Shockwave Yareach

Here is my assessment of beta 2.2 First of all, I have been running 2.1.1 because I can read the writing on the wall. The 1.23 WILL go away and be depracated like 1.22 and all others prior. It's going to happen people. And if you aren't running a V2 TPV or the 2.1+ viewer, you won't be able to connect to Second Life. So figure out what's important to you -- a familiar old interface or seeing your friends in SL. Second, the V2 interface originally was a piece of garbage. Originally. It still needs work, but you can now tell that something is a button at the very least. And once you have run the 2 version for a couple of hours, it's no worse than the original 1 version. I agree that sticking junk UI onto an already working codebase and calling it an improvement is stupid. But from MS Office down, everyone is doing it. So don't think it's just LL having a coding stroke. As for 2.2, there's much better and some bad. Better is my FPS under a GTX260 on a quad core 3Ghz machine. With everything at max in a crowded club it never sank below 17fps. The bad is that if AA is turned on you crash fairly soon, and the AA is turned on for you by default. Good is texture and prim data transfer rates. I'm not sure if it's just the cache finally working, but everything in my territories rezzes incredibly quickly. The sidebar now lets you tear off what you want to have in your oldstyle floating window. So those of you who hate the sidebar can now have the part of the UI you miss if you want it. Bad is that it's rather Crashy, particularly when getting something from Inventory. And on my machine, LOD flickered on a hottub, making the cylinder oscillate back and forth between lots of polygons and few polys while I was in it. And doing search for people and things, I'm still unable to teleport or IM them or anything. I have had this problem since V2.0 and I get around it with the dashboard, but I seem to be the only user on earth with this glitch. I also don't see any evidence of multithreading, as my CPU usage stays at 25%. It would be nice if the rendering had its own thread again, like the option in 2.1.1 Small improvements to the UI and substantial changes under the hood improve rendering speed. Large inventories seem to give it cramps though and the program is still prone to crashing. Not yet ready for prime time, but a good solid debug session could make it ready.

@Damien - that presumes a lot of skill and attention to feedback; matters which experience proves LL is woefully deficient at. Let us say that you are correct in your theory and the entire AU purchase was nothing but an experiment to see what users wanted versus didn't want. One, I saw NO features added or subtracted in the entire time AU was under LL command. Two, except for the initial Buzz post on the blogs by M, nobody asked what sort of things AU should be used for and what features we would all like to see integrate AU and SL better. And three, and most damning of all, is that LL is simply abandoning AU and letting a previously flourishing social network just keel over and die. They could offer it back to Enemy Unknown for 25% of what they paid and EU would snap it up instantly. A quarter on the dollar is better than nothing on the dollar. And it would prevent LL's name becoming synonymous with the term "Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder", both with current and with future customers. My thinking was that M figured buying out AU would instantly bring the million or so gamers there around to try out SL. What he and so many Lindens fail to understand is that anyone willing to pay 4+ figures for something they don't get to own are either already here, or have been burned by LL already and are already gone. And displaying decisions best described as "Company on Crack" like this one (rather than trying to sell AU for ANYTHING to ANYBODY) leads everyone to doubt in LL either as a tech leader, or a business partner.

I was going to try Kirsten's S20 tonight. But I'll give this a run instead. Sounds very promising and if the seperate thread for rendering is still there, I'll be very happy with this. Thanks!

first, facebook doesn't allow fake names -- real names only. And they don't allow alts -- see previous rule. And no, not a lot of people want their bosses or HR departments to know they play SL, WoW, or whatever else they do in their free time; what we do in our private lives is nobody's business but ours unless WE decide to publicize it. And even then, anybody who still trusts Zuckerburg after all he's done deserves to be outted from the closet because he bought a Cher ticket with his facebook ID... So you cannot be in Facebook as Galactica Glitterkitty. And many of us don't want a thing to do with Zuckerburg datamining operation, in RL or in VR. Let him suck my dev/null.

