Inclusive Interior Spaces - Less Skyboxes and ground-level-lag

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

Instanced interior cells - these can be infinitely useful, folks use skyboxes to do it now, but that creates a lot of totally wasted load on the server and client when assets and such load from surrounding skyboxes, plus skyboxes look crazy all over.  Why not cleanly put them in their own closed off space blocking out everything else not related to the scene?

Basically these would be used for additional interior spaces in larger builds, and to end Sky-boxes that dont really wanna be skythingies.  Due to the performance gains, you could even give extra prims in these zones (and be more restrictive on the ground level, especially mainland).  (EDIT: Maybe provide a Prim-type that blocks off and blacks out a zone in the main exterior cell, which then has an equally sized interior that can be built out, or even allow the interior to be larger than that original exterior culling zone perhaps?) These internal spaces would have their own lighting controls set, use doors and portals to enter, they're just like in any other instanced interior in a video game. 

To further enhance it you could use the water trick you do by painting whats below on the surface, and give us a surface for interiors that shows the actual "outside", for interior space windows. lol... ? Why not?  It could work in reverse too, so you have the outside of the window in the main worldspace showing the inside view if desired (only updating if being viewed of course). Same thing would make mirrors work too.

Its all technically possible, and could be a boon to server performance due to cutting out an enormous chunk of what must load by viewers, or be served by infrastructure if someone turns up their draw distance, which also kills their FPS too.  Almost everything in the air would poof? be gone ? except for things that actually want to be in the open air space, and at the ground level the huge highly decorated interior spaces would too, thus not loading at all when traversing the exterior cell.  Plus they'd be totally "private" not cam'able etcetera.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[Fionalein]

9 minutes ago, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

Why not...

Technology would be there, some use it. Apparently it's not accepted well, that's why. SL isn't Skyrim.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Fionalein

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

4 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Technology would be there, some use it apparently it's not accepted twell, that's why. SL isn't Skyrim

Exactly, SL needs to work with its own unique paradigm of course, and what I am suggesting would be a massive performance improvement for everyone, and users would see it as a really cool new feature too, whilst cutting server load too boot. ?

You could walk in your front door in the most dreaded mainlaind lagzone, and bam 60fps with nothing outside lagging your viewer or the server.  And... perhaps that mainland wouldnt be so laggy if all those prims and mesh laden interiors were just not there.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[Fionalein]

2 minutes ago, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

You could walk in your front door in the most dreaded mainlaind lagzone, and bam...

... you're logged out due to TP fail...

... yeah I see the benefits... NOT!

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

8 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

... you're logged out due to TP fail...

... yeah I see the benefits... NOT!

Cant say tp fail is much of a thing anymore, at least not for me in many many years, or see any reason why we would use the TP system for this, id prefer not to.

Edited September 17, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

Exactly, SL needs to work with its own unique paradigm of course, and what I am suggesting would be a massive performance improvement for everyone, and users would see it as a really cool new feature too, whilst cutting server load too boot. ?

You could walk in your front door in the most dreaded mainlaind lagzone, and bam 60fps with nothing outside lagging your viewer or the server.  And... perhaps that mainland wouldnt be so laggy if all those prims and mesh laden interiors were just not there.

Second Life's own unique paradigm is that everything exists as a unique entity in a single "world." What you are describing is a very good idea for another environment and is exactly what I'd propose for when a Sansar-like environment has things like apartments, but in Second Life it would require rebuilding assumptions all over the place. A cloud-based Second Life may allow instancing like that, but it would then completely disrupt the existing financial system. You're basically saying "Horses would be faster if they were motorcycles."

[Phil Deakins]

If I've understood it right, Sansar is the system.

[MoiraKathleen]

9 hours ago, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

Instanced interior cells - these can be infinitely useful, folks use skyboxes to do it now, but that creates a lot of totally wasted load on the server and client when assets and such load from surrounding skyboxes, plus skyboxes look crazy all over.  Why not cleanly put them in their own closed off space blocking out everything else not related to the scene?

