Greene Paine

Avatars (including my own) keep turning invisable on and off and on and off. Why? Comp: Windows 7 Latest V2

Actually from talking to the v1 crowd, they arn't quite as unreasonable as one may think. I believe the primary reason v2 got such a bad wrap is because it muddled up workflows, and sort of subtly told all exsisting customers that they wern't important. That the 'mainstream' market was many times bigger than they would ever be. While this is likely true from a mathmathic standpoint, the exsisting customers are what's keeping this boat floating. =)

"Your color suggestions are certainly interesting, but, as almost everything in the world, highly dependent on personal taste." I could not agree more. The idea of having 'skins' is that there should be multiple choices. I am merely suggesting that the default skin for new users should have a light, happy, 'simple' vibe going on. In reality there should be at least 2 different skins to select from with an import system for adding more. To the person who pointed out the dark UI's that are popular ... I agree there are some popular dark UIs, but I pointed out the ones that I did because they stole the thunder from other much more popular services with their simplistic designs. Google Chrome for example entered into a highly crowded and competitive browser market and somehow managed to pull a huge following, AND to slowly GROW its user base. Some of this has been attributed to its 'simplistic' UI. Google homepage of course beat out sites like AOL and Yahoo by having not only a much better product, but by having a very simple 'clean' homepage. Nothing says clean like a white background. Skype has beaten out many other VOIP services and gained huge popularity. Apple came back from the verge of failure with its bright colorful Macs and then later with its sleek iPods and iPhones. I suppose a dark color scheme is not inherently bad, but I think that white does a better job of conveying a 'clean and simple' vibe, where as black conveys an 'exclusive and expensive' vibe, which SL is neither.

What is wrong with the v2.0 - 3.0 UI? Not really all that much as it turns out. v2 was a huge improvement in functionality but just looked really bad. It was kind of like having a new baby brother that you can't wait to tickle and hold, that is until you see how ugly he is and suddenly find yourself looking for hand sanitizer instead. That and it sort of castrated your biggest supporters, but we'll get to that. First off is making v3 pretty again! What colors do highly successful UIs use? 1) Skype: Smooth gradients of whites and blues 2) Apple: Smooth gradients of whites 3) Google+: Solid bright colors 3) Google Chrome: Solid bright colors Can you think of any dark depressing UI's out there that have had nearly the market success that these products have had? Even your website makes the user feel like their peering into a dark closet at the funny people inside. (Doesn't your closet have funny people inside?) What else do these four examples have that makes them successful? 1) Highly uncluttered 2) UI reveals complexity where utterly needed (think of how Google hides all links until you move the mouse) 3) They get the hell out of your way (the best UI is the UI no one notices) 4) They are all highly polished (this means things fail gracefully, bugs are squished and not just bandaged, and all workflows are enjoyable) What can LL learn from Microsoft? 1) When launching the .net platform, why did Microsoft not just ditch Visual Basic when C# had all the exact same functionality? A: Because they recognized the importance of the VB culture and not ditching that following. Satisfy the v1.0 fans with a few check boxes in the options to give them what they want! What can LL learn from Blizzard? 1) Blizzard allows UI mods so that users can add in the features they want. !!!BUT!!! They have a policy that mods should not be -needed- for the enjoyment of their games. Thus when a particular mod becomes so useful it really should be part of core functionality .... they IMPLIMENT IT in the official UI! (It's about time for a UI animation override) Third Party Viewers should NOT be -needed- to enjoy SL either as a newbie or for more advanced workflows. They should be regulated to the role of idea generators and solutions for extreme use cases. If your contracts are stopping you from integrating the innovations found in TPVs, then GET NEW CONTRACTS. Each morning at LL should start with the UI team using TPVs and reading up on new ideas while they drink their morning coffee. Blizzard does. What can LL learn from Google Chrome? 1) Get out of the users way! There is a cool feature in Firestorm where the upper menu bar is transparent, thus increasing the view port. Things like these add more than you know to the enjoyment of the UI. Other ideas may include: Auto hiding menus or UI components until the user moves the mouse near them (think start bar in Windows), marking all components resizable (think Skype sidebar), and avoid losing tons of space to menu bars (think of Google Chrome folding everything into ONE bar at the top) Pop quiz: How many sides of the screen does the SL UI currently muddle up? A: Three! 2) Tabs are awesome! This is a more long range thing, but if you really want to push the 'SL as a browser' mentality, then why not allow a user to be in multiple places at the same time? Freeze rendering on tabs not in use to reduce computer lag of course. But this will increase server load right? .... Then buy more servers. Look at Google Instant. They increased their server load HUGELY for something they felt they needed to have the ultimate search experience. Time for hard choices. What can LL learn from Blue Mars -FAILING-? 1) That collaborative creation is half the magic! Take Charlar Linden, give him a team of people, and lock him inside for a few months until you can create mesh IN WORLD. We don't need a new blender here. We need something like an in world Google Sketchup, perhaps even simpler. Requirements of in world mesh creation: Ability to convert prims to mesh, merging of prims, editing of vertexes, basic editing functions like extrude and perhaps a few binary modifiers like smooth. THATS IT! I can't stress this enough. Imagine you're in SL building a space station with your buddies. You've learned how to work with prims already, but now you've pressed that little 'convert to mesh' button and now you're moving vertexes all over the place! Your friends are laughing at you and you're all having an amazing time. Let Blender be used for polished professional content, let in world mesh editing be used for fast and sloppy creation that with some work can actually look better than pure prims alone. What can LL learn from Photoshop? 1) Photoshop and many other programs have a method of selecting 'work flow presets' that allows people to get up and running with the software without making a million changes. Basic mode sort of touches on this, but I feel that making the interface highly customizable and then creating a few presets would have a much better effect. Some preset ideas: Builder - increased floating point precision on build dialogs, more alignment tools, 'convert to mesh' button, more feedback text for things like Land Impact and ARC etc., Simple - Super simple UI layout, very few options, keep the eye focused on chatting and exploring, Roleplayer, Gamer, Texturer, Scripter, etc... I have many more ideas, and there are of course other things that need to be done (such as ending the 'what do I look like to you' discussion), but I believe that these changes together with LL's awesome new focus on Avatar profiles might just get this place back into the exponential curve. P.S. When teleports fail, I should not fall though the damn floor! P.S.S. Teleports should not fail. P.S.S.S. Adult content is IMPORTANT!!! As adults we express ourselfs in adult ways. I think this is the 'other half of the magic' that makes SL so enjoyable. And yes this can very well include sex and sexual expression in things ranging from art to roleplay to inworld games.

....and then Iyoba Tarantal and his radio lived happily ever after. The End.

Impressive ... most impressive.

My thinking is that places ban furries (especially RP sims) to achieve a certain level of atmosphere and environment. For example on an old west sim lots of groups other than furries are banned. So are robots, cars, aliens, wookies, etc... They even do this in fancy real life clubs where there is a certain dress code. Imagine if this law were implemented in the USA and no sub culture could be banned from -anything-. You'd have people in cow suits working at banks, cavemen serving your McDonalds, Darth Vader in your romantic comedy movies. OH THE INSANITY!!! Or in the words of John Lennon, "Imagine allllll the peopleeee -and furries- living life living life in peace."

Seriously, I don't get it. Could someone maybe explain in clear terms exactly what it is about v1 they like so much? I realize v2 has a sidebar ... v1 doesn't. Umm .... v1 has a pie chart clicky thing, v2 uses a menu. ... .... v1 has more .... blue? I mean I understand all the cool things TPV like Firestorm add (named crosshairs, chat radius, zoom to avatar, etc...) but what is so intangible about a v1 like Pheonix that it can't be ported to Firestorm?? In other words ... how much would you need to change a v1 viewer before it lost its v1ness, likewise how much would you need to add to a v2 to gain v1ness? Also a note to Lindens ... why don't you open your eyes and actively absorb the innovation of the TPVs into the main viewer? Seriously guys. How long would it take to add a freekin' chat range circle on the minimap?? If I'm not completely bonkers, I seem to remember that the purpose of TPV in the first place was to allow for rapid improvement in the SL viewer by allowing the open source community to improve it. So yeah .... were improving it ... now freekin' add it already. >.<

They expressed intrest in it if my memory serves me, but all new 'shinys' have been held up behind mesh like angry people trying to get past a rly fat dude in a hallway. Now that the Linden machine has taken it's giant mesh dump I think all the cool new stuff like Avatar 2.0 will be next.

Thanks Lindens!!! =D

Wow! You sound exactly like a computer! =O ...nice tutorial though.

Not gunna get very far with that additude. You go right on ahead back to Phoenix. Oh, and I like how you up the drama by adding, "last try."

I like that idea, and honestly I have a feeling that the only way SL can free itself of the unfair accounting of the past will be to "do everything right" on a new grid with a new brand. For example call it Second Life 3. Give it a new viewer with new V3 sims.

No because it entered the browser market and cleaned house by making a browser fast, efficient, simple, elegant, easy to use, and got rid of all the **bleep** it didn't need. Much in the same way Google did to search.

Please do this. =) (And no I don't mean SL IN Google Chrome. Personally I think SL in a browser is stupid. Browsers are meant for 2D content and shoving SL in there seems hacky.)