Psistorm Voxel

My opinion differs. Linden Lab has the full right to block/ban any account infringing on copyright claims. Linden Lab is based in the US, thus subject to US state law, period. Thus, any reports of copyright infringement will be dealt with and the offending account will have their payment info banned from uploading mesh content. Also, lets please end the discussion of whether mesh is or isnt the devils advocate. This does not belong in a topic targeted at a different problem, and frankly, has been discussed thoroughly before. Mesh is coming, and it wont ruin SL just like voice didnt. If you remember, many people foretold the end of SL when voice would come. Anyways, Id like to stop being sidetracked, and ahve comments about the proposed system rather than the "evil" of mesh itself.

Vivienne, I think you are misunderstanding the point we are trying to make here. Noone here is encouraging or endorsing 100.000 triangle wristwatches or other such abominations. And we do want a system which makes those meshes expensive to have in world. That is the core thought between the resource point system and the resource coefficient. Let me sum it up: The resource point system replaces the prim count system. Meaning if you want to import this ultra detailed mesh, it will cost you. If you want to put a 1024 texture on every face, it will cost you too. On the OTHER hand, not only should it discourage misuse, it should also REWARD if you actually build something good. Lets assume you could build an object out of 4 sculpts, aka 4096 vertices. Or you build the same object much more efficiently out of, say, 2000 verts as a mesh object. The mesh should be cheaper here, and rated better. The "resource coefficient" factor I introduced should serve as an indication of how complex an object is for its given size. So everyone can tell at a glance that "oh snap, this object really is a complex abomination. Im not buying this" I hope this serves to end your complaints about the system itself. No one here is a perfect modeler. But the system should be designed to both discourage mis-use, and encourage efficiency. In Linden Lab´s proposed state, really it discourages using mesh at all, no matter how good you are at using it. And to touch on the subject of game content being ripped and posted on SL - this is why you have to have "payment info on file" to upload mesh content. This way, they can actually block you from further copyright infringements. Unless you really want to keep registering new paypal or credit card accounts, that is. But I would say thats a bit much hassle. Plus there is always MAC or IP bans for repeat offenders.

I fully agree with Drongle. There are just too many volatile cases here where linking two objects together suddenly creates something that is greater than the sum of its parts. I do NOT want to live in the constant fear of having my home be returned to me just because I link a 100 triangle mesh to it and that caused the entire thing to go haywire. I would like to direct you, Nyx, to the thread i posted lately to address some of these concerns - not all of them, but i certainly tried - and see your opinion: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/A-draft-to-end-PEwt-discussions-The-resource-point-system/td-p/945759 Yes i know its a bit of a plug, but i would love some linden feedbakc on what I think is a good idea. On the issue of builds being returned specifically i would like to suggest to make a "is parcel full?" check BEFORE executing the link. So that if you do one of those volatile linking operations, the viewer blocks you from it with a warning, rather than returning your house or whatnot without warning. Edit: I would like to go a little further on the issue of this topic and say the following: In light of usability, and the "your world, your imagination" phrase that seems to be SL´s guideline in design, i believe that the mere idea of a linkset being 1000x heavier weight - or a different weight at all - than the sum of its parts is indiscutable and should be discarded. There have to be solutions to fix the sudden explosion of physics complexity, and there has to be a way to create a transition to an all-encompassing, easier to understand system if you decide to add these weightings. I again briefly point to my suggestions above to the nature of the system, but for the problem at hand, my stance remains. Just because you link two things one way or another, their cost should NOT, never ever differ.

I think the suggestions you make are mostly covered with how i would want this system to work. Most notably an additive nature, and a straightforward, easy to understand system that illustrates how many resources a certain object will cost. As for the mention of meshes only having a doubled script count when the server cost is overriding - I think we can both agree that this is not something the end user should have to bother with. A builder wont undertand PEwts, they wont understand streaming or server cost, and they certainly wont grasp why their little mesh is double the primcount all of a sudden. Hence why i introduced this linear system. On the nature of a size scaling factor: Ive tackled this question via the resource coefficient. I believe an object should cost the same whether it is 10m or 60m in size. The streaming weight is the same. The server cost, save for physics calculations, is mostly the same. Rendering should not be all that different either. Thus, the resource cost should not scale with size. What however does scale with size is the coefficient. This means a complex, small object has a worth, say, efficiency rating than the same object enlarged. This keeps large scale builds viable. So if you want to have, say, a large skyship, you can do this, as long as you dont go overboard with complexity. However the final word on this isnt spoken, given that a 10m object versus a 60m object of the same shape may have considerable diferences in rendering cost and physics cost that I dont know about right now. This is why i would like linden feedback. On the subject of texture and mesh/sculpt reuse: This is hard to judge indeed, since the re-use is very much dynamic. Think of a bunch of popular anthro avatars gathering in a common place. You will see a lot of re-used sculpts for same species avatars, for the duration of the event. After said event, the re-use is gone. Thus, since this really is impossible to predict, and since per-minute dynamic resource cost numbers are out of the question - they should be static and reliable - I would say that the average asset re-use should be taken into consideration when balancing the individual costs for object components in the first place.

