventory the day bakes-on-mesh is released and fling their current mesh avatars against the wall, shattering them like smashed matryoshkas. The people who've bought the appliers can still use them on the bodies they bought them for.

[Callum Meriman]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Were the people who were "against script support" against it, or just not willing to wait for it?

If it's the latter I'd really wonder why. And also the Lab is siding with them and so keen to rush this project out the door unfinished. It's going to be a pretty lousy blog release to say "Bakes on Mesh is out, but you can't really do much with it but use some 2006 era blurry tattoos"

Surely adding scripted support to this useless, feature incomplete, white elephant would only be a month or two's delay? It's not like those good quality onion-skin free bodies are there to buy right now to justify the rush? A month or two more to add the scripting and other missing features while the body makers can be educated and given time to bring out their single layer products?

Why the rush?

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

If it's the latter I'd really wonder why. And also the Lab is siding with them and so keen to rush this project out the door unfinished. It's going to be a pretty lousy blog release to say "Bakes on Mesh is out, but you can't really do much with it but use some 2006 era blurry tattoos"

Surely adding scripted support to this useless, feature incomplete, white elephant would only be a month or two's delay? It's not like those good quality onion-skin free bodies are there to buy right now to justify the rush? A month or two more to add the scripting and other missing features while the body makers can be educated and given time to bring out their single layer products?

Why the rush?

I'd be willing to say that every skin and tattoo made since 2012 was already made with 1024 x 1024 textures.

Realistically, most skin makers only stopped providing system skins in 2016 when Bento made mesh heads mainstream.

What some people are asking for is not just scripting, but scripting that would allow existing appliers to be used, and they can't describe how this will work within the Second Life inventory structure.

Meanwhile, nothing about the scripting will change the basic technology of showing an avatar bake on a worn mesh, which already works quite well.

Why the delay?

[Fionalein]

11 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Why the delay?

I think people will be really pissed of if designers decide to do only BOM mesh bodies now ... those skins and tattoos all cost most of us several thousands,... of course there are the fashion victims who don't care and will buy everything their blogging idols praise and even trash all those proclaim "out of date"... but those are not the bulk of SL users, who will not buy not as much individually but the sum of their buys far outweights those shoppaholics.

So the normal folks bought appliers and they will subbornly continue to use them unless there is scripted support to move the applier textures back into the bake... they will wear bakes and applier onions on top of it until that is possible... nothing gained performance wise here... whole project goal futile as people's predictable behaviour was ignored -  good job.

[Theresa Tennyson]

24 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

So the normal folks bought appliers and they will subbornly continue to use them unless there is scripted support to move the applier textures back into the bake... they will wear bakes and applier onions on top of it until that is possible... nothing gained performance wise here... whole project goal futile as people's predictable behaviour was ignored -  good job.

How many appliers do you have and use regularly?

[Callum Meriman]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

What some people are asking for is not just scripting, but scripting that would allow existing appliers to be used, and they can't describe how this will work within the Second Life inventory structure.

Baked-on-fail is not a project I even believe the lab should waste their time on when there are more beneficial things they could expend the limited development resources on.

As for inventory structure, what structure? It's not even going to touch their inventory. Something akin to  llBakeTexture(integer layer, integer level, key UUID);

It's not necessary to provide backwards compatibility to the old appliers. I am sure Omega can create a new one with the new function(s) and people can use a bridge hud to translate old calls into new for the current generation.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Theresa Tennyson]

9 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

As for inventory structure, what structure? It's not even going to touch their inventory. Something akin to  llBakeTexture(integer layer, integer level, key UUID);

 

And it will disappear after a relog or an outfit change unless something's done to "touch their inventory."

[Mel Vanbeeck]

Why not instead just release all the relevant features together, then people's stuff all continues working normally, and everyone can decide what to do for future product with all the options on the table? Does that just sound too orderly? You understand that there will be a bit of a grid-wide panic among designers and customers alike if appliers are rendered obsolete, right? This is no way to do things. Designers having to scramble to get usable products on the shelves, customers trying to figure out how to navigate body part updates, etc.

How many appliers people have and use regularly varies from person to person. There are plenty of people out there with hundreds of USD invested in appliers.

The difference between this and when rigged mesh was originally released is that this is the present, and that is the past. Unlike the past which we have no control over, we can do things better in the present, if we choose to. Why would you be against that?

I don't really care whether it involves transitory inventory items, a hidden list, a new panel, whatever. That's the LL folks' job to figure that junk out. Just because we don't know what the simplest implementation is for them to build doesn't mean the feature is any less necessary. Pick something and make it work, is my guidance. If they want to discuss the options with us, then I'm all for it.

