Drayke Newall

Yes, that is precisely what I and others are saying LL has not done enough in this case and it has everything to do with BoM. It was never started as a small project to solely allow baked on texturing to the new mesh body and that is only its basic feature. Below is a quote from Alexa Linden outlining the benefits of baked on mesh: Baked on Mesh was entirely derived from users and Linden Lab wanting to reduce lag caused by onion layered bodies and the no mod issue the bodies had, as well as different skins not being possible on different bodies. That is why the above quote posted by a Linden in the bakes on mesh feedback thread highlights ONLY those as benefits. The goal was never about just "here you go we thought you would like to have this feature back". Its necessity and implementation was the direct result of Linden Labs failure, upon releasing mesh into SL, of not realising people wanted a better looking avatar (system avatar) despite the evidence showing otherwise forcing users to create mesh onion bodies. Out of all those listed by the Linden Lab themselves as a benefit for BoM which has been achieved? None - not a single one of those touted benefits has been shown to have been achieved in full. Appliers are being shown as still needed due to make-up issues looking weird and flat. Now they are adding/keeping onion layers to BoM avatar meshes meaning those very appliers will still be needed. Skins are also still going to need to be made for specific bodies due to texture aligning issues (unless all bodies are to be the same shape), muscle definition areas, etc. Onion layered avatars are still going to be around due to no material or applier support (proven by even Slink who initially released the first BoM no onion layer body and now finding the need to add them due to the lack of BoM implementation). full-perm meshes for bodies were never an issue and cant recall any mesh body being full perm. On the contrary, many were specifically no-mod and I would dare say will remain so. Additionally because of BoM and system tattoos being no-mod you can no longer change their colour without changing the entire skin colour via the body hud. Where is this so called easier customization? You still require a scripted body to set alpha's despite that alpha system proven to be an issue with both script and texture lag. The alpha layer you need to remove now to allow BoM to work used to be the way of 'alphaing' the system bodies... Did they look into that as an option as part of BoM to remove the necessity of HUD script driven alpha cutting? probably not. That is why BoM exists today and also why the current release of BoM by many is considered half done or sub-par. As I've said before with BoM, I am all for it, but it has to be done right from the get go not in stages confusing and annoying the userbase. I have read all of your posts and you don't need to repeat yourself. Its just that whilst yes, BoM is a good thing and yes even now has its uses, you seem to be missing the point on why it was created and how that hasn't been achieved despite early warnings from people far more knowledgeable than I dare say you or I saying right from the beginning "it wont work".

Wouldn't take offence at all with what you wrote. I never said they should merge as one whole texture nor has any person for that matter. Give us some credibility, it isn't like some of us use diffuse, normal or specular maps everyday for our RL professions or anything... 🙄 Code can be written so that you can 'merge' all diffuse, all normal and all specular maps as separate diffuse, normal and specular maps. I mean come on, the normal maps and specular maps are currently independent of the diffuse texture which would mean that it couldn't be that hard to keep them separate whilst applying the same system they did to diffuse texture to the others. Not sure if I can explain it any different other than the aforementioned or by saying if we have 11 diffuse texture spots now why cant we have 11 normal and 11 specular spots to use as well all independent of each other? Like I said, I'm no coding genius but surely that isn't to much to ask for? Firstly, it is only code of which the texture system has already been re-written before to introduce materials and even BoM on modern mesh. If we couldn't have anything the users want because of the system not being able to handle it, we wouldn't have mesh, materials, pathfinding, animesh, bento, the list goes on. All of these didn't exist before but do now because the userbase wanted them so the code was re-written or new code implemented. Also BoM is nothing more than a fancy name of a system that existed from day one in SL. I.E. 2002 adapted to new mesh. You say it cant be done? I highly doubt its that issue. As has been said many times, LL have stated that they will be looking into and possibly introducing material updates to BoM in the future. That alone should be evidence enough that it could never be, all it says is that the implemented a half done idea as they have with all their releases. As to being a step back, it is, as it means the multi material system we have had for 5 years now (of which many products on marketplace rely on) is irrelevant on BoM mesh bodies. I never said it was a step backwards because people get stuck with anything. What I did say is that it was one of LL primary goals of BoM to remove or drastically reduce onion layered mesh bodies from SL due to lag (its stated right in the first post on the feedback thread) this hasn't happened and all arrows point to even BoM bodies now re-introducing onion layers due to not having applier or material layers. Actually if I wanted SL to cook me dinner I'm sure the right coding could do it. I mean, xCite made an external *blank* do "pleasurable" things to people in RL when avatars '😉woohoo'd😉' in SL at the same time... It's not that we are complaining about LL using and old system. We know that they used old baking systems with BoM. What we are complaining about is the fact they used it without modernising it to current SL standards (to include multiple materials) that we have an issue with. We're complaining they haven't changed the onion layer lag issue or the applier issue as it has come to light with even Slink's body now having an additional onion layer because of this very issue raised in this thread. We understand where you are coming from and I am sure all in this thread want BoM, I certainly do (mainly to remove onion layered bodies and lag), but not a half done system with promises from LL to improve it later with material support. They should get it right the first time then release it otherwise all you will get is workaround by the userbase, flooding of the marketplace of user creations that will be obsolete in a few years and content creator and userbase frustration due to having to convert or buy new items.

