Vivienne Schell

Yes, Aeronya, there is Sculpt Studio and more for that task. All LSL. But the big first L in the LSL is not willing or able or both to implement such a useful little tool into their browser...err...viewer 2 (that revolutionary failing new thing with the same old bugs, you know).. That shows how MUCH Linden Lab cares about content creators.

Dante, I am not into pro 3D creation,my job is to hire capable 3D creators, tho i can model enough to know what this is all abouit. But i know some, you know. And i know their libraries. We had a good laugh, mixed with deep curiosity while considering what will happen when we help with making SL the high quality freebie paradise LL obviously wants to have. And money is not a real problem there.

Oh, we´ll see how small it will become with a few thousand free of commerce high quality objects spread all over the place. Or big. I´d love to see Linden customers get what they deserve for the zillions they pay, And this will not be Sketchup.

Dante, am tired of repeating myself, i mentioned it all above. Be sure that i#ll do my best to improve the platform exactly the way Linden Lab wants it: By uploading what it needs to feed the SL userbase with enough freely available, high quality and professionally made mesh objects for the coming two years. For no charge. It will be the last thing I´ll ever do with this platform. And i´ll not be the only one. Have fun with it!

"Look at the experience of learning about meshes as an evolutionary step that will put you in good stead for other platforms, should LL truly blow it. Be like a Boy Scout, and be prepared!" Huh? Boy scout? For WHAT? 3D creation? This is STONE AGED. This is all but revolutionary. Obviously you are into SL way too deep to recognise the "broader" view you are mentioning . Yours is restricted to "AAA game engines" and whatever and your Sl universe. The "broader" view is that we have at least 15 years of professional 3D creation on this planet. We have Active Worlds, where all you mention was realised back in the 90´s. And still is in some niche. And LL goes back to RIGHT THERE. Revolutionary? Did MESH make SL as big as it is? Did a "triple AAA engine" attract people to invest zillions of dollars into this? And what is falling SL "behind" at this point? Active Worlds? Are you real? Linden LAb wants to make money by upload fees. They did not improve the platform in a noteworthy way since YEARS, they only scaled. And that#s it. If you believe in their propaganda, go and adapt to the stone age.

"If you have a nice fountain, give me a buzz. It would look nice on my parcel." Yay! And don´t worry, supply will be copy/mod/transfer and unlimited.

Linden Lab cut their devolpment staff by the half (at least). They are not interested in innovating the software anymore. They only are interested in upload fees. Money makes the world go round, not meshes.

Right, you can do what you want. We too. That´s why we will help the growth of Second Life with some thousand freely available, full permission, all LEGAL, optimised meshes sitting on our desktops.

The SL content creation economy is dust. LL decided to open it to the REAL world, so they will get the real world. Don´t waste your time on it any longer. Stop even thinkong about it. Consume or leave.

Don´t worry, Melita. As soon as mesh is enabled i´ll personally take care of your demand and upload about 5000 FREE optimised meshes for public usage, full permissions, and as editable as meshes can be. And i already talked with a bunch of people who will do the same. Everything, from complete avatara to cars. You only will need some scripts, but we think of taking care of this, too. That´#s an easy task.

"LL can't halt innovation forever just to keep the less skilled creators from going under." That´s the most hilarious fanboy comment of them all, which i hear being repeated endlessly by every fanboy i meet. Folks, where are the "classy" 3Dx designers? Right, they have a job. Or run a company. They certainly are NOT in SL. and they never will be. Because it is completely useless to be there with onehundredthousand free objects being around the place, and where no one cares if they are really stae-of-the-art or not, as long as they look appealing (somehow). It´s useless to spend time on such an environment cause there is no money in it. So what will you get with mesh? Third class, ripped stuff which does not sell elsewhere. And will not sell in the future SL for more than it is worth: the upload fee, or not even this. The really skilled creators of SL are here in SL using a limited environment for the best they can achieve within this environment by using the environment. NOT at home learning something useless as Sketchup (cause some fanboy told them that this would do) or second class apps like Blender. 3Ds is out there since fifteen years. By refusing to develop and offer some nifty in-world tool for mesh creation instead of adding a simple import function LL proves what content creators in SL are worth to them: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Come on, stop with fooling youself. Any kind of existing 3D model will be convertible and uploadable in all it´s pride with the right tool, and this tool must not even be a ripped 3Ds or whatever, in fact. If i were invited to the closed beta i´d upload about 5000 models which are perfectly optimesd within a week or two. That´s really not a problem at all. But probably the wise Lindens knew this and did not invite me, cause it would have scared the hell out of all their fanboys who helped them with erasing the existant SL content creation with a loud "HOORAY" on their lips.

"The poly counts will be too high for SL and they will be relying on things like normal and specular maps." This is simply not true.

Right. Even C4D can optimise meshes in a totally adequate manner. And it´s just a matter of time until the stuff on all these free websites will be ready for SL upload. To the content creators who rely on the Lindens: It´s time to watch out for a different place where your work is appreciated by the ones who run this environment. Now.

