The End Of An Era and what was a wonderful, enlightened virtual world....

[Arielle Popstar]

15 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Not to disparage some of the very talented SL creators that do amazing things with prims but, when it comes to the capabilities of the average resident, the inability to create really good quality mesh content within SL is more of a skill issue than a lack of appropriate tools or features.  Even if LL provided the necessary tools to create mesh within SL it's still going to be just as complicated and take just as long to learn to make mesh properly.  Additionally, since the toolset will never be as versatile as a standalone app, it would still be next to impossible to make mesh in SL that's as impressive or efficient as mesh made in a third party app like Blender.

No, but the point is it would be inworld that they'd be doing the majority of their creating. Both Blender and inworld the process starts with rezzing cube. The difference is Blender went further with what could done to manipulate that cube whereas the Lab never touched that part of the code again.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

No, but the point is it would be inworld that they'd be doing the majority of their creating. Both Blender and inworld the process starts with rezzing cube. The difference is Blender went further with what could done to manipulate that cube whereas the Lab never touched that part of the code again.

No, the point is that people don't want to use prims anymore because they "can't compete" with the efficiency and potential of mesh.  Providing a set of very basic tools that allow people to create very simple mesh objects isn't going to make any difference because the end result will still be far less efficient and impressive than content created outside of SL.

[Arielle Popstar]

Just now, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

No, the point is that people don't want to use prims anymore because they "can't compete" with the efficiency and potential of mesh.  Providing a set of very basic tools that allow people to create very simple mesh objects isn't going to make any difference because the end result will still be far less efficient and impressive than content created outside of SL.

People don't want to use the inworld building tools because the Lindens never did any further development on them, that is my point. In comparison to what Blender has available,  Secondlife only requires basic tools to create even within Blender. Probably the majority of those basic Blender tools needed for SL could be merged into the SL viewer.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

3 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

People don't want to use the inworld building tools because the Lindens never did any further development on them, that is my point. In comparison to what Blender has available,  Secondlife only requires basic tools to create even within Blender. Probably the majority of those basic Blender tools needed for SL could be merged into the SL viewer.

Blender has a variety of rendering options available.  How long has it taken LL to implement just one new rendering option into the viewer?  How many years of development do you think it would take them to add an entire set of tools and features capable of making content of the same caliber as Blender.

Additionally, given LLs typical approach to UI design, how user-friendly do you think their version of Blender would be?  Also, Blender has thousands of hours of tutorials from which to learn, what do you think the likelihood is of LL creating similar resources to help people learn to use the new in-world mesh tools?

[Theresa Tennyson]

19 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

People don't want to use the inworld building tools because the Lindens never did any further development on them, that is my point. In comparison to what Blender has available,  Secondlife only requires basic tools to create even within Blender. Probably the majority of those basic Blender tools needed for SL could be merged into the SL viewer.

The reason you're in-world to use SL building tools is they have to constantly communicate with an outside server. For most building this is a liability rather than an asset. I do most of my building in-world but sometimes I use outside programs like GIMP or Blender. If I'm doing something fairly quick with them I do it while still in-world in Second Life at the same time and I'm at least as involved with the greater SL world as if I was focused on using tools that were only available in the viewer.

I've said this a number of times now - I have a background in real-world construction. With a real-world building, some work is done out in the field, some work is done custom in a subcontractor's shop and some things are bought from a catalog and come from an assembly line somewhere. There's no advantage to having your finish carpenter standing in a muddy field with a miter box and making windows for you on-site; in fact there are a lot of disadvantages.

Edited July 17 by Theresa Tennyson

[JacksonBollock]

2 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Blender has a variety of rendering options available.  How long has it taken LL to implement just one new rendering option into the viewer?  How many years of development do you think it would take them to add an entire set of tools and features capable of making content of the same caliber as Blender.

Additionally, given LLs typical approach to UI design, how user-friendly do you think their version of Blender would be?  Also, Blender has thousands of hours of tutorials from which to learn, what do you think the likelihood is of LL creating similar resources to help people learn to use the new in-world mesh tools?

Not my area really, so apologies if this complete nonsense.

However I've been hearing a lot about GenAI being used recently with Blender.

Specifically a package called Meshy for Blender

So the idea is you can generate 3D artifacts or textures from text prompts and/or images.

It appears to have a pretty good API, so perhaps this might be one avenue to pull creative activity back into SL.

