Medhue Simoni

Ebbe, considering we just heard that a beta will be ready next year, should you not be getting content creator in there now, or starting to have meetings with them? Or, did you already select a small group of FIC creators to steer your design? If that is the case, you will reap what you sow. I say the more people you bring in the better it will be. Fitted Mesh is a prime example of LL listening to bad ideas.

Coby Foden wrote: Mony Lindman wrote: You say "If Linden Lab would not make a new virtual world with up to date technology it is highly likely that somebody else would". Well.. someone else already does.. it's called High Fidelity. Is that not competition enough for SL? It is very interesting to see which comes first: Is it Second Life 2 (or whatever it will be called) or is it High Fidelity? And it will be very interesting to see also how they differ from each other. Maybe there might be even some other virtual world under development? It was about time that Linden Lab took the step into the future; before it was too late. We have very interesting times ahead. I find it quite funny that any1 would compare HF to SL. There has been no indication that HF will be anything like SL. Plus, 1 of the key features of HF will be to have users supply the hardware to run it. Another big feature is that you will need more devices to use it. None of this has been proven to be successful, and there is no guarantee that any1 will use it at all. HF is taking a big chance that everything will fall into place, much like it did for SL. SL2 tho, does have all kinds of evidence that it's model works. The question is really whether they can make it better.

Spinell wrote: So, can you still bake the textures in cycles rending onto a UV map, to use in SL? Beacuse I did notice that the bake button on the world tab is now gone since I switched render modes. I don't generally use cycles, but the bake simply becomes a texture. So, you could bake it in Blender Render, save the image. Then you would apply it, and switch to Cycles Render.

Here is 1 of my favorite tut makers for Blender. He just put this video out last week.

Flea Yatsenko wrote: I've been looking for a general new SL thread and I haven't found one yet. I've been curious as to what's going to happen to us merchants. I understand that content won't be backwards compatible, but I don't know what implications that gives us. Does it mean we just have to re-upload things? Or does it mean there's no more user created mesh? I am a little concerned at the moment, I feel much like LL could completely do a lot of merchants in. But at the same time I think maybe LL will give us better tools. It seems like an SL replacement that was more intended to function as a game engine as opposed to a virtual world would be far better. Somewhere where creating your own FPS game on a server would be much more enjoyable. So I don't really know if the new SL will be amazing for content creators or an execution of their existence. When they say it will not be backwards compatible, they mean the new world will not allow you to import prim, sculpty, and flexy objects from SL. Mesh is a universal asset for almost all games. Animation might be slightly different, but I'm sure some1 will create an easy converter for those that don't know how to do it themselves, or some kind of retargeting converter. I'm an animator and I'm not worried about those.

Phoebe Avro wrote: I hope LL are going to wave region setup costs for those wishing to move because I am sorry but it does not cost $1000 to set up a region its takes like 30 seconds the software is there it just takes a name in a database ohh and grid coordinates so lets say it takes an hour whats that like $100 tops my company used to charge my out at £80 an hour as an analyst i think Good point! That set up fee is ridiculous. I likely would have gotten more sims, if not for that. Plus, it is not a very profitable fee. Yes, it's alot for basically doing nothing, but how often does LL sell sims now? The deterent the fee creates costs LL more money than it helps. At least in my opinion.

Ebbe Linden wrote: I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product... Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. First, if you are just starting to read this thread now, I feel for you. Text to speech is a lifesaver in forums. Second, I'm a full blown anarcho capitalist. So, I'm not against the Lab making money. I want the Lab to be rolling in dough. If the Lab does well, I'll do well. How you do that is important tho. As a merchant, I need things. I need a way to market products. I need affective advertising, something LL has never successfully created. You don't have to tax me, as I will willingly throw money at you if you give me something that is worth it. I want the Lab to create wealth for all of us with some kind of Mass Media system. It should generate tons of advertising opportunities that we will all pay for. Taxing, or any similar thing, doesn't create wealth, it just transfers it.

