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Greene Paine

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Everything posted by Greene Paine

  1. Avatars (including my own) keep turning invisable on and off and on and off. Why? Comp: Windows 7 Latest V2
  2. Actually from talking to the v1 crowd, they arn't quite as unreasonable as one may think. I believe the primary reason v2 got such a bad wrap is because it muddled up workflows, and sort of subtly told all exsisting customers that they wern't important. That the 'mainstream' market was many times bigger than they would ever be. While this is likely true from a mathmathic standpoint, the exsisting customers are what's keeping this boat floating. =)
  3. "Your color suggestions are certainly interesting, but, as almost everything in the world, highly dependent on personal taste." I could not agree more. The idea of having 'skins' is that there should be multiple choices. I am merely suggesting that the default skin for new users should have a light, happy, 'simple' vibe going on. In reality there should be at least 2 different skins to select from with an import system for adding more. To the person who pointed out the dark UI's that are popular ... I agree there are some popular dark UIs, but I pointed out the ones that I did because they stole the thunder from other much more popular services with their simplistic designs. Google Chrome for example entered into a highly crowded and competitive browser market and somehow managed to pull a huge following, AND to slowly GROW its user base. Some of this has been attributed to its 'simplistic' UI. Google homepage of course beat out sites like AOL and Yahoo by having not only a much better product, but by having a very simple 'clean' homepage. Nothing says clean like a white background. Skype has beaten out many other VOIP services and gained huge popularity. Apple came back from the verge of failure with its bright colorful Macs and then later with its sleek iPods and iPhones. I suppose a dark color scheme is not inherently bad, but I think that white does a better job of conveying a 'clean and simple' vibe, where as black conveys an 'exclusive and expensive' vibe, which SL is neither.
  4. What is wrong with the v2.0 - 3.0 UI? Not really all that much as it turns out. v2 was a huge improvement in functionality but just looked really bad. It was kind of like having a new baby brother that you can't wait to tickle and hold, that is until you see how ugly he is and suddenly find yourself looking for hand sanitizer instead. That and it sort of castrated your biggest supporters, but we'll get to that. First off is making v3 pretty again! What colors do highly successful UIs use? 1) Skype: Smooth gradients of whites and blues 2) Apple: Smooth gradients of whites 3) Google+: Solid bright colors 3) Google Chrome: Solid bright colors Can you think of any dark depressing UI's out there that have had nearly the market success that these products have had? Even your website makes the user feel like their peering into a dark closet at the funny people inside. (Doesn't your closet have funny people inside?) What else do these four examples have that makes them successful? 1) Highly uncluttered 2) UI reveals complexity where utterly needed (think of how Google hides all links until you move the mouse) 3) They get the hell out of your way (the best UI is the UI no one notices) 4) They are all highly polished (this means things fail gracefully, bugs are squished and not just bandaged, and all workflows are enjoyable) What can LL learn from Microsoft? 1) When launching the .net platform, why did Microsoft not just ditch Visual Basic when C# had all the exact same functionality? A: Because they recognized the importance of the VB culture and not ditching that following. Satisfy the v1.0 fans with a few check boxes in the options to give them what they want! What can LL learn from Blizzard? 1) Blizzard allows UI mods so that users can add in the features they want. !!!BUT!!! They have a policy that mods should not be -needed- for the enjoyment of their games. Thus when a particular mod becomes so useful it really should be part of core functionality .... they IMPLIMENT IT in the official UI! (It's about time for a UI animation override) Third Party Viewers should NOT be -needed- to enjoy SL either as a newbie or for more advanced workflows. They should be regulated to the role of idea generators and solutions for extreme use cases. If your contracts are stopping you from integrating the innovations found in TPVs, then GET NEW CONTRACTS. Each morning at LL should start with the UI team using TPVs and reading up on new ideas while they drink their morning coffee. Blizzard does. What can LL learn from Google Chrome? 1) Get out of the users way! There is a cool feature in Firestorm where the upper menu bar is transparent, thus increasing the view port. Things like these add more than you know to the enjoyment of the UI. Other ideas may include: Auto hiding menus or UI components until the user moves the mouse near them (think start bar in Windows), marking all components resizable (think Skype sidebar), and avoid losing tons of space to menu bars (think of Google Chrome folding everything into ONE bar at the top) Pop quiz: How many sides of the screen does the SL UI currently muddle up? A: Three! 