Vivienne Schell
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Posts posted by Vivienne Schell
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"They have also made it very clear that this new virtual world, while very similar in many ways to SL, will be a its own product."
No, by making nothing very clear they made very clear that there will be almost no similarities. It makes no sense at all to release something like a "Third Life" anyway, and this will not be their purpose. Forget about "SL 2", it will not happen.
The Lab wants "Mainstream", the big dollar, gazillions of happily paying users and Silicon Valley top notch status. This can´t be achieved by an anarchist user sandbox conception as Second Life ever was - so they obviously think.
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I advise everyone who insists on "realism" in SL to go for it:
YES! YES! YES!
Finally we have the politically correct sized ultimate realistic experience! No camera adjustments necessary.
Hell, Real Life is better as we thought, isn´t it?
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Stick to Blender.
:matte-motes-nerdy:
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I think that's an issue LL has to deal with. Google and Facebook are looking for disruption. That rarely comes from industry old timers.
True. Minecraft worked by shocking cubic disruption, too, btw. But Mitch Kapor didn´t want further "experiments" and disruption back in 2008/09 (I recall some famous speech there). And since then SL is in decline. Dunno if Kapor and the other BOF´s still are on the LL board, but it´s no surprise that they sponsor good old Phil with his "next generation" attempt to attract the masses and corporations by supposed to be fancy technology.
Unfortunately the people go to where the fun is, technology doesn´t matter much to them. And the corporations go to where the people are. Something the industry oldtimers never really got.
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It´s a different pair of shoes, but it proves the overall trend: Projects like Minecraft, which are designed simple, user friendly and effective and which are based on in-world user creativity alone are a proven mainsream success. Google tries the other extreme way. But no one will invest millions into a SL 2014 (or "the next generation LL thing" like project), because such conceptional wishiwashi can only end in a niche - if anywhere at all.
Either go in-world and provide the necessary tools or go into a completely different direction, that´s the trend. And not "Second Life 2.0". What for? We already have a life. No one needs a third one.
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Something like Mesh Studio is really nice - but if Linden Lab had introduced it as a system tool i´d call it a showstopper design. Face it, each step beyond using the default, native creation tools basically is one too many if you base a virtual environment on user creativity. That´s my point. All the tools you mentioned are some kind of workaround, and by far not the best, most effective and system compatible solutions.
Regarding mesh clothes, avatars and whatever: Same trouble. Inadequate formats due to a lack of adequate tools.
Not everything is bad in Linden World, of course. SL works, it is profitable and still seems to attract enough people to pay Linden salaries and maintainance. But It will not grow anymore. It never was easy to handle, but now it has become waym way, way too complicated for the user to be more than just another niche within a niche. Which is okay, but also a missed opportunity.
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All of these mesh-will-be-the-downfall-of-SL arguments are eerily reminiscent of the very things that were said about the introduction of sculpties.
Well, both import formats did not and will not stop the slow decline of SL: Since the introdution of sculpts and mesh imports SL declined steadily. At best it stagnates since a year or so. Anyone who tells me that these import formats helped the success or growth of SL as a platform must be victim of some fata morgana. While SL boomed before they come up with these nice looking but online VR incompatible import formats (while compatibility demands more than just a technical specification). The facts don´t lie.
I don´t say that Mesh and Sculpt imports are the downfall of SL, but in my opinion there is only one reasonable way to make an online VR like SL grow, which is providing and improving native in-world formats and native in-world tools by design and functionality. Minecraft and Blue Mars both proved it in any thinkable way. Linden Lab was on the right track but unfortunately someone there decided to leave this track - probably because some wishful thinking led someone to the conclusion that some major corporations would contribute their modelled corporate buildings this way.
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Blender is exactly worth what is is worth compared to truly usable and truly pro adopted modelling software. Dot.
Obviouly this minor, clunky, almost unusable monster with a learning curve higher as the mount everest (even 100 times steeper as SL) is the choice for the majority of SL Mesh importers. Why so? Because it´s so "fantastic"? Certainly not. It´s a freebie. For some reasons.
What LL plans there, I don´t know. I agree with you there. And I am very sceptical. I only hope that Altberg will not waste Linden Lab resources on just another DOA wet techie fantasy.
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arton Rotaru wrote:Maybe LL should limit the possibilties how to run a club, to make SL more successful to anyone...