Rest assured that if any script functionality is implemented, there will be a way to make all existing appliers continue to work, with the possible exception of materials appliers if they decide not to support materials.

[Theresa Tennyson]

36 minutes ago, Mel Vanbeeck said:

The difference between this and when rigged mesh was originally released is that this is the present, and that is the past. Unlike the past which we have no control over, we can do things better in the present, if we choose to. Why would you be against that?

 

Because it won't be the present, it will have to be be the future, and you don't even know what's involved to do what you want. Meanwhile, things will work for me right now, and releasing it won't do anything to interfere with what the appliers and bodies that use them do. I heard someone in a chat say that were using Lola Tangos on a Maitreya mesh body. Just because something new comes out doesn't mean that the old things vanish.

[Coffee Pancake]

There will always be edge cases where legacy user asset band-aids are in use.

[Klytyna]

7 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

If it's the latter I'd really wonder why. And also the Lab is siding with them and so keen to rush this project out the door unfinished. It's going to be a pretty lousy blog release to say "Bakes on Mesh is out, but you can't really do much with it but use some 2006 era blurry tattoos"

You REALLY want to know why Bake-Fail-On-Mesh being rushed out half baked?

Back on page 11 of this thread I wrote:

...

The feedback exercise seems largely a formality, people point out the obvious flaws and suggest improvements and the official reply is... 

"Hmmm, interesting, we'll think about it BUT... We don't want to delay the already planned Official Release party, so we won't ACTUALLY make any changes to what's currently being *cough* tested *cough*. Thank you for your time!"

...

That is why this is being rushed out, the official Launch Event and speech by the Glorious Leader, and the Behind Closed Doors VIP Buffet, are already planned, they booked the hall and paid the caterers already.

And besides, the Bake-Failers don't want to wait to wear all their "beautiul 10 yer plus system clothing" on their mesh bodies... And this whole thing was all about them anyway.

 

[Mel Vanbeeck]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Because it won't be the present, it will have to be be the future, and you don't even know what's involved to do what you want. Meanwhile, things will work for me right now, and releasing it won't do anything to interfere with what the appliers and bodies that use them do. I heard someone in a chat say that were using Lola Tangos on a Maitreya mesh body. Just because something new comes out doesn't mean that the old things vanish.

I do my work, Lindens do theirs. You say this as if a feature request is invalid unless you're able to program the feature yourself being intimately familiar with the entire system. I would be happy if the Lindens were so in tune with the SL market that they didn't need to ask for feedback on feature development, but lacking that, it's good that they do.

All mesh body systems will wind up updating for bake on mesh one way or another, and customers as well as skin/clothing designers will have to grapple with whatever that winds up being. Customers could wind up being cornered or just confused into retreat as features are added and removed from their chosen body parts. Customers will have to weigh whether they want to update or not. Once this is live, people will not be able to simply use their old bodies and ignore the bake on mesh release without an accompanying mess of inconveniences like possibly missing out on other features being updated on their chosen body parts.

Unless of course the features are fully developed, in which case there are no problems to worry about for pretty much anyone involved.

The whole point of this is to make old things vanish. The onion skins are problematic on many levels, and the solution is to make them unnecessary so people stop wearing them entirely. If they don't actually become unnecessary, people continue wearing them and for all this effort the problem is not solved. All that would be accomplished is throwing the skin/makeup/body market into disarray without actually improving performance.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Mel Vanbeeck
.

[Coffee Pancake]

You're hoping for an ideal solution that wont happen.

We will end up with onion skin avatars that support BoM. Appliers will function exactly as they do now. The only hope is that given time they go the way of flexi skirts and torus based hair.

Waiting for script support wont actually change anything as none of the primary mesh body makers will take the step to release their primary product with no applier support. Maitreya, Slink, Belleza, Catwa .. you're dreaming.

The key advantage of BoM is the resurrection of clothing type inventory assets. From a customer perspective BoM + onion skins is the best of all worlds, them being technically terrible didn't prevent this mess and it wont end it now.

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, Mel Vanbeeck said:

I do my work, Lindens do theirs. You say this as if a feature request is invalid unless you're able to program the feature yourself being intimately familiar with the entire system. I would be happy if the Lindens were so in tune with the SL market that they didn't need to ask for feedback on feature development, but lacking that, it's good that they do.

 

Scott Adams of the "Dilbert" cartoon wrote a book called "Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook." One of the rules for a (bad) manager to keep in mind was, "Anything you don't understand is simple and easy to do."

When cars were introduced it would have made livery stable owners a lot happier if they weren't introduced until they could run on oats. The engineers who had to figure out a way of making this work wouldn't have been happier, nor would the prospective consumers who'd have to wait until this was worked out. And unlike this analogy, right now in the avatar business there are "gas stations" all over already.