Not the numbers? Well, we#ll see. I ´ll not wait until the Lindex crashes, for sure.

No, but see. Sl did only grow because of the gold digger effect. And participating in the gold digger effect eas exclusive. One HAD to be in-world, learn the tools, learn how to trade, learn how to distribute, all within a certain environment. This exclusivity granted LL a steady flow of fresh content and thousands of content creators using their environment. And the content was not so bad at all, otherwise there would not have been tenthousands of people appearing as the "consuming" side in this game. With mesh import Linden Lab drops this exclusivity and opens the environment for any#thing which was created by professionals, amateurs, wannabes and whomever during the past TWELVE YEARS. Therfore i consider the ones who really think that SUCH an opened environment would be useful for any kind of trade with virtual 3D objects as being completely naive. They might brag with their skills, discuss the wonderful art of using 3Ds, they even might be 3D pros. But: There is an entire planet out there. An entire planet crowded by hundredrthousands of skilled 3D modellers in every country, in every city. These people do not have to deal with something silly like sketchup or Blender. Each of these people has servers FULL of stuff. What do you think will happen to SL, as a result? It´s simple logic.Object trade within Sl will collapse, and in the end NO one will be able to charge anything for whatever. By givinng away the exclusivity of SL content creation Linden Lab gives away content creation on a commercial, semi professional level completely. And without THAT thriving force any kind of 3d model trade in SL will collapse. They are BLIND: It´s not for the art of 3D modelling or whatever, Linden Lab ONLY opened the grid for imports for ONE reason: strengthen their own business, which is selling server space. They really could not care less about SL content creation with zillions of readymade objects out there. They want to attract THEIR customers, and these do not pay for a 100 prim mesh imported lighthouse, but for their servers. The 100 prim mesh imported lighthouse might be nice, but with 1000 mesh lighthouses out there, ready to be uploaded for a few dollars - who would honestly imagine COMMERCE? And without commerce SL is dead, as dead as it can be. Apart from that - it´s a HUGE step backwards, A platform, mainly relying on not-platform related formats, is doomed to fail. This is not visionary or progressive, this is reactionary corporate profit driven madness. Maybe they get away with it. Maybe. But i´ll not invest anymore into a company which prefers to go Active Worlds - we watched that fail before.

LOL; MORE ADVANCED? I tell you what "more advanced" would be. IN_WORLD TOOLS. And ONLY In-World Tools. Reducing this to a pure import fee collecting is just plain idiotic, it is like wasting everything Linden Lab ever has achieved for some short sighted profit. They do not invest, they return to stone aged technology, which is not even their own. They hope to get away with this - and they probably will. But NO content creator in Sl will get away with it, that´s just simple logic. And people, if you want to brag with your "knowledge" on meshes, read the first handbook for 3Ds. It´s from 1998 or so.

I hear "something new"again. Boy, mesh IS NOT SOMETHING NEW: It´s OLD. VERY OLD. And the idea of importing mesh into some VR is as looooong as Slartibartfasts beard. It´s BORING. It´s a business decision for the benefit of Linden Lab. They save money for the development of adequate in-world tools. They even refuse to spend a single cent on something simple and effective. And you REALLY think that the re-discovery of a stone aged idea will benfit anyone but Linden Lab? Dream on.

Right, sculpts are crap compared to mesh. The only advantage was that they they were not so easy to crate and therefore still something SL native. Mesh isn´t SL native, or SL specific. it´s just - a mesh. I#d like to see in-world tools. I´d like to see SL being "your world - your imaguination", and not an assembly of imported stuff from all over the web. something like a crowded Active Worlds. Why do you think Active Worlds never took off?

Photoshop? Well, say byebye to the in-world photoshop creators. They are dust with mesh imports.

Performance Improvement? How so? Do they limit polygons? No, they only let people pay for uploading tons of polygons. Which they certainly will do. And did average customers ever care about the number of prims if they wanted nice looking hair? No. And they will not care about the "not optimised" meshes, as long as they are free or almost free. And this they will be. And please don´t mention "performance improvements". Nothing they ever did really improved performance. And i fear that mesh import will not "improve" anything at all. business as usual. Nice ideas,.lousy implementation.

Good Luck with it! Really. Hopefully Torley will not do another blog post tomorrow.

Yeah, i never really likeed Linden Lab. I better keep my money for more promising projects.

Right, the choice is mine. And i´ll quit this crap finally. And I´ll not be the only one. Have fun with Turbosquid amd all the ripped games stuff (what a bore). And these MILLIONS of fresh consumers (Ha, ha, didn´t we hear this before?).

Collada is not the re-invention of the whell, and yes, it´s pretty easy to convert anything into collada. http://frankieloscavio.blogspot.com/2007/10/collada-file-format-converter.html three years old, and this is only the first one you get on google search.