Typical LL response -- rather than work to make something functional, just abandon the project and all the money we spent acquiring it. Sadly typical. AU failed because you did absolutely nothing to make it into "A VR Facebook" like you stated you wanted it to be. There was no blogging. There was no commenting or discussing with anyone except one way writes on a wall (making following a conversation impossible). There was no calendar so that anyone in a group could announce happenings and everyone following that group can see what's happening for the next week. There was no way to operate groups. There was no way to have offline conversations with group members. All there was, Jack, was a photo upload area -- and Flickr works far better. You told us you'd make it into something awesome. Yeah, yeah, we've been hearing the same garbage inworld for the better part of a decade. And just like inworld, the moment things get tough, LL pretends they never had any real interest in it to start with and pulls the plug. I don't know how much cash you guys have left in the bank, but I suspect all the LL screwups over the past few years are draining the coffers dry. Yes indeed; a sadly typical response when LL cannot actually fulfill a promise. Or a contract. And you wonder why we think of SL as a game when you yourselves treat it like one?

Ah, yes, that loathsome Search mess was at the exact same time as the TOS change. Very good point, very good.

Dante: The economic downturn has an influence, yes. But the meltdown started about 3 years ago. If the economic mess in the world were to blame, then concurrency would have started trending down about then. But the concurrency numbers went up, which is more understandable when you realize that in times of crisis, people spend more on entertainment. People want to forget their troubles just for a little while. Movies made enormous profits here the past few years. Books and album sales are up, though not massively. And SL reached its peak in land area in October of 2008. The sagging numbers began in March of this year. Nothing special happened that year in the world economy. Gas prices didn't soar. Food prices didn't skyrocket. McDonalds didn't close 1/3 of its businesses. The only notable thing that happened was in SL, the current TOS with all its weasel words that dropped the word Own from SL completely was put into effect. My thinking is that people watched and waited as more and more fun was sucked out of SL. Finally, any chance at profit was sucked out as well, and that was the last straw for a lot of people. And as friends and islands vanished, more and more people gave up and quit. We are now well past the cusp of people staying in SL because their friends are here. They aren't here anymore, so they are taking off and taking their money with them. SL is an entertainment system at the moment. Yes, it has potential to become much more. But only potential -- today it's principle use is as a playground. And it's royally sad that LL couldn't imagine a way of developing a second grid for business and keeping this grid for play and sucking both moneystreams at the same time. REAL businessmen don't throw their customers under a bus in the hopes that 4 customers will take his place. REAL businesses expand their customer bases, not slash their customers' collective throats. And if LL doesn't realize that screwing the fun out of SL and mistreating customers for so long is causing the exodus, then it looks bleak for them. But it's all LL's fault and mismanagement -- all we customers can do is scream that we dont' want the new Coke they are shoving down our throats.

http://www.gridsurvey.com/economy.php Concurrency in January was peaked at 58,000 and averaged around 57,000. Starting in March with the latest TOS, concurrency has dropped lower and lower. it is today sinking yet again and around 50,000. This means we have lost 13.7% of our people. LL has lost 13.7% of its customers. Pfft, they are gone. And that number continues to shrink, as you can see from the diving trend at the end of the graph. You can also see the numbers of private parcels dropping in the Region Database. Also of interest is that 39.6% of the mainland is owned by... Gov Linden. That is a LOT of abandoned and empty servers that LL still has to pay for, but is getting NO money back from in the form of land tier. People are taking note that SL isn't fun anymore and that they don't get anything for their money (no more ownership). With the upcoming debacle with teens being formally allowed into SL and all the legal disasters it will bring, to LL and to users, I expect that concurrancy to sink yet another 10000 by the year's end. Fortunately it is in LL's power to reverse this trend by giving people back Ownership of their virtual property again (so people are willing to invest again) and cancel the teen grid merger. Unfortunately, it is only in LL's power, and if LL has proven anything in the past few years it is that they don't care how many holes the reef punches into the hull -- the ship SL will stay on their chartered course even if it means the ship sinks.

And also not a word from any Linden that existing prims and existing prim tools are going away, either. So what basis do you have for this worry that the prims are going away? It's just not happening -- meshes won't make the cube and sphere and all vanish. I've not heard so much as a muted whisper that the lab wants to deprecate the current prims or how they could do so without erasing 99% of the stuff inworld in the first place. Believe me, if I'd heard so much as a hint that LL was going to get rid of the prims and the building tools already in place, I'd be grabbing a torch and pitchfork also. So point me to where a Linden is hinting that that is coming please. Otherwise, you are just making up a reason to be upset.

