Jennifur Vultee

I'll tell you who the fearful and snivelling ones are, those who can't conceive of a world of freedom where everyone is free to create at different levels with accessible tools, and instead, has to preserve a medieval bastion of guild craftsmen who hoard the remaining, dwindling supply of specialized knowledge to themselves on the cusp of the next tool revolution when the knowledge will become obsolete. THAT's what fear looks like. The real challenge is designing a world that doesn't merely replicate the past stages of the real world but creates something different. Evolution? Hardly. Refusal to adapt? I'll tell you where the "refusal to adapt" is -- in the creator-class that zealously clings to its privileges and crumbling exotic knowledge that is soon to be no more... Nobody has to stand outside cranking a shaft on their car engine anymore; they just turn the ignition key : ) The stubbornness and laziness is all in the precious simulated divas, clinging to their lost world... People in SL this very moment are already have the freedom to create and at different levels...texture artist create textures and clothing, prim builders build magnificent builds, scripters script, sculpty creators create sculpted prims (mainly in OMG external programs! Cut to next scene). Its not magic or alchemy we're talking about...its mesh. Right now in SL there are mesh groups for practically every 3D app available...and they help each other learn or solve problems. Anyone in SL can join these mystical scary groups...and..um...learn if they choose to. I've almost never met an amateur 3D creator who wasn't happy to share what they knew. Everyone is free to create with easily accessible tools if they choose to learn themand yes this includes prim building... but let me once again mention Blender...oh and Google Sketchup...golly they're free along with plenty more. Personally I'd say you're afraid of shadows and theres no real substance to your argument. You want to build with prims by all means continue to do so...no-one is taking them away or twisting your arm to learn mesh. Because something is made with prims doesn't mean its any less valid or spectacular than a sculpted prim or mesh. I've seem some awesome prim builds in SL. You're right nobody has to crank their car anymore...I just fail to see how that's relevant. And its your right to be a simulated diva or too stubborn or too lazy to learn something new but that is your choice and the choice of any person with free will...just ask any two year old who's learned to say, "NO!" and throw a temper tantrum. Mesh isn't progress, as has been stated its old news by now and its like anything else...its a skill anyone can learn if they choose to do so. I'm self taught and frankly I don't know 1/4 of what 3DS Max can do because I only learned what I needed to learn to accomplish the things I wanted to do. The simple fact is you and a few others have drawn your battle lines, entrenched deeply and no amount of discussion on this subject will change your mind. I'd love to have a real conversation but all you seem to be able to do is toss out the same old arguments.

Those are some very real concerns about who can see meshes but I'm pretty sure mesh will be incorporated into third party viewers pretty quickly. I myself prefer the Phoneix viewer and only use the beta test version of viewer 2 on the testing grid and even then its a big frustration for me to work with it and I have no plans to use viewer 2 personally. As far as anyone wearing a rigged mesh avatar, most will be using the alpha layers to hide the avatar so if someone is on a viewer that doesn't support mesh they will see the prim parts and the little pyramids of the unrezzed mesh.

I really think its well worth the time to learn to build as much as you can with standard prims Sage. There will always be a place for prims in SL and in a lot of cases they'll still be the dominant building method with a sprinkling of sculpted prims or mesh mixed in for extra detailing. If you rely solely on mesh or sculpted prims you won't be as effective as a builder compared to someone who can work with all three. With mesh as it currently is possible to texture a mesh in SL, and I see no reason LL would change this, you can apply textures to your mesh after you import it. You simply drag your texture onto the mesh just as you would a standard prim and it covers the area you assigned a texture to in the 3d app. For example if I create an eight sided cylinder in 3DS Max and assign a different texture to all ten faces (8 sides plus top and bottom) when I import the cylinder into SL it remembers the ten texture assignments. So dragging a texture onto one face only applies a the texture to that face. As far as avatars I've already seen one full body avatar on the test grid...a purple and yellow alien and it looked really good. The furries are going to love mesh import when full body furry avatars start showing up. lol

For your information Viv 3DS Max is one of those big programs that professional users often learn specialized portions of. One person might create and rig the mesh then hand it off to the texturer who unwraps and textures it who hands it off to an animator and so on. The problem is you like to present yourself as an authority on a subject you know little about. Remember Viv, watching Toy Story does not make you an expert on 3D. As I said...I learned what I needed to learn for the things I wanted to do. As I need to learn new things I pull out my books, research online and start doing practice lessons and tutorials. Of course its not impossible to learn everything about Max but I fail to see how it helps me to learn the parts I'll never use. You seriously want a Sybian in 3D? Piece of cake...give me 45 minutes and you'll have one fully UVW mapped with custom hand made textures...maybe it would help you relax a bit.

George Bernard Shaw makes sense...that's a name I know, but someone just tossing out the name "Shaw" could mean anyhing in SL. Could have been a reference to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th Regiment Massachusets Volunteer Infantry or Shaw Delight of SL for all I knew.

Who is Jamie? That was the whole point of brining her up...its SL not Mayberry, not everyone knows everybody else. If you have something productive to say, critisism or otherwise I'll be happy to reply to you but if you just want to rant and bitch that the sky is falling then have fun with that.

No I don't know Shaw or "the famous typewriter sculptie"...should I? But Jamie tells me its a waste of time replying to you.

I have no idea who Shaw is. I just don't understand why you're so freaked out about mesh since sculpted prims are a form of mesh and they didn't destroy SL.

Profyky Neva wrote: I've yet to hear a simple answer to a simple question in the miles of hundreds of answers and repartees and barbed snarks here: can you or can you not edit and change another person's mesh? End of story. As you were told by Chosen Few and myself in a forum post yes you can edit a mesh. Like a sculpted prim you can't change its shape but you can apply your own textures and resize it. If the person selling the mesh would be willing to sell you a file, say.obj, that is a common format you can open that in almost any 3D app, then you can make any changes you want and re-export it. Sculpted prims can be edited in an external editor the same way...I know of at least one person selling .obj files for his sculpt maps in SL. You seem dead set that if you can't just move verts of a mesh in SL that means you can't edit it. You can't manipulate sculpted prims beyond changing the texture and size and sculpted prims and mesh are the same thing with sculpted prims having strict rules and mesh being much more flexible to create. The differences are simply meshes are easier to create that sculpted prims (because the rules aren't as rigid) and they are export and imported in different ways. Its simple...meshes are basically nothing more than advanced sculpted prims.

Qie think of long hair that today is created from normal prims or sculpted prims with flexiprims to flow and move..the prims cut through the avatar body as it moves. A mesh hair can be weighted to several bones in the avatar skeleton so instead of cutting through the avatar body it moves with it...the flexiprims would be added to create the flowing movements.

Nope, I don't want to tell you I spent $3500 (get it right) to be frustrated making sculpted prims...thats just a bonus. I spent my money because I loved the idea of creating meshes...it fascinated me and was involved in a 3D room based chat environment where I could push my skills and learn. I tried Blender (free) and Google Sketchup but neither could do all the things I wanted to accomplish. I love working in 3D but as I stated sculpted prims are frustrating because of their limitations. If that answer isn't good enough for you so be it...besides why and on what I spend my hard earned money is frankly none of your business.

You want to build with standard SL prims...by all means feel free to...there will always be a place for them in SL. Mesh is in no way going to replace prims. But by the same token don't sit there and scream bloody murder just because mesh is comming. Its just another way of building. Yes its different, you don't want to do it but some of us do. We are not sitting here lobbying LL to remove standard prims from SL nor would we ever. You will see things that will amaze you I promise you, things that use less resources than sculpted prims for some projects of the same size. You will see things made of a mix of standard prims, mesh and sculpted prims...hair springs to mind. Imagine hair that moves with your body instead of cutting through it with flexiprims for sweeping movements. We aren't telling you what LL should be using the resources that ordinary customers, like us, pay for. Linden Lab embarked on the mesh project of its own free will as a company. I promise its not the end of the world.

Sorry about tacking that on to you as a reply Dante...you obviously know it wasn't meant for you. Its just frustrating that Linden Lab does something good, something that will broaden SL's horizons and people are running around calling those of us who just want to create "communists" and "elitists" and screaming "its the end of SL!" I see endless possibility...they see doom and gloom. I've always been frustrated by the limitations of sculpted prims. To create a sculpty you often have to think like a contortionist and have way too many polygons or not enough without the means to manipulate them how you really need to...which leads to using more sculpted prims to create something that should have been easy. Its frustrating. Meshes open up a world of creative opportunities, freedom to work like we need to, like we want to without having one hand tied behind our backs. For those who fear the "elite" all I can say is those elite may be people you already know...your friend who makes sculpted prims now in Blender or Maya...they will be the ones creating meshes, not some faceless craftsman toiling away rubbing his hands together cackling greedily.

UGH! I had a long reply to those who are worried the "elite" are taking over SL but it was eaten. Readers digest version people...you're clueless. Mesh ain't gonna destroy SL or spawn a communist overlord class of highly skilled game industry mesh creators flooding into SL bent of virtual world domination. The fact is its not worth it for the professional mesh creator to sell things on SL for 500 a pop...they get paid real money to do what they do. The simple fact is that amateur Blender users will likely outnumber those using programs that cost thousands of dollars and create works of equal or better quality depending on the skills of the user. I am an amateur mesh creator...I use 3DS Max because I saved my money to buy it. I am not the boogeyman, I am not now nor have I ever been a communist Senator McCarthy. I just want to create...to be creative...you know...what SL is all about. Its "fun." Its "work." It can be frustrating...but so worth it when you see your creation...something you created by manipulating primitives, molding them to your vision...bringing them to life. Its good, not evil. We don't want to rule you from on high making elitist snide comments...we just want to create and LL is finally giving us the means to do it. "Your world, your imagination."