2) Tabs are awesome! This is a more long range thing, but if you really want to push the 'SL as a browser' mentality, then why not allow a user to be in multiple places at the same time? Freeze rendering on tabs not in use to reduce computer lag of course. But this will increase server load right? .... Then buy more servers. Look at Google Instant. They increased their server load HUGELY for something they felt they needed to have the ultimate search experience. Time for hard choices. What can LL learn from Blue Mars -FAILING-? 1) That collaborative creation is half the magic! Take Charlar Linden, give him a team of people, and lock him inside for a few months until you can create mesh IN WORLD. We don't need a new blender here. We need something like an in world Google Sketchup, perhaps even simpler. Requirements of in world mesh creation: Ability to convert prims to mesh, merging of prims, editing of vertexes, basic editing functions like extrude and perhaps a few binary modifiers like smooth. THATS IT! I can't stress this enough. Imagine you're in SL building a space station with your buddies. You've learned how to work with prims already, but now you've pressed that little 'convert to mesh' button and now you're moving vertexes all over the place! Your friends are laughing at you and you're all having an amazing time. Let Blender be used for polished professional content, let in world mesh editing be used for fast and sloppy creation that with some work can actually look better than pure prims alone. What can LL learn from Photoshop? 1) Photoshop and many other programs have a method of selecting 'work flow presets' that allows people to get up and running with the software without making a million changes. Basic mode sort of touches on this, but I feel that making the interface highly customizable and then creating a few presets would have a much better effect. Some preset ideas: Builder - increased floating point precision on build dialogs, more alignment tools, 'convert to mesh' button, more feedback text for things like Land Impact and ARC etc., Simple - Super simple UI layout, very few options, keep the eye focused on chatting and exploring, Roleplayer, Gamer, Texturer, Scripter, etc... I have many more ideas, and there are of course other things that need to be done (such as ending the 'what do I look like to you' discussion), but I believe that these changes together with LL's awesome new focus on Avatar profiles might just get this place back into the exponential curve. P.S. When teleports fail, I should not fall though the damn floor! P.S.S. Teleports should not fail. P.S.S.S. Adult content is IMPORTANT!!! As adults we express ourselfs in adult ways. I think this is the 'other half of the magic' that makes SL so enjoyable. And yes this can very well include sex and sexual expression in things ranging from art to roleplay to inworld games.
  5. ....and then Iyoba Tarantal and his radio lived happily ever after. The End.
  6. My thinking is that places ban furries (especially RP sims) to achieve a certain level of atmosphere and environment. For example on an old west sim lots of groups other than furries are banned. So are robots, cars, aliens, wookies, etc... They even do this in fancy real life clubs where there is a certain dress code. Imagine if this law were implemented in the USA and no sub culture could be banned from -anything-. You'd have people in cow suits working at banks, cavemen serving your McDonalds, Darth Vader in your romantic comedy movies. OH THE INSANITY!!! Or in the words of John Lennon, "Imagine allllll the peopleeee -and furries- living life living life in peace."
  7. Seriously, I don't get it. Could someone maybe explain in clear terms exactly what it is about v1 they like so much? I realize v2 has a sidebar ... v1 doesn't. Umm .... v1 has a pie chart clicky thing, v2 uses a menu. ... .... v1 has more .... blue? I mean I understand all the cool things TPV like Firestorm add (named crosshairs, chat radius, zoom to avatar, etc...) but what is so intangible about a v1 like Pheonix that it can't be ported to Firestorm?? In other words ... how much would you need to change a v1 viewer before it lost its v1ness, likewise how much would you need to add to a v2 to gain v1ness? Also a note to Lindens ... why don't you open your eyes and actively absorb the innovation of the TPVs into the main viewer? Seriously guys. How long would it take to add a freekin' chat range circle on the minimap?? If I'm not completely bonkers, I seem to remember that the purpose of TPV in the first place was to allow for rapid improvement in the SL viewer by allowing the open source community to improve it. So yeah .... were improving it ... now freekin' add it already. >.<
  8. They expressed intrest in it if my memory serves me, but all new 'shinys' have been held up behind mesh like angry people trying to get past a rly fat dude in a hallway. Now that the Linden machine has taken it's giant mesh dump I think all the cool new stuff like Avatar 2.0 will be next.
