Mikki Miles Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I just visitied the March Mesh Madness, and must admit admit, I'm a little disappointed...I expected to see Meshes like mad, but found lot's of pictures instead, some of them even placed on sculpted displays. Granted, it's not easy to display mesh clothing or hair, but there are so many other mesh items that are missing (i mean, not only musical instruments :smileywink:)I like Maxwells presentation, he gives a fine overlook over what is possible, and the objects are fine crafted. Watch the rocking chair animation, I assume he used llSetKeyframedMotion.oh, and still no mesh Lederhosen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 What is March Mesh Madness? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikki Miles Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 oh, right, there has been no announcement, but I followed the link that is offered during log in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Ohhh what a hoot! Charlar emphatically assured us right in this forum that yes, LL was working on plans to promote mesh but no way were they going to promote mesh by picking out a few merchants to showcase(which seems to be their only idea for promoting something). No sir! And I see this is something where 20 of SL's finest creators are showcased. :-) Man, do I know how LL operates! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 The discussion in this forum: Pamela said: And can we have an amen that LL will not promote a handful of mesh businesses and call it mesh education? And Charlar replied: You know what? I'll give you an amen to that. We want everyone to be on a modern (read: mesh enabled) viewer, building and buying things that are more efficient and better looking, therefore continuing to make the grid an interesting place. Charlar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Pamela Galli wrote: The discussion in this forum: Pamela said: And can we have an amen that LL will not promote a handful of mesh businesses and call it mesh education? And Charlar replied: You know what? I'll give you an amen to that. We want everyone to be on a modern (read: mesh enabled) viewer, building and buying things that are more efficient and better looking, therefore continuing to make the grid an interesting place. Charlar You know very well Pamela that LL has a history of promoting people and their businesses that LL likes or considers friends. So it would not be surprising if LL would hand pick a few mesh creations from those they know & like with no bidding whatsoever to offer any Mesh creator a chance to be promoted as well. This is just how LL has always played the game. Why stop now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Oh, well, Charlar is gone http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/esbee-and-charlar-gone/ And I am sorry to hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikki Miles Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 what a pity, Charlar had a fine sense of humour and an open ear... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Reisman Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 I wish I had known about this I have plenty of Mesh to display and most is under 7 PE/LI. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikki Miles Posted March 4, 2012 Author Share Posted March 4, 2012 ok, i think it's about time to activate the Mesh Merchant Ring Group. It's already founded, just still sleeping. The idea is to give interested customers a path to follow through very different kinds of businesses offering mesh. That could be a LM-Giver at your mesh dept., pointing to the next merchant's mesh offers. This way ppl can walk through the mesh depts. of the participating merchants, getting an overview of what already exists, and what is to expect... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siddean Munro Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Pretty sure MMM is a resident organised event, not an LL organised event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Siddean Munro wrote: Pretty sure MMM is a resident organised event, not an LL organised event. If so, it is getting a nice boost being on the splash screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithless Babii Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 It is a resident run event...not handpicked by LL or anything like that. Plenty of events like this get "splashed" across the log in screen also..I doubt its any kind of favourtism ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Faithless Babii wrote: It is a resident run event...not handpicked by LL or anything like that. Plenty of events like this get "splashed" across the log in screen also..I doubt its any kind of favourtism ! It is good to know that it is not LL sponsored; however, my position has always been that LL has no business whatsoever promoting individual businesses in any way, certainly not by advertising them on the splash screen -- unless it is a paid advertisement that anyone is free to buy, which this may have been for all I know. But if it was a paid advertisement opportunity, I missed the announcement. I would not be surprised if LL counts it as among their many extensive efforts to "promote mesh". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithless Babii Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Pamela Galli wrote: Faithless Babii wrote: It is a resident run event...not handpicked by LL or anything like that. Plenty of events like this get "splashed" across the log in screen also..I doubt its any kind of favourtism ! It is good to know that it is not LL sponsored; however, my position has always been that LL has no business whatsoever promoting individual businesses in any way, certainly not by advertising them on the splash screen -- unless it is a paid advertisement that anyone is free to buy, which this may have been for all I know. But if it was a paid advertisement opportunity, I missed the announcement. I would not be surprised if LL counts it as among their many extensive efforts to "promote mesh". yes, agreed it would be lovely to be able to get an ad on the log in screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siddean Munro Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Maybe