Does BoM have a use? Sure it does, but the main issue is that for 5 years the userbase as well as content creation has gone down one path expanding on possibilities and brining SL to a reasonable quality standard, yet all BoM has done is taken it a step back from there. The very fact Teagan posted someone has a work around for non-features in BoM doesn't surprise me at all and even predicted it in my first post of the thread. It will only get worse and 5 years down the track another quick fix from Lab will be introduced to deal with some unfriendly workaround just like onion bodies now. You basically answered your own question, albeit very basically. If as you say all BoM does is flattens diffuse textures together, why didn't LL look at the same process for Normal and Specular Maps. Theoretically they are the same, just a texture, so why didn't they just apply the same process to the Normal and Specular Channels as they did to the diffuse channel. Would the above work, no idea (can't see why not though), I'm not that tech savvy, though it does make me wonder if it was even looked into. From what I can see all LL did is move one old system to a new completely incompatible system, gave themselves a pat on the back and said done. No, I don't believe there is a misunderstanding. BoM is a method implemented to reduce appliers, make content creation easier across different mesh bodies and reduce or remove onion layer bodies. Has this been achieved? No, but in part it has. I don't have a problem with the idea of BoM. I want it to work, I want to use it. The problem I have with BoM is that it doesn't keep the status quo with what is currently available (step backwards) and therefore means that people who use multiple material layers currently are forced to either live with laggy mesh onion bodies that will now never be updated (that many of us want to be removed) or downgrade to an inferior (yet newer) mesh body that will make their 'look' drastically flat or different. OptimoMaximo's scar example is a perfect one where multiple materials would be a necessity. To expand it further given the month we are in, a Halloween makeup for the face with stitches etc. All possible to make look realistic with materials however with BoM-v1 not possible unless the entire skin and scar/makeup is made by the same skin maker. This then means that you are back to square one of having to only select and support one creator vs the current (or is it now older?) and better system of having the ability to buy a really cool skin, then go to a store that sells Halloween makeup and apply that over your skin. The later creating far more possibilities, user creation and income for all. EDIT: Should have looked at the other threads prior to this one after not looking at the forums for so long. Laughable that now those same content creators hailing the new and improved mesh bodies with a reduced ARC and being onion layer free have now (or considering) introduced applier layers and material layers etc. Says it all and is how onion layer bodies started 1 layer turned to multiple. Wish there was a 'told you so' emoji.

I disagree, especially when a good majority at the beginning were asking for multiple material adaption into the system and were completely mystified as to why it wasn't. Like I said get it right the first time and it is easier to implement rather than having to rework code to add other things in later. If it can't be done programming wise fine I could understand that, but the fact they have said it is possible in the future then it should have been done from the get go. As to the labor side of things, how many people in this instance is irrelevant considering the vast majority of people do use the mesh bodies and therefore all possibilities should have been considered and implemented as best as possible. It would be like me saying that they shouldn't bring back last names when many people couldn't care less about whether it comes back or not (if they even know about it etc. which I would dare say those that don't visit the forums don't know about it). Also it's far more than a handful of people. The whole BoM system was and always has been a method to simplify the skin/mesh applying system (half done) as well as remove onion bodies from second life or at least make a drastic reduction in them. This is evident from the LL opening post of the feedback thread and only 1/3 of that has been achieved. Seems anyway we are at an impasse so rather than filling a thread up with "no I'm right, no you're wrong" rhetoric I think it's best for me to leave it here. Edit: didn't see your edit, so ill just say the vast majority of non-human avatars use the human bodies and mod those. Hence why there are far more mods for those bodies than the ones like solarian (anime being the exception with Avatar 2.0 which also ironically look as flat texture wise as the system avatar). Whilst the one I posted for the solarian body may be for that body, the same seller sells it for the human body. The fact that you think that the vast majority of furry's or non human avatars don't use human bodies as a base says it all... When you include the robot, mermaid, demon etc. avatars as part of the non-human (which I do) then the figure goes even higher.