I get the feeling there are some pretty hard-line GenAI unbelievers in these forums, but please don't shoot the messenger - it's just a vague musing, nothing more 🙂

[AmeliaJ08]

Prim building tools could definiitely be expanded and made more intuitive. I don't think anyone is expecting Blender-in-a-viewer but a more modern take on basic geometry manipulation tools would be welcomed I think. Manipulating prims is a bit of a dark art from ye olden days that not many newer users will even be really aware of, stick a few draggable squares on the corners/faces of a prim and let them manipulate, subdivide, extrude it like they would in basically any 3D software though and it might be a lot more obvious and useful to many.

I think the age of complex object creation in prims is very much over... for close to a decade now... but there's definitely still uses for simple in-world building and the pretty dated looking/functioning build window options are hardly inviting for anyone who may want to get their first taste of making something in SL even if it is necessarily basic.

 

 

Edited July 17 by AmeliaJ08

[Extrude Ragu]

Although I think Blender is great, I do think that inworld building could use some love.

We don't need to recreate Blender in SL, but adding more things that are fun and easy for people to play with, I think would actually be a good thing. I think people tend to think in extremes but it doesn't need to be like that at all.

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Prim building tools could definiitely be expanded and made more intuitive. I don't think anyone is expecting Blender-in-a-viewer but a more modern take on basic geometry manipulation tools would be welcomed I think. Manipulating prims is a bit of a dark art from ye olden days that not many newer users will even be really aware of, stick a few draggable squares on the corners/faces of a prim and let them manipulate, subdivide, extrude it like they would in basically any 3D software though and it might be a lot more obvious and useful to many.

I think the age of complex object creation in prims is very much over... for close to a decade now... but there's definitely still uses for simple in-world building and the pretty dated looking/functioning build window options are hardly inviting for anyone who may want to get their first taste of making something in SL even if it is necessarily basic.

 

 

If you're working on a CADD system when you put down columns you don't position each one individually. If it's a regularly spaced system you set up an array command and whomp them all down in one operation.

Because doing something like that in an outside application won't affect the server which is also handling your neighbor's lovemaking activities, and there's no impulse to deliberately banjax the server in order to annoy your neighbor.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

14 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Although I think Blender is great, I do think that inworld building could use some love.

We don't need to recreate Blender in SL, but adding more things that are fun and easy for people to play with, I think would actually be a good thing. I think people tend to think in extremes but it doesn't need to be like that at all.

I'm all in favour of expanding the capabilities of prims and potentially adding some fun new options for in-world building, I just don't think traditional mesh creation tools of the type found in Blender would be easily replicated, and would most likely be beyond the abilities of most residents.  Add to that the difficulties of implementing them within a viewer and trying to incorporate the necessary interface into an already cluttered (and often referred to as overcomplicated) UI and it just seems like a really bad idea.

Now, if you were to suggest LL introduce a new voxel-type primitive along with some basic sculpting tools and auto-generated cube/spherical UV mapping with the resulting mesh object (and LODs) being generated using the mesh uploader then I'd say that's an awesome idea since SL has been limited to hard surface in-world building for over two decades and with the advent of PBR it would be really nice (and really fun) if people could make their own rocks, trees and other organic models in world!

ETA: I almost forgot that SL already has basic sculpting tools which have been a part of the viewer since they stopped using explosives for terraforming.

Edited July 17 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Now, if you were to suggest LL introduce a new voxel-type primitive along with some basic sculpting tools and auto-generated cube/spherical UV mapping with the resulting mesh object (and LODs) being generated using the mesh uploader then I'd say that's an awesome idea since SL has been limited to hard surface in-world building for over two decades and with the advent of PBR it would be really nice (and really fun) if people could make their own rocks, trees and other organic models in world!

You realize an SL resident did that 14 years ago but the Lab rejected the concept? https://github.com/N3X15/VoxelSim

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You realize an SL resident did that 14 years ago but the Lab rejected the concept? https://github.com/N3X15/VoxelSim

Well since they're in the process of rejuvenating SL and trying to improve user engagement and promote more creativity perhaps it's time they revisited that rather questionable decision (among others).

[Charlotte Bartlett]

3 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Have you changed the debug setting that appears to be necessary for MacOS?

 

I had not (bad me) I am guessing that info is in this thread somewhere so will look to change FS and what that is specifically.

I also see the bug with the Mac reload on textures was also fixed in the LL viewer I am testing on and I am not having the same fetch challenges there which is at least good news..

I'll read up on the fetch issue and workaround with the debug setting generally.  I haven't read everything yet. My gap in understanding, in the new FS release, is  why Fetch is not utilising cached textures at all.  In FS each time I did a mini teleport, within the a few meters (double click), all back to grey on FS including avatar.

Historically (I think) that would have been cached information.  (I am not technical ha as you can tell!).  

