Newbie (couple) wants to know ... why are hugs and kisses so darn hard?

[Nalates Urriah]

16 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

 Let me ask you a related question that I have long wondered about. We have been told many times that the reason that SL's performance is not better is that all of the content is dynamic and the system must constantly update the data it uses for rendering. Most of the content that I am routinely around is almost static. Most of the non-avatar content in the sim where I  live is structures and furniture, much of which hasn't changed for months or years. I have wondered why locked objects cannot be flagged and  checked much less frequently than others, saving a lot of resources. I visualize the system intentionally taking several (10-30?) seconds to unlock an object and the system examining it at the same interval instead of multiple times per second. Locking objects could be incentivized by giving an LI reduction for locked objects, if just having better performance wasn't enough incentive. My BF is a professional programmer, and he thinks such a system is feasible and should help.

Sometimes, when I logon in my own house, where I spend at least half my time, textures on objects that have not changed for years take as long as a minute to load. Other times it's really fast. I have a very fast connection, powerful CPU and graphics card, lots of RAM, and OS, programs, cache, and data all on SSDs, and cache is at maximum permitted size. Why is there such variation? What is going on to make it so slow sometimes? It's been considerably better the last several weeks. I've wondered if the migration to the cloud had something to do with that.

I think the way you are thinking of dynamic is different than what people meant. SL is slow for multiple reasons. The primary one that makes it different than most games is the amount of the data behind SL. Most games down load as 2 to 8 GB of data once when you first get the game. From that point on the game takes the data from your local storage device (hard disk). SL doesn't as the game data here is measured in hundreds of terabytes (years ago they did a database clean up and got it down to 200+ terabytes. Assume it has grown to say 300 terabytes. That would take over 2-years to download on a 50Mbps connection.) No one's home computer has storage in the hundreds of terabytes.

So, when we arrive in a new region our system downloads the stuff it needs to render. That could be considered dynamic and while the item may be static within SL, not moving it still had to come to your computer.

Objects that haven't changed for years still have to be downloaded. It may occur to you that at some point your computer will fill up as you pass through new regions. It doesn't as the viewer limits your local SL data to 10 GB. The viewer uses a 10GB cache (max and possibly smaller depending on your settings). The oldest stuff gets purged so the newer or currently needed stuff can fit. Often used stuff is supposed to stay in the cache. There is even a 'debug' panel (Ctrl-Shift-3 its is an on/off toggle) you can bring up to see how well your cache is working... which as you have noticed with your home, that you see every day, isn't working that well. The Lindens know this and residents have been complaining about it for years.

There is a project to rebuild the SL cache and make it BETTER. But, as the current Lindens dug into the caching code they found it was tightly integrated with into other parts of the system. Remember. SL started being written before multi-threading (parallel processing) was such a thing and multi-core CPUs were rare. So we have something that works well enough, just not well. So, cache rewrite is a big project with apparently a medium to low priority. Means lots of stuff is considered more important and comes before it, like the current uplift.

The move to the cloud is not likely a factor, except as any part of system gets rewritten they often untangle problems parts of the code to make future work easier. The caching code is viewer side and likely not involved in the uplift.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

On 10/29/2020 at 1:41 PM, Gatogateau said:

Here's another alternative: Embrace (as it were) the weird and hilarious borkeness of trying to hug in SL.

Trying to hug, kiss, pounce hug, etc. other people and vice versa has resulted in some of the deepest, longest... LAUGHING (you pervs, laughing!) in my 11+ years in SL.

It ain't never gonna work well, at least as I think you're wanting it to, because of all of the reasons mentioned above. Enjoy the madness.

I remember many times trying to hug my man in SL and when getting close his avi would bounce away. One time causing him to bounce off a sky platform and go splut on the land below! 🤣

[Anuuubis]

15 hours ago, Candide LeMay said:

It's not only possible but was already in the works over a decade ago http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Puppeteering

We don't have it because LL management doesn't see the value of avatars actually interacting with each other or the environment.

That's so baffling, imo. Why create a virtual world entirely hinging on users interacting with each other or the environment, only to... not give functions TO interact with each other or the environment? It's like if someone were to make a first person shooter game and put it out on the market without functional weapon mechanics (and not patching them in for decades).

[rasterscan]

Been trying to hold hands and walk since 2003. Its a toughie. However simple hugs n kisses are catered for perfectly with the hug kiss freebie hud - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Meikes-Hug-Kiss-202/9714182

[Arielle Popstar]

On 10/31/2020 at 5:55 AM, Candide LeMay said:

It's not only possible but was already in the works over a decade ago http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Puppeteering

We don't have it because LL management doesn't see the value of avatars actually interacting with each other or the environment.

Oh ok, didn't realize that's what it was. I looked into the puppeteering a few years ago wondering why it was shelved. The answer I finally got about it was that they stopped developing it due to a number of commercial animators in S/L who having invested quite a bit in motion capture equipment, kicked up a fuss. The fear being that no-one would buy their animations if the puppeteering was added by default. 

[Lancewae Barrowstone]

On 10/28/2020 at 8:07 AM, TickleKitten said:

Will someone, anyone, tell us the best walk together, holding hands, hugs and kisses animations/hud/method for a couple?

SECRETS TIME:  Using the HUD you can get for Hugs and Kisses, stand casually in front of your mate, bump up against him, but don't struggle at being EXACTLY in front (I'll show you why), and then execute the Hug animation via the HUD, and when your partner accepts the permission popup (or when you accept one) then... AND NOW FOR THE SECRET....!!

>> Go into Mouselook (press the "m" key) and here you can turn your body smoothly and easily and in tiny increments during this animation and get your smacker right onto his!.  Then come out of mouselook (scroll back your mouse scroll wheel) and enjoy.  Your partner can do this too so you meet nicely.  You see this all the time amongst experienced players. They start the hug, it's wrong, then they magically swivel so easily to mesh together, and make a damned near perfect embrace/kiss.  But there is another tip... seen in below comment, about hover....

As for walking I can't answer that one.  Sitting and snuggling, of course, is the right furniture, even rugs.  You can learn to adjust x..y..z... positioning with practice but DON'T forget your hover. Learn your hover!  When sitting to snuggle,  adjust your hover position to "0.00" and see if that gives you the perfect position with your mate.  But she/he may have a hover setting of their own that is different from zero.  So, Okay, just try to adjust your height up or down a bit and see if that doesn't bring you two into unison.  It may not, some furniture is cheap and the animations not so perfect, or someone else has tinkered with the x..y..z.. etc, but these things can often bring fast improvement for you quite easily.  

--Cheerio!