Vivienne: The only inworld Mesh tool is the one for Terrain adjustment. And the resulting file is not a mesh, but a graphic image where the red, green and blue colors represent land height (0-255), the multiplier for the land height (0-255) and the water height (0-255 : Normally 20 and not affected by the Multiplier). And the inworld tools for working with this aren't exactly user friendly. I was on the Sunweaver Shake and Bake team and I've built dozens of islands. The inworld editor wasn't exactly a fun part of the experience...

If you'd look closer, you'll see that I pointed out to that person that the word "peasant" was rather harsh. I'm hardly being condescending to you. We have a disagreement, that is all. Again, if you don't want to use mesh until the editor is in the viewer, more power to you. No skin off of my muzzle either way. Just don't be saying that the rest of us have to follow suit just because you say so.

Vivienne: It's her money to spend as she sees fit. My money is for me to spend as I see fit. Your money is for you to spend as you see fit. You start telling people how they may or may not spend their money, and it is YOU who become the elitist.

"And while the technocratic elite may not exist in sl I get the impression from an attitude of snotty, snobbish, look down your nose at the other peasants attitude rife in this forum I get the feeling that certain individuals would like to think it does...." Funny. I get the same impression from certain people who don't want meshes and want to keep the rest of us from having them too. Some folks seem to think they know what's best for all of us... and they call the rest of us elites. Ironic isn't it? If you don't want to use mesh, then simply don't use mesh. You start telling ME what I can and cannot do, and I will have to question what sort of freedom-loving citizen of SL you actually are. Meshes entering the grid does not mean you will be forced into anything -- if you don't want to run mesh creating programs on your computer then don't run mesh creating programs on your computer. Those folks who do want to make them and use them in SL should be allowed to do so. and I was just thinking about the quest for having inworld tools for EVERYTHING in SL. It just dawned on me; do you have any idea how large the viewer would become if that was the case? I could see the viewer becoming 5x in size easily. Even simple image editors are a few megs in size. Imagine having a 100Megabyte download just to play SL. Ouch...

I would like an inworld mesh editor as well. Unlike some though, I'm not going to hold my breath till I turn blue or refuse to use it until the editor is in place. There are MANY outstanding tools already available and made by people who have forgoten more about Mesh than LL will ever know. There is zero reason for LL to reinvent the wheel -- with LL's noted quality -- to accomplish this goal. And besides, we are still waiting on the inworld editors for the following: * Textures * sounds * sculpts * animations So your inworld mesh editor should arrive sometime after the editors are created for all these other aspects of creation in SL. We've been waiting, oh, about 8 years now. Still no sign of them. So I rather doubt you are going to see one inworld anytime in your or my natural lifetime. Right or wrong, that's the fact of it and we should just deal with the reality. One thing Blue Mars does thta I really like is they allow you to preview your work on your own machine. You have a miniSandbox that you can use to test textures and shapes before uploading your work to the servers (and paying the upload fee). This permits the builder to get it right the first time and avoid dozens of uploads just trying to get things aligned properly. It works harmoniously with whatever your favorite tools are offline and you get to preview your stuff as if you were connected to the grid. I think such a thing would make you very happy because then you could use whatever tool you wanted instead of being limited to SL's (ugh) limited versions, and you'd be able to see the results live without paying lots of upload fees and delays as you connect/disconnect.

maelstrom, protests by a certain gadfly notwithstanding, there really isn't a technocratic super secret ruling class in SL. There is a tech development group in LL, but they take their orders from the top and are only vaguely aware that we geeks even exist in the rest of the grid. And besides, the real "tech elites" abandoned SL about a year and a half ago and moved to openSim where they could do REAL improvements to the state of the art. As proof of that, OpenSim is getting a different architecture for sims where the sim physics and items are handed to as many servers are necessary for the number of people on the sim. Result? On the Science Island you can now have 500 avatars, all communicating and moving about no differently than if they were all on one server. A truly game-changing improvement, and one I pray SL incorporates before the next RFL or SLB8. Imagine, no more lag when more than 30 people are on your parcel. Imagine being able to have large venue events or meetings with hundreds of people from around the world. It is possible and it exists today -- on OpenSim. So where are the technocratic elite in SL who could have done this with SL? They are over on OpenSim, not here. Mesh is not any more of a game changer than sculpts were. And no secret groups in or out of LL are going to be richer because of it. Just like sculpts before, some people will use them for some tasks, but the vast majority of us won't need to use or create them. One change this will make is to limit the use of sculpts, since meshes can do far more, far easier. If anyone is jeopardized by this change it will be those people who make sculpts. But considering how simple it is to make a mesh, those with the tools for sculpts will simply output in Collada instead and just keep right on with their second lives.