it's on the "splash screen" because it's in the destination guide? I see events in the destination guide come up there all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Maybe, I don't ever look at the Destination Guide. Speaking of which, Medhue Simoni has written an interesting post in the Merchant Forum, in which he has this to say about the Destination Guide approach to marketing SL: So, if LL is directing people to go only to places that have lots of other people, they aren't being directed to any normal stores, which are lucky to have 3 people in them. Newbies used to be the most common customers in my store. Now, they are given most of what they need to start and dumped directly into a hotspot, or directed to 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poenald Palen Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Pamela Galli wrote: Maybe, I don't ever look at the Destination Guide. Speaking of which, Medhue Simoni has written an interesting post in the Merchant Forum, in which he has this to say about the Destination Guide approach to marketing SL: So, if LL is directing people to go only to places that have lots of other people, they aren't being directed to any normal stores, which are lucky to have 3 people in them. Newbies used to be the most common customers in my store. Now, they are given most of what they need to start and dumped directly into a hotspot, or directed to 1. I would like to respond to this and say: "Really, if shopping is an event then maybe all of SL really is already they oyster of the shoppist, the shopoholic or whatever else a shopping centric second life resident would like to be called. So, there only a reason to showcase places to hang out at because new people need to learn SL and also come here to socialize as well as see creations." BUT....then, I only have to read some posts on search and then roll my eyes and not post just the above. I mean, all people in the world know what shopping is, creations or art are and this is only one small part of thier SL. Some it is 99% of the goal, the other 1% is showing it off and maybe some regular chat. Of course, these are not truly statistica numbers, just exagerations for the emphasis that shopping IS the point, entertainment an main event for some people. I like to simply wonder around and see what is happening, rarely I might read a blog or see some kind of profile with some drama and laugh it up with everyone else over the craziness. But, aside from forum posts, I spend like zero time communicating! I don't dothe love thing, the sex stuff or even game here much. I like to make stuff, sometimes work a bit on my business (all behind the scenes mess these days as I prepare for mesh upgrades, deal with to much mental junk in RL and so on) and...well....yeah, I just read about the troubles people have had. SL is not even a pyramid of statistics when it comes to earnings. It is more like a flat plane with a tiny prim box in it, on top of that there are a few plastic figures that sit like cake decorations to represent Ashne and her peers! Usually you would see a large base pyramid, SL is full of people like me who make a few things and sort of back off and have to much trouble or to many distractions keeping them from creating much of a business here. But, yeah....there are groups of people who might consider themselves peers, very much media channel blinders (like...uh, I read the forums, some don't. I also might be part of 2-3 groups to do with my interestes here while another person is a member of the other several I don't see! It is like having blinders on. I don't see the other horses beside me, the clowns at the side of the streets heckling and only feel the whip without seeing it...though, here the whip is more like real life and then I wake up and wonder away from the parade lol. I mean, I just do not read every single blog, and even if I did I am nto reading all of hte fashion blogs because it sort of isnt my thing right now. This is the same for many people. Because we have limits on time, it is finite and we only keep track and keep in touch with so many....well, we end up with cohort groups. This si what we are seeing with this advertisement. I might be wrong, but I remember a beta or something about buying advertisment on the log in screen log in status bar! So, I am thinking that space was purchased. Not totally a LL thing, but....well....yeah, once again a advertisment/media channel thingy happening here. I saw it, but couldn't tell you anything about it because I am not into that. i sort of am into joking around and rambling....so...yeah, sort of no cohort or any sort of no one to ask a quick "hey, is that log in message purchased ad space? What happened with that?" so...well...yeah, I have no link or info on prices etc. lol. BUT, now I am interested in how they are gonig to promo mesh? We have tutorials form residents and the whole thing we see these days is letting users provide support, add-ons, bug fixes....heck, users have even given up and go and make thier own versions of software or platforms! Heck, that is slightly what happens with some mesh programs. We see a market of very expensive software, large amount of knowledge needed and many people just give up and went with free open source. Some of those people contribute money, code, or other support..even just bug reports for some hardware configs help to get some more users in and ......well....that is empowerment beyond what some companies want or can deal with! Others adapt, they push harder and just see it as a synergy builder. More users means more market to try and grab share of! So, the more the merrier. What can SL do to promote mesh? I mean, I can think of some.....OH, I will in fact think of some now! 1. Make plug-ins or other aids AND user videos for software packages. These could be free ones, pay for ones, or even professional one. This promots mesh creation, not business people already making them. 2. Somehow make a turbosquid-like plug-in for the viewer! I know maybe other wareshouses or asset markets have a plug-in similar to the turbosquid one. But, I can't remember them! Basically, you have a deal worked with the asset warehouse and ask them to get connected. This promotes SLmesh. It does NOT promote SL companies though. 