You just need to look at any of the furry mods out their for specific bodies to see this kind of thing being done. The fact that most non-humans do mod bodies should give evidence to this kind of behavior. Just because non-humans may mod avatars doesn't necessarily mean they actually do the texture modding etc. themselves. Many, if not most, rely on others to make the mods and use those. With even more buying multiple mod packs and using a mixture between them. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Elf-Thunder-Skin-Aesthetic-body-Head-Omega/17851632 , https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/DiDiva-Mod-for-avatar-Andy-Horse-Male/18113599, https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/RL-OMEGA-FEMALE-STELLAR-UNIVERSE/17414418, https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/RL-AESTHETIC-CYBER-JAWZ-DARK-GREY/13808941 (many of R-LABS mods use this system and they are one of the most popular mod suppliers). All these Show tattoos being changed to glow using body huds or manually, not possible with BoM. Otherwise the tattoo maker will have to include all color options etc., if no-mod tattoo system layer is used. In fact many furry mods do include specific tattoo appliers that are specifically for the ability to change color, glow, normal map etc. Wet drippy look over skin (note is an adult sl link): https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Frios-Solarian-Hot-Sweaty-Wet-Layer/18016439 Tattoo shimmer: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/THIS-IS-WRONG-Tiger-Shine-MaitreyaOmega/18027141 Pretty sure this isn't possible with BoM whilst keeping a skin pore effect as well. Any of Blunderforge's shark mods include additional material normal maps for scales, etc. Also https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ANTAYA-Blue-mermaid-scales-Maitreya-Slink-Applier/15308153 , https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/KZ-Materials-Mermaid-scales/18161458 For mermaids etc. whilst keeping skin pore etc. normal under. Also really any robot avatar that uses a human form mesh body including Nanite systems skins for Maitreya. These allow for glow but also provide ways to make the lighting system work using scripts which can also be used on other bodies. There are numerous others including nipple mods for furry's, fur material mods etc. But the above should suffice. Also, it's not and shouldn't be about how many people use it etc and if you want that go survey the people yourself... as if one would have that data available on the drop of a hat 🙄. It is the fact that people do do this and by removing that ability without implementing it in another newer system is indeed a step backwards irrespective of how many people use it. All it is going to do is make it that human avatars use the new system (maybe) whilst those that are non-human or mod will use the old onion layers or make a new way of using both together.

I am not/wasn't necessarily just talking about solely clothing even if those are points I highlighted in my initial post. There are many occasions where the use of normal maps (or multiple maps) on a body would be a necessity and help with realism (without the performance hit of having them all mesh). Perhaps not on a human avatar but, furry's, robots and really any non human avatar has come to rely on multiple normals. For instance, a shark furry may want: a normal map for a pore skin effect, with another normal to simulate water run off etc. and then make a tattoo, band or whatever to also look slightly raised off the skin. A robot may want : to change the color of their tattoo layer (which from what I assume is impossible to do without a modifiable tattoo system layer like it was pre mesh with system bodies) make said tattoo glowy and set said glowy tattoo as a scripted flashing light effect over the entire body or in part, that is slightly indented or raised from the skin all without a mesh addon A hybrid dragon may want: Partial skin pore effect partial scale effect raised above the skin with the above being created from 2 different creators All these aren't possible with the current BoM system, hence why I stated it is a step backwards. Sure you cant account for everything, however due diligence should at least require some form of investigation as to how onion mesh bodies are utilised and start from there as a base to either match or improve upon. 90% of non human bodies now days have multiple layers and normal maps to account for all this. This is why I stated I can't see an influx of people ditching old bodies for new. Human avatars maybe, but the other non human avatars probably wont. So once again LL's claim of avoiding onion bodies has to date and probably will remain hot air. Lastly on this point, in modern games you have the luxury of one body and being able to conform all items to that body by replacing say a skin torso mesh entirely with an armor piece. Second life is vastly different due to its modifiability and user generated content and therefore such simplistic things can't be relied upon otherwise people WILL make a workaround that in past SL experiences is genereally never for the best - i.e. onion bodies. Perhaps back then it was extremely simple, however that is not the case anymore and with mods can be argued it is similar to SL in the way you mentioned with at times even better sky, water and weather graphics. More and more textures are either realistic and well above the old 16bit default version, shader mods are now generally a must have, realistic weather and scenes, foliage, movement are generally preferable. Even going as far as rounding off the square edges to make the game look like a real hill. That is to say, what you said about SL is the same in Minecraft. I can take a RL photo of something and put it on a cube. Minecraft wasn't successful due to its graphics, how it looked or how those graphics "works" with the gameplay. It was successful due to its gameplay alone as one of if not the first [infinitely generated] sandbox worlds. Any talk of graphics or its cubed nature being a part of its massive success is laughable.

No, I don't believe I am missing the point as my initial post was about onion layered bodies being needed still due to this problem with regards to normal maps not being on the system clothing side of things of which was the comment he posted that I replied to Wulfie about. That said, I know what he was talking about with the intimate areas but, as Marianne pointed out, Slink has the ability to change to a barbie system so thanks to her for that clarification and good for them for thinking about that. I don't have a slink body hence my confusion as to how they implement the features you explained in your post. What I was meaning, in talking with wulfie, is exactly what Marianne mentioned except different in a way. What I was talking about with Wulfie was, can a body turn off the system clothing and expose the intimate areas and then re-apply the system clothing and hide the intimate areas automatically. By what Marianne said it sounds like it does but is still a gimmicky way of doing things, having to remove the system layer and then click a button to show the relevant area. Hence my chatting with Wulfie regarding the autohide/show scripting within a body for clothing as it is now. As Wulfie mentioned there are numerous positives for BoM but, the removal of onion layered bodies as claimed by LL in the OP post of the feedback thread is not one of them as clothing layers or detailed mesh clothing overlaying the bodies etc will still be needed. There are countless other issues with the current BoM system as well. But those aren't relevant to the topic.

