Inspired by a recent post by Inara Pey concerning mesh which is imminently upon us...
...and which we are told... "Uploaded objects may be destroyed or broken permanently, and may no longer work after the full mesh deploy in August. If you move rezzed mesh objects from a new mesh-enabled version to a sim running the current release version, they may be destroyed or broken permanently – and this includes vehicles and attachments."
Fit the Fourth, [The Hunting of the Snark].
" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!'
"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
Brimming over with quivering curds!
"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!"
The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
It is this, it is this that I dread!
"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--
In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
And I use it for striking a light:
"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,
In a moment (of this I am sure),
I shall softly and suddenly vanish away--
And the notion I cannot endure!"
.... this is based a little in Fact....
Natales blog tells us..."A current bug can render rigged mesh (clothes) invisible. In general if you come into an area wearing rigged mesh the avatars there can see the mesh. Those avatars that arrive after you, will not be able to see the mesh you are wearing. We saw some of that at the meeting.
Well, that's amusing....
Further..."You may notice that default mesh names used by the viewer use the name of a previously uploaded mesh. This is a bug in the mesh uploader. It is unlikely to be fixed before roll out. People will just have to be careful with naming and pay attention. Some time post roll out the problem will be fixed."
...and it goes on.... ARC will be corrupted, i.e. not reliable... sculpties linked to mesh may count as more than one prim... costs of 150L$ per mesh in upload fees may be reduced... just as well, as Inara reports "Uploaded objects may be destroyed or broken permanently, and may no longer work after the full mesh deploy in August."
...also from Oz ... "During this phase of the rollout, LL may alter the Prim count for mesh objects and cause objects to be returned to inventory – note this might be any objects on a parcel / the sim, not just mesh objects.."
Well, the brilliant idea of enabling a bug riddled feature on a bug riddled viewer on a grid with poor servers could be commented on at length... except... Crap has done it so well...here.
If you want to find out what you need to learn to do it properly Loki Eliot has this advice ... here.
I would advise against trying to read this, Artist Best Practices.... as I had to go lie down in a darkened room after I tried... it's advice, from the Boys, Rand Linden in this case.. "The attached PDF is a chapter from Havok technical documentation with advice and information on best practices for artists when setting up Havok collision objects and scenes. Following these recommendations will typically result in reduced Physics Weight for your in-world creations as well as improved performance and reduced lag."
I'm warning you...don't!! You may be an artist, and you may want to practice as best you can...but... it's a Boojam.
...... if I "softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!'... it'll be because I'm in InWorldz with sensible devs who sort out one problem before creating a raft of new ones...
"simples!"
":))
Showing posts with label Mesh in SL.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mesh in SL.. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
The Death of Mesh
This is a total reprinting of a poem by Lilleth Heart from the SL Forum which is probably against ToS as everything is, actually.
I hope that Lilleth understands my reason for doing so is that it is so closely related to my last post about Prim Equivalence (PE) and the Cost of Mesh... here.
A poem by Lilith Heart – The Death of Mesh
I LOVE MESH.
I am mesh’s number 1 fan.
Give me an M …. Give me an E … Give me an S …. Give an H …. What have you got ….
MESH !!!!! YAAAAAY MESH !! Go mesh Go !!
But …
For me mesh is already DEAD with the current PE
For me a prim count of 500 is no good for a pretty mesh tree
How I hate the horrid sculpty
I really want to make a gorgeous mesh tree
Nobody will pay money for a mesh tree that’s 500 PE
Nobody will want my beautiful mesh tree
OH NO! Mesh is dead for me
All because of the silly PE
Only 3 sculpty prims equal my 500 PE mesh tree
This seems very unfair to me
I’m begging on hands and knees, make mesh work for creators like me
And get rid of that cruel and restrictive PE
No need for physics on my lovely mesh tree
Damn the physics it’s killed mesh for me
All because I make a giant mesh tree!
Oh lovely mesh tree, why are you 500 PE ?
Oh Woe is me …. Curse the damn PE
Oh mesh I love you … you make a beautiful tree …
Much better than any sculpty !
Oh woe is me … curse the damn PE
The current mesh PE calculations are so expensive, prim-wise … MESH IS A NON STARTER… DOA .. Dead on Arrival !
Mesh as is, is only applicable for the avatar clothing and accessories market, which have no prim limits …. Crazy stuff !
For all land based products, all landscaping items …. plants trees, furniture, houses … anything you rez on land that has a prim limit … SL mesh is basically redundant, because it’s too expensive prim-wise compared to scultpy equivalents
We need mesh most for the LANDSCAPE and ARCHITECTURE of Secondlife, for the grid itself. How the world looks is most important for the next phase of SL
.