  9. Wow! You sound exactly like a computer! =O ...nice tutorial though.
  10. Not gunna get very far with that additude. You go right on ahead back to Phoenix. Oh, and I like how you up the drama by adding, "last try."
  11. I like that idea, and honestly I have a feeling that the only way SL can free itself of the unfair accounting of the past will be to "do everything right" on a new grid with a new brand. For example call it Second Life 3. Give it a new viewer with new V3 sims.
  12. No because it entered the browser market and cleaned house by making a browser fast, efficient, simple, elegant, easy to use, and got rid of all the **bleep** it didn't need. Much in the same way Google did to search.
  13. Please do this. =) (And no I don't mean SL IN Google Chrome. Personally I think SL in a browser is stupid. Browsers are meant for 2D content and shoving SL in there seems hacky.)
  14. "Oh? Without poseball prims?" You can make thoes with mesh too.
  15. Nicely put. That's what I've been trying to say (and have said many times) but it just doesnt connect. Low poly = Halo 3 or Gears of War or even Crysis. Low poly can look great. Second Lifes problem so far has been lack of mesh, and lack of any sort of pressure to optimize. Also I don't see how showing us a crappy LL sim is proof of anything. LL has been forced to use it's own garbage like the rest of us. Mesh is a tool that can free content creators (and artists) to make game optimized assets to make everything better. BUT. This makes no since if the accounting system is not evenly applied. People will just keep using prims or sculpties in applications where mesh would be better simply to exploit this. That brings me full circle to the point of this thread: Impliment accounting systems and limitations across everything equally so that SL will become a place where lag is a thing of the past. Sure it will break a few items, but just remake them. The amount of content to be completely broken will be very small, and some things might even cost LESS prims.
  16. I appreciate your adultness about your aargument, but I must disagree. You state a lot of 'facts' but I'd like to see some hard facts on this. I personaly expirence no lag in empty sims. Also from what you've typed it sounds like your trying to say: Battlefield 3 = lots of polygons Battlefield 3 = no lag SL = less polygons Therefore... more polygons <> lag. This I have to disagree with because SL is highly unoptimized to the point where it actually has way more polygons and textures than Battlefield 3 would dare to have. So why does it look like crap? (SL I mean) Because of the creators, a lack of pressure to optimize builds (LLs fault), and a previous lack of tools to make optimized stuff. (mesh) Take for example that in comercial games like that the textures are reused many times, and all completely optimized to the bare minimun sizes required, and all models are preened for perfect LOD to cut out detail at long distances. Not to mention the artists are required to work within limits for game preformance. SL is not like this. A cube alone has a buttload of verts. (Check it out sometime, ctrl + shift + R is it?) Anywho SL triangle wise I heard once has more per sceene than crysis. Where are all thoes tris? Most are tottaly wasted. There are a lot of things LL can do on their end too, im not gunna defend them there, but this is a HUGE source of lag. Even if the server side code could support 500 avatars, the client would DIE. (Except maby with imposters it would be doable? I'm not sure how that's handled on a computational level.)
  17. Your art argument is amusing but this is first and formost a social platform, and I sir will not stay in SL long if I am forced to be lagged to hell and back by your 'art'. Wake up and smell the coffee. I'm sure artists would love to use 4 million tris per 'art work' if they could. But dose that mean we all need super computers now? No. If you are a sculpter, you learn to work with stone. If you are a painter, you learn to work with paint. If you are a 3d artist, you learn to work with 3d. If you are a 3d SECONDLIFE artist, you learn to work with 3d AND technical limitations to prevent lag.