It´s a matter of tools and talent, too. The club owner relies on things made by people with inadequate tools while being forced to use inadequate tools for his special activity. LL failed to improve the native toolset and never optimized them for the specific needs of an online VR. They had 12 years to do do, but all they did was making things even more complicated, more abstract, more absurd, more off-world based and more laggy.
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arton Rotaru wrote:Talent is a given, no matter of the tools.
Probably, but tools have to serve talent and not talent the tools. Otherwise = Fail. Reality check: SL/LL became proftable and successful while charging (kinda absurd) prices for their tool, while Blender still remains a freebie cause no one on the planet would pay a single cent for it.
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arton Rotaru wrote:Modeling software is designed to make building 3D content as fast and comfortable as it can be. Something which a platform like Second Life never can provide.
Eh. Blender? Gawd.
And modelling software never can replace talent. A talented prim builder can do stellar artwork compared to someone who knows Blender, but isn´t able to draw a logic geometry.
While the SL editing tools are stellar usability artwork compared to some...ahem..."modelling software".
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Tari Landar wrote:SL has never truly been a completely or even mostly level playground for creation.
Oh uh. And where does all the content come from? Rezzables, attachments, textures, scripts...sums up to millions of assets. Of course SL has always and will always be a completely level playground for creation.
And it´s not only the visuals. Running a club is an expression of creativity as well.
The difference to Minecraft is that Minecraft is perfectly designed to be an outlet of the average folks visualisation skill and phantasies, while SL (lately since Mesh imports) is designed to be a showcase platform for hobbyists failing to be online game design professionals. That´s why Minecraft is worth 2.5 Billions while SL is worth nothing.
Instead of favoring all kinds of format imports which didn´t really help anyones success (Sl is in deciline since 2009!) LL should have improved the in-world tools with native formats.
I have no idea how to fix the misconceptual mess, but I agree with those who predict a total failure to any VR which exclusively is based on professional (or worse, hobbyist) off-world creativity.
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Right, Phil. Out of 100 content creators who sell something which really needs more than ten minutes to hack there might be 2 (or so) who are actually addicted to SL.
Considering that 95 percent of all users are consumers primarily, the total addict numbers off the "content creator" circuit should be a lot higher.
:matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:
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Until 2009 or so Linden Lab published statistics on Linden Dollar "income" in SL, then they ceaed this. But back then there only were about a few hundred people who actually received "noteworthy" amounts (more than 1000 US dollars a month). Included was any kind of income, from wherever and for whatever. Content creators most probably were a minority even there. The vast majority of users never made and still does not make more than a few US dollars a month.
I don´t think that this has changed. The overwhelming majority of people who make and sell things in SL are most probably not earning enough money to call it a "job", or even "income". A very, very, very few are professionals, of course. The rest is in it for the fun and the "merchant game", as a hobby or for whatever reason. And yes, a few surely are addicted.
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I like the "Incarna Rebellion" there, hah. So, basically, the vast majority of the EVE crowd prefers solid gameplay for visual shinies like walking around with an avatar, which is stunning, but supports my overall theory.
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1. Clear your parcel and re-rezz.
2. Second question is more difficult to answer.
You actually can try to save prims by setting pieces within a linkset to "convex hull" in the editor (fearture tab). Ths can save you a lot of Land Impact, but it only will work properly with simple prim shapes (like cubes) and very low LOD, square meshes. It will NOT work with most sculpties and any kind of cut, twisted, curved or hollow prim shapes for several reasons.
You actually do not have to unlink a linkset for applying the "convex hull", "prim" or "none" features to single pieces within a linkset. You should do this in "edit linked parts" mode, where you can set the physics feature (convex hull, prim, none).
Please go to a sandbox if you want to play with this feature and only try it on copyable structures, NEVER on "no copy" items. If you set the "wrong" parts of a building to "conves hull", the overall Land Impact of a linkset can explode easily.
To understand the function better, just rez a couple of prim cubes, link them, set them to conves hull one by one and see what happens. Then try the same with other prim shapes - but only in a sandbox!
In fact, this method can reduce the Land Impact of pre-mesh prim or prim/sculpt buildings dramatically and can make them more competitive by Land Impact - but please handle with care!
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"EVE Online"
If something like EVE is fairly successful in it´s niche, then because it actually HAS gaming elements. If there were no basical in-world tasks to build up a fleet or following another path to "social" and personal success (which basically requires any kind of robbery and violence, haha), I doubt that EVE would be online at all. And it´s certainly as much ScFi higjh end gamer niche as it can be by default. EVE never claimed to be mainstream. And user created content seems to be carefully reviewed and restricted by the administrator. So, EVE is a different pair of shoes.