After giving much thought to the ongoing debates of prim equivalency, streaming weight, server weight and all these complex schemes, I did develop an idea of a system which may actually provide a solution. Allow me to explain my thoughts in greater lengths here. Problem Linden lab seems to want to curtail excessive resource usage, and more efficiently model the actual load that certain builds have on the server. Right now, they attempt to force these new weights on mesh objects, and mesh objects alone, the entire process seems a bit convoluted, since people dont exactly know what the plan is. It is all very much in flux. The current implementation, if it goes through as planned, creates the following issues: Mesh objects were understood by the community to be a new, shining future of efficient and prettyful builds. Actual 3d modeling in a virtual world, tremendous possibilities. These hopes are now sorely dampened.Meshes are laden with so many restrictions that it seems impossible to make a build that looks equivalent to a prim or sculpt build, and have it cost less than said build, even though the prim/sculpt build is a lot heavier on the renderer and other resources, due to the skewed weighting.Scripted meshes arent viable anymore due to the harsh doubling of prim costs currently introduced on mesh objects.Linking prim and mesh objects makes the linkset subject entirely to the new weighting system, thus creating more confusion among beginner builders than anything.Since prims and sculpts currently remain under the old system - and apparently are remaining for a while yet - this encourages people to further ignore any benefits mesh could - but currently does not - offer and continue to build in less efficient ways. Solution The idea of integrating the actual load of a build into a single, easy to grasp figure has been attempted with the ARC measurement, although poorly in some cases. I suggest not pursuing this idea further, since it mostly models client-side render cost. I want to introduce a new system instead, evolved from the prim count measurements that currenty are the deciding factor of build complexity. The resource point system. This system is what it says on the label. Instead of measuring prim count, or worse, prim equivalency (what a long, ugly word for people who just want to build and have fun), it measures the resource cost. Resources are a common term. Whether it comes from strategy games, or the everyday work experience (HR anyone?), it is a term we are familiar with. We know what it means, what it stands for, what its defining characteristics are. Resource points are to replace prim counts throughout the grid over a sufficiently long adjustment period (more on this later), and will encompass the following measurements: Amount of primitives, sculpt and mesh objects (weighted by complexity) in a linksetAmount and size of unique, streamed (meaning non-standard, not-in-viewer-installation) texturesAmount of scripts OR size of allocated script memory past a defined (64-128kb) tresholdSecondary properties, whether the object is a light, flexible, or physical, phantom or other such thingsDiscounts apply where applicable. Repeated use of mesh or sculpt objects in a linkset makes it easier to render, and lowers its proportional streaming cost. Likewise, phantom objects do not create a physics load. This should be honored.These factors are added together to determine a resource cost number for a defined linkset. This number is NOT rounded but rather allows a single decimal point, for a weighting that is as fair as possible. However, this creates one followup problem: How can we balance this system against current land prim costs? My suggestion to this is as follows: Simplify the prim count system when switching over to the new resource point system. Lets assume the easiest way. One square meter of SL land will allow for 10 resource points. This will make resource point measurements for new residents easy to guess. You wont have to struggle with arbitrary numbers (even I cant remember how many prims a 512 parcel holds. Its a weird number), but instead, are able to derive the resource capacity of a parcel at first glance (bonus factors witholding, i would like to keep this mechanic). This means a 512 parcel will have 5120 resource points available to spend. A 1024 will have 10240. This measurement is easy and simple. On a sidenote: a parcel with 512 size and up is eligible for rounding down of decimal costs. So if your overall prim cost is 5120.9, it will still fit on your parcel. This allows a fair, small and non-exploitable buffer zone for parcels, which should not noticeably affect server performance in any way. The marketplace and the resource coefficient The Second Life Marketplace has become a large part of the SL experience. As such, it will require special treatment as well. The questions here are the following: How to make residents aware of the resource point system and its importance?How to give an idea to people of how complex and/or efficient a build has been completed?To these questions, two solutions are presented: When listing an item on the marketplace, the final goal is to make it a mandatory field to publis the resource point cost, as well as the newly introduced resource coefficient (name not final)The introduction of the resource coefficient. This factor is a simple, straightforward measurement of how complex a build is for its size. Imagine an aqueduct, 100 meters long, with 5 1024 textures and maybe two scripts, meshed out of 20.000 vertices. This would yield a rather low coefficient, which is good. Now imagine a car, with the same specifics, 3 meters long and appropriately proportioned. The coefficient here would be very high, indicating that for its size, it is a very complex object. Secondary considerations: Scripts Scirpts certainly do play a large part in this as well, thus for this system to truly work in a fair way, a few technological changes are needed: Variable script memory. This is a big one. Should a door script take up 64k of memory? I dont think so. it might do with 2-4k. Should I be forced to create a second 64k script with overhead and double the codebase, because dynamic data storage drives the peak usage to 70k? Again, i dont think so. These examples are why variable per-script memory is a good idea.Parcel-based script and script memory limits. Again, quite a big one, since it prevents people exploiting the "free 64-128k memory per linkset" idea by creating single-prim objects with scripts in them. These limits should be within the expected borders of current peak script usage, and will be subject to discussion. Implementation A system change this noticeable will need preparation and information. My suggestion is as follows: First roll-out of new sims/viewers on beta grid with the new mechanic in place as a for-show system only. Resource points are in the UI, but only illustrate the costs of builds on the new system. This is to find a balance that both residents and Linden Lab can agree on being fair and feasible. Furthermore, the build menu is restructured to allow for complete and easy resource analyzation, to answer questions of the nature of "how much resources does this prim eat?" "how many resources does my script take up?" etc.A public beta on the main grid. Again, the system is for show, to verify the fairness of the resource system. Final tweaks to weighting of certain components may be completed.A transition period of 3 to 6 months. New builds will fall under the new weighting system, newly created prims, uploaded textures, scripts, sculpts and meshes are calculated under the new system. Old builds are grandfathered until the end of this period before being calculated in resource points instead of prims.The final transitional phase. The resource point system fully replaces the "prim count" measurement on SL. It becomes mandatory to publish resource cost figures for every item sold on the marketplace, all grandfathered builds are turned over to the resource point system and may be returned if they overfill parcels. There was sufficient warning and information given. At this point, viewers must support this metric to be allowed to connect to the main grid Benefits A fair, easy to understand system to model every aspect of a build into a universal point system. New methods of building may easily be incorporated into this comprehensive model. Also compared to PEwts, this system handles everything. Prim, sculpt, mesh, textures, physics and scripts, and isnt exclusively biased against new and promising technology.The amount of resources in relation to the parcel size, bonus multipliers set by sim owners witheld, is easy to understand for anyone.Mesh objects may be properly balanced and brought in line with the resource cost on the server as well as the resource cost for the client (render weight) of prims and sculpted objects, thus giving them a purposeThe resource coefficient metric allows residents to tell how efficient a build is, and it allows shoppers to easily see whether that prim or mesh hair they buy will be a laggy piece of *expletive*, or whether it will be an efficiently modeled piece of beauty. Again, a simple, straightforward, and easy to use mechanic.Discounts and other, detailed calculations provide a fair way to tell complexity, and directly reward builders who go the extra mile to make sure their building, texturing and scripting is as perfect as can be. This creates a direct motivation to build efficiently and makes SL a better place.Closing words I have put a lot of thought into this post, as the verboseness hopefully shows, to try and highlight what i would like to see introduced, why i would like it, and why I believe it would be a really, REALLY good idea for Linden Lab to create a universal, all-encompassing resource measurement that people both old and new can immediately identify with. I would enjoy hearing your comments, and I would especially be honored if a linden or two could post their thoughts on this system and its implementations, whether and where they might see issues, and also where they might see benefits and chances.

