What Would You Like to Remove From Second Life Permanently?

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

1. Seabeds always being no deeper than 0m altitude when default surface water level is at 20m. Why can't we have seabeds that go deeper than 0m? Where are the abysses and deep sea trenches in SL's oceans?!

2. Buildable/rezzable areas only limited to 4096m altitude. Why can't we build/rez higher than 4096m?

3. Void (empty) impassable sim regions around the shorelines of mainland continents. Why can't we move freely around the "empty" perimeters of continents?

4. Why must all the water in a sim region share one equal plane and altitude?  Why can't we have multiple water levels and in differing locations? If land can be made terraformable, then why not water too?

5. Get rid of EEP and bring back Windlight, which was easier, quicker and more flexible than EEP.

6. Linden Lab's dreadful user interface in their current viewer. Replace it with a updated retro LL v1.23 style UI again.

7. Double alpha layer glitching.

8. The "Resident" last name.

9. All resident-owned decorative objects that are deliberately placed inside "Protected Areas" which block right of way passage, including objects which have their root prims inside the objects owners private land parcel.

10. Creators who deliberately create a monopoly with cosmetic mesh products that exclusively use "alternative texture mapping" that is different from the norm, making the accessories sold for the "alternative texture mapped" product impossible to use by people who do not own the "alternative texture mapped" product, thus limiting their choices and access to such accessories, which may also be the only option to be found.

Edited November 22, 2023 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[gwynchisholm]

54 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Oh... I had no idea that dial was there. It's shaper looking the lower you dial that.

That is kinda funny because it is labeled otherwise, i used my linden home for this example beacuse it should be the most basic terrain possible.

Set to 1, by its description this should be more compressed:

Set to 24, by its description this should be less compressed:

Theyre flipped the other way around, the setting is described wrong in firestorm.

Now thats definitely better and i appreciate your own testing here because it exposed why the terrain looked so bad to me. Though the default terrain in many ways i still dont think looks that great. Like its ok, even now without compression it looks much better but it still doesnt really look like legit terrain imo.

[Rowan Amore]

31 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

10. Creators who deliberately create a monopoly with cosmetic mesh products that exclusively use "alternative texture mapping" that is different from the norm, making the accessories sold for the "alternative texture mapped" product impossible to use by people who do not own the "alternative texture mapped" product, thus limiting their access and choice.

The creators didn't create the monopoly.  The users did.  If we hadn't gone along with it, they may have continued to create for the normal mapping.  But we did go along.  Such is life.

[gwynchisholm]

10 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

The creators didn't create the monopoly.  The users did.  If we hadn't gone along with it, they may have continued to create for the normal mapping.  But we did go along.  Such is life.

I do not agree with that at all. A monopoly forms not by simply being the best product, but by being the most prevalent and in many cases the only proprietary choice. It’s also an endless cycle of breaking apart and reforming the monopoly on the market, wether by the original source or by outside means.

In the case of many of the mainstream, “monopoly” mesh bodies, because it’s become all you see, it’s all people will create for, and since it’s all people will create for, it’s all you see. All it took was a brief bit of time as an easy to use and prevalent platform. 
“here’s this mesh avatar, and here’s a bunch of clothing that works for it,  and we’re encouraging and paying other creators to make items for this avatar”

A bunch of people buy the avatar and the items, other creators see the potential and jump on it to make items for that avatar, uses see the popularity and buy the avatar and items as more items are made for it, it’s a feedback loop that creates what we consider a monopoly. 
But the tactic to get there is always the same regardless of what “it” is that’s forming a monopoly, a virtual avatar in a social world game from 2003, or an entire American telecommunications industry. 
SL avatars are in a state right now where creators only make items for a select few avatar variants because they’re the most common. And the avatars are the most common because it’s all people create for.

Basically nothing fits my DSD avatar, I just have to find things that mostly fit. And since mesh clothing isn’t super adjustable via stretch or deformation methods, I have to adjust my entire body to fit many items. 
The entire avatar system is the dominant reason why many people don’t stick around in SL. It’s such a pain to fight that system and try to put together an avatar that doesn’t require the same avatar base that everyone else is using that sometimes it’s not even worth trying.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

2 hours ago, gwynchisholm said:

That is kinda funny because it is labeled otherwise, i used my linden home for this example beacuse it should be the most basic terrain possible.