You are correct in that some people use skyboxes to do this now, and there are some people that do it very well.  It doesn't appeal to me though, especially when it's described as "their own closed off space blocking everything else not related to the scene".    I don't want to feel as if I'm boxed in some room somewhere.  Even living in a skybox home, as they currently exist, doesn't appeal to me - for the same reason.  Even in a skybox designed to make it look like you are in the middle of a larger space, I still feel boxed in because I know that the larger view doesn't really exist.  Your idea would be fine for someplace starting out as a new virtual world experience, but it seems,  to me,  like too big of a change to be made here.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

If I've understood it right, Sansar is the system.

Well then, we should advise the OP to go over to Sansar, where they can use instancing and be happy!

[animats]

I'd like to see mainland skyboxes moved to a Skybox Continent, to get them out of the way.

This would be a good use for Gaeta 1, the Useless Continent. Plenty of cheap abandoned land there. LL could offer a parcel swap deal with a moving service.

[Love Zhaoying]

Hmm.. maybe SSP (new land) means “super skybox program”.

[Qie Niangao]

We have parcel-scope visibility restrictions on avatars and the objects on which they're seated, and with EEP we're soon to have (official) Windlight layers over a parcel. Maybe we could have the option of "rez-restricted" layers, so outside the parcel you wouldn't see stuff rezzed at that height over the parcel.

Maybe the optionally un-rezzed range should be the same for all parcels -- like 2K-3K -- so that on other layers you'd get the normal continuity of experience.

[MoiraKathleen]

1 hour ago, animats said:

I'd like to see mainland skyboxes moved to a Skybox Continent, to get them out of the way.

This would be a good use for Gaeta 1, the Useless Continent. Plenty of cheap abandoned land there. LL could offer a parcel swap deal with a moving service.

To get them out of the way of what?  And are you referring to individual skyboxes or platforms over an individual's parcel, or are you talking about the rental businesses that have multiple full-region platforms over one region?  What is this animosity about skyboxes on other people's parcels?

Sometimes, if you live on the ground level (and have a fully-landscaped parcel) it's nice to have a platform higher up above your parcel where you have room to build or open boxes, etc.  It's also nice to have a platform or skybox up high where you can have more privacy for changing or work on shapes.  Sometimes it nice, when you like different houses, and you have the prims and space available, to put different houses up on different platforms to have more variety and get more use out of things that would ordinarily be stuck in inventory.  (When I had mainland parcels previously, I used to have a floating island that was furnished and decorated in a medieval fantasy theme).  People may have a store and a house on the same parcel (1on ground level, 1 in the sky). 

There are a lot of good reasons why people may want to have skyboxes over their mainland ground level. I doubt that Gaeta 1 is large enough to hold everyone who has skyboxes and allow them to maintain the parcel size they currently have.  

[Qie Niangao]

26 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

What is this animosity about skyboxes on other people's parcels?

I don't really understand that either, although it does seem to me that skyboxes generally don't relate to other builds, in contrast to the way (good) ground-level building is always all about integrating with the terrain and the contents of abutting parcels. That's why I think a mutually invisible skybox level would make sense.

Also, any skybox below 1000m should be subject to aggressive bit-rot, with random hunks delinking, turning physical, and plummeting to the ground in a ball of flame. Not so much out of animosity but for the entertainment value.

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

I dont think we need to over complicate things, this would be more of a tool that would be used by those who want it, but I would encourage it for skyboxes, and interior cells that have zero point rendering in the main realm.  If people still want to they can, no big deal, its all about options and flexibility, and giving us an option to considerably reduce lag is a great thing indeed.  And ill say it again, people are already doing this with skyboxes, except for the rare occasions that someone really wants to do a floating sky build, all that other garbled menagerie could be totally obfuscated.  The usefulness, speed, and enjoyment will increase tenfold both in the zones and out of them.  Most especially on the ground level, and ut most on crowded Mainland areas.