Unfortunately mesh is not going to make any difference to how the world looks, as we won’t be able to use it in the world, on the land. We will only be able to wear mesh items because the PE for landscape items is too restrictive and expensive prim wise
The look of the Secondlife world is often compared to the latest 3D games and it doesn’t compare well. .We desperately need mesh to improve the look of the SL world to excite and retain new users.
Please, please Mesh Lindens …. take another look at mesh PE and find a more usable solution so we can all help to make the SL World more beautiful.
Summary .... PE outrageously high ..... mesh is dead … DOA ….. Dead on Arrival ""
I can't really add to that... I could never sell a 500 prim tree, not even in InWorldz I would think, so, Lilleth, you are right.
...and my concerns were well founded.... I said.. "This is surely not because LL will make more money from mesh uploads......
Is it because upgrading the servers or the server capacity would cost LL money and the same effect could be achieved by reducing the current 15,000 prims per sim in a poor exchange rate with mesh.? ...(poor for me, good for LL).
500 prims for a 3 sculptie tree is as poor as it gets, I guess....
:((
I hope that Lilleth understands my reason for doing so is that it is so closely related to my last post about Prim Equivalence (PE) and the Cost of Mesh... here.
A poem by Lilith Heart – The Death of Mesh
I LOVE MESH.
I am mesh’s number 1 fan.
Give me an M …. Give me an E … Give me an S …. Give an H …. What have you got ….
MESH !!!!! YAAAAAY MESH !! Go mesh Go !!
But …
For me mesh is already DEAD with the current PE
For me a prim count of 500 is no good for a pretty mesh tree
How I hate the horrid sculpty
I really want to make a gorgeous mesh tree
Nobody will pay money for a mesh tree that’s 500 PE
Nobody will want my beautiful mesh tree
OH NO! Mesh is dead for me
All because of the silly PE
Only 3 sculpty prims equal my 500 PE mesh tree
This seems very unfair to me
I’m begging on hands and knees, make mesh work for creators like me
And get rid of that cruel and restrictive PE
No need for physics on my lovely mesh tree
Damn the physics it’s killed mesh for me
All because I make a giant mesh tree!
Oh lovely mesh tree, why are you 500 PE ?
Oh Woe is me …. Curse the damn PE
Oh mesh I love you … you make a beautiful tree …
Much better than any sculpty !
Oh woe is me … curse the damn PE
The current mesh PE calculations are so expensive, prim-wise … MESH IS A NON STARTER… DOA .. Dead on Arrival !
Mesh as is, is only applicable for the avatar clothing and accessories market, which have no prim limits …. Crazy stuff !
For all land based products, all landscaping items …. plants trees, furniture, houses … anything you rez on land that has a prim limit … SL mesh is basically redundant, because it’s too expensive prim-wise compared to scultpy equivalents
We need mesh most for the LANDSCAPE and ARCHITECTURE of Secondlife, for the grid itself. How the world looks is most important for the next phase of SL
.
Unfortunately mesh is not going to make any difference to how the world looks, as we won’t be able to use it in the world, on the land. We will only be able to wear mesh items because the PE for landscape items is too restrictive and expensive prim wise
The look of the Secondlife world is often compared to the latest 3D games and it doesn’t compare well. .We desperately need mesh to improve the look of the SL world to excite and retain new users.
Please, please Mesh Lindens …. take another look at mesh PE and find a more usable solution so we can all help to make the SL World more beautiful.
Summary .... PE outrageously high ..... mesh is dead … DOA ….. Dead on Arrival ""
I can't really add to that... I could never sell a 500 prim tree, not even in InWorldz I would think, so, Lilleth, you are right.
...and my concerns were well founded.... I said.. "This is surely not because LL will make more money from mesh uploads......
Is it because upgrading the servers or the server capacity would cost LL money and the same effect could be achieved by reducing the current 15,000 prims per sim in a poor exchange rate with mesh.? ...(poor for me, good for LL).
500 prims for a 3 sculptie tree is as poor as it gets, I guess....
:((
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Prim Mesh Equivalence.... the cost of a mesh.
In a recent attempt to convey to those interested, Runitai Linden posted an explanation of how LL is trying to work out the cost of a mesh, or, in very simple terms, if you can rezz 15,000 prims on a sim, how many mesh will you be allowed??
As you read through it here you will find it is a fairly complicated calculation... but this paragraph stuck in my head...
“Given that Second Life has bad framerates and prims aren't exactly stingy about wasting triangles, it's wise to bias meshes towards the low end of that spectrum, say at 250 thousand triangles give or take 50 thousand. THAT is your visible triangle budget. In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build, the meshes MUST display no more than that number of triangles per frame.’
Now, just how much, or rather, how little 250,000 triangles is.... consider the following post by Dain Shan where he calculates that 15,000 prims have 1,800,000 triangles. However.... not all of those are visible at one time...
By definition you would be able to see either 2 or 3 faces, so... that’s a third or a half... 600,000 or 900,000....