I don't have a slink body but are you saying that Slink has implemented a body that specifically can make ONLY the system clothing layer invisible in certain locations and not the entire skin without applying a new system texture over it (i.e. having to wait for it to reload)? If this is the case wow ok good for that. If not then you are missing the point of what I posted. You are missing the point. All that is doing is applying scripts into the current onion bodies. Certainly not fixing the issue that LL claim it does by "avoiding the need for onion bodies". Additionally, do you really think a content creator that sells say 50 skins is going to go back across their entire line and update them all. Maybe some but not all. They don't make money by doing that do they. Nor I take it do they have the time. Also Omega has never been perfect and still has issues lining up parts of the textures on bodies. No, wishful thinking. BoM is not a be all and end all. Mesh bodies will still be onion layered because the current BoM does not allow the same quality as current avatars. As I mentioned in my post, shine/gloss or whatever applies over the entire body, system clothing included. Until this isn't the case there needs to be an layer separate from the skin layer. If there isn't then, as mentioned LL is taking a step backwards from quality. Furthermore, we will still have mesh bodies that differ uv map wise to others and therefore, will still have the same lining up issues faced by all they other current appliers. Neck seams will still exist and the fix for them (an additional layer of mesh for feathered texturing) will still be applied. Until you needed a separate material on the clothing to the skin. Then it all falls apart.

Yes, Understand that and never said it was necessary to ditch mesh clothing. That was always going to be a mainstay, however there could have been a combination of system clothing and mesh parts, like every game these days do for optimisation. Even old school SL bodies combined system clothing with sculpts/flexy prims to good effect for its time. That said the potential was there for them to adapt it to work with materials properly and even allow for those fun parts you are talking about. It would be a simple matter of scripting to hide and show those system layers accordingly, just as has been the case for a while now to auto hide body parts with clothes etc. with scripts. I take it this aspect and possibility was another part that wasn't implemented for who knows what reason. The sad thing though is, as you agree with me, its going to be onion bodies v2 and that's a huge downside of this as many (including LL) hailed it as the end of onion bodies and better optimisation of the bodies and content. It was a select outspoken few that saw through that and realised that the avenue LL were taking wasn't going to achieve this, yet were hounded from those that were all for it. A shame indeed. Only benefit would be the removal of the tattoo layer. Still think it will be a skin and clothing mesh layer with maybe more. To quote the OP of the feedback thread: None of this has technically been shown as fact with BoM's release. Time will tell, but I believe this to be an obvious overstatement on Labs behalf. Only appliers that may be avoided are skin and tattoo ones, however that is only if people upgrade. Now that the system textures have been added with BoM it also means that content creators of skins will generally have to now not only make appliers for those that don't upgrade as well as simply the time it will take people to adapt, but also make and include system skins. Of which because every mesh body is different, multiple skin and tattoo layer options so that items like nipples etc line up.

And in typical LL fashion one step forward, 2 steps back. Whilst what you said may be the case, why release BoM at all if it will not improve on what we already have? Sure it may reduce onion layered avies, but once people start seeing that it is a downgrade visually they will just go back to the better looking and more laggy mesh body versions. We have already seen people posting that they wont be updating to BoM any time soon as it is cost prohibitive unless all current content creators update their old items with system skin/clothes. Now what was foreseen by many users and posted about in the forums as far as materials on BoM will also stop people from changing over. I don't want to log into SL and see people that only want shiny skin with oil or whatever now having that effect applied over their clothes as well, or a skin pore effect on clothes. Will be like I've stepped into kinky land and everyone is wearing latex. No Thanks! Heaven help those more demonic avies that want a cool cracked magma skin only to have the materials for it now on the pants and shirt or furries with a fur material normal map now showing off some lame looking shirt tattoo effect rather than an actual shirt over the fur. LL need to stop this retarded release system they have had for years releasing half baked ideas with the intention on improving on them later which takes them years to implement and only frustrates content creators more and more having to constantly re-update things because LL didn't do it right the first time. Release it right with all the features from the get go improving on the current quality not going backwards. I mean it has taken them 5 years (last month) to fix the rigged underwater alpha mask issue that was reported a bug 5 years ago! Fact of the matter is that LL have been told right from the early stages of BoM that there needs to be separate material layering system to accommodate for both skin and clothes. They, like usual, dumped it in the too hard basket and pressed on with a system that takes SL quality backwards, frustrates the userbase and in no way is going to help with current lag issues. I can guarantee you there are going to be two outcomes of this BoM system, either people aren't going to fully upgrade to it or once again some bright spark is gong to come up with another way to have both old and new implemented on the same body... AKA: Onion Layered Mesh bodies version 2.