Theyre flipped the other way around, the setting is described wrong in firestorm.

Yeah, that threw me for a loop too. And the default is way up there so you look at it and think "oh well, that's as good as it gets". But then I dialed it to the top number to "improve it" and it got way worse, so I figured... "I wonder what 1 looks like". And boom - very fine detail. But so much detail it bothered my eyes.

 

 

[Tiffy Vella]

I'd like to remove the limit on how far down we can dig and build into our land, (as long as it does not affect neighboring parcels, of course). If I want to excavate underneath a ground level build, and make a tunnel that goes all the way down to the very distant water, with an extensive cave system for people to explore, wouldn't that be pretty cool? In the past I've played with making explorable tunnels/rooms in the sky, but this is visually messy from the outside and very primmy. Ive experimented with tunneling in the small gap between terrain height and 0.00, and its a fun creative challenge but limited. I certainly can see that terrain texture stretching would be an issue, as they already look pretty dismal when stretched just a tiny amount (or not at all).

Skyboxes are a great part of SL life but they do clutter the view and make it hard for aeronauts. Imagine if we could sink them below the terrain, even if just to teleport to. Atm, we cannot edit the position of a skybox below 0.000 on the Z axis.

From my mainland parcel,  the natural blue ocean can be seen twinkling a loong, looooong way down. I'd so love to build a scene and edit it down to there, to take advantage of the Linden water characteristics. This would be a boon for designers of photography settings :)

[AmeliaJ08]

9 hours ago, Tiffy Vella said:

I'd like to remove the limit on how far down we can dig and build into our land, (as long as it does not affect neighboring parcels, of course). If I want to excavate underneath a ground level build, and make a tunnel that goes all the way down to the very distant water, with an extensive cave system for people to explore, wouldn't that be pretty cool? In the past I've played with making explorable tunnels/rooms in the sky, but this is visually messy from the outside and very primmy. Ive experimented with tunneling in the small gap between terrain height and 0.00, and its a fun creative challenge but limited. I certainly can see that terrain texture stretching would be an issue, as they already look pretty dismal when stretched just a tiny amount (or not at all).

Skyboxes are a great part of SL life but they do clutter the view and make it hard for aeronauts. Imagine if we could sink them below the terrain, even if just to teleport to. Atm, we cannot edit the position of a skybox below 0.000 on the Z axis.

From my mainland parcel,  the natural blue ocean can be seen twinkling a loong, looooong way down. I'd so love to build a scene and edit it down to there, to take advantage of the Linden water characteristics. This would be a boon for designers of photography settings

SL definitely needs more caves.

When I was a noobie I was so disappointed to learn that you can't really tunnel underground in SL, anywhere that is underground isn't really and there's no way of tunnelling through the terrain. It's a shame but maybe I just really love caves.

Not to detract from what some people have done given the limitations and there is of course some great caves in SL but it would be so cool to be able to carve real tunnels and caverns out of the terrain.

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by AmeliaJ08

[Katherine Heartsong]

Remove completely?

Kawaii.

[Love Zhaoying]

Sideways photos!

[animats]

On 11/20/2023 at 6:44 PM, AmeliaJ08 said:

Was my reaction too. Free Go-Kart? I'm going to try my hardest to remember to take a look at this!

I've seen it in Linden test regions. Never at Drivers of SL.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, animats said:

I've seen it in Linden test regions. Never at Drivers of SL.

I didn't notice in the pic if it has one, but definitely needs a "roll cage"!

[Rolig Loon]

Other people.

Just kidding, but maybe some other people. Nobody I know, really, but sometimes mute and Show Only Friends just aren't enough.

Actually, no.  Teleports and the OFF button are perfect.  Forget I said anything. 🙃

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Other people.

Yay, Furries not removed!

[Katherine Heartsong]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yay, Furries not removed!

I was going to say remove ...

Hoomans.

You can now only have a proper animal or furry avatar.

But then we'd be going after each other like, umm, dogs and cats.

I'll show myself out now.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Katherine Heartsong

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Katherine Heartsong said:

I was going to say remove ...

Hoomans.

You can now only have a proper animal or furry avatar.

Sounds like one of those "ruin a wishes"!

Imagine all those previously hoomans going around in basic furry avatars, all noobish and stuffs.

Then they'd see how it feels for those of us who aren't experts at mesh!

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Sounds like one of those "ruin a wishes"!