If you have a nice fountain, give me a buzz. It would look nice on my parcel.

Prok is a legend in her own mind. Don't pay much attention to her. Once in awhile she stumbles onto a reasonable notion, just as a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut. But she inevitably then skews it into a long tirade against invisible secret societies she cannot prove exist and against everyone who can do something which she cannot. Prok's principle objection is that nobody should be more capable or skillful than anyone else. And that's simply not ever going to be the case -- there will always be people who can paint and people who cannot. The same is true for every skill in the world. SL is one of the most level playing fields you will find for creation. You can use bajillion dollar programs to create here, or you can use free programs. Or no external programs at all if you like. Everyone from the CEO to the "peasants" can create textures, prims, sculpts, and now meshes. How they do it is up to them, but no technology needed in SL requires expensive programs; there are always free ones available. This is a far cry better than the real world where professionals HAVE to have rather expensive gear to remain in business. In RL, people who can afford to get quality degrees do and equally skilled people without a spare 200Grand for that BSEE do not. But in SL, anybody can come in without a dime to spend, learn a few tricks with free programs, and start creating content to sell. If everyone being able to create the same things without having to spend a dime to do so isn't fair, I don't know what is. And while Prok imagines a universe where nobody has any skills better or worse than anyone else, that's not how reality works. Giving everyone equal shot with equal tools is about is just and fair as you are ever going to accomplish. Telling painters that they may not paint because not everyone in the world knows how to paint does nothing to make the universe more just or better.

The economy is dust because of LL's lack of enforcement of IP and because of LL's incompetence in keeping a stable world going. Suddenly nobody in SL owns anything anymore; it's all just revokable licenses. Did you notice the huge collapse began in March? The same time as the weasel worded change to the TOS? But the stagnation and disintegration wasn't the fault of people making sculpts or using Maya to create animations. And what I bother to "waste" my time doing is no concern of yours.

Prims aren't going anywhere. You can still build lots of stuff with prims. Sculpts did not eliminate prims from building and neither will the Meshes. There has been no announcement from LL that the prim and the prim tools would be removed. And since LL has a long history of telegraphing hints about their stupidest moves a year ahead of time, and no hint of such can be found anywhere, it's a safe bet that there is no plan to eliminate them. Indeed, the viewers will have to support displaying prims even if they did so in order to remain compatible with existing stuff already made. So relax. Prims aren't going anywhere.

peasants is a bit extreme milady. I'd like to see inworld tools for the meshes myself. But pragmatically, I know that's not going to happen. And before anyone starts screaming about it and how it's the end of the world, show me the inworld TEXTURE EDITOR for SL. There isn't one. Never has been one. And yet folks don't seem to think that's a very big problem. So why all the hysterics about needing another program on your computer -- programs that cost nothing and are available to everyone? It doesn't create a class of haves and have nots. Everyone in SL is on the same playing field and everyone can do the same things. People with skill build better products. People with the means buy tools to make better products. But no tool replaces skill -- that 500$ copy of Maya won't make you an animator and that copy of Premeire Pro won't make you a filmmaker. Skill is what matters, just as it has always been. Ideally every single facet of SL would be editable in the world itself. Ideally, I would have all of Bill Gate's money, too. I don't see either happening. So it's off to learn the new mesh creation tools I go. Not because I'm trying to put anyone out of business (like I can be bothered) or create a vast corporate empire inworld (a single Embedded Design when I RL moonlight makes me enough to buy an island chain if I wished.) But because I want to learn new stuff and build better stuff; for myself, my friends, my group, whoever. If someone doesn't want to get a free program and learn a new trick, that's their business. That I do is my business. I shall not force anyone to update and nobody is going to force me not to update. It's as simple as that. My world, my imagination. And if Prok or Vivenne or anyone else is threatened, tough. I'm in SL for myself and my own reasons and if they or anyone else wants or doesn't want to keep up with me, they are just as free to do whatever they like as well. Keep up, fall behind, race ahead of me -- it's no skin off of my nose either way.