Trouble is if you ask that much from creators it will only be more of a hassle and just annoy creators. Keeping it simple I believe would be better. Also as far as I am aware, the display weight in the more info section takes all of what you have listed into consideration and just calculates a number like ARC but for objects. This includes taking into consideration number of textures, sizes, etc. Scripts would be the only thing I don't think it calculates therefore perhaps rather than the number of scripts the script kb usage in about land would be better and more impactful as that would tell the full story script wise.

Why don't LL introduce a star rating to the marketplace. Surely such a thing would be easy to implement. Set it up so that when listing an item on marketplace it is a requirement (cannot finalise the listing without the info added) to input the download, physics and display weights of all objects. This data is easy to find in the more info section of the build menu. Upon entering the data in the listing have a little '?' mouse over button next to the weight input section telling creators how to find this info if they don't know where it is and why it is important. Then have this information (via an algorithm LL can set themselves), on the listing being accepted, converted to a simple star rating (or even a green bar rating system for each weight - longer bar = better optimisation) which is displayed graphically (like energy ratings) under the Land Impact or price section. One star for bad weights and up to 6 or even 10 stars for well optimised and good weights. This would not only allow users to see what items will be impacting them the most and shop accordingly as far as optimisation goes but also mean it is in the interest of creators to ensure that they reach as many stars as possible to keep competitive. It also has the additional side effect of showing and educating both user and creator of how to make well optimised content and also why it is necessary. As far as existing content listed on the marketplace if this is implemented; just have it so that all existing listed items have something stating it was created pre the star rating. This would mean all current listings stay as is, however have the caveat of users buying at own risk. It would also give incentive for creators to go back and edit the listing and update the weights to have the star rating show. It could even go further (considering marketplace will have the data with the above data needing to be added) whereby they introduce a wardrobe feature to the marketplace where you can select multiple items you are buying via tick box in your cart to see how much the total avatar render cost would be. I.e., if I am looking to buy a body, hair, skin, shirt, pants and shoes in one cart transaction, allow me to tick which items I want to calculate the ARC for and it calculates the ARC value of all those items or outfit in the cart prior to pressing the buy button. Kind of like how you can check online in RL what the estimated postage would be before purchasing. Certainly not a fix for everything but a step in the right direction of trying to educate users easily, visually and most of all prior to it being purchased and rezzed in world.

No, they may use a custom gaming engine but 3D modelling is still monopolised by Autodesk. Companies have invested way to much into Autodesk products that to change software would take time as well as money. That investment isn't necessarily money either it can be software with them creating custom software as well as plugins all to support and speed up their pipelines whilst using their software they use, which sorry to say primarily is still Autodesk. There is a reason why .FBX is the standard file format whilst exporting 3D modeling assets. Also keep in mind that as far as exporting and importing 3D models goes Blender is one of the few modelling programs (not sure if this is still the case) that doesn't allow either to be done in the format .3DS. Dice, EA, CR Project, Eidos, Bethesda, Bioware, Ubisoft (until this announcement) and many more use Autodesk's 3D modeling software for creating 3D assets. Autodesk's software file formats (.FBX and .3DS) are the industry standard for anything from 3D modeling and movies all the way to architecture. It is also the software that is primarily taught to students going into these fields in universities and colleges. Might not be the case for self employed professionals, but for companies it is the case. Just need to look at their career advertisements to see Autodesk software knowledge listed as a requirement. Its good to see competition creeping in now.

Oh please. Stop putting words in my mouth. I have never said I didn't like people using mesh bodies created by users, I have also never said I was against them. Sure I may have said that they were heavy on performance and the way they are now is limiting certain aspects as far as choice and creation goes, but why would I be proposing ideas in my latest post about ways to have clothing work for current mesh bodies (and an updated default body) if I was so hell bent on removing them. Am I advocate for a new default body? Yes, as it will be beneficial for the new user experience and help user retention. Who knows, it may also set a base line for mesh body creators to optimised things further and provide some competition. Do I think the mesh bodies as they are now need to be looked at to help performance and optimisation? Yes. That doesn't mean I think they should be removed from second life as I think they serve a purpose (I know, shocking!) . Do I think BoM will solve the optimisation issues of the bodies? No, I don't think it will have any effect what so ever on optimisation and performance. Also, I have never said the onion layered body was a hack. That is your words not mine. I believe that the body was created all within the bounds of allowances Linden Lab provide, unlike megaprims that were created through work arounds or 'hacks'. That said, I also believe that by Linden Lab not restricting some elements of the mesh upload and having to highly set allowances resulted in a lot of poorly optimised content and bodies. It is a fact that the better looking onion layered bodies were a necessity created solely due to Linden Lab ignoring years of requests to update the ugly and outdated system avatar. People didn't like it so they created something better and I am glad they did. They then realised that textures and skins would need to work independently from each other so adapted from there. It was all a necessity that may or may never have happened to the extent it has if the default avatar offered a similar solution. Keep in mind the buck has to stop with someone and it generally cant be the user it always stops at the company. Sorry for the rant and if I took your post the wrong way I apologise, but I don't like people putting words in my mouth or saying what I do and don't like.

