SLinking around the grid...

[Rowan Amore]

9 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

People's perception of what causes lag and what actually causes lag are two wildly divergent things.

I don't recall anyone complaining specifically about slink feet causing lag or did I miss that, too.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

I feel so wildly out of the loop with all of this. I never heard of a new viewer in production, either. 

As for Slink, though, if all you're needing are shoes, there is no real limit to what you can find. I do wish they made a male feet version with foot states, though. I am still struggling out there!

I do love their male body, though. Shape wise. Y'all are killing me with all this talk of huge muscles. 😂

[Blaise Glendevon]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

I don't recall anyone complaining specifically about slink feet causing lag or did I miss that, too.

I can remember earlier "shoes with feet in" like the -- was it BAX brand shoes? being blamed for lag. But I don't remember SLINK being blamed for lag in my circles. It wouldn't surprise me, though, that some people who didn't know how SL works were complaining about people with brand new avatar embellishments instead of their own settings or equipment. 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

There are many contributing factors to poor performance in SL but the reality is the problem isn't just the content or the creators or the users, it's something far more fundamental.

LLs entire business model is providing people the ability to host content of their choosing by selling them small pieces of a shared environment and, similarly, allowing them to attach content to their avatar.

If you hired a hundred professional game developers and tasked them with creating the most efficient, well-optimized content they could, and then hired numerous experienced level designers and gave them each a tiny section of a game level and allowed them to choose between any of the thousands of assets with no direction other than "make something really cool looking" and no collaboration between each other, the resulting game level would probably perform about as well as the average heavily populated mainland sim (similarly hire several character designers and give them free reign to add as many assets to a character model as they like and then put 40 of those characters in the same environment and the resulting performance will be similar to a crowded SL event).

It's not that properly optimized content isn't preferable, but it still won't "fix lag".

[Nalates Urriah]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

What new viewer?   Did I miss a memo?

No. Elise doesn't make a distinction between what is a viewer feature and what is a back-end or system capability.

--------------------------

The idea that someone is going to make a billion poly body and a viewer is needed for that is simply not understanding how things work in SL.

The idea that porn production people in SL want a better body doesn't fit with what I observe. Photos from people into the porn seem way more interested in the pixel sex than the visual image. SL porn videos are horrible. Still images are only marginally less horrible.

I doubt the number of people engaging in SL pixel sex and the number buying nice bodies has little if any direct correlation. I suspect a significant number of guys only buy what they need to improve their chances.

[Rowan Amore]

9 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I can remember earlier "shoes with feet in" like the -- was it BAX brand shoes? being blamed for lag. But I don't remember SLINK being blamed for lag in my circles. It wouldn't surprise me, though, that some people who didn't know how SL works were complaining about people with brand new avatar embellishments instead of their own settings or equipment. 

Stiletto Moody comes to mind when I think 'feet' in shoes.   Ah, memories.

[EliseAnne85]

13 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I can remember earlier "shoes with feet in" like the -- was it BAX brand shoes? being blamed for lag. But I don't remember SLINK being blamed for lag in my circles. It wouldn't surprise me, though, that some people who didn't know how SL works were complaining about people with brand new avatar embellishments instead of their own settings or equipment. 

The biggest clubs in SL did complain about the Slink feet once just about everybody had them.  Complained about the flexi hair too.  I remember the days of flexi hair and Slink feet and my performance of SL was unchanged.  It ran 30, 40, 50 and up Classic avatars just fine.  I was, however, an early switcher from dial-up to cable within a few months of it's release even tho the price jump was about 30 dollars or higher a month at that time from dial-up.  My husband was a generous person and I thank him for that.

Perhaps many people still had dial-up at that time.  I just don't know exactly as it was quite a long time ago.

Edited November 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Nalates Urriah]

12 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I can remember earlier "shoes with feet in" like the -- was it BAX brand shoes? being blamed for lag. But I don't remember SLINK being blamed for lag in my circles. It wouldn't surprise me, though, that some people who didn't know how SL works were complaining about people with brand new avatar embellishments instead of their own settings or equipment. 

I remember when I first saw Sculpty Feet built into the shoes and they came with Invisa-prims. That was long before I saw the Slink feet.

Prior to BOM clubs were limiting script load to reduce lag. Bodies and heads were loading the system to the point it was difficult to move. The Lab's improvements, especially BOM, have greatly reduced those problems.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

48 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

No, it wasn't. It was a user proposal, especially in how a way was developed to hide the system body while still having a usable skin bake.

I said LL-led, although i can see why you'd read "from LL" as implying that it was their idea. That was poorly expressed on my part. But the actual development, which required significant changes to the platform's code, was, of necessity from LL.

I am not advocating that LL should take over technological changes to the exclusion of user-generated innovation. That would be foolish. What I've argued is that LL should work with creators to coordinate and standardize (to a reasonable degree) approaches.

[Modulated]

17 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I remember when I first saw Sculpty Feet built into the shoes and they came with Invisa-prims. That was long before I saw the Slink feet.

Prior to BOM clubs were limiting script load to reduce lag. Bodies and heads were loading the system to the point it was difficult to move. The Lab's improvements, especially BOM, have greatly reduced those problems.

Slink also had their own sculpty tip toe feet.

[Rowan Amore]

Now don't we all miss having to match your foot color to your body color?  😂🤣

[EliseAnne85]

45 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

No. Elise doesn't make a distinction between what is a viewer feature and what is a back-end or system capability.

--------------------------

The idea that someone is going to make a billion poly body and a viewer is needed for that is simply not understanding how things work in SL.

The idea that porn production people in SL want a better body doesn't fit with what I observe. Photos from people into the porn seem way more interested in the pixel sex than the visual image. SL porn videos are horrible. Still images are only marginally less horrible.

I doubt the number of people engaging in SL pixel sex and the number buying nice bodies has little if any direct correlation. I suspect a significant number of guys only buy what they need to improve their chances.

Oh, ok...new editor system.  I thought they'd probably change other things too which to me is like a new system/new viewer.

With PBR and reflections and light moving realistically and mirrors even work, I'd think virtual porn could eventually replace the real stuff.  

Some of the things made today are so realistic, they look like someone took a 360 degree camera of a real object and then made it 3D.  I'd suppose avatars could look that realistic sooner or later.  Porn is big business.  I just think that one day machinemas and avatars will replace the real stuff and it will be money driven rather than technology driven of what will work for SL.   

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

23 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

With PBR and reflections and light moving realistically and mirrors even work, I'd think virtual porn could eventually replace the real stuff.  

Look at some of the newer releases on Daz3D if you'd like to see how avatars online could look in a decade or so.

And yeah.....they would never admit it but Daz3D is mostly supported by amateurs making teh pron.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

It already exists alongside it. Low chance it's replacing anything. 

Anyhoo, before the thread gets moved to the adult section, I'll hop back on topic -

Slink's new, more realistic (feature-wise - like the animated feet) body got so little traction. I didn't really like it myself, but I do like the direction they were going with animated foot states. The whole thing, though, is it would require shoes to do the same sort of thing, right? Which might be why that never caught on.

Speaking of which - were there ever any shoes created that can animate along with their feet? I'd love to see them if so.

 

[Rowan Amore]

23 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Porn is big business

Overall, yes it is.  Sex, on the other hand, is big business in SL not porn and has been since way before mesh avatars.   It's about the animations not the minutia of the avatar.  Even the animations are sub par compared to sites that are strictly virtual porn.     

[EliseAnne85]

5 minutes ago, AnnabelleApocalypse said:

Look at some of the newer releases on Daz3D if you'd like to see how avatars online could look in a decade or so.

I've seen some avatars that look exactly like a human; and, again, like someone took a 360-degree camera and photographed a real person and then duplicated it into a 3D avatar.  I don't know anything about where someone attempts to run them though.  

Edited November 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

15 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I've seen some avatars that look exactly like a human; and, again, like someone took a 360-degree camera and photographed a real person and then duplicated it into a 3D avatar.  I don't know anything about where someone attempts to run them though.  

As a noob who knows virtually nothing - a lot of realism is brought about by lighting and rendering techniques. Things like "sub-surface scattering" and specific rendering engines (in Daz, its NVIDIA Iray). And a whole buttload of polygons.

To put it politely, SL's lighting engine by comparison is lightyears behind. Also being limited to just two types of materials (At the moment) does not help. 

EDIT - the above is HUGELY resource intensive. So at the moment the chances of getting those kind of avis into something like SL or VRChat are virtually nil. Which has nothing to do with the skill of our creators. Just the limitations of a virtual online world. 

Put more than 3 of the above super-real avis on the screen of the average 2022 computer, in real time, and I am sorry to say the only thing that will be exploding is your PC.