The idea of penalizing a mesh by doubling its cost for even ONE script (which might be as "intense" as opening a door on click every once in a while) is ridiculous. As suggested in another thread, I can understand that the desire to limit excessive scripting is there. But then introduce a treshold. Lets say a certain number of scripts per prim on average (with a hard cap of say, 16 scripts) act as treshold before the prim cost starts to rise. So if you have a low-prim mesh object with one script in, hey, no problem. If you have a low prim object wit 50 bad scripts in it? problem. These tresholds arent final, but just a suggestion. Even if that gets shot down, doubling the cost is wrong wrong wrong. A steady, decimal point increase is the way to go here. You are introducing this complex system, yet seem to rely on rounded prim weights. Lets just go decimal, and maybe have a script add +0.1 PEwts to an object. or maybe 0.25 or whatnot. This would, however, be easier to do if you had variable script memory. that way, a small 4kb script could add 0.1PE, whilst a 512kb monster could add a full prim or two. There has to be some gratification for scripting efficiently. With the current outlook, hardly anyone will bother with mesh, even though it can lower server load. And scripted meshes are dead in the water already by these standards. Enforcing standards to encourage more efficient resource use is good, but these numbers punish everyone, not just the wasteful builders, I´m sorry. Take my line of work for example. I spent months perfecting a system for adult accessories, so that they use the fewest number of scripts, and not a single prim more than absolutely necessary. If i wanted to use mesh for that, my prim count would suddenly double out of nowhere. If i wasnt working on attachments, and rather say, furniture, i would be upset to say the least, to have my efforts tossed aside like this. Or take a look at my mate´s work. He has spent weeks leraning mesh, creating a nicely detailed, yet efficiently modeled table. It eats a whopping 16 prims, with sculpt torture, it could probably be brought down to 7 to 8. It would have 5 times as much triangle density, but it would still be cheaper. awesome, isnt it, how you encourage efficient building with this system? Sorry for the sarcasm there. I do want to be constructive, but some decisions do baffle me. SL is at the verge of a breakthrough, and it shouldnt end up being a negative one. So reconsider your decisions, imho.

It might be that these questions have been answered before, but i couldnt find the answers im afraid. If so, i apologize upfront for asking again, however. Basically, Im looking for two things, since im starting mesh work myself recently: - Is there any way to get a fully rigged/skinned SL avatar mesh into 3d studio max? I want to build avatar attachments, and be able to see how they deform along with the av mesh without having to rely on the beta grid (due to a server glitch, the beta grid is unusable for me. no friends, no teleports, nothing at all rezes, ever). That would be a tremendous help and save me tons of work uploading and re-uploading. - Is it possible to control mesh via scripts? Such as, swap out a mesh fine via a script command, much like a sculpt? This would present large benefits to my line of work (creating an anthro avatar with variable, mesh-based facial expressions rather than having to pummel a sculpt into submission to look like the desired facial features)

imho, mesh in general is being butchered, cost wise, when you look right at it. mesh is the only object type that gets more expensive by size, and the only one that gets a cost slapped ontop - doubled even! - of it for containing even a single script. If a new cost system is needed, then please do balance it better, so that mesh is actually turning out to be viable, without having to completely bend over backward to get close to what a - less efficient - sculpt or prim build would cost. Mesh should be sold as something good, not something hideously expensive, when already, a lot of fears are attached to it (content theft, copyright infringement, horrible performance from people importing 5 million poly poser meshes.. and the like). If this cost system HAS to be done, then weigh it properly, and dont try and put mesh on the new system whilst prims and sculpts remain on the old. This will destroy mesh retention rates for sure, it certainly will keep me from using it for anything but attachments. Edit: If I may think up a general prim weighting system, i have some suggestions here: - Allow decimal weights. A torus could sit at 1.5 perhaps, maybe even 2, a sculpt could be the same. Decimal prim weights are NOT rounded, but instead are added up to the total sim prim usage. That way, you dont have a prim or mesh rated 1.3 costing 2 on the sim. so a mesh rated 0.7 would still fit. - A bit more finely scaled weighting. A box costs 1.0, sphere 1.25, torus 1.75 maybe. Sculpt 1.5 or something. - Fair mesh weighting. Prim weight is based off of physics shape complexity, LOD0 triangle count, and a weighted average of the other LOD`s triangle counts (this should be balanced so that an ultra simple object with only one lower LOD level - due to it otherwise being TOO simple to ffeasibly render - isnt punished massively.) - Seperate script count limiting system. Script limits do NOT affect build cost, up until a certain treshold. Maybe 16 to 32 scripts, from then on up, a gradual cost factor is introduced into the prims containing those scripts, perhaps 1.0 prim weight for every 8 scripts ontop of it or so. This will allow low scripted builds to remain cheap, and introduces a slow cost-increasing factor for heavily scripted builds. Additional script limitation work can be done via other means, as LL did have plans before the big layoffs, such as variable script memory and such (memory could also be a limiting factor, btw).

Another thing i would like to bring up, while talking with Murry Soothsayer (posted above some) the other night, we realized something else: Re-using the same mesh in a linkset does not offer any bonus to prim costs. It should. Why? Lets say you build a wing, and create a low-poly mesh feather for it, no alpha maps. With the base cost of 2 prims per mesh minimum, you would end up with, say, two prims for the wing arm, lets say, 200 polies. and each feather, lets go with 50 here, at 20 polies. So for a wing, you could assume 2 meshes that are in memory (and one of which can be subject to geometry instancing if SL supports that, thus drastically reducing render cost), and generally you may also assume 1200 polies for the entire thing. Now the prim cost? 102 prims. you COULD build the entire thing as sculpts, for 51 prims, and would end up with over 50.000 vertices, i cant be bothered to figure out the polycount atm, but you see my point. Not only should low-poly meshes cost one prim, but also, once you start linking several of the same mesh into a linkset, there should be discounts applied. On the other hand, there should be a slightly expontential scaling for meshes which are a small size and go past a certain triangle limit. Especially for physics shape. So if someone creates a 50.000 triangle physical spinning top, it´s cost should be way higher, proportionally, aka a non-linear scaling. Large objects however arent affected by that as much. This is mostly a measure to stop people from creating ultra-detailed small mesh objects, with detail that really isnt needed. For a current equivalent, think of 100-prim wristwatches with bling.

Given how thanks to a bug (filed on the JIRA, reportedly with a solution coming soon) I am unable to use the mesh beta grid, i have to go off of what people talk about here on the forums and what little experience i could gather before the bug. In all honesty, this system is ludicrous, im sorry to say it. Please do name a reason why the following should sound anywhere near right: A sculpt object with 10 scripts in every prim, say, 4 prims, 4000 verts approximately. Cost? 4 prims. A mesh object, a single script compared to the 40 above, 1500 verts, proper LOD, physics shape, whatnot. cost? maybe 3 prims, thanks to that ONE script, it costs 6 however. Punishing meshes for being scripted, and for server weight and whatnot is just not applicable. Mesh costs imho should be based solely of: - vertex count - face count (after all, being able to load 7 1024 textures onto a mesh is considerably more resource intense than a single faced mesh with only one texture - perhaps upload size, which would derive ultmately from vertex count and face definitions, complexity of the UV layout etc Anything else is moot. Mesh should be designed as a tool to not only bring prettier builds into SL, but also to bring more EFFICIENT builds into SL. If mesh will ALWAYS be costing more prims than a way more wasteful sculpt or prim build, them Im sorry, I wont bother with it either. Why waste prims if I can just slap together some prims for something that looks same-ish, eats WAY more vertices and texture space on the renderer, but costs less prims? If you only want it useable on avatar attachments, then say so. But at least give us the option to define morph targets (aka blend shapes, whatever you call them) so there is at least SOME justification to bother with it.

I do appreciate switching to newer standards where applicable. SSE2 is by no means new or limited only to top end. However im curious as to what the gains from this change will be, for the end user, if there is a measurable effect or further implications.

Im using a gtx580, 8 gigs of ram, and a core i7 920 @3ghz. I get solid 60 FPS in my home sim, but it drops to 30ish running shadows. Enabling the DoF effect just makes the GPU go bat**bleep** and i can hear the fan start to howl like crazy. Imho, the renderer feels poorly optimized still, but im no expert by far. CPU load still is VERY low on multicores, but its nice to see it makes better use of the GPU now. Still, now that the renderer can do per-pixel lighting, they should drop the extra tesselations on prims to bring down the global triangle count of certain builds a fair bit. That is only a small thing, but would still have some effect im quite sure. I hope that subsequent releases see more of a performance improvement, Im quite certain it can be done with more work put into it. But again, wishful thinking, im not an expert by any means in this field. That, and i would much like them to optimize their ambient occlusion shader, its quite grainy for me, especially on the water.

well, i use a router/DSL modem combination, i dont really have the option to try something else right now. as for forwarding, the router doesnt support opening, only directly forwarding ports, as far as i could determine. seeing as you say connection issues, i wonder what changed between 2.4.0 to 2.5.0 to cause this sudden loss of functionality for me.

Ill try and disable that feature, thanks. and well, it seems to affect any sim really. mesh beta, i log in, see an empty sim with only my character rezed. any attempts to tp out result in logging out. on the live grid, the sim does rez after a relog usually. i can also log into other sims than my home sim, but generally, teleports will fail. 2.4.0 works flawlessly however, for no discernable reason. on another note, i also tried various cache resets and clean installs, all with the same result. but i will attempt your suggestion and hope

Starting with SL viewer 2.5.0 (and mesh beta 2.6.0), I can no longer use: - my friendlist. everyone either is Unknown or (loading) - teleports, each attempt will log me out - scripts in inventory, compile/upload will fail, request timed out I sit behind a router, which i have configured according to the wiki page on port forwarding, and the problems start as soon as I try to use 2.5.x instead of my current fallback, 2.4.0. Any help in that regard is appreciated, since I want to use the latest viewers. Please do NOT direct me to TPVs, i do not wish to use them. I wish to make use of 2.5.2 and onward, since it seems to be a problem that started and persisted with every release after 2.5.0. Ontop of that, I do require the mesh beta viewer, which has the same functional problems. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ive tried Kirsten before, and found the UI changes to be rather horrible. The standard LL viewers have been very good for me, as i said before. It´s just that 2.5.0 started giving me trouble, and i would like hints at how to fix these on my end. It doesnt seem to be the SL servers, since 2.4.0 has none of these issues.

Ive been using the 2.x series from the get go, and have been more and more satisfied with its development. However, as much as i appreciate progress, the 2.5.x release series is flat out unusable for me. Basically, I have one of two issues after installing 2.5.x: - things will not rez. I see a lot of grey prims, and a lot of unrezed sculpts, but my bandwidth sits at idle levels, just like when everything is loaded in. A viewer restart generally fixes this, but in a new area, this problem repeats itself. - The friendlist will either show everyone as (loading or as Unknown. This does not go away except in seemingly random conditions. I have tried reinstalling, a cache clear, custom port connection, and forwarding the appropriate ports in my router, according to the SL wiki. once i go back to 2.4.0, my friendlist comes back. upgrade to 2.5.2, and everyone is (loading) again, and I can not IM, teleport, send inventory, etc. Id appreciate any and all hints in the direction, its rather strange and i couldnt find any reliable information beyond port forwarding, which im already doing.

As for Napster: napster primarily focused on distributing copyrighted music. Primarily. As in, to take a guess, 99% of the music belongs to EMI, or whatever big label. Back in the day the legal situation was very unclear, but they ruled napster to be shut down. SL on the other hand is an open platform, NOT primarily focused on distributing copyrighted material, but focused on the creation of virtual content and social and economic interaction. Regarding the reality check: I am real, thank you very much. I dont expect everyone to learn blender, far from it. I never wanted to make that statement. What my point was that if you WANT to mesh, its not hard to learn it. If you want to rather use prims, thats also not hard to learn. The choice is yours. If you want to build things, go ahead and prim stuff up. If you have a 3D background and want to put it to use, OR if you want to learn how to do it, again, go ahead. You have all the options Regarding profit: I see mesh as a potential, but I havent once considered it vital for the well being of my business. Quality is the word here, and if you pit builds against eachother, the higher quality one is likely to attract more customers. I dont see how this changes anything regarding to the current world. If someone does a super awesome sculpt/prim hybrid build, it will sell better than whatever build a day one newbie will put together without practice. The top end content creators already compete in the realm of sculpts, pre-rendered textures and whatnot, giving us meshes only really gives us the option to make assets that are lower prim, and nicer still. My point has, and will continue to be, that given their talents, everyone has the potential to make great things. I never once said that beginners will be able to create game characters. beginners will make simple builds. But they will be able to do it in two different ways. Either a beginenr chooses to prim up a build, or a beginner chooses to learn a 3D application via some tutorials - and again i stress, there are many good ones out there, and its not hard to learn if you start small like you should. Either way, their first builds will be simple. My view is that people shouldnt limited in their choice of content creation just because other people can not, or do not want to be able to use other tools than what we currently have. Why limit ourselves because some people only can do simple prim stuff? If we followed that maxime, we would still be in the stone age of SL and wouldve never developed significantly. We wouldnt have sculpts, certainly not voice, no windlight (because people might have old PCs that cant run it, so offering better graphics would be unfair). I hope you see the points im trying to get across here, my view is that youre making it look worse than it really is. Also, I am not trying to turn the loss of users into something adorable. Its surprising that you accuse me of wanting to secure my own profits - which pays my bills, FYI - and at the same time not care about a decline of the users that I get that very profit from. I pointed it out to be related to the recent decisions by M linden, namely the layoffs, and the rumors of a buyout by MS. these news WILL shake people, and the gloom and doom prophets will most definitely not help things along in a good way either. If you take a look at the most recent developments and whats to come, you might see that the way forward is to work with LL. they do start listening more than they did before. Project snowstorm is a great example. Putting away the protest signs and contributing will get you further, in my honest opinion. Standing in the way of development with your hands held up and saying "NO." will only get you run over. People tried before, and companies just dont work like that. However you CAN get on board and steer

thats true, it is cheaper indeed. from what I saw its not a bad program at all, definitely a cheaper alternative to 3dsmax´s several thousand USD per license