But that's the problem. They are to scared to break content and therefore negatively impacts everything. In addition to the body skeleton, I still think they need a duplicate skeleton just for clothing that has an even larger range than the body skeleton. The problem we have now is that when I wear a fitted mesh body and a fitted mesh clothing item they move together. This means that the mesh clothing item has to be made specifically for that particular mesh body so that when adjusting the body sliders the clothing doesn't clip with the body. By implementing a separate additional and modifiable skeleton just for clothing that is offset slightly further from the body as far as usable range goes, it would mean that I could then have separate sliders to control my body and then an additional slider set to adjust the clothing skeleton. This is the only way to make it so that clothing can be used irrespective of what bought body you buy. It would also be usable with an upgraded default body as well as it would mean the clothing made for other bought mesh bodies would work for the upgraded default body.

I wouldn't necessarily say its a bad thing for linden lab. If Linden Lab redo the system body now, whatever body you have bought would still be yours (to keep using to the detriment of others performance), whilst new users would get a far better experience of creating their own unique avatar helping user retention without the looming $ sign dropping on them when they realise it will cost them quite a lot to look good like it does now. A plus for LL and SL in general. Now as to the Second life Economy I would dare say it would be far more beneficial and will only affect the profits of the body and head creators. As it stands now, with the disunity the multiple mesh bodies create in the market it is hindering creation as well as the economy of both users and Linden Lab. If I buy a Jake body, I have to go around endlessly trying to find decent clothing just for that body. The newer the body the less chance of clothing to be found and the higher the risk of buying a body that wont be popular and will see very little clothing for. This means that you are reducing the market share of the economy and consequently limiting the amount people are willing to spend. Due to the high cost of a head and body most people will buy one of each and stick with it. If they cant find enough clothes for it I would dare say they would grin and bare it and just not put as much money into spending on clothes for that body. On the other hand, if the system body was completely redone to look up to par with the current mesh bodies on offer, this would mean, not only a free body but also more options clothing wise, the ability to keep track better on optimisation, the ability to add new features that benefit the body without having to think of the what affect it would have on other mesh bodies etc. At the moment if I like a item of clothing, it may not be compatible with my mesh body, I therefore may choose not to buy it or anything that week. On the other hand if I have a default system body, all creators items will be solely for that body meaning more choice and more potential profit for both users and LL. It would also probably get more people into making things for bodies as well as they only need to concentrate on one type. The only market the rework of the system body will affect is the mesh body creators. People will still create tattoos, make-up, clothes, hats, shoes, eyes, skins etc. for the new default body and all the while there will be more choice due to creators only needing to create for one body meaning more people buying things. That's how I see it anyway.

Ture, however an architect in RL can come up with numerous work arounds to the Development plans of governing bodies. Does this mean its necessarily bad? No. All it means is that if it goes to harshly against the development regulations its refused and in the next iteration of the Development Plan a clause preventing that workaround is put in place. On the other hand if it adds to the community or has little detrimental effect, it is approved to stay. This is how we get buildings designed to the extreme from starchitects like Frank Gehry. Just as it is the same we get to keep work arounds like sculpts, megaprims and liquid mesh or we get changes to the ARC etc to stop those work arounds. That's a different case. Its not necessarily a hack. It was a necessity or byproduct of negligence. It is the fault of Linden Lab for not redoing the default avatar customisation system when they introduced mesh and even after years of people requesting its upgrade. Edit: This negligence has also affected their pipeline whereby they have had to dedicate resources to rework inbuilt systems to help with the situation despite, if they had just updated the default body they could have just ignored. I.E, BoM I have seen lots of low poly well done animesh figures around the 50Li mark. Is that high compared to a non animesh NPC of 20Li? Maybe, but if done right you can build a multi level sim wide city for 3000Li leaving well over 10000Li. Enough for 200 animish NPC's and room to spare with current Li allowances.

