Why Is In-World Drag-and-Drop Editing of Meshes Not Possible?

[Jennifer Boyle]

Meshes, like all other digital things, are just collections of numbers stored in memory or files, that are interpreted by programs according to rules to represent 3D objects. Drag-and-drop editing consists of a program interpreting certain user inputs as making certain changes in numbers in memory. Therefore, it seems that drag-and-drop editing of meshes should be possible, but it's not.

What am I missing?

Edited December 3, 2022 by Jennifer Boyle

[Gabriele Graves]

There are no technical reasons preventing LL from implementing a simple mesh editor into SL.  So yes, it is possible.  How likely though, that's a whole different thing.

[OptimoMaximo]

On 12/3/2022 at 9:28 PM, Gabriele Graves said:

There are no technical reasons preventing LL from implementing a simple mesh editor into SL.  So yes, it is possible.  How likely though, that's a whole different thing.

There are, instead, technical reason for this feature to not be feasible, although it is not a matter of mesh per se, but rather how the assets are being stored and distributed.

So, first off, the file format is not text based, it's binary and it's based on a 3d cubic grid to encode the vertex positions. This part is not impossible, but its quite difficult to implement right, especially for the vertex normals part. The other part that makes it difficult is the fact that being binary and having a fixed max size, an edited version would require a separate, new, asset saved. Which leads to the next problem.

The asset is being stored centrally, and every copy is an instance of the original. The copy gets a new uuid as a "top layer" piece of data, but internally it still is the originally uploaded asset, with its own uuid assigned at the time of upload. This means that any change on, say, your copy, actually should affect everyone who got the same asset (the reason why it would need a new copy being stored as a new asset), and a shared layer of edits under someone's name isn't possible, since the file size limit is 8 megabytes. Imagine one or more layers of edits per person on an asset, for example, like the maitreya body... 

It apparently is just your copy in your inventory, but it actually isn't.

[animats]

Something I've suggested before - an in-world clothing customizer. Someone in the clothing biz could do this.

Start with one of those web sites for making T-shirts. There are lots of those - Canva, Pixart, etc. Display a web page with the T-shirt designer in an in-world kiosk. The user uses the templates, text generator, and tools there to make the T-shirt they want. When they have what they want, they pay the kiosk, at least L$10 to cover the upload fee. The kiosk then contacts an external server, fetches the new artwork, rearranges it to fit an SL T-shirt template, and passes that to an SL bot which uploads the image, sticks it on a T-shirt blank, and delivers the new T-shirt to the user in world, ready to wear.

Plus you can offer the user the option to order a physical copy of the T-shirt for RL wear.

[Rowan Amore]

8 hours ago, animats said:

Something I've suggested before - an in-world clothing customizer. Someone in the clothing biz could do this.

Start with one of those web sites for making T-shirts. There are lots of those - Canva, Pixart, etc. Display a web page with the T-shirt designer in an in-world kiosk. The user uses the templates, text generator, and tools there to make the T-shirt they want. When they have what they want, they pay the kiosk, at least L$10 to cover the upload fee. The kiosk then contacts an external server, fetches the new artwork, rearranges it to fit an SL T-shirt template, and passes that to an SL bot which uploads the image, sticks it on a T-shirt blank, and delivers the new T-shirt to the user in world, ready to wear.

Plus you can offer the user the option to order a physical copy of the T-shirt for RL wear.

You can already buy t-shirts that give you the instructions to put whatever graphics you want on them.  Like this one...

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Bowtique-Rolled-Sleeve-Tee-MaitreyaLegacy-HUD-Fatpack/22652156

They've been around for awhile now.

[animats]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

You can already buy t-shirts that give you the instructions to put whatever graphics you want on them.  Like this one...

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Bowtique-Rolled-Sleeve-Tee-MaitreyaLegacy-HUD-Fatpack/22652156

They've been around for awhile now.

Nice. A bit expensive for new users, though.

[OptimoMaximo]

On 12/23/2022 at 6:23 PM, animats said:

Something I've suggested before - an in-world clothing customizer. Someone in the clothing biz could do this.

Start with one of those web sites for making T-shirts. There are lots of those - Canva, Pixart, etc. Display a web page with the T-shirt designer in an in-world kiosk. The user uses the templates, text generator, and tools there to make the T-shirt they want. When they have what they want, they pay the kiosk, at least L$10 to cover the upload fee. The kiosk then contacts an external server, fetches the new artwork, rearranges it to fit an SL T-shirt template, and passes that to an SL bot which uploads the image, sticks it on a T-shirt blank, and delivers the new T-shirt to the user in world, ready to wear.

Plus you can offer the user the option to order a physical copy of the T-shirt for RL wear.

Sorry, Animats, but how is your comment related to this topic?

The OP was talking about modifying an existing mesh piece of clothing

Edited December 25, 2022 by OptimoMaximo

[sirhc DeSantis]

15 hours ago, animats said:

Nice. A bit expensive for new users, though.

I dunno. I spent more as a noob on template ripoffs before I found the Sojourner guide. Probably 4 times at least. So eternal noob me has a few mesh kits and a personal tee is only 10 L away. Do see your point in a way