[Shnurui Troughton]

On 5/16/2018 at 10:28 PM, CoffeeDujour said:

Do you have a license for your digital Car?  A permit for your digital gun?

non Sequitur.

Am i transferring the textures from my digital car, sword or gun onto my avatar?  If so, am I violating copyright by putting transformer/z-bot avatars into the world?

If you buy a suit, and you lose the pants due to a stain, do you walk down the street half naked?

BOM keeps people from having to rip textures for the thousands of dollars they spent, BEFORE MESH AVATARS EVEN EXISTED.

 

>> Scripted support for BOM

Frankly, they should have lead with this.  The appliers would be easier to program, so much so that OBJECT ONLY avatar creators would have a market larger than, it's cute but it's not colored.

[Fionalein]

19 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

How many appliers do you have and use regularly?

have? 1000s ... use regularly? none - I apply and save the applied state as extra object so I have all textures preapplied ready per outfit... another thing not working with BOM...

Edited May 18, 2018 by Fionalein

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Fionalein said:

have? 1000s ... use regularly? none - I apply and save the applied state as extra object so I have all textures preapplied ready per outfit... another thing not working with BOM...

Huh? That's exactly what the outfit system was made for, and does. One of my avatars has over sixty separate characters she can change to instantly; this is all using system layers.

Does this mean that any time your body is updated you need to re-apply all these textures to all these separate objects individually? Yish... With bakes on mesh you'll only need to update a single body or head that will automatically be re-textured appropriately for every outfit.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Mel Vanbeeck]

17 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Scott Adams of the "Dilbert" cartoon wrote a book called "Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook." One of the rules for a (bad) manager to keep in mind was, "Anything you don't understand is simple and easy to do."

When cars were introduced it would have made livery stable owners a lot happier if they weren't introduced until they could run on oats. The engineers who had to figure out a way of making this work wouldn't have been happier, nor would the prospective consumers who'd have to wait until this was worked out. And unlike this analogy, right now in the avatar business there are "gas stations" all over already.

The question of how difficult it is to do, or what is the simplest/best way to handle it has yet to be answered, as far as I am aware. I'm not as ignorant on the subject as you imply, but it's not my role to answer those questions. In this context, my role is just to say what I think is necessary, and why.

[Callum Meriman]

On 5/18/2018 at 5:00 PM, Klytyna said:

And besides, the Bake-Failers don't want to wait to wear all their "beautiul 10 yer plus system clothing" on their mesh bodies... And this whole thing was all about them anyway.

I get the feeling a large portion of them are old textured clothing business owners. They look back at the previous decade with their rose-coloured glasses, recalling how anyone with a few graphic skills and a copy of Gimp. could make texture clothes. They moan incessantly how mesh was the death of the creativity and how fashion suffered when mesh clothes came along. Their businesses faded way with the passing of that decade, and since the end of those glory days nobody but a few 2004 fossils wanted those painted on things any more.

Now they have hope again, they want it rushed out half finished, because they believe they can restart their 2006 era businesses in all their vintage glory. They see promises of waterfalls of L$ falling before their eyes while they imagine a return to the heady days of leisure suits, flares, polyester, padded shoulders, texture clothing, prim bulges, and flexi skirts.

 

Edited May 20, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Theresa Tennyson]

10 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

I get the feeling a large portion of them are old textured clothing business owners. They look back at the previous decade with their rose-coloured glasses, recalling how anyone with a few graphic skills and a copy of Gimp. could make texture clothes. They moan incessantly how mesh was the death of the creativity and how fashion suffered when mesh clothes came along. Their businesses faded way with the passing of that decade, and since the end of those glory days nobody but a few 2004 fossils wanted those painted on things any more.

Now they have hope again, they want it rushed out half finished, because they believe they can restart their 2006 era businesses in all their vintage glory. They see promises of waterfalls of L$ falling before their eyes while they imagine a return to the heady days of leisure suits, flares, polyester, padded shoulders, texture clothing, prim bulges, and flexi skirts.

 

Because making applier clothing is completely different!

Because it ISN'T OPPOSITE DAY!!!

Which mean's IT'S OPPOSITE DAY!

Oh, wait... dammit...

Meanwhile, Mr. Meriman's argument is that we should wait until it's possible to make crappy painted-on clothing with materials!

The opposition also argues simultaneously that nobody will buy bodies using bakes-on-mesh because they lurve their appliers and alpha cuts so much, but we need to wait for Linden Lab to create a system that uses magic skyhooks to re-use old appliers because the old bodies that use them will mysteriously vanish - not only from the market, but apparently from people's inventories as well - the moment the project is released.

Seems legit...

Edited May 20, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson