Vivienne Schell

5,000 US dollars for some autodesk application isn´t exactly "too cheap to fork out". Who makes 5000 dollars a year by SL, additionally to tiers, fees and whatever else? To break even? Do you actually think a professional mmesh tool or mesh imports in general will make things for the average hobbyist creator on whom Linden Lab depends by 95 percent better, easier and more affordable or more lucrative? And actually add a noteworthy amount of "professional" content? I don´t think so.

Yeh, that´s a wonderful example for a perfect workflow, really! Thosuands of ambitioned hobbyists will be highly encouraged to learn Sketchup, Blender and SL for making a simple cube appearing on a SL sim. Didn´t Linden Lab desperately try to get some more noobs over the past two years?

"making the SL editor have more solid modeling options would be great, especially booleans for cutting holes in prims" Well, i am pretty sure that we´ll see the birth of some third party in-world prim to mesh converter if Linden Lab shows mercy with the meshies and reduces the PE. Otherwise even this won´t make much sense for anyone to use it (Honestly, who but a few in SL really care or know about "performance"). So yes, a few more tool options would be excellent, but they did not push tool development for fours years at all, so i wonder if they´ll ever do so again.

Sketchup? Google Collada is not even compatible with SL collada (at least when i tried it the last time). And i find it much less innovative than the SL tools, but maybe that´s only me cause i use SL tools since five years and Sketchup only for two years sporadically. One *definately* has to pay for some essential Sketchup add-ons one will need and talking of "optimising meshes": It does all but optimise anything. Forget Sketchup. Scratch it. No go. The *only* affordable tool which might work sufficiently for the *ambitioned* hobbyist is Blender. And Blender has a much steeper learning curve than entire SL has, hopping on poseballs included.

"the ability to edit prims as if they were meshes" They are meshes, lol. Only a different kind. And it makes no sense to make almost exactly the same stuff one can make with prims or by sculpt maps for any other reasons than lower prim count OR better performance. If PE kills the sense of a lower prim count and leaves open better performance, why not? While i doubt that anyone but the Lindens themselves really can know about the technical background and specifications which define performance on Linden Lab servers. But Lilith clearly pointed out the creator´s dilemma, and the creator´s dilemma in SL is that a 512 sqm prim parcel offers 117 prims and not more. And that the people who pay Lilith´s store sim by buying her trees count prims first and last quality or- beware - check performance. Lilith could make tremendous prim trees, trees you hardly can match with a 3D modelling tool, but - prim count, you know.

"Linden Labs sell prims" Prims and server space. Moreover, some hyped, somehow comparable projects based on a different conception failed miserably, as Blue Mars, which did not manage to gain much more than 200 people delivering hardly enough attractive content for more than a few thousand sporadic visitors. Within three years. IMVU is not really comparable because "land" or serverside stuff like physics and and and does not really exist there, it´s just a low end 3D chatroom. While content creation is badly restricted due to core functionality and IP troubles. While Unity 3D just is about re-discovering the prim as a basical element, which is decisive for a direct access to creativity tools. Opensim based worlds which use the prim economy system obviously seem to work, only for lower prices. So it would be pretty hazardous for LL to destruct a working income system for something which failed elsewhere before.

Drongle, my apologises if you felt attacked. It was not meant to be a personal attack. I know your home parcel, read your posts and you certainly know what you are talking about. Unfortunately not everyone here on this forum wants to supplement.

"Drongle might be one of those who actually have practical experiences in working with whole mesh environments." I did not crticise Drongle for THIS (btw, did he ever upload his museum - or parts of it - on the mesh beta?).

I do not want LL to drop mesh entirely, i expect LL to embed collada imports and in-world mesh tools into the existing platform in a way which will not harm the existing platform. And yes, i´d prefer a focus on fixing of much more urgent trouble for any not urgently needed shiny.

I don´t need to find a problem in the meshie forum, the problems jump on me for some reason. Maybe it´s due to the high PE of these darned problems.

Wrong is that it´s Drongle who claims that the "high" PE and whatever will prevent Max from rebuilding this in mesh. If it were Max expressing his wish to rebuild this in mesh at all and complain I´d have no problem with it. Isn´t the mesh beta open for a while now (Almost two years, closed beta included?) Didn´t you all have enough time to build and upload a full sim in mesh for *no* upload fees to give an example?.If you did not, please explain why not.

Drongle, better let the creator speak for himself. Using someone else´s work for your biased cause is fishy.