I think its best if tied to the parcel, SIM, and their respective prim limits, but it would be nice to give some extra prims for obscured zones as they're lighter to the surrounding population, they rarely if ever see them or load them.  Of course all the other normal server loads and issues will still be a thing and thus keeping it tied to the land, as is now, is best.  My idea earlier about instanced external servers is really another convo all together, and it is coming to SL, you betcha!?

The more I think about it id love to have this!  An Occlusion Prim that blacks out an area and gives you an equally sized internal totally occluded and obscured (high performance) with its own lighting and camera positioning, its how games do immersion, bringing you deeper into the spaces and scene, not simply camming the whole sim and picking your nose lol!  The main reason I want this is for making adventures and games in SL that perform really well and need these sorts of simple gaming techniques to give the end user that excitement at good FPS.

The bonus is anyone could use this in any manner of ways that they can imagine, or not at all, but the main point is performance, and immersion.

PS: I've played Sansar and I like it but I like SL a whole lot more, they're really two different things completely.

 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[Klytyna]

On 17 September 2018 at 8:18 AM, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

folks use skyboxes to do it now, but that creates a lot of totally wasted load on the server and client when assets and such load from surrounding skyboxes, plus skyboxes look crazy all over.  Why not cleanly put them in their own closed off space blocking out everything else not related to the scene?

So basically, you hate skyboxes and want them banished to separate mini-sim skybox gulags FAR from the Madlands...

On 17 September 2018 at 8:30 AM, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

what I am suggesting would be a massive performance improvement for everyone, and users would see it as a really cool new feature too, whilst cutting server load too boot.

What a pile of tech-illiterate SL-Fossil-Noob BS...

First of all, LL would need to provide the segregated Mini-sims, for the banished skyboxes, and they would have to provide those basically, FREE, because you can imagine the customer outrage when they are told that paying tier on a 1/4 region doesn't include their 150 prim skybox.

Then theres the whole mess of MOVING peoples avataras from the original region to the mini-skybox-gulag region, and tepelorts in and out of regions are a noticable part of laggy sim performance.

On 17 September 2018 at 8:30 AM, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

You could walk in your front door in the most dreaded mainlaind lagzone, and bam

On 17 September 2018 at 8:33 AM, Fionalein said:

... you're logged out due to TP fail...

... yeah I see the benefits... NOT!

Fionalein said it all really... Teleporting out of super laggy sims can frequently cause TP fail, with logouts, hell on some sims you can't even TRY and tp out, as you'll get a message telling you the server is unable to comply due to lag.

On 17 September 2018 at 8:35 AM, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

or see any reason why we would use the TP system for this, id prefer not to.

In order to relocate an avatar from the Madlands Lag Ghetto "Self Entitled Asshats" to the lag free skybox gulag, you have... Wait for it, can you guess?

Teleport them... There IS NO OTHER system to move avatars from one region to another.

9 hours ago, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

I dont think we need to over complicate things, this would be more of a tool

"Dear LL, I'm a self-important, self-entitled tech-illiterate Madlander, and for Giftmass I would like...

MOAR prims for FREE, and all those skyboxes destroyed, and everyone forced to live in NICE houses on the ground, that complement MY LEET SL-Fossil prim build, and LESS lag, somehow, despite forcing everyone to live in the same crowded 50 m high ground based layer, except clever LEET people like me who can have a private skybox on a FREE mini sim, and... and... I want a PONY!"

...Yup that certainly sounds like a "tool" to me...

...

And let's close with an answer to a question...

18 hours ago, moirakathleen said:

What is this animosity about skyboxes on other people's parcels?

The Messiah-Noob of Kama City HATES skyboxes, because...