Prokofy Neva wrote: Meanwhile, Second Life rolls back to the Middle Ages, to the era of medieval guilds, before the Iron Age, before the printing press, before the Enlightenment, becoming more and more complex, less and less available to people. Basically anyone who can create a sculpty with a program outside of SL can create a mesh...its the same thing with fewer limitations and restrictions...just a different import method. All you're afraid of essentially is sculpty makers having a new, better way of doing what they've been doing all along. A sculpted prim is a mesh with rigid rules on how you create it and imported as a texture that defines its shape. All that's being done is removing some of the rigid rules and giving the sculpty makers more freedom to be creative.

ninjafoo Ng wrote: The advantage is you have a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. You have already done the trial and error learning how SL renders mesh and know some pitfalls to avoid. You have a perceived reduced time to market. While technically that may be true I have to say as a member of the beta test group its my experience that practically everyone I met during the closed beta was very helpful if there was a problem or question. What I foresee is those with the "leg up" will be helping people learn the ropes and get up to speed on what works and what doesn't. I started joining 3DS Max groups when I got accepted as a beta tester so I would be in a position to help when people had questions once it went to public beta then live.

Haven't you ever helped a noob? lol

Florin Faxel wrote: Let's marry Kim What...like a SL group wedding?

To elaborate a bit on what Phoebe said... Stand where you want the landing point to be, right click the ground, select About Land and go to the Options tab. Now where it says Landing Point click the set button and your landing point is set to that position. At this point you can set the Teleport Routing as well... from the Teleport Routing drop down box you can select Landing point or Anywhere, you can set it so people to be able to TP in only at your set landing point or anywhere on your parcel.

If you or your friend can't edit appearance then the shape (I'm assuming its the shape) is no mod...no modification. If that's the case you can't edit it. To be able to modify something in Second Life you must have modify permission. Rule #1: Cardio

You can get the older official Linden Lab viewer 1.23 here: https://secure-web40.secondlife.com/my/support/downloads/ At the bottom of the page you'll find the download for viewer 1.23. Third party viewers are on this list, there are others available but the Linden Lab Third Party Viewer list is generally accepted as a "safe" list. Thats not to say that all viewers not on the list aren't safe to use. Many of these viewers are based on 1.23 with additional features, some are based on viewer 2. http://viewerdirectory.secondlife.com/ As far as saving your inventory to your hard drive if you made it you can legally save it with some third party viewers, saving items you did not create can in many cases be a violation of the Linden Lab Terms of Service. To organize your inventory easier I suggest you open a second inventory window (Crtl+Shift+I) and drag folders or items from one window to the other. This method works in any viewer you may choose to use.

Kim Linden wrote: I am paying attention, and your comments are all very helpful. I hear you loud and clear on customer service, among other things. And please know I am not out to make this a "game". I, and my fellow colleagues, definitely have our work cut out for us. Thanks for all the great insights. I'm glad someone is listening...I've counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 threads in the forums in the last two weeks asking about the lack of customer service / slow ticket response times. Me and others are waiting for a month or more just to have someone to even look at our support tickets. We used to be able to get live chat and get help, now they say, "File a support ticket". We used to be able to call concierge support (those of us who own 1/2 or more of a region) and get help...now they take your information and tell you, "File a support ticket." So we file our support tickets and they sit there unanswered for a month, maybe two. My own Support ticket has been sitting with not even so much as a support rep looking at it. I've been waiting since August 15, 2010, others have waited much longer. If I get my land issue resolved within six weeks I'll count myself lucky. So much for special concierge support. I really hope that customer satisfaction and retention is going to be focused on. I had to take management classes when I got into management in the restaurant I worked at...one thing the classes stressed was keeping the existing customers happy and retaining them before trying to get even more customers. Customer satifaction is a huge part of customer retention with any business. A customer who feels valued and knows that if there is a problem it can be resolved quickly is more likely to remain a customer and not go elsewhere. I had to memorize L.E.A.D.S. and make sure all my staff knew what it meant...maybe Linden Lab should incorporate it as well into their customer service training. Listen Empathize Appologize Do what it take to resolve the customers problem. Stand by your promise

Ok great, she can do marketing...but can she open a support ticket and assist the paying customers with some actual help? Anyway Kim...good luck, you're going to need it.

Tutorial for alpha channels. If you don't do this most later versions of Photoshop fill in the background with white for .TGA files. http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/EasyAlphas.html You'll also want the Free Plugins from Flaming Pear that she uses in the tutorial, specifically you'll want the Solidify filter. http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html

As I see it you have three options: A. Do the happy dance and go on a shopping spree. B. IM them and ask, "WTF? You game me money?" C. Return the money assumming it was a mistake. D. Ask what you should do in the forums. E. All of the above.