3. To promote mesh, make it easier to make things well....uh, create open office and hire or find a mesh optimization expert. In fact, hold competitions during these hours! You drop down an item and then it is gone over and people all help to spot problems. Sort of learning by just doing and picking the minds of experts who will explain. This also makes it easy for peer review of items that end up in the marketplace and this would make things a little less laggy. These classes are not about style, just about optimizing. 4. Basically, just make a mesh section on the marketplace and promote via every channel it can be promoted through. Email it, contact the news guys, the bloggers, or anyone else. Maybe even start some sort of big sale. The more optimized the item is, the lower the price is. All merchants agree to this and use it to promote thier wares. Basically any kind of promo! Just do it, find those items market with a mesh chekcmark and cross reference with those avatars willing to recieve email promos and hit send! All of those people will not be ALL mesh creators. But, obviously it would be a bunch of them! 5. Start some sort of competitions. Optimizatin competitions. You get a reference image set. I mean, you can get these from all over OR make them from several pictures, even have them drawn up by the art and design staff. The goal, just make it to be as optimized as possible AND provide a video of you working on it. This video, the item and some words filled out in a qeastionaire/interview style so people can sort of both learn and marvel.....oh, and vote! Lindens can vote and then get a guest judge. basically, you make like 3-4 awards, runners up and all that. The judge can comment why, lindens all can comment and so can everyone. Just make a webpage that is displayed on a web on a prim and then make a in world scripted text board to dispaly and rotate through a few comments. A quick message "awsome how the texture carried this item, it is so low poly!" or whatever. Easy enough, though takes a few items and some time devoted to promote and also be there to judge. BUT, this works to connect the staff and make them all very aware. In fact, only staff who are supposed to build items in SL could be there, with even the secretary dropping in as to just get a glimpse at what happens, see a few vids of SLers building mesh and hear the comments. It is a good way to connect the creative side of SL to the admirers within SL. Doesn't everyone want to see behind the scenes a bit? Well, maybe not everyone. 6. Promote all mesh checked items randomly. It is to hard to promote items by hand picking them, it takes a lot of time. 7. DO hand pick TONNES of stuff by simply hiring non-slers, making them sign and agreement to not be bias and all that stuff. They simply are anyone....heck, even homless people can read the numbers on the statistics and then say weather something looks cool or appeals, then explain why! Ok, they might not be able to type why BUT, you can have a person type it all up. Give some poor college kid a job, some of them can type like 60+words a minute and need the cash. There are enough unemployed people to also make me think this would help society a bit, RL that is. But, yeah....who cares. We can all promote it! Yay! Wait...I have stuff to do. Good luck guys. ;p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivienne Schell Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 All these suggestions are useless. There is only one thing Linden Lab can do to make poly mesh useful for Second Life at all: Give the users of this software better, easier to handle an more effective in-world tools. Let them create these supposed to be "cool" things in-world, natively. Imported 3D formats alone will never ever keep Second Life alive but will only contribute to it´s slow death, as it is happening since three years (the six wasted months of promoting poly mesh imports included). All this import hype is just another attempt to establish a money sink (by upload fees) and one more deadly sin regarding usability and accessibility of the platform. Linden Lab must develop Second Life, NOT Blender. This is as if Adobe would make the development future of Photoshop reliable on GIMP imports. Hilarious, ridiculous and totally off track. Linden Lab calls Linden Lab a "software" company. Oh really? So they developed Blender? I should have known. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwakkelde Kwak Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Vivienne Schell wrote: Give the users of this software better, easier to handle an more effective in-world tools. Let them create these supposed to be "cool" things in-world, natively. Linden Lab must develop Second Life, NOT Blender. One of those two kind of excludes the other. In order to make a good inworld tool for creating meshes...LL would have to write their own inworld version of Blender, 3ds max, Maya, ZBrush or whatever other program. On top of that they'd need their own inwoorld version of Poser, DAZ, Photoshop, GIMP, Adobe Audition etc. For media on prims they's need their own version of Premiere Pro or something similair... the list goes on and on. If LL had let's say 40 years and a couple of million bucks to spare to do this, that would be possible. Just about everything related to creation inside SL depends on third party software. That's always been like that and it makes sense. I'm not saying building inworld doesn't have advantages, but is certainly has a ton of disadvantages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivienne Schell Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Linden Lab charges a set-up fee of 1000 US dollars for a sim and 300 US dollars monthly for WHAT? For refusing to develop their OWN platform for their OWN customers? I doubt that this is a valid business strategy, and all statistics since lately 2009 prove that the Linden Lab strategy (if it is one at all) of favoring imported formats over native ones is a failure. There simply are no disadvantages in developing native, directly accessible formats and advanced usability. If there were any, neither Microsoft nor Apple nor any other software company on the planet ever had been successful. It costs money and needs developers, of course. Lindens obviously are good for