Pamela Galli wrote: Ebbe, at this point I am inclined to think that if we are moving to something better, then do not drag out the period of time in which there will be two parallel grids. Beta test the hell out of SL2 and when it is ready for prime time, give us time to do whatever it is we might need to do, then go back to one grid. Diluting the customer base -- for merchants as well as LL -- while greatly increasing overhead is better done for a short rather than long period. (And who knows how much further dilution may be caused by Hi Fi.) PS A lot of that fantastic new professional quality content? Is not created by the ones who uploaded and sell it. Pam, you know It's a rare occassion that I take the Lab's side on anything, but here I have to agree with them. 2 grid is the only way this can work. This new grid will have many problems in the beginning. I don't think any1 can set a timeline. Maybe if SL was just some game, that would actually be easier. There are whole areas of SL that some of us don't even have much knowledge of. At the same time, I completely understand your concerns, as I'm also spread thin, and only have a fraction of what I have in SL, in other worlds.

Ebbe Linden wrote: Why are you guessing that? I have not hinted that we would do that and have no intent to go in that direction. Ebbe, how exactly would we know your intent? The only way we would, is if you/LL had conversations with us. Granted, we are getting a tiny fraction more convo from the Lab, but it's not a consistent thing. We are not having weekly meeting. We know zero about this new world, other than it will be better. Merchants have not had a meeting with LL is years and years. Since before Rod. Do you not think it would be important to start having weekly meetings with content creators?

Pamela Galli wrote: Exactly Phoebe. I am not saying this is a bad thing in the long run, but I am trying to figure out how I am going to manage the expense of having two stores open at the same time for an extended period, to say nothing of how I would find the time, when I barely have time as it is. I would rather they just open it up and close SL rather than drag it out. But something tells me they are not terribly interested in the impact migration will have on merchants like me. I think we are kind of leap frogging over a bunch of steps here and making alot of assumptions. The biggest assumption is that the new world will even be a place any of us will want to do business. More than likely, when they do open the doors, it will not have a fraction of the functionality that SL has. SL is a cullmination of over a decade of work. It is not possible to do all that, and get it remotely right, in just a couple years. I'd be willing to bet that it will be a good 3-4 years before any of us take the new world seriously, if it even lasts that long. Remember Lively? It was literally open for a couple of months. Even CP only last about a year.

Hey Prok, How you been? Nice to see you are still around. You can bet I won't put up with a high tax on products. I do not sell on the various other 3D marketplaces because of their ridiculous fees. Heck, that is why I have my own Marketplace. I know exactly what it costs to run 1. It truly is ridiculous that Ebbe goes over to SLU. Many of those people aren't even in SL anymore. Obviously, every1 here on the SL forums are highly involved in SL. Who knows tho, maybe it is the whole coder thing. It is plainly obvious that coders have more pull in SL than any content creators. Although Ebbe is trying to make nice with us, all you have to do is look at what gets worked on. Fitted Mesh is a joke, and only done because they had to do something. Just last Friday, Jessica Lyon brings up the problem with avatar heights, and LL is right on it. Of course, they miss the fact that it is not just the z position on the pelvis. LL should do this right if they are going to correct it. But no. Some coders give their solution to 1 aspect of the problem, and LL runs with it. This is why the backend is so messed up, cause they never actually fix the real problems. They just hack away at what bothers them.

Like I said, I don't use the program, so I don't know where to tell you to look. There should be something that looks like your clothing unfolded flat. You need to export that flat layout to a png, or jpg file format to use in Photoshop. You can also bring that clothing obj into blender, so you can apply the texture to it there and see how it will look.

Chic Aeon wrote: I don't use MD either but from board posts here I do understand that there are many issues using it. Sorry, but true. And as was said you need to import the obj file into Blender or another 3D program so that you can texture and weight paint. So LOTS in the creation stream. Little by little is the key and you might want to look into making clothes directly in Blender or other 3D programs if you have them. That seems to be what the pros hint at . Good luck. Try looking up AVASTAR and see if that helps some. If you do a SEARCH of this board you will likely find many bits of info that are helpful about marvelous designer. I found a very long list of topics. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=labels%2Clocation&location=forum-board%3AMesh&q=marvelous+designer It's not a bad program to use, as it does simply how to make 3D clothing with stitching that will hang like real clothing. It makes very professional looking clothing, but that is all the program does. I would not be against using it. An OBJ is an OBJ no matter what program you use to make it. Blender did just implement some updates to their system to make clothing that can hang on your avatar, but I haven't played with it much and seems quite complicated at the moment. The toughest part about making any clothing tho, is rigging it, and making it move the way it should.

Indigo Mertel wrote: Interesting news. I have received Allegorithmic's latest newsletter. Allegorithmic modifies the Substance Painter EULA. From now on it lets users with a non-commercial license to use the program for commercial work for up to US$10000/year This is the text: Substance Painter obviously aims at innovating when it comes to 3D painting. However, our philosophy is also to democratize 3D painting among digital artists and we do not want to exclude independent developers who might not have the budget for a Commercial license. This is why we have modified the EULAs (End User License Agreement) of all our software to reflect the reality of many of our users: you are now officially allowed to use the Non-Commercial license for any commercial work, as long as you don’t generate more than US$ 10,000 in revenue per year. We believe this is a fair limit and a good way to let newcomers and small shops/indies join the revolution. To read the full update, click here. As of now, we will call the Non-Commercial license the “Indie” license and the Commercial license will become the “Pro” license. EULA available here: http://bit.ly/N4rbHf That is great that they did that, and it almost makes me want to try it. At the same time tho, how do they know how much some1 makes, and what if most of your work has nothing at all to do with texturing? I make much more than 10k, but only a tiny bit has anything to do with texturing. For as little texture work that I do, I can't see paying alot of something, especially if I have to buy the pro version.

Well, you have to apply that texture onto the clothings UV map, which is the meshes all unfolded into a 2D image. You don't have to texture it in MD tho. You can export that obj, and then import that OBJ into Blender. From there you can texture it, and then rig it to the SL avatar if you need to. I don't actually use MD, but I have done all the rest for creators that do use MD.

It hurts! It burns! So tough to get over an equalizing goal in extra time. Oh the humanity! The US team just made things much more iffy.

Phil Deakins wrote: Yes, Perrie linked to that graph and i agree, that does appear to be when the decline began. What you haven't done is tell us what change happened to search at that time. It's not that I haven't asked. I have. What you claimed about search definitely didn't happen - I've proved that with evidence - and you haven't come up with anything else. I'm happy if you've finished with this discussion. I'm sorry that you've steadfastly refused to accept the truth, even when it stares you in the face, as does the pre-GSA search. But it's your choice. You made a number of statements that have been irrefutably proved to be wrong. The last one you're left with is your theory as to why SL started its decline. You were shown proof that what you wrote wasn't right, and you were asked if you meant something else, and, if so, what. But you haven't answered. In fact, you've managed to avoid answering anything that you don't have answers for - and there's been a lot On three different parts, you been given actual proof that what you claimed simply isn't true, and yet you cling steadfastly to your claims. I'm sorry. Actual proof is usually enough for people but not, it seems, for you. You haven't proved anything at all. You have not pointed to 1 thing but a 3rd party viewer. I have pointed to actual proof, from all creditable sources. You might very well have a point that parts of the GSA were used before the official announcement, but Torley's video proves exactly how the search engine worked at that time, which matched EXACTLY with what I said. You have only addressed whether parts of the GSA were used. At best you can argue that my statement about GSA being the core problem is wrong. This, again, you can only argue, because it isn't proven. Whether it was GSA or just a change in algorhytms, it is irrelevant. That facts are that there were major changes. I could easily go on and find every single blog or whatever that announced all the things I talked about, but that means hours to find them all. I actually appreciate the exercise so far, as it has proved to myself that my memory is as sharp as a tack. Oh, 1 of the reasons I always remember the April 2 date, is that it was such a disaster, that some1 created a webpage that counted how many days since LL broke search. It went on for a couple years too, but I think it is closed now.

Perrie Juran wrote: I was about to say I had added all I had also. No question that the decline coincided with the Release of Viewer 2. But I'm more concerned with concurrency as a measurement and I can't see how the Search hurt me directly that I would have left. Unless the drop in Concurrency was all Merchants leaving. I'm having a hard time grasping how the problems with search caused Second Life to lose its appeal to people outside of possibly Merchants. But we'll try to leave the topic rest now. eta:shpelling agin I never mind talking theory, as that is quite enjoyable. The frustrating parts is arguing about what actually happened, when it's been documented fully. Heck, I lived it. The everyday user is the 1 affected the most, as they no longer got relevant search results. They were no longer directed to the places that would most likely satisfy them. It would be interesting to compare LL internal studies to see if they were retaining more people between 2008-2009, than they are now, or especially during the 2010-2011 period. Merchants being affected is crucial because, outside of land barons, as a class, they own more land than any1. How much land they own, is completely dependent on whether their SL income can afford it. You drop their SL income, you lose sims.