To reply to your "what if EA gets upset" question. Why didnt Valve get upset when their entire repertoire of CS and HL2 textures was being distributed freely on the grid? Why has TRU textures not been closed down, since even they dont always have only their own material? Why havent people been sued that produce lots and lots of copyrighted material and make profit off their creations? IF EA gets upset, then the thing thats going to happen is that the offending content gets removed and the offending user gets warned, or worse, banned from SL. Its the current practice. As for my statement of beginners and professionals alike being able to use mesh: Thats true. A beginning modeller can download blender, work through one or two tutorials, and he will be able to create his first mesh. Granted, not anywhere near what the professional will do. But guess what: Prim building is exactly the same. If youre new to it, its hard. damn hard. The moving controls are unintuitive at first, alignment tools are nonexistant, no mirroring function, nothing. If you dont know the special prim twisting techniques, you often feel unable to reproduce certain shapes. In that respect, its exactly the same. Furthermore, given that meshes have a prim count rating system, a horrible horrible mesh build is less likely to be successful than well made ones. And again, look at SL prim and sculpt builds. There are skirts that take over a 100 prims, I dont dare guess the polycount, but its probably worth two or three game characters alone. An avatar with prim accessories has a LOD0 polycount of over 200.000, whereas game characters use about 10% of that, maybe 20% if they are protagonist material. Mesh gives a huge potential. I do acknowledge the danger of ripped content, but I believe that it can and will be kept in check by the community and the copyright holders. Also, even if you say blender is unusable and LL want to direct you toward max and maya. If you truly want these programs, they can be gotten. It is illegal, but as such your own responsibility. Yet, its how I started out. I grabbed max off the net, and learned to use it on my own. I did tutorials, practised every now and then. After I focused on actual professional 3d work, I earned enough through my SL business to BUY a commercial license, a renderer, and a maintenance contract ontop, and Im planning to buy any other tools I want to use as well. Everyone has the ability to build, prim, sculpt, or mesh, whatever. it is up to them to use that ability, and be willing to learn. The learning curve is only steep if you make it so. If you want to build a car as your first mesh project, fit to be posted on the front page of 3dtotal.com? Then yes, you will fail miserably and your learning curve will be the mt everest. If you however take it slow, like youre supposed to? Its not hard, trust me. Ive done it, and I´ve seen others do it. next, on the subject of SL changing their strategy. Phil´s strategy change was "fast, easy, fun", and not "whom will you meet today" last I recall. They are investing in infrastructure, giving you exactly what you actually demand. A SL that works, lower lag, better rez times, less crashes. Yet you seem lost in this world where everything is bad, everything will fail, it gets worse. Right now, the user count might be dropping. However imho this is mainly because of bad decisions BEFORE the strategy change. The system was getting bogged down, viewer 2 should have developed with community input right away, and M Linden was a manager noone could get behind, since he didnt speak our language. Im not saying were in the promised land, we are far from it, and I know much needs doing. but I do say that we are back on track. We need innovations such as mesh to give us a wider market, and enable things such as better graphics rendering, which will be another big step forward. There are many things being worked on. Lastly, talking about blue mars and IMVU. IMVU is simple, and people can get behind simple. Blue Mars uses the Cryengine, you know, from Crytek, that graphics demo with shooter elements. Its NOT built for midrange PCs. and why does it not attract people? Easy. only licensed people may be builders and content creators, thus there is far less freedom. I havent really spent any amount of time in BM, but I highly doubt the furry population, or the gorean, BDSM, gay, whatever "different" community really has a lot of free roam there. I just cant imagine it. SL on the other hand may be rough around the edges, but if you want to be ANYTHING, you can pretty much be it. Again, within some legal limits that are understandable. And the whole SL will turn into facebook thing? No. The profile hasnt changed at all in recent months, the only difference is that the RL tab and SL tab have been mixed. And that there might be possible other integrations in the future for those who want it. Dont want it? Noone forces you to give out, or look at other peoples RL information. You are free to ignore it, just as others are free to not live by the maxime of "SL != RL, dont ask, dont tell"

Well, maybe the free tools may be inadequate, except blender. The point is, you CAN use blender to create 3d meshes just like any other industry level tool. Just like Shockwave posted above, you already cant make textures, sounds and animations inworld, and noone complained when sculpts came around either. Sure, there ARE inworld creation tools for sculpts now, I give it that. But they dont have the same quality of third party applications. My point is this. You need third party apps for textures, sounds and animations, as well as sculpts. And now that mesh comes around, which, as someone who works with both mesh AND sculpts, will be FAR easier and straightforward than sculpts, all of a sudden this trend isnt okay anymore? Furthermore, SL´s policy never changed. Why does their strategy change to "whom will you meet today" when they give us MORE tools to create awesome content inworld? I fail to see the logic. SL has always had the same philosophy, allowing us to create a world. Bad decisions have been made, but I fail to see where the focus shifted away from content. Everyone can still create, everyone can still upload things, sell things, own land, do what they want pretty much, save for some legal barriers. I can give you a great reason why the whole turbosquid fantasy wont work. The same reason you named before. A mesh which hasnt been built for SL will hardly function in SL. Go look at the beta. Each mesh has a prim count rating assigned. If you want to import that 5-trillion polygon attack chopper, fine. But be prepared to spend 500 prims on a parcel for it because of its complexity. The argument of ripping off also doesnt uphold. Look around for a moment, and you will see TONS of ripped content from all kinds of games, copyrighted designs, characters, guns, cars, whatever. Do you really think mesh will change anything about what already is going on in world? SL has always been like this, and will not burn to ashes because people actually get a VERY potent creation tool in their hands now. That said, I look forward to mesh. Its a huge potential to make proper SL content, and its a needed step forward. Prims are a great builder tool to start people off, and mesh will allow professionals and beginners alike to bring their creations into SL the way they imagine them to be, beyond the limits of what sculpts could offer previously.

