Vivienne Schell

One thing for sure: Without adequate revenue Linden Lab will not survive, and without Linden Lab your experience will be as lost as mine. In so far Linden Lab´s commercial success is OUR success, and Linden Lab commercial failure, unfortunately, is OUR failure. Regardless if we like mesh imports or not. Third parties: You are right that SL always relied on imports, but that´s not something LL as a software company can brag with and cultivate as a business strategy. Nothing beats native formats as soon as it comes to usability and effectively controlling the environment. Wanna hear the true story on mesh imports? Object creation with prims is native, and of all indigrients SL relies on this native format ever caused the LESS trouble of them all. And still does. Huge textures cause problems, massive server bugging scripts do, all the shiny but bugging stuff does, but not prims. Instead of developing their pretty successful (and cheap, highly effective and simple) format and toolset further (SL was mafe BIG with prims and native tools, not with imported cubes and spheres), some unnamed Linden managers and board members in their deepest - disconnected from SL subculture - wisdom (and friendship to some business knownothings who wanted to exploit the 3D models of their office skyscrapers in SL) decided to come up with "sculpt map imports", Well, these looked kinda nice, sure, but they caused trouble. Lots of. And the business friends still complained. And the techies at the Lab, desperately trying to keep this mess running, did as well. "And hell, this renderosity stuff looks sooooo nice! We want this!! And the Google Warehouse! And, and, and..." This was confirmed by a legion of users, of course, who refused to understand that Second Life is an online environment with a limited technical horizon and not a million dollar AAA 3D game or desktop presentation software and that renderosity, DAZ and google content is intellectual property. And so they decided to come up with Polymesh imports, supported and confirmed by some employees who were friends with some great 3D modellers in the valley and elsewhere and loved to play with Maya instead of fixing the bugs in SL. Another two years later they came up with it, while a year of betatesting did not generate much more than a handful of enthuisatic hand selected friended creators and their friends importing some stuff onto the beta grid (stolen Halo and WoW models included - following the Hulk). While, at the same time, someone refused to add a great little tool for aligning prim objects to the native toolset. Which was all free and opensource. But you know, who cares? Now they finally could let their business friends import their office replications into SL, which was most important. Or not? Unfortunately their business friends STILL complained, now on the violence, the sex, the content theft and all this. So the Linden masterminds were left alone with the real users and not really working polymesh imports. While the only format and the only toolset which ever worked relatively perfect within SL and which made SL big and these Linden masterminds weathy and fat and won them all their business friends was neglected, devalued and ignored without ANY valuable reasoning. Apparently the same happened to the SL user.

You obviously do not get it, Kwakkeide. Look at concurrency and the state of the Second Life economy. Look at who got laid off by Linden Lab lately (Two prominent product managers, responsible for Viewer 2 and , yes, Poly Mesh development). Second Life does not grow since years. Mesh iimports are out there for months and, as Charlar bragged, replaced 25 percent of the content. Maybe they even replaced 25 percent of users, but this is not a success at all. A success wouuld be 25 percent MORE paying users and 25 percent MORE revenue for Linden Lab. But this did not happen. Sculpties didn´t really "happen" in an economical sense for Linden Lab, and Poly-Mesh fails exactly the same way. Why? It´s not about that imported sports cars look better than the native ones (while nothing beats the xBox, or a real Ferrari, anyway), it´s about that there is a way too limited supply of imports and a way too limited demand for imported sportscars. It´s about demand, and SL as a whole obviously neither demanded imported sculpt maps nor polymesh imports for further growth - and growth is essential for the further existance of SL. It´s about the economy. As a comparison, the easy to handle, directly accessible and simple "Minecraft" gained 25 Million paying users without any import function while Linden Lab wasted time and money on developing a polygon mesh import and rendering engine, shaders and serverside solutions which still do not work correctly and do not make Second Life easier, better, more attractive or more frequently used than before. While Unity 3D and Blue Mars (and their hopeless attempt to make shiny imported 3D modelling and exhibiting a lasting experience for the average human being) either stay "promising conceptions", "niche" or vanish as a result of total failure. No one logs into Second Life for being adviced to learn Blender or whatsoever. And no one logs into SL for just "consuming" what a handful of mostly hobbyist creators think is state-of -the-art in 3D modelling. And way too less people have fun with playing the barbie dress-up-dress-down game. And the ones who have fun with this kind of activity will not spend more money than they did before, anyway. No growth. All this never justified the time and money and attention Linden Lab spent on development. It did and will not win the necessary revenue for Linden lab to survive the rising maintainance and production costs and inflation rate. It´s wasted. An economical failure.