  18. You're right. I am defensive / aggressive. I believe deeply about this subject and no one wants to debate logically on it. Everyone just spews psudo facts and no one at all has even mentioned what I said about phasing things in or having legacy content use the old system. We can't stay in the past. Perhaps if LL had done this much sooner SL would not have missed it's shot and exited out of an exponential growth curve. Granted that's not too upseting because they survived and limped on to make SL way better than it was in 2006 when everyone and their dog was writing about it. So who are the trolls? I made a long detailed post and no one has even looked at what I said. You come in here spewing venom. I'd like to hear a well thought out counter post from someone that was informed and factually supported enough as to be respectable. Also I'm sorry, but the world isn't going to stop so hobbiests can be at the peak of the ecconomic pyramid. No one every said they would not beable to make stuff, I just said it should me measured and limited. So if you want to be naked so you can wear that 250 prim necklase then hey, go right on ahead. SL will die if it doesn't address this issue in some way or form. Every time LL makes a gain in lag, or computers make a gain in power, some 'artist' will make something 'beautifull' and were all suposed to clap and not pressure him to learn blender. As for the linkset to mesh converter, that's a good idea actually. As long as enough optimization could be done to compensate for the additional load that 1 mesh would have vs x prims. See? I actually read your posts, return the favour eh?
  19. It seems like every time a well thought out argument for -anything- is posted on an internet forum, the opposite side of the argument is trolled and defended with a complete lack of factual exchange (i.e. total ego bashing for lack of any real argument.) So I was curious, is it possible to have ANY online argument without -any- trolls emerging? What if the argument is already proven 100% correct and there is no other side? Would it be possible to craft an argument so perfectly that no troll could find ammunition, or their counter-argument would be so silly as to invoke endless laughter? Let's find out! Good things are good, no good things are bad. This statement semantically is 100% correct and you can not disagree with it any more than you can argue that 1+1 is anything but 2. So ... *ahem* Allow me to invoke the sacred 'call of the trolls' to find the angry opposite side of this argument. "COME ANGRY INTERNET TROLLS! AWAKE FROM YOUR SLUMBER TO FEAST ON THE FLESH OF OTHERWISE CIVILIZED DISCUSSION!" *stomps magic staff into ground thus completing the summoning*
  20. As for Nix Manx, yes I'm glad you agree and I see it the same way. I really think that by creating a pressure to optimize it would be a very creative and innovative force in SL. I really want to stir discussion about this from both sides of the argument, and god knows some of you out there are more technically aware of the hard facts behind this issue. "But it would *not* do so if they would listen to *your* conceptions." Right because practical limits of resources is such a bad thing. You remind me of someone at a company arguing that a budget is a bad idea because it will ruin their ability to creatively spend money. You have no real argument and now your relying of 'pseudo facts' to make your case. Also I mentioned the internet, are you just selectively reading now?  I've listened to what you've said, and that's one point of view. If you have some actual facts why my proposal would be bad I'd like to hear. You seem to talk a lot about IP but as I said before (and you didn't respond to) that is a problem bigger than LL. IP theft is real, and SL is not going to be able to both stop it and have user created content at the same time.
  21. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. SL is not a game nor is it like anything else. It's honestly more like the internet, and that's completely user created.  Although from what I've heard of IMVU they allow user created stuff. (Oh I pointed out a successful game with user imported mesh. WHAT NOW? HUH?! lol...) As for copyright issues .... listen, that's a big issue everywhere, not just SL. I'm not going to arrogantly pretend LL of all people are going to find the magic solution to that issue. Yet are we supposed to hold back technology until some Albert Einstein of copywrite solves all the problems? No. We move on anyway. As for the hobbyists, I never said they had to go. I just said if they want to sell their **bleep** they're going to have to compete with each other on efficiency, and consumers will want efficiency if they know their resources are limited. If they are true hobbyists then they aren't in it for the money yes? As for the millionaire thing, that was in response to other posts in this thread talking about breaking million dollar products. Perhaps you should read those before you wildly claim that I'm proposing this for all my "millionaire friends" or whatever it is you said.