troubleshooting, but this cannot be a valid reason for avoiding any kind of real, effective and user friendly software development at all - not for the price this company charges for it´s products. Apart from this, NONE of the imports i have seen so far and made by myself so far do need any of the advanced features a 3D modelling application offers. Except imports which blow prim count through the roof by senseless polygon and verticle "beauty" - and are absolutely inadequate for usage in the Second Life environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwakkelde Kwak Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Vivienne Schell wrote: Linden Lab charges a set-up fee of 1000 US dollars for a sim and 300 US dollars monthly for WHAT? For refusing to develop their OWN platform for their OWN customers? Or maybe to maintain the servers and pay their employees? I doubt that this is a valid business strategy, and all statistics since lately 2009 prove that the Linden Lab strategy (if it is one at all) of favoring imported formats over native ones is a failure. If you hadn't noticed, LL depended on third parties from the very first second. The first texture that was ever uploaded or the first animation used, a sound, the avatar mesh, more or less everything basically. There simply are no disadvantages in developing native, directly accessible formats and advanced usability. If there were any, neither Microsoft nor Apple nor any other software company on the planet ever had been successful. That's odd, I didn't know Microsoft developed Second Life, Firefox, Photoshop, 3ds Max or any of the other millions of programs one can use to create or edit files, play games, browse the internet, etc. under the big wings of "windows". but this cannot be a valid reason for avoiding any kind of real, effective and user friendly software development at all - not for the price this company charges for it´s products. Developing a powerful 2D or 3D application can take well over a decade and needs continuous support. If you and all other users are willing to pay USD 50 000 for a sim and 5 000 monthly, they could consider it maybe. I know I don't. I bet neither do you. I don't see the benefits other than higher numbers for people online and the ability to discuss work in progress within SL. Apart from this, NONE of the imports i have seen so far and made by myself so far do need any of the advanced features a 3D modelling application offers. Except imports which blow prim count through the roof by senseless polygon and verticle "beauty" - and are absolutely inadequate for usage in the Second Life environment. Then maybe you need to keep looking around, since I've seen plenty. Cars made as mesh not only have a lower Landimpact when built right, they are a lot better looking than sculpts (which need 3rd party software aswell) and have no competition at all from SL prims. Buildings can cost as much as 5-10 times less in landimpact than prim builds and they are a lot friendlier on the systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracked Mirror Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 You guys do know that this is a resident organized event by Damien Fate (of ColdLogic) and LL has nothing to do with it. Also, applications were open to everyone and anyone who specialized in mesh and wished to participate. They were not selective with who they chose. Let's ease up with the pitch forks just a tad bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivienne Schell Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I don´t bash anyone for the sins of Linden Lab employees, Mikki. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivienne Schell Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 You obviously do not get it, Kwakkeide. Look at concurrency and the state of the Second Life economy. Look at who got laid off by Linden Lab lately (Two prominent product managers, responsible for Viewer 2 and , yes, Poly Mesh development). Second Life does not grow since years. Mesh iimports are out there for months and, as Charlar bragged, replaced 25 percent of the content. Maybe they even replaced 25 percent of users, but this is not a success at all. A success wouuld be 25 percent MORE paying users and 25 percent MORE revenue for Linden Lab. But this did not happen. Sculpties didn´t really "happen" in an economical sense for Linden Lab, and Poly-Mesh fails exactly the same way. Why? It´s not about that imported sports cars look better than the native ones (while nothing beats the xBox, or a real Ferrari, anyway), it´s about that there is a way too limited supply of imports and a way too limited demand for imported sportscars. It´s about demand, and SL as a whole obviously neither demanded imported sculpt maps nor polymesh imports for further growth - and growth is essential for the further existance of SL. It´s about the economy. As a comparison, the easy to handle, directly accessible and simple "Minecraft" gained 25 Million paying users without any import function while Linden Lab wasted time and money on developing a polygon mesh import and rendering engine, shaders and serverside solutions which still do not work correctly and do not make Second Life easier, better, more attractive or more frequently used than before. While Unity 3D and Blue Mars (and their hopeless attempt to make shiny imported 3D modelling and exhibiting a lasting experience for the average human being) either stay "promising conceptions", "niche" or vanish as a result of total failure. No one logs into Second Life for being adviced to learn Blender or whatsoever. And no one logs into SL for just "consuming" what a handful of mostly hobbyist creators think is state-of -the-art in 3D modelling. And way too less people have fun with playing the barbie dress-up-dress-down game. And the ones who have fun with this kind of activity will not spend more money than they did before, anyway. No growth. All this never justified the time and money and attention Linden Lab spent on development. It did and will not win the necessary revenue for Linden lab to survive the rising maintainance and production costs and inflation rate. It´s wasted. An economical failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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