I don´t bash anyone for the sins of Linden Lab employees, Mikki.

Linden Lab charges a set-up fee of 1000 US dollars for a sim and 300 US dollars monthly for WHAT? For refusing to develop their OWN platform for their OWN customers? I doubt that this is a valid business strategy, and all statistics since lately 2009 prove that the Linden Lab strategy (if it is one at all) of favoring imported formats over native ones is a failure. There simply are no disadvantages in developing native, directly accessible formats and advanced usability. If there were any, neither Microsoft nor Apple nor any other software company on the planet ever had been successful. It costs money and needs developers, of course. Lindens obviously are good for troubleshooting, but this cannot be a valid reason for avoiding any kind of real, effective and user friendly software development at all - not for the price this company charges for it´s products. Apart from this, NONE of the imports i have seen so far and made by myself so far do need any of the advanced features a 3D modelling application offers. Except imports which blow prim count through the roof by senseless polygon and verticle "beauty" - and are absolutely inadequate for usage in the Second Life environment.

All these suggestions are useless. There is only one thing Linden Lab can do to make poly mesh useful for Second Life at all: Give the users of this software better, easier to handle an more effective in-world tools. Let them create these supposed to be "cool" things in-world, natively. Imported 3D formats alone will never ever keep Second Life alive but will only contribute to it´s slow death, as it is happening since three years (the six wasted months of promoting poly mesh imports included). All this import hype is just another attempt to establish a money sink (by upload fees) and one more deadly sin regarding usability and accessibility of the platform. Linden Lab must develop Second Life, NOT Blender. This is as if Adobe would make the development future of Photoshop reliable on GIMP imports. Hilarious, ridiculous and totally off track. Linden Lab calls Linden Lab a "software" company. Oh really? So they developed Blender? I should have known.

You may be right there, technically, but if someone asks for more "common" formats like "onj", this someone has a reason. The reason is that - apart from the Google Warehouse - most of the objects on the web are in "obj" format. And most of these "obj" files are either ripped or distributed under a sctrict "no transfer" license. For the average non-nerd wannabe ripper converting such stuff into collada isn´t such an easy task at all. And remember that out of the currently 40,000 logged in users maybe 400 know what the hell "Blender" is. But everyone can type "free 3D" into google search and get a zillion download links to "obj" files, which are either ripped or..., you know. I am pretty sure that Linden Lab executives were pretty aware of the risk, and they still are and should be more than ever before with the Protect IP Act on the way. Picking some not sooo popular format certainly was not only a techie decision, imho. It slows down things - a bit at least.

Why did SL go for collada and not something common like obj? Because Linden Lab apparently wanted to avoid tenthousand DMCA´s and probable injunctions.

Why not simply link to Turbosquid and the like, he he? And honestly, a "mesh" can be everything, there is "meshed" stuff en masse, which is specified by mesh as mesh, not as the weird nerd description of a 3D object. At least half of the search results, if not more, are related to the non-geek, RL meaning of this word. "Sculpted Prims" or "sculpty" was at least somehow descriptive for a format, but "Mesh"??? Truly the symptom of nerds making nerd stuff for nerds talking with nerds. Just call it what it is: 3D Object Imports.

Agreed. And as soon as the Protect IP Act passes US congress, Second Life could be dust. By encouraging and even charging people for making a content and IP theft paradise out of Second Life - even more than ever before by allowing unrevised object imports - they set Second Life onto the taget list of a business which is very capable of protecting itself - and all but fond of paying money to Linden Lab for opening a Second Life Turbosquid or opening a Second Life World of Warcraft.