 

 

Edited July 17 by Charlotte Bartlett

[AmeliaJ08]

6 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

I had not (bad me) I am guessing that info is in this thread somewhere so will look to change FS and what that is specifically.

I also see the bug with the Mac reload on textures was also fixed in the LL viewer I am testing on and I am not having the same fetch challenges there which is at least good news..

I'll read up on the fetch issue and workaround with the debug setting generally.  I haven't read everything yet. My gap in understanding, in the new FS release, is  why Fetch is not utilising cached textures at all.  In FS each time I did a mini teleport, within the a few meters (double click), all back to grey on FS including avatar.

Historically (I think) that would have been cached information.  (I am not technical ha as you can tell!).  

 

 

It seems like the grey texture issue is something quite specific to running on MacOS, I couldn't say for certain though.

There's some people reporting it fixed in this thread:

This post specifically:

Quote

My M1 Max MacBook Pro seems to be doing okay under PBR. I've (so far) made only two setting changes.

1) In Debug Settings (available from the Advanced Menu), I've set "RenderGLmultithreadedtextures" to “TRUE”.
2) In Preferences->Graphics->Hardware Settings, I've unchecked "Override VRAM detection" and dedicated half my Mac's total memory (32GB of 64GB) for VRAM.

You would set the VRAM manually based on the physical RAM of your mac since the RAM and VRAM are shared on those machines. For example a 16GB Macbook you could set it to 16GB manually (but maybe 8GB would be more sensible) etc. Setting it to half of RAM capacity seems most sensible but there's maybe room to tweak a little either way.

 

Edited July 17 by AmeliaJ08

[Janet Voxel]

34 minutes ago, JacksonBollock said:

Not my area really, so apologies if this complete nonsense.

However I've been hearing a lot about GenAI being used recently with Blender.

Specifically a package called Meshy for Blender

So the idea is you can generate 3D artifacts or textures from text prompts and/or images.

It appears to have a pretty good API, so perhaps this might be one avenue to pull creative activity back into SL.

I get the feeling there are some pretty hard-line GenAI unbelievers in these forums, but please don't shoot the messenger - it's just a vague musing, nothing more 🙂

I’ve played around with a couple of them. One created complete crap. But the other one was a little basic, but it spit out a really clean mesh with a UV map. The UV map needed some work, but the topology was really good. You’d probably spend a lot of time cleaning it up. In a couple more years, it’ll be spooky.

Im pretty sure there are a couple of creators that are already using AI to create mesh and skins. The technology is pretty much there.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

2 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

The technology is pretty much there.

Hopefully there'll be more focus on useful AI powered tools for creating procedural materials, retopology, LOD generation and all the other less fun parts of the creative process.

[pizza7]

18 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So..not a fan? 

oh yes a fan, a fan is something that turns around and around, she is shouting to all directions, i think.

i agree , i just cannot do the sl viewer.

[Janet Voxel]

29 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Hopefully there'll be more focus on useful AI powered tools for creating procedural materials, retopology, LOD generation and all the other less fun parts of the creative process.

I’d imagine it would be on LL to invest in that and put it all together. It seems like all of that is possible already.

I’d imagine the outcry from the creative community would be insane too. Not that I think it would be a completely terrible thing. I could just see it now. There are a lot of people that want to create, but blender is just a mountain they don’t want to climb. But at the same time we’re already dealing with a lot of shovelware stuff from places like Artstation and Turbosquid already.

Imagine when Joe-schmoe can type “mesh version of William Burroughs’ Steely Dan, high quality, 4k, UV maps”

[Extrude Ragu]

6 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Imagine when Joe-schmoe can type “mesh version of William Burroughs’ Steely Dan, high quality, 4k, UV maps”

ngl I think that would be pretty cool

I've been hoping and praying someone will do an AI armature animation generator so I can make character animations for some games. I suck butt at making animations and I've already got a lot on my plate, would bring a lot of things I want to create into range for me.

[Janet Voxel]

32 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

ngl I think that would be pretty cool

I've been hoping and praying someone will do an AI armature animation generator so I can make character animations for some games. I suck butt at making animations and I've already got a lot on my plate, would bring a lot of things I want to create into range for me.

Oh no, I definitely agree. I was just making a joke about the wild things people would probably come up with. 
 

Absolutely, do not google image Steely Dan from Yokohama 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

31 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I’d imagine it would be on LL to invest in that and put it all together. It seems like all of that is possible already.

I was thinking more about general industry standard apps and tools rather than LL trying to do it.  I feel like they probably have enough on their plates already.

33 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I’d imagine the outcry from the creative community would be insane too. Not that I think it would be a completely terrible thing. I could just see it now. There are a lot of people that want to create, but blender is just a mountain they don’t want to climb. But at the same time we’re already dealing with a lot of shovelware stuff from places like Artstation and Turbosquid already.

