SL 2022 ROADMAP

[asteriddle]

On 12/24/2021 at 1:02 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

Improved materials and terrain

please sl........ give us a terrain undo button

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

2 minutes ago, asteriddle said:

please sl........ give us a terrain undo button

I'd trade a terrain undo button for voxel based terrain so we could finally create cave systems, etc. (but obviously voxel terrain AND an undo button would be even better!)

[Coffee Pancake]

Wouldn't kick voxels out of bed.

[Lokiande]

On 12/24/2021 at 12:35 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

This is my impression too ..

SL is going to find it hard to compete with VR based offerings which provide far more fluid avatar movements and engaging experience, is very stilted by comparison.

Just rolling up with a mobile app a decade too late without advancing the platform and it's capabilities is .. well ...

Also, unless LL is going to reintroduce the Teen Grid, I really don't see the supposed "reaching out to younger audiences" going well at all.

By all means make a mobile app if you can, LL. But realize that your playerbase is adults, doing adult things, who will very likely throw a *****fit if/when actual children get access to SL. Hell I was witness to a sim owner that banned and reported an account when the user revealed themselves to be a child, because they did not want their head to be on the chopping block if anyone else did or said something inappropriate.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Lokiande said:

Also, unless LL is going to reintroduce the Teen Grid, I really don't see the supposed "reaching out to younger audiences" going well at all.

By all means make a mobile app if you can, LL. But realize that your playerbase is adults, doing adult things, who will very likely throw a *****fit if/when actual children get access to SL. Hell I was witness to a sim owner that banned and reported an account when the user revealed themselves to be a child, because they did not want their head to be on the chopping block if anyone else did or said something inappropriate.

For SL, younger doesn't automatically mean kids .. more like, late teens on the very low end of the bell curve. SL isn't fun for actual children.

And as a platform, we absolutely need to be attracting people younger relative to the general population age. They are worth their weight in gold in virtually every way that matters.

That's best done by extending the platform capabilities to compete with online spaces that are engaging to that audience, I don't think this is something marketing can solve on it's own.

 

At the end of the day, keeping adult spaces safe for adults is going to be our responsibility. The tried and true method of actually getting to know each other is the best protection we have.

[Ardy Lay]

14 minutes ago, Lokiande said:

Also, unless LL is going to reintroduce the Teen Grid, I really don't see the supposed "reaching out to younger audiences" going well at all.

By all means make a mobile app if you can, LL. But realize that your playerbase is adults, doing adult things, who will very likely throw a *****fit if/when actual children get access to SL. Hell I was witness to a sim owner that banned and reported an account when the user revealed themselves to be a child, because they did not want their head to be on the chopping block if anyone else did or said something inappropriate.

I do not pretend to know your RL age but I would like to add the "younger is relative".  Younger than you might indeed be too young for Second Life, as it is.  Younger than me gives room for several decades of age range to be interested without drawing children into Second Life.  If Linden Lab used the word "younger" they might have been referring to younger than the median resident age, however they may have come up with such an age.

[ChinRey]

13 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I'd trade a terrain undo button for voxel based terrain so we could finally create cave systems, etc.

Who says you can't create cave systems in SL? There are several of them already and even though they tend to be rather prim heavy, they don't have to be. All you need to do is make a simple mesh ground and lower the system ground underneath it to make room for the cave.

Here's a quick-and-dirty mockup:

This patch of mesh ground covers almost an entire SL size sim and it's only 171 tris which means less than 10 LI. The little dot I've encircled by the cave entrance is my avatar to give you an idea of the scale. The ground obviously need a special baked texture to blend in better but as I said, this is just a quick-and-dirty mockup. Add another 100-200 LI for the cave system itself (for an entire sim that is) and there you are.

 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

31 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Who says you can't create cave systems in SL? There are several of them already and even though they tend to be rather prim heavy, they don't have to be. All you need to do is make a simple mesh ground and lower the system ground underneath it to make room for the cave.

Here's a quick-and-dirty mockup:

This patch of mesh ground covers almost an entire SL size sim and it's only 171 tris which means less than 10 LI. The little dot I've encircled by the cave entrance is my avatar to give you an idea of the scale. The ground obviously need a special baked texture to blend in better but as I said, this is just a quick-and-dirty mockup. Add another 100-200 LI for the cave system itself (for an entire sim that is) and there you are.

 

Sure you can create cave systems and other geographical features using mesh, but it requires at least some rudimentary knowledge of Blender or a similar 3D app, and even with careful texture mapping and terraforming of the land itself you're still going to end up with visible "seams" where the change in surface normals between the mesh and the land cause variations in lighting. 

If you compare that to a voxel based terrain system and "in world" terraforming tools (such as the ones that were implemented in Landmark) it's pretty clear that voxels would be a huge improvement.

 

[Furholio]

btw whats with the Blend Shapes that were discussed in a CCUG MEETING not long ago? woundn't that be the next big thing?

[Sammy Huntsman]

I would also like to see more than 1 partner line. I think 2 or 3 would be awesome.

[animats]

3 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Who says you can't create cave systems in SL?

Visit Mount Campion National Forest. Explore the caves. Bring a lamp.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

3 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I would also like to see more than 1 partner line. I think 2 or 3 would be awesome.

Utah would like to say thank you.

[Coffee Pancake]

11 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Utah would like to say thank you.

Partnership is only analogous to monogamous marriage, it's used to represent a far wider range of personal connections

[Ardy Lay]

20 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Sure you can create cave systems and other geographical features using mesh, but it requires at least some rudimentary knowledge of Blender or a similar 3D app, and even with careful texture mapping and terraforming of the land itself you're still going to end up with visible "seams" where the change in surface normals between the mesh and the land cause variations in lighting. 