1. It discourages people from living at ground level in Kama City and joining in the immersive Urban Street-Thug Wannabe RP of the Kama City Chapter of the Sons of Stupidity Outlaw MC...

2. He's still sore about the fact that when he was 5 weeks old, and wandered around Zindra randomly IM-Spamming people 2 km up in their skyboxes, they simply muted him and ejected him from their parcels without talking to him let alone engaging in any immersive urban street thug wannabe RP, which is why he publically accused the ENTIRE population of Zindra of being "dummy avatars and npcs"...

That's why he constantly calls for the elimination of skyboxes, and the covering of as much of the Madlands as possible with copies of the Kama City Prim-waste. Check the threads hes started on the subject, they really are funny, in a pathetic way.
 

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

18 hours ago, Klytyna said:

So basically, you hate skyboxes and want them banished to separate mini-sim skybox gulags FAR from the Madlands... 

No, it has nothing to do with like or dislike, I have skyboxes and I love them personally, but im not trying to have a personal convo here...

18 hours ago, Klytyna said:

First of all, LL would need to provide the segregated Mini-sims, for the banished skyboxes, and they would have to provide those basically, FREE, because you can imagine the customer outrage when they are told that paying tier on a 1/4 region doesn't include their 150 prim skybox.

Then theres the whole mess of MOVING peoples avataras from the original region to the mini-skybox-gulag region, and tepelorts in and out of regions are a noticable part of laggy sim performance.

Segregated mini sims?  Are you on the right discussion?  I clearly said on several occasions what I am speaking of, and it has absolutely nothing to do with your remarks...

18 hours ago, Klytyna said:

...Yup that certainly sounds like a "tool" to me...

...

And let's close with an answer to a question...

Now you're just being a nasty *****, and for no damn reason lol, the entire frame of what you said is a false premise from the start... and its actually hilarious because you have completely taken what I said out of context, all in order to actually be what it is you're attempting to project on to me... now.... slither back to your snake pit with that venom.. I am not at all interested in such a discussion.  I am here to talk about a feature I think is interesting, NOT to make demands, or cast judgment on other, and most especially not to have a pissing contest with angry people.

[Fionalein]

Just now, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

No, it has nothing to do with like or dislike, I have skyboxes and I love them personally, but im not trying to have a personal convo here...

ROFL, what else do you think you have? Do you really think LL will listen to you and toss over the way SL works? Some people  ...

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

2 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

ROFL, what else do you think you have? Do you really think LL will listen to you and toss over the way SL works? Some people  ...

If I wanted LL to listen, I would have sent them a direct message, or filed a feature request... this is a community discussion forum... lol...

Some have jumped to wild conclusions about something essentially so simple, and that will work in the existing architecture.  The main performance difference is that things you don't see will not load.  The big feature is it adds an interesting tool & inner-space for those who would want it in their builds. 

Its all tied to the existing SIM and all its rules and regulations, unless LL feels more generous to give extra prim in hidden zones due to performance gains.  Theres not much to be concerned with all that, I only mentioned the prims because it fits logically in the arc of progress, since LL is always looking for reasons to offer more prims and attachment points, etc,  as they land more performance initiatives.

 

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

An additional variation on a theme with this is an occlusion plane, similar but differently useful, the main commonality and benefit is the gain of performance. 

These two occlusion features may not be useful or necessary in all builds, but it could be extremely useful for gaming sims, event sims, people trying to VR in SL, screen archers, any that are trying to get performance & immersion high as is attainable.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

Geesh. people getting defensive and worried, I am not here to complain and troll.  I am a long time resident and my remarks are intended as constructive, some people would rather complain about performance and play a blame game, we all know its not that simple, SL is a complex beast with a trillion variables to consider.  My mind goes towards solutions rather than being caught up in the drama.  Oh, and I speak my mind freely, I will not be cowered away by some negative nancy. 

There will be occlusion thingies!  MMGA!  Make Mainland Great Again! ?

Edited September 19, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne