Medhue Simoni

I want to respond to Ebbe's comment about the new business model and taxing products more. You don't need to tax us at all. Think about it Ebbe. A tax on producers economically is saying you want them to create less. You never want to inhibit creation. You are this worlds government and hold a monopoly on many things. Use that monopoly to generate more income. As creators, and merchants, we want to advertise. We are begging to spend money on advertising. What does LL give us? CRAP!!!!! And then way over priced CRAP! Those enhancements for the Marketplace made LL a ton of money, but they SUCK, and are not well done. LL could get alot more out of them, and they should cut the price in half, when it works better. LL also opened up banner spaces on it's website, but it's at ridiculous prices. WTF was LL thinking? Did they not run some numbers? Yeah, it seems they gauge it on other popular websites. The logic escapes me. Again, my point is that LL has a monopoly on advertising and other aspect of SL. Don't tax us more. That is just lazy thinking. Be creative. Make something for us that we'll beg to pay for.

Check out this Yahoo article. Ouch! http://sports.yahoo.com/news/it-s-simple--england-just-isn-t-good-enough-233848430.html BTW - France looked incredible today!

I don't know whether to be scared or excited. Sounds to me that Ebbe and the team know very little about how they are going to do things, other than "It will be better". This does not give me comfort. You say you have no idea how you are going to do the avatar? Now, I'm really scared, cause that isn't something you think up as you go. It really should be the core focus of your new virtual world. What is the point of even starting this world until you know how this will work? Does LL even know what is possible? I seriously doubt it. Without massive involvement from the creative community, this has no chance of actually being better. One thing that keep running thru my head is that all these other people tried to make a competing virtual world and they all failed. What makes LL think they can actually do it? SL was a fluke, and only happened because of some very specific reasons. Cloud Party tried to mimic SL, and despite giving creators professional tools, it still was iffy that they would survive, which is likely why they sold out. Sorry, but I'm not positive that LL even knows the special sauce that makes this all work.

Coby Foden wrote: Tex Monday wrote: OW!! That makes my head hurt..can someone just wake me up when it's all over and tell me who won??? :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: :matte-motes-big-grin: Could be a South American country. Every time the FIFA World Cup has been held in the Americas the winner has always been from South America. But as always a surprise winner can emerge. Held in - 1994 USA Winner: Brazil Held in - 1986 Mexico Winner: Argentina Held in - 1978 Argentina Winner: Argentina Held in - 1970 Mexico Winner: Brazil Held in - 1962 Chile Winner: Brazil Held in - 1950 Brazil Winner: Uruguay Held in - 1930 Uruguay Winner: Uruguay That is a very good point, and if you look at what's happened so far, it is the teams on this side of the big lake that are all mostly in good positions. Technically, Costa Rica crushed Italy today. If not for all the bad calls, and lack of offsides calling, Italy would not have had any good shots on goal. Italy got all the calls, and still couldn't manage much. My coder is Costa Rican, so I was rooting for them big time.

Phil Deakins wrote: It means that, if Italy beats Costa Rica tomorrow, as they should, then the final games, which are played simultaneously, will be incredibly rivetting. Or, if Costa Rica beats Italy, England can't get out of the round. You can guarantee that the Costa Rica bars will be insane tomorrow at noon.

Kelli May wrote: Some football (soccer) players play on as if nothing happened. I played center midfielder for most of my youth and in college. It was very common to head butt, or get head butted, if not kicked in the face, jumping and jousting for goal kicks. I always wore a head banned to lessen the blows and soak up the blood. I've even had my nose broken during a game and still finished the game. Heck, soccer is a really rough sport, and part of the game is pure intimidation to keep players from challenging you. I've made players do flips in the air knocking them off the ball, and not be called for a penalty as I went for the ball.

Spain looked horrible. I watched them yesterday. It didn't look like they were playing for their World Cup lives. The England game is definitely on my plate to watch. The US game against Ghana was frustrating to watch. The US got lucky early and then played like they didn't even know each other until Ghana scored, and then they woke up. Ghana out played them most of the game. The US was lucky to come away with the win. They best show a bit more movement out there if they want to get much farther. If there is 1 thing I can't stand to see is players just standing around waiting for the ball.

Read the first comment in that link. He/she explains it fully. This would be something that I could use, as I'm doing quite a bit of rendering. That said, I'm a full blown Blender user now, and the rendering in Blender is quite good and gives me quite a bit of control. Much more control than I've ever seen in other programs. With more studios using Blender all the time, rendering options are guaranteed to improve. Heck, today, there is a huge industry for Render Farms, which almost all studios are using now. The non commercial use is another HUGE negative. I seriously doubt people just render animation things for fun. 6 hours to render a few minutes of animation is not something I would suggest putting your computer thru, just for fun.

It could also be that the sim has no script time left, hence why clicking does nothing, or might be seriously delayed.

This also happens when you mirror a mesh and then join them together.

Are you sure the size of your mesh is appropriate for SL? What I mean is, if you upload a really big mesh thinking you'll resize it in SL, or not realizing how big it is, then it is going to have a large Land impact score.

Using Avastar in Blender, allowed me to rig the lower jaw of my Lycan avatar to the m_skull bone. So, my Lycan has a perfectly working jaw, and I weighted the eyebrows to the skull bone also, just a little, to make him look like he is mad when his jaw is open wide. I had to export the jaw animation in the anim file option, as that format includes the m_skull bone. My Lycan can talk when you type, and I made speech gestures for him, so his jaw will move when you talk. His eyes are rigged to the eye bones, and they will move just like the SL avatar eyes will. I added a eyelid mesh to Lycan's eyes, so I could use a alpha change script to make the eyelid mesh transparent when it should be. What I think LL should do, is scrap both the mesh deformer, and especially the Fitted mesh, and then allow us to import morphs. The DAE format allows for morphing data. We wouldn't even need custom bones, if LL just implemented morphs, as you can morph a mesh to move just like a bone does.

Morph(blend shapes, or shape keys) imports could greatly improve character creation. If LL implemented the ability to import morphs, we would not even need more bones, as the morphs can simulate bones. Imagine your SL character Morphing. Here is a quick timelapse video of me creating a Lycan Morph(shape key). I made it to use her as a character in an animated video series, in which I want to use Avastar's SL figure. With all that Gaia did with the figure, it makes for the perfect default to make into any character, and have all the morphs to animate them properly. I might sell her, with a male version, in Unity, as the morph will work, but first gotta see if there are any copyright issues.

Coby Foden wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Some day, it will be much more feasible, and we'll have many more toys to do it with. Does technology develop just by itself - we just sit and wait long enough for some magic to happen? Of course it does not work like that. To develop something lots of research must be done, experiments need to be made, stuff needs to be built. That's how new better and more advanced things are invented. Often that costs enormous amounts of money. But the money is not lost nor wasted. The money will just change hands, part of it goes here, part of goes there, part of it goes somewhere else. Often high technology research has many spin off inventions which appear in our everyday life - just like has happened with space exploration. http://www.universetoday.com/37079/benefits-of-space-exploration/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies https://sites.google.com/a/scasd.org/website-design/Space-Program/positive-effects-of-the-space-program http://www.problem-solving-techniques.com/US-Space-Program.html .. and so on and on.. Somehow it appears to me that the money used on space exploration has brought forth many good things. Well, those aren't very good excuses to steal poor people's income to enable rich men to do unproductive things. Counter to popular belief, profits are not evil. Profits are a measure of usefulness. If you do not create something that can benefit others, you will not produce profits. I'm not against people or companies asking for donations to fund a program, as that is voluntary. I am against any group of people using government to steal from others. We could have gained the same amount of knowledge and spent significantly less. Who should decide at what level the people are made to suffer for the benefit of all. I say no1 should be able to decide this but each individual. If you love spacy things, then you should want government to be involved as little as possible. They will always hold technology back. The US space program is a prime example of this. Just about all of it was a complete waste of the people's money, and it has gone on for decades now, with little to no real productive value. Why has no private company gotten involved until recently? That's obvious, as it was too expensive to be profitable at all. Now might be the time for private business to show us all what is possible. This will never happen if government is the primary buyer. If the people truly did want to explore space, then NASA could have gotten people to donate, instead of pointing a gun at them and stealing their money. The FACT that they needed to steal the money proves that the people did not want it, nor needed it. If governments are the primary buyer, it is done that way on purpose, and is just another subsidized government business. They will innovate at whatever pace allows them to milk their cow of as much milk as possible. Again, it's our money, not NASA's money, as they produce nothing. If they did produce something, they would not need our money. If that SpaceX company had to compete for their profits, then society would all benefit from that open market.