  22. I really don't see why everyone is whining about this. You have -no- real argument. This is a good thing with no serious downside other than driving out stagnation in favor of innovation. -My proposal- Measure: Create systems to accurately measure the resources that -ALL- user-created content consumes in all its forms and uses. (i.e. scripts, attachments, sculpties, and normal prims.) Inform: Display this information in a simple way to all users so that they can make intelligent buying decisions about what they choose to wear or rez. Also provide more complex breakdowns for builders who wish to optimize their content for max detail with less cost. Limit: Limit what can be rezzed or worn to an amount that would still allow most avatars and builds that currently exist on the grid. NO ONE IS SAYING YOU NEED TO LOOK LIKE A WoW AVATAR! Creating -any- limit at all will create a pressure for content optimization where none previously existed. Phase In: Give people time to replace things that are absurdly resource hungry. Inefficient is ok, but wildly uberly '256 undeletable resizers' inefficient? That stuff needs to go. It's unfair for creators to not give consumers the ability to choose anyway. Let them delete scripts if they want. -Sticking Points- Legacy Content: This is what most people get bent out of shape about, claiming that million dollar products will vanish into brokenness and the sky will rain fire blah, blah, blah. Well this would indeed be unfair if no tools were provided to create the same things more efficiently, but there are. This will simply change the playing field so that content creators who innovate and reduce lag while maximizing detail have the advantage. You already made your million dollars from your 2006 era shoes, that's pretty good! Now make 2011 era shoes and make another million. Skill: "Well gee Greene, I can't be bothered to improve my skills and learn how to make things that don't lag up the butt hole." Well then frankly? You have no business making stuff, or if you do than it's going to clearly display just how inefficient it is and the consumer can make the decision about whether they want to use it or not. WoW: "OMG, OMG, OMG!! I just broke free from Blizzard and now I'm here in SL with all the cool kids and I want to dis all efficient game design!!!" Ok first of all, calm the hell down. Limits does not equal WoW ok? Let's just dispel that right here. Good quality mesh design can make cool avatars that are highly optimized. Think Crysis, or Gears of War. -Benefits- Less Lag: Yeah sure it's not the end-all of all lag in SL, but it's a major, MAJOR one. If LL got this taken care of then they could snipe out the remaining issues. Low End Hardware: Hey! All you people still rockin' your cassette players and trying to play SL on your Commodore 64, this is good news for you! Now you can get a higher FPS and have less lag as in the point listed above. Logical content limits imposed with equally powerful creation tools is a GOOD THING. Moore's Law: Hey, that's the law that says every two years in SL I can fit twice as many tori chest hairs on my AV right? Yeah let's stop doing that. If limits are imposed than Moore's Law will actualy start resulting in faster FPS and less lag instead of just piling on more inefficiency. Mesh: How can mesh expect to compete with systems that have no basis in reality? If LL did the same good job of limiting Mesh with all other content types as well, than each tool could be used for what it's best at instead of trying to 'compete' with each other. Let's face it, sculpties = organic shapes with lossy compression ok? Lossless sculpts = crude mesh hack. Let each creation tool do what it's good at. -In Closing- As a previous poster said the game business has always been upgrade or die. How long do you expect Linden Lab to kill its own cash cow so that a FEW lazy content creators can't go back into their legacy shoes their selling and replace the age-old resizes with more efficient ones? As for avatar limits, I know it kinda sucks, but get used to it. We all have to look at your avatar so it impacts everyone. And derender isn't a solution, not when almost everyone has an incredibly inefficient avatars. Also where in this post did I mention mesh exclusively? Mesh is the one thing Linden Lab has gotten smart about, but sadly they expect it to compete with systems based in lala land. We all want SL to be a less laggy, more detailed place. So let's drop off our old baggage that's holding us down so that we can fly!
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