Edited November 29, 2022 by AnnabelleApocalypse

[EliseAnne85]

22 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Overall, yes it is.  Sex, on the other hand, is big business in SL not porn and has been since way before mesh avatars.   It's about the animations not the minutia of the avatar.  Even the animations are sub par compared to sites that are strictly virtual porn.     

I don't know anything about virtual porn sites and their animations or whatever they may have.

Me continuing about other stuff, not directed to Rowan.  One thing about the female bodies is the breasts need work.  I tried bodies out for Black Friday but decided to wait because I have many things on my plate.  I thought Perky was okay as far as breasts but did not know if I had to get clothes specific for Perky and did not have the time right now to decide if it was for me to go through all the trouble of specific clothes since I have much on my plate.  Some say Slink has the best body but I've never tried it on so I don't know what the breasts look like compared to others.   

If Slink or anyone could build an add-on, natural breasts would be an improvement, imo.  If it's possible.  

Edited November 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Scylla Rhiadra]

21 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Slink's new, more realistic (feature-wise - like the animated feet) body got so little traction. I didn't really like it myself, but I do like the direction they were going with animated foot states.

I so much wanted to like those bodies.

And boy, did I not. They just looked awful.

[Nalates Urriah]

The 3D art where we see awesome avatars with amazing skin and skin texture is usually NOT made in a real time render. Blender, 3D Max, and other modeling systems can take hours to render a single frame. In SL the system renders a frame every 22ms... if things aren't lagging.

Blender and Max both have features to link their rendering process into a render farm... a situation where multiple computers share the task of render a sequence of frames. Sort of like drawing a picture on each page and then flipping pages to see an animation.

While Slink did try to move us in the direction of better performance and ultimately better looking avatars, that does not seem to be working. Unfortunately a large part of the problem is Slink's departure from legacy compatibility. What do you mean I gotta get all new clothes and make up?

I think this illustrates why the Lab has always made legacy compatibility a major factor in their development criteria.

-----------------------

I've played with C&C. I have a look for my avatar that I like. So, I tried to use my 'shape' asset with the body. That was a mistake. I could never get a decent shape. When I started with the default shape supplied with the body, I was able to make what I wanted. So my opinion is it is very easy to make a bad looking body with C&C.

The odd way shape sliders work with the C&C body makes problems for people and turns them off. Understandable. This is a place where other tech excellence just doesn't matter.

Most bodies can have breasts shaped to whatever one wants. So whether one wants very perky or the more natural look, its possible. If there isn't enough adjustment in the body, Birth makes Deformers that allow one to go to extremes... and add not-so-lady-like animations and jiggles.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Nalates Urriah

[Ayashe Ninetails]

17 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I so much wanted to like those bodies.

And boy, did I not. They just looked awful.

Big same.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Anyhoo, before the thread gets moved to the adult section, I'll hop back on topic -

This forum is closed and I thought it was ADULT.  I will keep to general audience discussion in the future as I did not know we had to be general audience at all times except in the Adult area.

[Nalates Urriah]

1 minute ago, EliseAnne85 said:

This forum is closed and I thought it was ADULT.  I will keep to general audience discussion in the future as I did not know we had to be general audience at all times except in the Adult area.

This one of those grey areas. Adult conversation is pretty much acceptable anywhere in the forum, provided it is not lewd, raunchy, or explicit.

[Ernst Osterham]

Why can’t both alpha cuts and bom alpha masks coexist?

It wouldn’t be difficult for body makers to include two versions - one with alpha cuts and bom and one “low lag” bom only, no onionskins version.  Bonus points would be if these are modifiable to further customize as needed.  Basically what belleza’s last old body update did.

I used slink M on three avs until just recently and making alpha masks WAS a pain.  Even with experience with PS and SL creation for years it was an annoying chore.  But in terms of having a low lag av that was simple to dress with saves outfits it couldn’t be beaten.

Alpha cuts do have one small performance advantage now too, I believe, in that alpha cut geometry seems to boost fps in a way that alpha masked does not.  It’s like SL treated a masked body as rendering the entire body even if it’s all masked off except the head and hands, etc.  Alpha cut bodies seem to get treated as only rendering the actually visible cuts.

 

 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 11/23/2022 at 5:29 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

But this change seemingly happened overnight.

As far as I know, this seemed to happen seemingly overnight 4 to 5 years ago. The hands and feet even 6 or 7. I'm wondering, why are you are asking about it at the end of 2022 when Slink seems to be but a memory in SL?