I am sure your two pages of legal advice and that (unauthorized) Miller Chair (generically made from the scratch) are impressive enough to keep Blizzard quiet on rebuilt from the scratch WoW avatars and game models. :matte-motes-yawn:

Sure, sure. You are absolutely right. No relevance AT ALL. You win!! :matte-motes-kiss:

Nacy Nightfire wrote: It's in no company's interest to go aggressively after another company as small as LL and jump into full blown litigation. Notices are filed and there is time to comply. Really? Look up limewire.com And the ever ongoing case here: http://az.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20110627_0001117.DAZ.htm/qx

"Well you certainly have no idea what you are talking about. I had to laugh at your post. Not that I think you will, but, go look up Morrowind modding if you think I am somehow going to get sued." No , i do not laugh on declared content rippers and copycats. The opposite is true. I heartily congratulate Linden Lab for attracting exactly this kind of character with their implementation of unrevised 3D object imports. It certainly will boost the further trust of investors and serious creators in the platform. People will happily be shopping for virtual goods which they cannot be sure of if they are legal or not. It will bring us exactly the kind of content and shiny progress we all waited and begged for.

When i read some posts here, and if these posts reflect the opinion of the majority of the 3D model importing creators, I am almost convinced that Linden Lab will get sued at some point of the story - just a matter of time. This is much more dangerous than any "copybot" could ever become, and the word "copybot" alone still causes some major hysteria. And if you are actually supporting the "Oh, we all will get away with a little bit of crime" this won´t help at all. A sim is 1000 dollars set up fee and 250 dollars a month,that´s a lot of money for the average resident. Linden Lab makes millions. Not peanuts. About the Linden Attorneys - I am pretty sure that they know about the risks of unrevised model imports. They only won´t tell us. It would cause a major exodus.

Aren´t there enough in-world activist groups? I think there are. Well, you might need to log into Second Life then, and not only for importing some models. :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

If I were you i´d be a bit more careful with exposing your illegal actions regarding "this" game, of which you obviously seem to proud of. Getting away with something does not make it more legal. Nothing you mentioned makes an illegal action legal. If you sipport such morals, go ahead, but don´t expect that anyone loves you for this. There is only one point you make which I agree to: The games industry and the studios will not go after someone like you or me, they´ll go after the company which tolerates such actions, profits by such actions and to the place where the money is , which is Linden Lab. I do not know if you are really fully aware of what you proclaim in your post, but such morals endanger the investments of anyone who ever invested more than a ripped game model into SL. It delivers all of us to the mercy of the game industry, which has shown not much mercy at all in comparable cases.

I doubt that Linden lab can charge tenthousands of people for maintaining a superminority geek subforum, tho the superminority is suppervocal. And obviously Autodesk as well as Blender.org can answer and help user questions regarding 3D modelling in a much more sufficient way.

I thought this Forum is about Second Life? Please go to the Autodesk and Blender forums and ask the people there to add a "Second Life" section.

Nacy Nightfire wrote: And do these companies even care about such small potato infringements or do they see the brand promotion benefits of such activites. If I owned a car or watch company, I'd be delighted to see kids knocking off copies (up to the point it doesn't effect what I'm obliged to object to to maintain copyright control) of MY brand rather then my competitors brand. It's like giving out t-shirts, visors and free frisbees at a college home coming game with your logo imprinted on it, but without the expense and time. This isn´t a matter of "brand" or "patent", this is a matter of license. When you buy a game, you agree to a license contract which STRICTLY DISALLOWS any extraction of the models embedded in this game, for whatever purpose. So, if someone rips a model from such a game, it´s a violation of this license agreement. And if this stupid someone uploads it - or a modified version of it - into another game (Second Life) for almost the same purpose (Playing a game) and makes money by it (Linden Lab charges for uploads, and some heinis certainly will try to sell such stuff), then there are all the reasons given for any judge on this planet to intervene. It only needs a proof, which isn´t such a technical problem to get for someone who needs one.