Further in essence to what Penny said. Despite the help of hype in the past, Linden Lab could turn it all around and get hype again if they put the man hours into it and give up on Sansar giving them more man power (will never happen). Sansar by the time it is finished will be DOA, no, it is already DOA. With second life Linden Lab have a gold mine, the best of both worlds with everything; a virtual currency, world and a well established base. If they could just look into the future. I'm sure they are trying but as it stands now its just going to get worse for them. Linden Lab need to: Make SL character creation better, update the bodies, the customisation etc. As a new user the only option now even when you create an account is a custom made body allowing very little editing. Gone are the unique face adjustments, body sliders, individual looks etc. Second Life has gone the opposite direction to the trend. When it was created it was rare to have such character customisation. In games it was pick x,y,z head. Now SL 18 years later, is pick x,y,z head and all other companies are pouring millions into unique character creation. They need to rework the inworld creation system bringing back the defining difference between all other competitors both old and new Adopt in world animation editing seen in the Black Dragon viewer, Bring in texture creation and manipulation seen in modern games using shapes or as in past games such as APB Reloaded. Focus hard on region crossings, pathfinding and more scripting options to rival the options in C# Make some extra graphic and cache tweaks to bring it up to a current more reasonable real world graphics (not far off it) Relook at integration of VR - and dont just put it in the too hard basket. Rework (lower dramatically) tier prices Doing all this could open the door for external game influences within the world. But for this to happen the rest of the content both now and in the future needs to be optimised for everyone for them to even consider this. What better way for Linden Lab to bring SL into the future and garner new users could there be. To have gaming companies using the SL world for their games, not as a closed zone room like Sansar or other companies provide, but a never ending world where if I want to play (hypothetically) WOW 2.0 it would be a simple matter of teleporting or walking through a gate/portal after driving my car on a road on mainland (like attending a theme park) to the WOW 2.0 region from where I was playing minigolf or from my house. Then Experience Tools changes me automatically into my WOW 2.0 blood elf during the teleport or cross over through the gate. All with a universal currency managed through their Tilia subsidiary whereby all games in world use the same linden currency. Keeping user creation in the system so people get the best of both worlds exploration and gaming with social and building. This is where they should be heading not keeping the status quo. Lastly, if they don't look to the future and change more, companies like Valve will just take Lab's idea over and SL will just fade away even quicker. This is why Sansar is already DOA. With steam VR you can already have a house that you can decorate, access steam menu's, create your own virtual space and share it with people through Steam Workshop, start and essentially "teleport" to games, meet, play and communicate with friends all in VR. Essentially Sansar mixed with SL only better, already with loads of content from both average people and multi-million dollar gaming companies. The Steam VR system is already finished, relatively bug free and most of all free to access. How long will it be before Valve introduce your own avatar customisation or, adopt the vapourware half life 3 engine to allow people to make their own region and games through Steam Workshop? All of the above would also fix the very reasons people leave SL that they have posed in these forums time and again. Linden Lab and SL are getting left behind, plain and simply. If they can work on the above things and more, they could have a system taking SL (creation and exploration) into an area that not even Valve (games), Facebook (social and profile) or the like could rival.

In some cases it can, but in others I would say no. Firstly putting limitations helps ensure that everyone can have a better experience and produce better quality and optimised content. Secondly, restrictions encourage innovation. Many things are created better because the restrictions placed on creators and designers has forced them to think outside the box. Architecture is one of the primary examples of this in RL. Even without restrictions people are going to find a way to bypass something so it makes no difference introducing them other than encouraging content creators to create a certain way. Your always going to get a few bad apples that don't conform. You also say "there's a hacky way to bypass it" whilst yes that is true, in the majority of cases if it goes against the restrictions it would be a simple patch needed for Lab to fix it. That said, without those very restrictions or people finding "hacky ways" we would never have had mega prims, sculpties, fitted mesh, animesh, etc. Some of these were introduced as a way to resolve those very hacks and others kept because even as hacks they worked. Sure some of the hacks impacted on performance such as sculpties, texture flicking movement etc., at the time and in some cases now, but they allowed the SL world to change considerably, flourish and be innovative. Keeping user retention. But there is the problem. Well created content, that has a low polygon count and uses better optimised textures would allow for more sim resources to go to animesh. The situation we have now is that there is a hard restriction placed on animesh that forces sim creators to not put many down due to the cost. This however is counteracted by having very lax or abused restrictions on other content creation whereby, a house can have a land impact of 1000 solely due to poor optimisation. This leaves less space for other content such as animesh that makes it hard for a person who doesn't know how to rig or mesh and is at the mercy of poorly optimised content creators taking up the space making it hard for them to justify that extra 30Li. As far as justification in other areas go for rezzed animesh, it certainly can be justified through the use of animesh as NPC's in any circumstance especially RP and gaming. The trouble now is, per above, one type of creation restricts the use of the other and people also are not optimising the animesh. This is what is keeping demand low as . Animesh could be a gamechanger for second life but, if its adoption rate is poor simply due to ALL content not being optimised (even through restrictions), it could crash and burn any positives both inworld and to potential other users.