Phil Deakins wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Those are good points, but are they ground shaking? Do any of those events move the stats? This is easily provable in the stats. The real turning point, where the stats completely change direction is on April 2, 2010, which correlates with an update the search engine in V2. Again, if I remember correctly, which it seems that I do, not only was the new V2 viewer affected, but all other viewers lost access to the pages that were created until they updates to V2. Or something to that affect, which is why the old viewers today will not return the same results that we had in 2008. Heck, the whole real world economy in the states fell appart, and SL kept growing for 2 more years. Show us the stats that "completely change direction" on or about the 2nd April 2010 please. I'm not suggesting that it didn't happen but I would like to see the stats. April 2nd 2010 is around the time the V2 was launched but I've proved that the GSA (the new search engine) came in 2 years before that. I can promise you that no new search engine or system came in at around the time the V2 was launched, so what "update [to] the search engine", that was so "ground shaking" that it caused the decline to start, happened around the 2nd of April 2010? Parcels had a webpages, with objects listed on them, for the previous 2 years, and they continued to have pages with objects listed on them after that date - right up to and including today!. So what happened? In case you didn't notice that, Medhue, I'll say it again. Places have pages with objects listed on them in the search today. They didn't disappear. The conclusion is that your theory for why SL went into decline was very wide of the mark. In fact it was simply wrong. It didn't happen. Pages in search, with objects listed on them, never went away after they came in for the GSA. Whether or when the GSA was being used, parts of it or not, is somewhat irrelevant. I'm not spending anymore time on GSA stuff. I have already proved how the search engine worked. You and any1 else can dispute whatever, I don't really care, nor have the time to continue it. I will give you a graph of the change I talked about. This is not the only graph it shows on, and I'm sure they are better graphs that highlight the change better but here is just a graph of total sims. Here I point to the 2 dates when the major changes to the search engine happened. This is just total sims here. Many also connect that the decline was related to V2, but it is not really the viewer that was the problem, as you didn't have to use it. The actual viewer had nothing at all to do with the decline. This is a graph of the amount of individuals making between 1,000 to 2,000 a month. These are all sim owners, or mostly. Look how they dwindle after the search changes. The steep rise right after, to me, shows how they all scrambled to change and adjust, with some success, but only to be hit again a month later to changes. I wish the graphs went on, as it would show the total devastation, but that is when they stopped giving out the data. That's it. I'm done with this topic. You either believe me or not.

Parrish Ashbourne wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Parrish Ashbourne wrote: sirhc DeSantis wrote: Short and sweet and right on the nose. One of the most sensible reactions yet. (And if we could have a bunch of Blender like capability coupled with the ease of in world tools I would gladly sacrifice my firstborn - metaphorically). (ETA my spelling is atrocious pre coffee) I'd love to see inworld mesh and animation tools, that would be the top of my list for new features. But I don't think the OP wasn't talking about blender as a tool, but doing some thing like the blend open movie projects as a way for LL to test and get user feed back on the new SL. Every year or so Blender sponsors a movie project to test the software and show off it's capabilities. http://www.blender.org/features/projects/ I wasn't talking about inworld tools, although I'm not against them. What I really do not want, is to be forced to use inworld tools. As a Blender user, I'd much rather use Blender, as LL could never make an inworld system that could equal Blender and trying would be a complete waste of time, which LL already has enough work to do and features to implement. I'm hoping the inworld tools go the way high fedility sounds like it's going with them. I'd love to be able to add some wrist weights to a pair of data gloves and acutally get a work out building in a 3D enviroment. Yeah, that looks interesting, which is also why we need to import morphs, so we can connect those facial morphs to a system that controls them. That is all they are doing in High Fidelity. The character has morphs, lets say in the eye brows, connected to it's system so that the eyebrows can move when the users eyebrows move. I'm all for all that stuff, but I'm not totally convinced that anything beyond the face is quite what people want. Seeing your hands is cool and all, and immersive, but not any kind of eccential technology that most I think will use. Facial expression integration should be pretty straight forward now tho.

Perrie Juran wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Let me be Clear about Why SL started to Decline, and why it is a direct result of the search engine. I don't know what you are measuring when you say "Decline." Certainly Merchants gave us a lot of added value content such as Malls anchoring Clubs. But shopping is certainly not the end all experience in Second Life. We could certainly point to when the Real Estate Bubble burst in SL. Then there were the age play scandals and the negative publicity which we still continue to hear about. If I recall correctly LL didn't have a public relations Guru at the time and with the person who was hired Omertà descended on the Lab. Then we lost Linden's being In World and interacting with us. Then add in what many felt was mis-management by Klingon. How about the Tier increase and the removal of the Non Profit Discount? It's a long shopping list of things. We could add to that the decline in expendable income coupled with more entertainment choices. But if you think shopping for animations at your store was the end all experience for me you seriously need to guess again. eta:shpellling Those are good points, but are they ground shaking? Do any of those events move the stats? This is easily provable in the stats. The real turning point, where the stats completely change direction is on April 2, 2010, which correlates with an update to the search engine in V2. Again, if I remember correctly, which it seems that I do, not only was the new V2 viewer affected, but all other viewers lost access to the pages that were created until they updates to V2. Or something to that affect, which is why the old viewers today will not return the same results that we had in 2008. Heck, the whole real world economy in the states fell appart, and SL kept growing for 2 more years.

Well, it seems we are both caught up on GSA or not. I really don't care what it was. My point really has to do with timelines. That said, here is more definitive proof that everything I've been saying is EXACTLY correct. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Beta_Viewer/2.0 Official GSA use did not start until V2.

Phil Deakins wrote: Ok. With a bit of luck it will end this debate - but not in the way you'd hoped First. That video was all about the GSA, which was being set up at the time. When you joined (Jan 2007), SL used the previous search system. You wrote that land size, or the number of objects, pushed you up the rankings, so let's get that out of the way first. Land size, or number of objects, did nothing to push you up the rankings, and it can be proved. All you have to do is do what I suggested in the "Here's proof" paragraph, and you will see for yourself that it was only traffic. Can we settle that for that search system now? OMG, this is just getting painful now. I showed you a video by Torley that shows exactly what I talked about. It can't work the way it does in that video unless objects counted in the search results. That video is from Nov 12, 2007. It is time stamped when it is uploaded. That is the search engine we had, and you can not say that it isn't. Your proof is not proof at all. It's you believing some1 elses opinion about what they were using at that time. What I am showing you, and talking all about, is the search engine that the SL viewer used, not some 3rd Party viewer. Back in 2007-2008, most people used the SL viewer, not a 3rd party viewer.

Let me be Clear about Why SL started to Decline, and why it is a direct result of the search engine. LL changing to GSA is EXACTLY why SL started to decline. This is because business owners were no longer being found in the search engine and were no longer making enough to pay for those parcels. Hence why people immediately stopped buying more land and letting go of the islands they had. What was it about the old search engine that made it so good for every1, including LL? See, this is easy to explain. Because the more land you owned gave you more object keywords, you were ranked higher than people with less land. How much land you owned in SL, was a direct representation of how much wealth you created in SL, at least for merchants. We could not own that much land if we were not generating enough money to pay for that land. When all those objects on your land were no longer counted in the search engine, no body could find your products inworld. Before the GSA, the search engine was almost specifically designed, whether by accident or not, for merchants. It made it as easy as possible to find products. When merchants blame the Marketplace, I cringe, because the reality is, that the Marketplace is the only thing that saved my business. Every1 flocked to the Marketplace, which made my products able to be found. Of course, I did much better on Xstreet than I do with LL's version, because again, Xstreet was geared for the best merchants, and not about being fair. Today, the SL Marketplace ranks products by sales mostly, when it really should be ranked by relevance first and then price. This promotes more sales and the user can simply refine their search if they want something different. To think that something is too high priced and scares customers is kind of dumb, because the merchant is pricing their product according to their sales. If it's priced high, that really means all parties are happy with that price. Plus, higher prices products have more features and are generally better, which makes the customers happier. The most sold products will always be the 1 linden or 10 linden products, as nobody cares about spending 10 lindens, which kind of means the product is worthless, or almost.

Hopefully this ends the debate. Here Is a video created by Torley, that shows him using the search engine at the end of 2007. You will notice, that when he searches for the word Leopard, it find objects on the parcel with the word Leopard in them. Goto 1:29 in the video to see a perfect example. Goto 3:30 and hear Torley talk specifically about finding objects on parcels. I'll also point out, that by 2009, we could teleport directly to the objects on the parcels.