"I take 1 look and it is not the same model, there are obvious differences that any person that can make a model can notice by just glancing at both models. " Lucky you! "As I have said before, any1 that can use a 3d modeling tool, can create whatever the heck they want in a half hour to an hour. Texturing it will take another few hours. Why would some1 who can do this steal something from a site, or game? Chances are, you can make something twice as good as most game models." AMAZING. If it´s so easy, why do professional 3D model designers get paid for their fulltime job at the studios? Guess you missed your job. Did you apply at Blizzard? They may need someone who can re-model WoW within an hour! "...but also be lag friendly." What is lag friendly about a format without any upper limits if it comes to polygons? Twice as good as "any game model" maybe - but ten times more laggy for sure. "Lag friendly" would be restricting 3D imports rigidly. But then nothing would look much better than the ripped car which is subject of this thread.

Ah yes. Why on earth should someone rebuild exactly THIS model of a car from the scratch? Cause grandpa drove it? Cause it´s so appealing? So orgasmofantastic great? For the SL museum? Or what else? Grand theft maybe? :matte-motes-shocked:

Medhue Simoni wrote: The real questions are: Is the model a copy? What you actually do is encouraging people to rip whatever they can get from the web and illegal web databases and upload, sell it, and make some quick and dirty money by doing so. Because it still is speculation if some obviously ripped model is a copy or not. Apart from the fact that you obviously do not have the slightest clue on international IP rights treaties, the real question is not "Is the the model a copy?" but the question "Do Microsoft, EA, Google, Blizzard and the entire game and 3D modelling industry see any value in figuring it out?" If they do, and this is the case as long as there is money in Linden Lab, they WILL figure out, regardless the cost. There are enough methods to figure out of which you obviously are not aware of. And if this happens, byebye Second Life.

Pamela Galli wrote: Nacy, the problem is that LL will do nothing without a DMCA (and in my experience, often nothing with one.) There is no way, for example, to report stolen item sold on the marketplace. DMCA by the original creator is all there is. And if the original creator is not in SL, he will probably never know. Probably Linden Lab won´t do anything But some lawyers contracted by the publishers of the original games won´t file a DMCA. They´ll simply sue Linden Lab for participating in and profiting by content theft and - in worst case - some judge will close the entire place down. This isn´t some graphix freelancer harmed by a texture rip, it´s a billion dollar industry.

"Let's see, mesh allows new content" That´s actually a great , superorgasmofantastic improvemet for a world where new content is created in every second, anyway. "makes SL run more efficiently for everyone when done well" Propaganda. It might run efficiently if it´s LOW POLY. Well = Low Poly. And Low Poly is IMVU, which is not known for visual awfulness, right? And it takes much more bandwidth than anything else in SL. And shaders. It won´t run SL more efficiently. Never ever. "opens up new economic opportunities for people, even if they can't scrape together eight bucks U.S." Oh yes, what opportunities? Either buy autodesk stuff for thousands of Dollars or learn Blender in thousands of hours? Time is money. If there is anyone to benefit commercially from this (if someone will benefit at all in the midterm run) then it are the very, very few who already have the apps, the skills, the money and the time anyway. And Linden Lab by upload fees. And no one else.

Poenald Palen wrote: But, having said that....Mesh is lower polygon It is only "low polygon" as long as someone imports "low polygon". In contrary to sculpt maps and even the most twisted prim mesh there is NO upper limit for poly on an imported 3D object. Which will predictably cause some serious trouble, especially with attachments. Same kind of trouble as attached scripts cause for servers right now. Now LL added fresh fruit for rotten vegetables on the client and router side. Real "low polygon" is not decisively better or worse looking than sculpties (besides texturing) or prims, anyway, it "only" will cost more bandwidth and an additional set of shaders and therefore slow down loading stuff. Proven in the tremendously innovative and revolutionary piece of useless software trash called "Viewer 2"..err..."Three".