You are correct, my mistake. Re-reading what I wrote it seems posting at 2am in the morning is not the wisest thing, but here I am doing it again. Fingers crossed I do it right this time. What the line about point lights should have said was: Part of that line doesn't even make sense after re-reading .. shadows cant go through walls, light can though, spooky if you could though. lol. My not so well explained point was basically that it is better to use projection lights as you can direct the light to cast shadows on the right areas where as if you use a point light it will wash out the shadow effect and result in potentially more projection lights being added to create a better shadow effect. By everything I just meant all shadow producing lights. Not all lights. I hope that makes sense this time.

Could always do what I used to do when I created my sim. Would link as many objects as possible together then copy and paste the x,y,z position coordinates in the description section of the edit menu just incase this happened. If it did I would simply rez it, copy and paste the description field into the position coordinates and it was neatly back in its original space.

Pointless and sometimes rather disturbing TV episodes reacting to SL. I'm looking at you CSI - NY 😒 .

The fact that such things causes performance issues says otherwise. Sure SL may keep going, but the experience the user has with the huge performance drop is what one should think about as this negatively effects user retention. I think you're underestimating the uv mapping issue as it is not an edge case at all. There are plenty of examples. Agree, however when the viewer is how it is and see's very slow major improvements to the drain it has on a users computer, I would far prefer other creators creating things properly to reduce all of that drain. If this is done it would see a much speedier increase in the performance of SL than anything in the near future LL can muster up.

Locking it is what I meant. Removing the access from people changing it. As to FS ignoring it, well if that's the case least we can say don't use Firestorm 😛 Oh I agree, for example if it is just a somewhat square object like a statue sure. But I have bout so many houses or the like where half of the mesh is has decent physics and then one part doesn't and a wall can be walked through so they just place a prim in front of it. I'll rephrase as I'm not talking about server to client performance as I agree that is different and a grin and bear it issue. Nor am I talking about the dynamic nature of it. Take the Bethesda creation engine, as this is the most commonly modded gaming engine that allows it. I can create a mesh object so polygon dense similar to how some might make it for SL such as single coin with a 4k texture and then add that to the game and it can crash the game due to the increase in load - a single coin. Same with 4k textures. Whilst yes, SL is different, the performance hit a person takes by loading poorly optimised content will still effect performance in either a dynamically generated environment such as second life or a static one such as Skyrim as, the computer needs more resources to process the coin irrespective on which "game" it is in. I agree, though not imposing limits will still create the same issues even with a new cache method as unlike a gaming studio the average user isn't as adept in the knowledge of how to create game assets. People are still going to limit how big their cache is despite any new changes and by the sounds of the new cache, your going to need an even bigger size to accommodate. I'm not to sure about that. I've seen some pretty terrible texture wastage and quite often and a lot are similar to Penny's example maybe not as extreme as a quarter but half definitely. That's my point as to why they should lock down the LOD system and to be honest LL could just stop FS from hacking around it. I'm sure it isn't the first time Linden Lab have stopped a TPV from doing something, just ask niran. I do agree on the other things people made comment, which is why in my posts I have stated making your own is the best way. As to the 100's of 1Li object example, once again it would depend on the user not Linden Lab or the viewer. If those 1Li objects only share 10 textures between them then that's good use of resources. The case we have now is that most people would have 100 unique textures for each object. That would be poor use of resources. Who do I blame for that? I would say the creator of the objects. But as you say if people use other peoples creations then you would have multiple textures everywhere, though then it once again comes down to the creators to ensure that their objects are as optimised as possible to resolve situations like this. No idea, I don't use Blender. I only suggested it as such as you mentioned it wasn't possible without an addon, so assumed one was available. If it isn't then learn how to do it manually and grin and bear it. I have to do that for a lot of my content created IRL if there isn't a easier way of doing it.

Was that a jab at me.. 😛 I swear I was civil and on topic with my posts. If done right (despite me hating seeing shadows baked on a surface going the opposite direction to the sun angle) and I would say it depends on how the light is implemented that creates the shadow. Sure you cant stop the somewhat minimal performance hit of shadows caused by the sun, but I also think a lot of the performance issues people may suffer with shadows on is how an artificial light source is created. There are 2 ways in second life to create a light source. The simplest and almost exclusively used way is tick that light tick box in the build menu leave the settings as a 10m radius light and hey presto I have a new lamp that can light up my whole house. This method will cast a shadow on everything even through walls in some cases which, in a realistic environment as well as a typical game engine environment just doesn't happen. This means you cant control the amount of shadows or the performance hit it creates as it is rendering shadows for everything in a 10m radius. The second option is to use the spot lighting method and adapt from there. Spot lighting allows you to use a texture whereby the light only comes out from that texture space. This means I can directionally light something without it necessarily casting shadows on other objects or avatars. You then further this but reducing the radius and fade etc. so as the light source radius or in the spot light example, distance only casts a light to the required distance needed to illuminate the surface. Shadows will always be a performance hit as you say, that's why there is also settings in SL that allow you to manage them and even more so in viewers like Black Dragon. I generally just use the shadows by sun and moon option and if taking pictures etc will then set it to everything.