Imagine when Joe-schmoe can type “mesh version of William Burroughs’ Steely Dan, high quality, 4k, UV maps”

 

25 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

ngl I think that would be pretty cool

I've been hoping and praying someone will do an AI armature animation generator so I can make character animations for some games. I suck butt at making animations and I've already got a lot on my plate, would bring a lot of things I want to create into range for me.

As I said I'd personally love some tools to make retopology and material creation easier.  The problem is there's a bit of a grey area when it comes to what can be considered "just a tool" and what is essentially a replacement for the human component in part of the creative process.

Having an AI that can generate a high quality set of materials on demand or a set of character animations would be an insanely handy tool for those of us that would rather focus on different parts of the creative process but for those who have spent years refining the skills necessary to perform those tasks I can see it being viewed in a very different light.  Not to mention, having the knowledge and skills necessary to create those assets yourself means you're more capable of spotting the mistakes and inadequacies of AI generated content which can eventually have a negative effect on the quality of content in general.

I think AI assisted tools will be an amazing benefit for creators if they're used wisely by those who know the difference between good and bad content but I also think AI generated content could potentially be a very slippery slope into mediocrity.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

@Dune RavenwoodAwww, no more Bellisseria Cat?  I hope you find a way to tweak some settings and can stay.

It's frustrating to hear long-time residents who are very active in their communities feel like their time is limited. 

[Omegaslayer]

On 7/15/2024 at 7:39 PM, Madi Melodious said:

I realize that I'm still kind of new to this SL thing, Only 13 years, but let's review. 

• Mesh:  "oh god, it's the end of the world this will never work, death of SL in 2 years"
• Advance graphics: "oh god, it's the end of the world this will never work, death of SL in 2 years"
• Blinn-Phong: "oh god, it's the end of the world this will never work, death of SL in 2 years"
• BOM: "oh god, it's the end of the world this will never work, death of SL in 2 years"
• Bento: "oh god, it's the end of the world this will never work, death of SL in 2 years"

I'm sure I missed a few and these are out of order, but you should get the point.  Second Life and the viewer that runs it is an extremely complex system.   With each change or new additions there is going to be issues.   I'm seeing issues with viewers and I'm reporting them to the team that is responsible.  

Thank you, drive through.  

Your comment makes zero sense, all those other upgrades to second life were additions, they were tacked onto the current viewer but essentially the viewer was still the same. PBR isn't just another upgrade or addition it's a whole different viewer and way of running second life. Whilst i don't agree it's the end of second life i do agree that a lot of people even with high end pc's are having problems. 

[Omegaslayer]

23 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

@Dune RavenwoodAwww, no more Bellisseria Cat?  I hope you find a way to tweak some settings and can stay.

It's frustrating to hear long-time residents who are very active in their communities feel like their time is limited. 

it sucks for sure, i've been on the go since 2007 and i've never had a second life upgrade that made me go unless second life do something i'm not going to be able to use it, and thats not being oh wo is me or oh no second life is dying again, thats just me being realistic, pbr in its current form is unusable for me and thats that.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

On 7/17/2024 at 10:16 AM, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Hopefully there'll be more focus on useful AI powered tools for creating procedural materials, retopology, LOD generation and all the other less fun parts of the creative process.

I have gotten Python scripts up and running using ChatGPT to write them for:

(a) Scene Organisation (naming assets, naming materials and applying materials automatically before taking it into Substance Painter).  I used Chat GPT to write the scripts.  It took an insane amount of reiteration to get it accurate, but it's saved me a fair whack on time on scene management (this is in Cinema 4d).  This was back in early ChatGPT days.

(b) It couldn't quite get it to unwrap but that's I think due to the code based in C4D - likely with Blender that will be more achievable.

(c) LODS I am testing a script right now to create the medium LODS to remove loops etc by selecting the specific assets then automating some of the common steps taken.  Still work to go there.  

(d) DAE exports - I have the extra joy of having to export to FBX each LOD from C4D for Blender to create the dae as there is a known issue with LL/Firestorm viewers and C4D generated daes if making custom LODS (it's orders them in the reverse so the upload effectively mixes up materials between LODS).     So you have to "clean" it with the Blender step. I have that on my list to automate the C4D FBX exports (some bugs right now), then the FBX import and DAE Export in Blender as my next to do.

Then I must remember to ask @Beq Janus if FS would consider putting in a workaround for Custom LOD uploads in DAE from C4D for the whole of 2 C4D users in SL hah (sorry Beq).

 

Edited July 18 by Charlotte Bartlett