The introduction of sculpts did not destroy SL. I've no reason to believe that Meshes will do so either.

"Enterprising people will likely immediately make large breasted and exaggerated gluteus maximus females and anatomically correct male avatars with giant genitalia." Who will be instantly AR'd by you and others, just as they are when they walk around today with prim dangling bits and prim giant Gonzo-breasts. Having a mesh will not change the TOS and the ever vigilant Oral Moral Squad out there. But you can't simply ban something useful just because there is a way to do something against the rules with it - you have to simply enforce the rules. You name the device and I'll tell you a way to commit a crime with it. You can't just tell everyone in the world that they can't have any medicines for any illnesses because you fear someone will become an drug abuser...

You can also use the free (and much simpler) Google Sketchup. My opinions about blender are not suitable language for the forum... You make one critical error in logic however. I'll illustrate it thus: When Sculpts came out, did every single thing that was made for SL have to be changed to take advantage of it? Did you, in fact, have to learn sculpts and change every single item you sold to incorporate them? Unless you are making furry avatars, then the probable answer is no. Some things were superior with them and some things were not. (None of my stuff for sale uses sculpts, for instance. And the stuff still sells.) Look at Xstreet (sorry: Marketplace) and tell me what percentage of the stuff there is sculpted. It is far less than 100% and is actually even less than 10% of the items sold overall. Now. We've seen that sculpts did not mean instant doom to everyone making non-sculpt items. There are many, many non-sculpt items for sale even today. So what makes you think that Meshes will be any different? What is it about a mesh that will make me want to use one to create a sphere rather than just rezzing a sphere?

Change is life and life is change. Adapt and overcome, or perish. It's the law of the jungle, the marketplace, and the computer industry which gives you the very tools you use to scream about progress with... If there was one program available to make sculpts or meshes and it was a Fic member (and I do believe that certain people have inside information and lab secret deals, yes) that sold it, I could see your point. But that's not the case. Sculpts and Meshes are both handled via a readily available protocol with dozens of programs written by dozens of companies (and people) all over the globe. I can make a mesh with Maya, poser, Google Sketch (which I'm learning), Blender (which I gave up trying to learn), and a host more. You don't even have to pay anything to run Google Sketch or Blender. So tell me, where is the advantage to any particular LL-palsy-walsy business when meshes come online? They'll have an unfair advantage? Really, Prok, do you believe that the only people in the universe who have ever made Meshes are those few people in the Beta test or the FIC crowd? I personally know of half a dozen out of work animators who each know more about Mesh than all of LL and its FIC folk put together. And they've long derided SL as being a "nice try", but visually "gagging". When these folks hear that SL now has meshes and ways to make money creating meshes for use in SL... let's just say I've learned the hard way not to get between an artist and a buck These out of work artists who are used to making stuff for movies and games will literally clean the clocks of these FIC you are so worried about. So meshes can be made and used by anyone and everyone. The FIC will be terribly surprised at the skillsets of the newcomers over the next few months. And since lots of stuff doesn't need meshes (and in fact will rez slower with meshes) the change to the marketplace will not be as grid-shaking as you fear. Certainly a few vendors who need to learn the new skills will refuse to do so and will fall by the wayside -- they will be replaced by new vendors who will sell what the public demands. Anyone can make them for free and no real favortism for a buck exists. Your complaint with the continuing improvement of the state of the art is what, again? That a change is taking place? Well Prok, if no change ever took place, we'd be playing second life on our cave walls by drawing avatars with burnt wood and animal droppings. And I've little doubt you'd be criticizing the kind of droppings used, even then.

ME?! An LL Fan Boy?! ohhhh, lady, are YOU talking to the wrong avatar...