Minecraft is much closer and a lot more comparable to the SL conception. So is IMVU, and even IMVU beats SL f it comes to user retention.
I don´t think that Altberg and the forces behind and inside of the Lab want to dump SL, even if this clumsy leaking of plans for another VR might sound like it. What I think is that the decision makers finally accepted that SL as is will always remain a niche within in a niche (just like EVE, IMVU and whatever else VR around). And the success of Minecraft certainly has not remained unnoticed there - before MS stepped in. My guess is that they favor an alternative, much more mainstream targeted baby there. Not as a replacement for the borked SL niche, but as an expansion of their target market. However this will look and feel like, I doubt that it will be attractive for the dedicated SL user - and this will be intentional.
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Nvidia GeForce GTX 780, of course. If SL would support it I´d say a Quadro 6000.
:smileyvery-happy:
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You're right. We did use our Imaginations to fill in the gaps.
This touches the basics of what "Virtual Reality" means. Minecraft is a proof for a working idea, which is: "A Virtual Reality must not necessarily be realistic (in the real world sense), but create a unique, microcosmic , truly "virtual" realiism which is shared by the user community and is experienced as "realistic" within this microcosmos in real time.
Basically any online game or "Virtual Reality" is far from being "realistic" The gap you mentioned must always be filled, even if you have high detailed threedimensional visuals. No computer simulation can be as realistic as the real world is, never ever. That´s pure SciFi. The "reality" in VR only and only can be "virtual".
Simplicity never was a bad idea. Minecraft simplifies the idea of "Virtual Reality" successfully down to the bone, and the 2.5 Billion value deal hopefully will have enough impact on Silicon Valley to reconsider the future of VR. It certainly isn´t more and more high end commerce based on off-world creations and imports, only for adding some kind of fake "realism". While Minecraft manages to create not only the same, but by far more impressive and successful level of "realism" (by user experience) with simple cubes.
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Yes.
Another difference is striking: In Minecraft users create and meet other users over creating. In the post-sculpt/mesh Second Life people shop. In Minecraft everyone creates in-world, on the same level with the same toolset, while in SL there are Blender classes where people are dealing with Blender while ignoring Second Life.
:matte-motes-sunglasses-3:
Add that creativity in SL (even of the most basic kind) has a way too high price compared to Minecraft, measured by the amount of time, skills and money one has to spend on it for a decent result.
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By far not everyone can launch a missile strike by a cellphone, and I think that having such a thing matters much more than actually using it in full flavor to the most. No one really NEEDS all the shinies, but one must HAVE them. It´s a social demand, which is at least equally important as technical demand. No one MUST have Second Life (Exception and example for the importance of social demand: The big hype 2006-2009).
SL and LL still are at least 5-10 years ahead of the mainstream requirements and mainstream demand (technicaly and by conception), while Minecraft just hits it perfectly right here and now.
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The lesson taught by Mojang is simple:
1. Create a simple virtual world where everyone can be creative
2. Make it run on any lowest end PC/Laptop on the planet
3. NEVER listen to these 3D idiots and their polygon fetishism
4. Forget about "realism" and avoid any kind of "adult" content
5. Market it in a smart way and keep customers happy
6. Avoid any crappy PR phrases like "next generation" or "better, bigger, faster"
That´s it. If you do this Microsoft or whoever else will pay Gazillions.
Second Life has nothing of the above. That´s why no one ever will pay a single cent for it, except the (stagnating by numbers) Second Life user crowd.
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Just for clarification:
1 Who is the creator of the object you bought? You or someone else?
2. Who is the creator of the script you bought? You or someone else?
3. When you rez the original, which permissions are set IN-WORLD (in rezzed state)?
4. When you rez the original, is "Anyone can take a copy" enabled?
Four simple questions which require simple answers for any kind of judgement,
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"...nothing you've said here corresponds to anything that I've written..."
Didn´t I quote you?
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about the new SL and Linden dollar
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
"As I said before, it is not LL's job to do this anyway. It is up to the person that owns the IP rights to enforce them. "
Linden Lab only gets away with the supposed to be "Safe Harbor" status because Second Life has been removed from public attention over the past years. Once they come up with something "newer, bigger, greater", which will be in the focus of international media attention it absoluteyly will be their job to keep this thingy clean. Otherwise some judge will close it down before the first 10,000 of the wished 10 million users dropped into the place.