"This step makes sure all legal penalties & lawsuits come back to the uploader, not Linden Lab, when the inevetable ripfest begins. " It´s not so easy. If Linden Lab cannot deliver *valid" identities of uploaders, or if the uploaders will be located in a country which did not sign international copyright law treaties, Linden Lab will be held liable. There will be some legal problems there, anyway, cause Linden Lab *charges* for uploads. Second Life is not a "safe heaven". Allowing unrevised model imports is a risk, and we all will be endangered to a certain degree, unfortunately. Not only the uploaders. And if these people are smart enough they will get away easily while we will not be so lucky in worst case.

"My guess would be that "Mesh Grid" would eventually become the most popular." Oh? Without poseball prims?

Some of us outstanding artists even cut off their prim ear! Imagine!

"I insulted the entire population of Second Life" Yes, you did! "I'm not allowed to have an opinion" /me slips into her rigged Borg mesh avatar (*not* ripped, of course) "Resistance is futile"

Vivienne, you should add a link to that "Black Rose for all Your Play and Role Play Needs ", so that people will know where to buy the latest medieval mesh fashion in the bright upcoming future.

Naw, Drongle, compared to the most meshies you are certainly one of the most modest and serious ones. No offense. It´s just: You cannot boil down Second Life to a visual format and verticles and polygons and cost calculations and fps. It attracted and still attracts tenthousands of folks each day, each second. The absence of mesh did *not* prevent Second Life from becoming the (still) leading Virtual Reality on the planet. There are much, much more significant reasons than mesh or not mesh for the slow down since 2009. And there is more than one *valid* reason for limiting mesh imports to a *relatively* reasonable amount. I must admit that I always questioned - and still question - the sense of mesh imports while there are tons of much more important LL construction sites being left to themselves, abandoned or simply ignored. And what I hate the most are ignorants who actually think that *their* tool and format of choice is the only one Second Life needs and wants.

"Oh I strongly suspect we will be seeing superior content than that produced by the overworked underpaid game art employees of EA for EA" We already have this, Ann. Tons. "Might even see stuff made by some of them in their precious few off hours since they won't have the limitations of a console game spec and will have the freedom to express themselves." We already have this, too. And if we get more, nice, but it will not help improving performance or justify breaking existing content. And freedom of expression is not very helpful if it comes to performance or saving resource, mesh or not. Btw, your mega spaceship is a wonderful little bugger! Can´t wait to dogfight it with my megaprim fighter!

OMG! These Lindens must be terrible dilettants who do not know what they are doing! Fire them and make yousrelf the lord of the mesh grid! I am sure you´ll make Second Life run with 600 fps (at least) on an iPad on a 28k modem connection, only by exchanging all the content, all the people, all the dilettantish trash for just you and you alone and your meshes. :matte-motes-sunglasses-1:

"I'll take that as a joke" No joke. Aren´t you artist enough to apply at EA, or what? Sounds as if you think that you actually can create "stuff like this". What a waste of potential! What a pity!

"That video you posted of Battlefield 3 looks great, but it has a lower poly count than a lot of SL. Why can't we build stuff like that?" Beacuse you did not apply for a job at Electronic Arts, i suppose. Go ahead, try!

"Second Lifes problem so far has been lack of mesh." That´s the point which proves that people like you do not have the slightest idea of anything happening outside of your Blender UI.

"Why is it assumed that artists are somehow superior to 3D content designers" The 3D modeller who does not want to qualify to be an artist is either practising understatement or not willing to adapt to immersive virtual realities or the final sense of any creativity. This person might be a decent modeller, but Second Life is not Blender, not Maya nor anything else. It´s not Crysis (where high paid coders and high paid 3D artists create a closed atmosphere for the cause of strict gameplay) It is Second Life. People who ignore what Second Life and Virtual Reality is all about ( it´s definately *not* verticles and polygon count and *not* cost calcutaions), are simply on the wrong track and will - if their destructive impact gets unleashed - do much more harm to Second Life than any 256 prim boot ever will do.

"In this case Art is defined by the tools" No. You only think so because you obviously are so focussed on your Blender UI that you missed some elementary lessons on the history of art and culture. Art is *never* defined as art by the tools the artist uses. And Ann is right, you frankly insult every artist in SL, and therefore entire Second Life. "if you dont adapt you get left behind and SL will get left behind" Your social darwinism is amusing, but people like you miss the point if it comes to intelligent adaptive behavior: YOU must adapt to Second Life or you will not even be let in.