Fluffy Sharkfin

It really depends on how you create that "smoothness", there are right ways and wrong ways and for the purposes of SL adding a ton of extra geometry to your final model is invariably one of the wrong ways. The most useful tool a developer has for creating seemingly high poly objects using just a few triangles is baking normal maps, and it's definitely the best approach if you're using Zbrush to add detail to your models. I already posted this short youtube video in another thread but it is, at least in my opinion, information that bears repeating...

This is one of the areas in which PBR materials may actually help to improve matters (if creators can be persuaded to take advantage of it). Unlike diffuse textures (which may contain information derived from a combination of the roughness/metalness of the surface and diffuse lighting & shading), albedo maps contain purely the base colour of the surface they're applied to, so by using a desaturated/grey-scale albedo map you can specify luminance values of the surface without adding any colour information and then allow the user to select the colour by tinting parts of the asset instead. Since all the highlights and shading on objects are the result of the roughness, metalness, normal & AO maps, tinting the desaturated albedo map of a PBR material should have a more realistic effect than can be achieved with a diffuse map. Certain games use a very similar approach for user-customizable content, although rather than individual faces/materials they employ an RGB mask to specify which areas of a texture/model should be colourized.

No, just.... no! You make some good points in your post (and some not so good ones) but blending normal maps with your diffuse in a photo editor to try and simulate lighting and shadow is honestly a terrible idea! This short video explains exactly what normal maps are, how they work and why using them correctly will greatly improve the visual quality and detail of both mesh/prims.

@DulceDivaYou can find a full explanation of the concept of subdivision levels in Zbrush in the official documentation here Subdivision Levels | ZBrush Docs (I'd also recommend reading the following chapter on Dynamic Subdivision). If you search Youtube for "zbrush subdivision" you'll find plenty of explanations and tutorials on how to use it to solve your problem with facets on your base mesh, here's a nice short one that summarizes things quite well... I'd also recommend checking out the youtube channels of Flipped Normals and Micheal Pavlovich, two excellent resources for Zbrush users. I don't personally use Zbrush so can't give you any specific assistance but 3D Coat works on a very similar basis so I'm pretty familiar with the workflow. One tip I can offer is to keep in mind the resolution of your final textures and how much texel density/UV space each part of your base mesh has to work with when sculpting additional details. You can add a few million polygons to a mesh and go crazy adding fine detail like stitching on seams, etc. but if the UV mapping of the base mesh for the part of the model you're sculpting on only occupies 256x256 pixels of the final texture all that extra detail is going to look like a grainy, pixelated mess when you bake it onto the low poly model.

There seems to be this widely held misconception that the primary reason to add extra materials/faces to a mesh is so you can slap a few more unique 1k textures on it and make it look "prettier" when, in reality, the best use of multiple materials/faces is to reduce the overall number of unique textures required when creating environments, architecture & props.

Firstly I never called anything "crap", there's a difference between something being inexpertly made and being "crap". Secondly "commercial licensing" is a reference to "commerce" (i.e. the buying and selling of things for money) rather than specifically referring to the use of of something for "commercials" (i.e. advertising). As for "commercial grade" content in SL, if you were to try and pass off the majority of contents of an average SL region as finished professional quality assets at any development studio or production house I suspect your next assigned task would be to pack your personal belongings into a cardboard box. It's not that there isn't some visually stunningly and technically impressive content in SL but due to the idiosyncratic nature of creating content for SL and the wildly varying level of technical skill of various creators, the vast majority of it is a long way from professional quality assets.

In the hands of those who know how to use them PBR materials could be a powerful tool capable of not only improving the visual quality of content but also potentially improving performance... but yes, in the hands of the average SL creators/residents it's most likely just going to cause more lag. A hammer is also a very powerful and versatile tool which can perform a lot of useful tasks, but put one in the hands of a child and they'll most likely just hurt someone.

Assuming that the OP intends to use Zbrush to add additional detail to the model (which is one of the most common uses for Zbrush) increasing the density of the topology is exactly what they'll need to do. The idea behind the workflow is to create a low poly model, import it into Zbrush and increase the polygon density in order to sculpt additional details onto it. Once you've finished adding details you export the high poly version and then bake the detail into normal maps, AO maps, etc. which can be applied to the low poly model.

If that is the case then I'd recommend they stop playing around with PBR and any other features and concentrate all their efforts on figuring out how they're going to make SLs UI controller friendly, because it's been nearly two decades and it's still one of the most common complaints about the viewer among residents, even with a full keyboard and mouse, so imagine what the reaction of the average Xbox user will be when they first log in! 😅

I tend to disagree and although I'd certainly like to see a more versatile and robust system for making rigged mesh/animesh (along with a re-examination of animesh land impact and an overhaul of the current animation system in general), I still think PBR is an equally important addition and will benefit a wider range of content and creators. I suspect that part of the reason LL are considering taking such a bold step is that with the recent hype surrounding virtual worlds Second Life has on several occasions been brought up in comparison to similar platforms currently in development and, based on the majority of comments in articles and on social media from non-residents, one of the most common perceptions of SL is that it looks old and outdated. If LL are hoping to garner further interest in SL as a platform and prove that it's still a viable competitor for all the new virtual worlds currently in development then it makes sense that taking steps to address the misconception that everything in SL looks like something from the late 90s/early 00s would be a priority for them.

As monumental as the first task may seem (i.e. "make SL run better") it pales in comparison to the second since what "looks better" is clearly highly subjective depending on each residents personal tastes and their reasons for being in SL.

Creators (or at least those who sell their creations) are usually influenced by consumer demand. If the collective buying power of those who insist upon modifiable content is great enough then eventually creators will stop making no-mod content. Since threads on this subject are still a regular occurence, and have been for years, it would suggest that the majority of consumers aren't all that bothered and no-mod content is still selling well enough for creators to make a profit. Just to play devils advocate on behalf of no-mod content for a moment, at one time I sold vendors and would get plenty of IMs from other creators customers asking for support or complaining about products which I had nothing to do with simply because they inspected the vendor and IM'd the creator instead of the owner. Similarly I can imagine it would be equally frustrating as a clothing creator to release an item and then have someone retexture it and post a photo on flickr only to be inundated with IMs from people who can't find that particular variant in your store or angrily complaining about how they bought the fatpack but that particular texture isn't included. That may not be enough of a valid justification for those arguing in favour of modifiable content, but they aren't the ones who're going to have to answer all those IM's.

You listed "The moving of creator tools outside of SL" as one of the reasons for a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to creating content for SL. Since creation of sounds, textures, and animations have always relied on external software it seemed safe to assume that you were referring to sculpted prims and/or mesh replacing traditional prim builds. As I pointed out, if utilized correctly mesh can still be a very useful tool for creativity within SL, however in order for that to happen a lot of creators would need to educate themselves on the concepts of creating modular environments and, even more unlikely, residents/customers would need to learn a little about the principles of level design and the responsible use of assets and resources. If more residents wanted to be creative and build things for themselves in-world then consumer demand for such modular kits would be probably be higher than the demand for prefabs. Incidentally this is also what makes lag the eternally insoluble conundrum of Second Life, as a platform its appeal is that it allows you the freedom of unfettered creativity, the ability to fill a small space with an incredibly wide range of content with very little apparent consequence, which in turn means your pc has to struggle with hundreds of unique assets when rendering every frame. Even if both creators and residents started utilizing mesh and textures in a more responsible and resource friendly manner when creating environments it wouldn't matter because each region would collectively still be filled with hundreds of unique items of furniture and decoration from a myriad of different creators. Second Life is, by its very nature, doomed to be a laggy patchwork of random creativity.

"If mesh hadn't been introduced it wouldn't be more popular than prims" isn't exactly a winning argument. The reason that mesh items are more popular than their prim equivalents is that they're more efficient in terms of land impact, which equates to more stuff rezzed for less monthly tier. The rise of mesh (and subsequent fall of prims) is purely the result of consumer demand. The argument that mesh somehow sucked the joy out of creating things using prims only works if your motivation is to be a merchant rather than a creator. With the use of materials you can still create decent quality content in-world using nothing but prims and if you combine those with a well-made modular mesh building kit and some tileable trim sheets you can create things that rival the majority of mesh items, you just have to sacrifice additional LI in some areas. The introduction of mesh made it harder to become a merchant without using external software, the drop in creativity is because consumer demand is for prefabs which suggests that the majority of residents don't care about creativity, they just want pretty houses they can rez and decorate with all their pretty furniture and virtual bric-a-brac.

Certain permissions are granted automatically (and silently) upon request if the script is in an attached object (you can find a list of which permissions are granted automatically in the table at the top of this wiki page).

Unless you happen to work at Meta and are therefore subject to some kind of "virtual leg embargo" I'm not sure how this would be considered NSFW?! @Raven HuntsmanPersonally I thought it looked kinda neat, a nice little immersive touch (although I can see it getting a little repetitive if you're trying on a bunch of shoes, maybe an option to turn the animation on/off would be a nice feature).

The object in the second image is based on the technique outlined in this tutorial Fur Breakdown (I'd also suggest taking a look at the Rye Moss Tutorial which uses the same approach).

The stuff they're creating is certainly impressive but I don't know if their urban combat system is quite game changing enough to open up a new market in SL purely because the limitations of the platform will always mean that combat in SL will never compare to the experience you get using a proper game engine. It would certainly be great for creating custom roleplay systems and environments which is something that I personally think SL does better than any other existing platform. The environments they've created are definitely impressive and I suspect that a similar level of detail and quality is what Luca had in mind when discussing worldbuilding in the video you posted earlier. If new residents first impressions of SL were experiencing environments like this then perhaps less of them would turn their noses up at SL within the first few hours.

It seems like recent developments in hardware and software have done a lot to speed up the process of mixing our realities over the last few years.

That screenshot isn't remotely representative of "modern SL" when compared to an environment like this...

I must admit to being mildly curious about that part myself, and am now imagining various tests of skill, dexterity and cunning... like unpacking a set of 20 russian nesting dolls to prove your prowess at gacha shopping or an endurance test where you have to wear a blindfold hud and then find your way through 40 afk avatars to a specific merchant booth on a laggy event sim, or perhaps a grid-wide scavenger hunt where you have to track down a specific set of earrings based on a 64x32 pixel clip of an advertisement for something entirely different? Come to think of it that all sounds kinda fun, maybe LL could arrange a yearly event along those lines and call it the Shopalympics and give out a months free Premium Plus to the winner and some L$100 giftcards for the runners up?!

As job advertisements go this one is definitely cryptic, but I suspect this line may provide a clue... Putting aside the somewhat odd use of the phrase "recruit a [Work Title]" it sounds like someone who just requires help getting started in SL? As for what the hours are or any of the other details who knows, but with wording like... ...it all sounds a bit too Hunger Games for my tastes anyway.

Short answer, yes! Blender may be free but over the years it has become an extremely powerful and fully featured 3D application. It can take some time to familiarize yourself with but there's a wealth of learning material available for it so if you're willing to devote enough time you can certainly make content of a high enough quality for SL without having to pay for software. That being said there are certain tools and applications that may speed up your productivity considerably depending on what type of content you're creating and some of them may cost money, however none of them are essential to creating content for SL so it's entirely up to you to decide if the value you place upon your own time outweighs the cost of the additional software or not.

I'm also assuming not but haven't managed to find many clear explanations as to which files are affected by the changes. Google did turn up one fairly informative discussion on the subject (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369951), the top comment of which sounds knowledgeable enough (for what little that's worth on the internet) I managed to grab a license for CS6 just before they abandoned perpetual licensing so am in the same position, I'm guessing that if you disable automatic updates then the changes won't impact you at all.

I used to enjoy hanging out at some of the infohubs back when they were a little more populated (and some of the folks I met while doing so have gone on to become my closest friends inside and outside of SL) but there was almost always a group of regulars there and among them would be the obligatory "mean kids" whose sole purpose for being there seemed to be bullying and ridiculing anyone that happened to catch their attention, they'd wait for some poor unsuspecting newbie to approach them or say something in local chat or even just accidentally bump into someone and then proceed to berate and belittle them until they left. It was essentially the troll equivalent of spawn camping and, apologies for the mixed metaphor, the very definition of "punching down at fish in a barrel", standing around waiting in a welcome area where new people are forcibly sent to just so they could amuse themselves by trying to make them feel as unwelcome as possible until their victim worked out how to get away from them. I do still hang out at welcome areas from time to time but only when I'm in the mood to talk to random strangers, answer questions and fend off the occasional misguided and over-amorous IMs. Honestly if you're looking for a "wholesome" experience then spending time at a welcome area isn't a bad idea, as long as you go there with the intent of being helpful and welcoming you'll find that you can meet some pretty nice people and maybe help to make some newbies first few hours a more positive experience.