Space is cool and all, I just don't get excited about space travel at this point in time. The cost is still ridiculous and it is always the public paying the bill for grown men to play. Now, if it was all done with private money, or donations, or any voluntary way, then I'd be all for it. If it is a private company building it only to have the government buy the crafts, then I'm still against it. Some day, it will be much more feasible, and we'll have many more toys to do it with.

Coby Foden wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Ok, so what's the big deal then? If you care to watch the video you will know. :matte-motes-big-grin: Ok, watched the whole video, and now I'm even more perplexed.

Dresden Ceriano wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Ok, F this game, I'm not even going to look at it now, because they fooled me to get me here. Just my thoughts, I'm sure it's a nice game and all. What game are you talking about? The video is about an actual RL space craft. ...Dres Ok, so what's the big deal then?

RipleyVonD wrote: "Material face" sounds right to me, and what I would of suggested if I had been present in that meeting. I like Prim Face, but I do think Mat Face would be a more descriptive name. Not that I think LL is wrong to call it a face, but in these instances, they really should get feedback from us. I remember when LL was doing the age restriction on sims. They wanted to call the Adult sims AO, for Adult Oriented. I was irrate about it, as they literally implemented it without any feedback. It's bad enough SL AOs, or Animation Overrides, could be mistaken for Ambient Occlusion, but then we had LL making it even more confusing with Adult Oriented. Where did they even come up with that label? It made no sense, especially since their are already age restriction labels that are very standardized.

Here's a question. Why is it called dragon if there are no dragons? I know nothing about the game, or whatever it is, but it does very much annoy me when companies just pull names out of a hat. It's 1 thing for NASA to name their stuff like teenage nerds, but a game company should really name their products properly, especially the way the internet works. Imagine if I just named products willy nilly on my website. How many sales am I going to get from that? I see people doing exactly what I did. I saw dragon, and now I'm interested. I goto the link, and I'm like, where is the fricken dragons. Ok, F this game, I'm not even going to look at it now, because they fooled me to get me here. Just my thoughts, I'm sure it's a nice game and all.

Crazy! Both were in the wrong, but I would mostly put the problem at the feet of the creator. Why would you ever do work and not be paid. Why would you not record the conversation, especially at that cost? Personally, I don't always require a contract. Many times, a contract is too restrictive and can lead to constant renegotiations. If the bill is going to be into the thousands of dollars, then I will push for something to be in writing. Most of the time tho, contracts mean very little. It won't stop some1 content on screwing you from screwing you. The cost to sue is far too expensive to always enforce a contract. You lawyer will make more than you will. I recently had a dispute about the contract I'm working on right now. They wanted me to do a number of animations for their game, and I quoted them at $700. They then added stuff, so I bumped the cost up to $800. While I was working on that, they came to me and wanted to know if I would make them clothing for all the characters. I told them no problem, and just to help me out, I contacted a fellow creator that specializes more in clothing. She'd create the clothing and I would finish it up and rig them. I quoted that at $900. They OK'd it. As I got closer to finishing the animations work, they informed me that the animation had to work on the main character, which they did not have ready yet. After talking with the main coder, I decided to finish their main character for them, which was the modeled head of the Zen master involved with the project. I said I'd only charge another $200 for that. We then have issues rigging 1 set of robes, and I suggested that we create a 2nd version to fit the master doing speeches as he sat, and of course, I charge more for that. The end quotes for both contracts were $1000, each. As I finished the character and animation part and handed in my invoice, the CEO asked why the clothing was not on the invoice. I was like, "Dude, that was a totally separate contract". He thought he was getting everything for $1000. I then told him that I hire a designer to make the clothing, and she isn't cheap. You OK'd it and that was the only reason I brought her in. He said it was not a big deal, and he was just confused by all the back and forth. Now, I'm working on other parts of their game, so it obviously didn't hurt our relationship. That said, it was confusing, as they really didn't have a clue what they were doing when they first hired me. It always makes sense to be as upfront and open as you can be. If you give a quote, you make sure they understand what they are getting for that money, and make them give you obvious confirmation that the quote is approved. Heck, just this morning, I told another contract customer that I was not starting on the job until he visually OK'd my last quote, and he rushed to approve it.