Imagine all those previously hoomans going around in basic furry avatars, all noobish and stuffs.

Then they'd see how it feels for those of us who aren't experts at mesh!

 

So true, all those annoying "How do I wear a tail?" questions. (Says the frustrated LaraX shape noob.)

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Katherine Heartsong said:

So true, all those annoying "How do I wear a tail?" questions. (Says the frustrated LaraX shape noob.)

* in Forrest Gump voice * "You attach your tail to your butt-ox."

[animats]

On 11/20/2023 at 9:09 PM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think this is true, although I don't know what the timeline for it is, nor how it will happen. Presumably LL can flick a switch, and the old ones will all be magically replaced by new ones? If not, it will take FOREVER.

I think the new ones are supposed to take advantage of PBR. They should look good?

ETA: This is what Inara Pey had to say about the project as of May 13 of this year.

• As per my TPVD summary for Friday, May 12th, there is a project underway to provide PBR support for terrain.
• This is seen as a means of leveraging PBR Materials to offer some quality improvements to terrain ahead of any longer-term terrain project which might yet be considered / actioned.
• The idea is to enable the use of Materials asset IDs in place of the usual texture IDs and applying them to the ground.
• An initial alpha build of a viewer supporting this work is available through the content creation Discord server. However, note that it is only alpha and unsupported outside of the project at this time.
  • Please also note that at the request of Linden Lab, I am unable to publish details on how creators can obtain access to the content creation Discord server. Those who are interested should wither a) attend a Content Creation User Group meeting and request access there; or b) contact Vir Linden to request details on how to request access.
• As this is purely a viewer-side change, it does not require a server-side update, but for testing, the viewer should preferably be used on Aditi (the beta grid), where there are materials available within the PBR regions expressly for testing the capability. There is also a debug setting in the viewer which allows it to be used “anywhere”, but this is described as currently “hacky”.
• This work also sees an increase in the overall texel density for terrain, raising it to 1024×1024, and the texture repeat has been doubled. The latter may only be a temporary move, with discussions at LL revolving around various ideas such as hex tiling.

 

• Important notes with this work:
  • It is not terrain painting. It is the application of PBR materials – terrain painting is described as “something that’s on the radar” at LL.
  • The work does not include support for displacement maps.
  • The work is currently only viewer-side, with no corresponding server-side support, the idea here being to prototype what might be achieved and testing approaches / results.
  • It is viewed as a “mini project”, which can potentially be built upon to include elements such as simulator support (including EM tools, etc.).
  • Given the above point, there are also discussions on how best to handle the default grass texture for land (which is just a basic diffuse map) if the PBR terrain work is to go mainstream. Currently, updating this is not part of the mini-project.

I think @animats may be involved in some way?

 

I'm not involved. I did suggest a trick that processes the UVs of ground textures so that repeated textures don't look repeated. Some of the Lindens liked it. It's on Forums, but forum search is down right now.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

Other people.

59 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yay, Furries not removed!

Wait. Are you saying that Furries are NOT people?

Interesting...

[Zalificent Corvinus]

17 hours ago, gwynchisholm said:

The entire avatar system is the dominant reason why many people don’t stick around in SL. It’s such a pain to fight that system and try to put together an avatar that doesn’t require the same avatar base that everyone else is using that sometimes it’s not even worth trying.

Just about EVERY virtual world/game/whatever that has customisable characters, tends to use "a common base" for most if not all player characters, it makes it easier to wear equipment looted from dead npc's, and means you can have ONE set of animations.

 

Gamers tend to know this, so claiming people don't stay because "there's a common avatar base" is, in fact, utter nonsense.

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Wait. Are you saying that Furries are NOT people?

Interesting...

I am saying, that when someone says "people", they often mean "humans".

Yes, "furries are people too".  But, furries are much better than "humans". In the context of many threads, furries in general are "less judgmental and more accepting" of different avatar types (except humans vs. furries, of course).

My opinion, make it yours!

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'll show myself out now.

Coinkydinks: I got a "splash cymbal" and a "China cymbal" yesterday for my drum kit!

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Wait. Are you saying that Furries are NOT people?

Interesting...

   Wait. Are you suggesting that they are?

   Interesting ..

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Wait. Are you suggesting that they are?

   Interesting ..

The jury is out on which taste moar bedr..

[Caitlin Tobias]

Facelights, the ones with the force of 1000 suns.