If you compare that to a voxel based terrain system and "in world" terraforming tools (such as the ones that were implemented in Landmark) it's pretty clear that voxels would be a huge improvement.

 

That's a bad example if you don't like seams.  That's all seam.  The textures used appear to be attempting to hide the seams and are doing okay at it.  Try that again but with a typical ground texture from Second Life.  EEEW.  It would look like plaid ice cream balls packed into a wall.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Ardy Lay

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

3 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

That's a bad example if you are saying seams are bad.  That's all seam.

Not sure what you're referring to.  The video itself is pretty low quality so it's a little hard to make out the terrain textures in it but, due to the nature of voxels, connected shapes are made up of a single continuous surface.  While it's possible to have sharp edges/creases in a voxel-based surface they can easily be smoothed out if desired so you don't get the visible seams caused by differing surface normals.  The only time you would see visible seams on a voxel object is if you intentionally model the object to have sharp edges or if you're using a non-seamless texture.

[Ardy Lay]

3 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Not sure what you're referring to.  The video itself is pretty low quality so it's a little hard to make out the terrain textures in it but, due to the nature of voxels, connected shapes are made up of a single continuous surface.  While it's possible to have sharp edges/creases in a voxel-based surface they can easily be smoothed out if desired so you don't get the visible seams caused by differing surface normals.  The only time you would see visible seams on a voxel object is if you intentionally model the object to have sharp edges or if you're using a non-seamless texture.

Then provide a better example.  Nevermind, I browsed a bit and found some much better examples of terraforming in that specific program.  Looks nice, when "painted" after the forming is completed.  During terraforming it does some blending that looks a little odd, but not as odd as attempting the same in Second Life.

[Sailor Vasiliev]

On 12/25/2021 at 1:37 AM, Mr Amore said:

@Candide LeMay Many of these features were under development for years already, they may finally come to fruition in 2022. According to the article we may see the script performance improvements as early as January.

 

Whilst it may only cause me to frown, I can see the 'avatar expressions' being a fun and popular addition for many.

Premium Plus - Are we finally getting 30 second audio files? A second Bellisserian house would be nice too.

Improved materials - If height maps are coming I'm prepared to forgive LL.

 

 

yes! bigger audio uploads, i was all set to create some really immersive FX with music and sound FX, 30seconds of audio files would make that sooo much better and easier to do, even 60 seconds would be better. id happily pay extra for that ability, and texture uploads of 2048x248 too. and a few extra layers for materials would be great!, or at least 1 more that can be universal allowing for a glow texture layer, where only the non transparent parts can glow, or height map! hoot that would be great

 

[animats]

1 hour ago, Sailor Vasiliev said:

bigger audio uploads,

Audio uploads are short so as not to arouse the wrath of the music industry. At 10 seconds, LL doesn't have to check audio against copyright validation systems.

[Nathan Zetkin]

• Premium Plus - a new upgrade option with added features and extras

Charge content creators more money to make things

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

On 12/28/2021 at 9:25 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

Partnership is only analogous to monogamous marriage, it's used to represent a far wider range of personal connections

I live in utah,  trust me, they would say thank you and then ask if you have tithed.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

3 hours ago, Sailor Vasiliev said:

yes! bigger audio uploads, i was all set to create some really immersive FX with music and sound FX, 30seconds of audio files would make that sooo much better and easier to do, even 60 seconds would be better. id happily pay extra for that ability, and texture uploads of 2048x248 too. and a few extra layers for materials would be great!, or at least 1 more that can be universal allowing for a glow texture layer, where only the non transparent parts can glow, or height map! hoot that would be great

 

Sailor, 3080 with 1024x1024 in a busy sim,  it's 6gb of 10gb ram.    we do not need higher resolutions.

[Sammy Huntsman]

I want to see proper LL mesh bodies, that are just as customizable as ones you buy.

That and closed source code, and viewers have to register to get the code. This will deter copybot viewers popping up.

Also fix that dang crash copy bug. It's been how long and LL has not tried to fix that.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

3 hours ago, Sailor Vasiliev said:

a few extra layers for materials would be great!

I'd settle for one extra materials layer and an optional dedicated 32-bit alpha/mask map.  That way we could use lower resolution repeating textures/materials and add decal maps to them.

If they used the alpha channel of the mask map for the base layers transparency and the other three color channels as masks for the diffuse, normal and specular maps on the top materials layer, they could then repurpose the alpha channels of the diffuse maps for each layer to something useful like controlling the strength of the tint effect applied when changing an objects base color (e.g. creating a barrel with a label and having the object base color change the barrel color without tinting the label, and even being able to control the amount the barrel gets tinted in different spots).

Obviously adding a new materials layer would add three additional texture slots to each face of an object plus another one for the mask map, but LL could always take the same approach that they did with the new LI accounting system and have a checkbox in the build menu that enables the extra material layer and incurs an additional LI cost based on the amount of texels used, alpha blending modes, etc. which would not only deter some of the more extreme potential abuse but would also make it easier to implement without impacting existing content.

[Solar Legion]

43 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

That and closed source code, and viewers have to register to get the code. This will deter copybot viewers popping up.

The ship for that sailed a long time ago - no.

Nope, it certainly will not - reverse engineering is a thing and is how it started in the first place, back when Linden Lab actually did have a closed source Viewer.

So uh ... yeah.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I want to see proper LL mesh bodies, that are just as customizable as ones you buy.

That and closed source code, and viewers have to register to get the code. This will deter copybot viewers popping up.

Also fix that dang crash copy bug. It's been how long and LL has not tried to fix that.

deter?  do you not know how this works with a gpu?  if I can see it on my screen,  I can have it very simply,  there are tools to dump what the gpu see's.  even if you closed the viewer source, it will stop nothing.