I always have this habit of using numbers instead of spelling out those words. 1 listing, I just couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then, I noticed that I had any1 in the text. That was it. How messed up is that?

Well, I think often the context is missed, which isn't any1's fault, as we can't read each other's minds. For instance, If I say you are thinking like a slave, knowing full well that I do the same thing, is it an insult? What I simply mean is that it is not a positive way at looking at a situation and we might do better to think differently about it. This brings up a funny situation that happen to me recently. My best friend, whom I've adored for 25+ years, and I are out for drinks. Another female friend happens into the bar and we all gab away. Both are vegetarians, so they gab about that, and I listen. Then we switch topics to something my best friend thinks is ridiculous, and mentions her distaste in our conclusions, and doesn't even want to hear the arguments, as it is not mainstream. She asks why every1 thinks differently, and I reply, "ignorance". My best friend replies, "Are you saying I'm ignorant?". OMG, did I just stick my foot in my mouth, and OMG the look she was giving me. I came back with, "Aren't we all ignorant about some things? I don't know a dang thing about vegetarianism, so I have to differ to you". I'm not totally sure that I dodged that 1 without reprecussions. lol

Sorry, but I also want to point out that I make the argument from the point of the economy, because I think it is the only totally valid argument. Valid, because it affects and benefits both parties. It's almost pointless to make arguments that only benefit 1 party. What reason does the other party have, other than to make you happy, to correct the problem? My argument is that if LL allocated the right amount of people to handle payouts within their 3 day window, the benefit to the economy would be enough to cover the cost of the need allocation. One of the biggest sectors that are affected by the delays, are those starting out, who will always be strapped for cash. When a turnover is only 3 days, decisions on moving forward with ventures can be done much more quickly, hence resulting in more ventures beginning. When you wait a week, then you talk to clients or investors, now you are talking more time, and more indecisions. 1 thing that I think most corporation tend to forget over time, is that it is the little guy can grow your business just as fast as the big guys can. When you add in delays, and restrictions, you favor the bigger guys. Sorry Pam, I wasn't directing this comment at you. Don't know why it chose you to reply to.

Well, maybe I don't see the insult as I see us all as slaves, trapped in slave systems. The question is whether we see the cages we put ourselves in. Personally, I hate to see people undervalue themselves. It's almost painful to see it in children. I want to see people be the best they can be, and not except complacensy. To be confident, and not fearful. This is why I love to teach, and make tutorials and stuff. There is nothing better than watching a kid, or any1, realize just how valuable and powerful they can be.

Pamela Galli wrote: That I agree to LL's terms does not mean I have a slave mentality, it means that my margins are so high here I do not at all mind them taking the tiny cuts they do. The interest they earn even on large sums these days is not enough to matter to me. I did not say that, nor did I reference you in any way. I think your position is valid. As I said, my argument has to do with the affect on the economy. Whether Lota is referencing you, I have no idea. I referenced the statement that it was just like RL. IMHO, it is a slave's mentality, as the person doesn't see or take into account the value they bring. There is no reason to differ payment. If the person wants the product now, then they pay you now. If they can not, then there is no reason to do business. If we are talking about a contract where you agree to be paid on a specific day, then that is a contract, and has nothing at all to do with a merchant. A merchant has no valid reason to differ payment. To do so is forgetting the value you bring to the table. In Detroit, every single auto supplier differs payment for 90 days. The auto companies force them to, as they are their biggest customer. This is a lopsided relationship, which is not good for either party, and puts every1 at risk. Whether you are talking about a large scale like this, or a small scale, like a 5 day period, it all results in negative impacts to the economy. LL's 3 days, or 5, or whatever, is not a contract, as we could sue them for breaking it. That is a valid distinction. The bottom line is that we are all doing business, and when I'm told, whether in contract or not, that I will be paid on this or that day, then it better be there, or our relationship will be strained. If the other party decide to make the relationship better by paying more consistantly, then all parties benefit.