so according to your views it needs a rollback to a MUCH worse codebase, a MUCH worse viewer, dumping a ton of features? lets make a list of what youd drop. sculpts windlight outfits avatar alpha the AWESOME server 1.38 script functions which contribute to greatly lowering the amount of scripts people need for certain stuff mono http textures the upcoming new asset streaming architecture display names, increased sim height to 4096 meters vertex buffer objects (great performance boost) a metric ton of bugfixes and stability improvements voice chat If you honestly believe that all this should be dropped because you dont like 2.x´s UI - which is what im sure itll boil down in the end - then maybe SL isnt for you. You should read up on all the stuff that happened since 1.01, Im sure I forgot a bunch of wonderful additions in my little list. As far as having respect for its clients and helpful, friendly and intelligent staffing, THAT I can get behind. I havent had many issues, but ive heard a lot. As for the 2006 ToS, youd have to tell me what that actually spelled out. Gambling was a necessary ban in my eyes, not much lost there, the economy more than recovered. As for ageplay, I dont really like a pure fantasy between consenting adults being made a banable offense, but they had to cover their bases i suppose.

Hmm. that might be your views, but in all honesty, a lot of people see things like this: Viewer 2: admittedly a desaster at the start. Is now maturing into something very very nice Mesh import: will be one of the greatest things in SL´s history. will introduce some issues, but the possibilities are immense now server RC channels: a great way of getting software tested more efficiently, and it accelerates development a good deal. you can /see/ that things are moving forward marketplace failure: what marketplace failure? the new site is a superior replacement to xstreetSL. it offers more options to merchants and I find it reasonably easy to use search desaster: agreed, but being worked on buggy mono implementation: again, being worked on, most the bugs are ironed out now. i agree though, it shouldve been in focus earlier on teen merger: cant speak about that yet, but any teens wanting on the main grid to have sex already are here anyways. I doubt itd change much in the long run

I suspect some driver/hardware issues. 2.4 is a beta, so bugs are to be expected. the best you can do is use the jira and report your findings. give them a good description of what exactly happens, where it happens, on what hardware, drivers etc. That way, they can get it fixed, and you wont have that problem anymore, most likely. Until then, try 2.3, which is a release build and as such, more stable. And as a scripter, I can only stress the importance on giving a proper, detailed report. Else, pretty much everyone will have a hell of a time finding where the error happens.

I would first like to say that this looks like a very promising release. Ill hold off until 2.4 goes live to check the enhancements, but the whole graphical renovations sound great. With that said, I would like to know if the new, deferred/GI based renderer will ever be performant on ATI cards. I hear some Nvidia folks having decent FPS (I acknowledge its still in development), yet with a hd9570, a rather powerful card, I can barely break 10-15 fps most of the time. FSAA doesnt work at all and wrecks the FPS as well. Again, I know its in development, I would just like to know what plans exist in that regard. On another note, regarding the people demanding LL go back to 1.x code. You all do realize that 1.x code is much, MUCH worse than the 2.x base? Just because you dislike the UI, you do not have to make demands to force LL back toward a much worse codebase, making things worse for everyone. The UI can certainly be disagreed about, but personally I find it gives me a LOT more screen space. Sure, it does get cramped if you have the favorites bar, adress bar, and sidebar open at all times. thats what I dont do. I dont need the adress/favorite bar, I simply use the mini location bar instead. And my sidebar is closed when not needed, and the buttons are easily forgotten about. chat and IM are wonderfully space efficient, and I couldnt be happier. Ontop of that, the UI is nicely in the background, and looks more modern and serious. whereas the old SL UI was a mix of different concepts (dropdowns, pie menus, floating windows everywhere), the new one is coherent in its design. Im sure as time goes by, there will be more ways to make 2.x behave more like 1.x, with more floating windows instead of sidebar docks, and already we have nostalgia skins which bring back the old blue buttons. My advice for those who dislike 2.x: - lay off the hate. If you dont like the UI, then vote for jira issues to give you more freedom in using it, and the options to revert it more to the 1.x behaviour. - try 2.3 or 2.4 - if you only ever tried 2.0 or the beta, then you should notice a few big changes. The viewer has come a long way, try it out with an open mind. - lastly: 2.0 is NOT 1.23.5. it will never be. so stop trying to use 2.x like 1.x, since that wont work. it takes a bit to re-learn, but take it from me as a content creator, who spends most their days inworld - the new viewer is better. much better.