...but “ In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build,” LL will make sure that the allowance is well within that 200,000 to 300,000 ‘budget’.
“ it's wise to bias meshes towards the low end of that spectrum”.. but for who? Yes we are agreed with LL that lag is bad... but... if I have been told once, I have been told 30 times that Mesh is gonna reduce lag.
Well, if the number of meshes per sim is reduced to a low enough level that will of course become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
In a later post, Drongle McMahon writes the following...
“3. (/me restrains himself) While discussion of meshes in isolation is very useful, it is my opinion that it is dangerous to ignore comparison with sculpties. The latter will be used instead of meshes if they are allowed, especially at 64m, without further restrictions. This is a very real problem for the uptake of mesh that threatens the resource efficiency and visual quality improvements that are otherwise offered. I will not say more, as requested.
PS. I guess the requested resp[onse tom the sculpty comparison is that a sim full of sculpties will not reach the performance required. So if people do fill up their sims with sculpties, that is their problem. We can't stop sculpties messing thins up, but we can stop meshes doing the same. That way people will eventually reject the sculpties?”
Now....before we get totally lost in the detail....
It seems to me, from these discussions, that I am getting more sculptie triangle for my Linden buck than I have any chance of getting using mesh.... and the idea is that it will be a positive thing if people reject sculpties and go for mesh.
This is surely not because LL will make more money from mesh uploads......
Is it because upgrading the servers or the server capacity would cost LL money and the same effect could be achieved by reducing the current 15,000 prims per sim in a poor exchange rate with mesh.? ...(poor for me, good for LL).
“So if people do fill up their sims with sculpties, that is their problem. We can't stop sculpties messing thins up, but we can stop meshes doing the same. That way people will eventually reject the sculpties?”
Now, I understand if Drongle is being misunderstood here, but it seems to me that putting 15,000 sculpties on my sim for $295 is a part of the deal, not me “messing things up”...??
The desire he has to convert us all to mesh because persistent use of sculpties.. “threatens the resource efficiency and visual quality improvements that are otherwise offered“ could surely be achieved by improved server functions.... anyway that’s tier.
So....to sum up... by restricting the number of meshes allowed on a sim “In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build” LL will have less of a load on the servers than if I rezz 15,000 sculpties on my sim ... but... will I get a tier reduction if I convert to mesh? ...(smiles)...
In actual fact the uploading of mesh will be far more expensive than a sculptie. That is a prediction, not fact, but... logic dictates that when I upload a mesh, I am in fact uploading data on 3 different LOD (“level of detail”) and, for clothes, the rigging data too (how the clothes fit on the “skeleton”), that seems like a lot more data than a 64x64 pixel sculptie map...
..as this is pure speculation we will have to wait and see.
But, the question still remains, in my mind, who will benefit most from mesh?
Now the ecstatic fangirls are still spouting nonsense about Mesh, still oblivious to the fact that mesh can't be sized or flexible so the likelihood of it being used for clothes or hair is remote...2013/2014? and the most condescending of these posts from Gwyneth Llewelyn, but maybe I just misread the tone of the article... I apologise if I have in advance.
Anyway I just wanted to assure anyone who is in any doubt that my scepticism towards mesh is not due to the fact that I don't have a degree in Computer Science, or that I couldn't use Maya (if I had 3000$ to spend on software), I am happy to upload my Blender files as Collada instead of .tga. My scepticism comes from the past performance of LL when 'upgrading' the User Experience, the word Upgrading translates too often as Breaking.
I welcome any real improvement to the platform, but Runitai Linden knows, as we all do, that the first release will be buggy. After 18 months the V2 is apparently nearly usable, and by 2014 mesh may be a great feature... but fangirl hysteria (not a hypothetical techno fear) just inspires me to cynicism.
Meshy Christmas will more likely be a Messy Christmas.
:))
As you read through it here you will find it is a fairly complicated calculation... but this paragraph stuck in my head...
“Given that Second Life has bad framerates and prims aren't exactly stingy about wasting triangles, it's wise to bias meshes towards the low end of that spectrum, say at 250 thousand triangles give or take 50 thousand. THAT is your visible triangle budget. In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build, the meshes MUST display no more than that number of triangles per frame.’
Now, just how much, or rather, how little 250,000 triangles is.... consider the following post by Dain Shan where he calculates that 15,000 prims have 1,800,000 triangles. However.... not all of those are visible at one time...
By definition you would be able to see either 2 or 3 faces, so... that’s a third or a half... 600,000 or 900,000....
...but “ In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build,” LL will make sure that the allowance is well within that 200,000 to 300,000 ‘budget’.
“ it's wise to bias meshes towards the low end of that spectrum”.. but for who? Yes we are agreed with LL that lag is bad... but... if I have been told once, I have been told 30 times that Mesh is gonna reduce lag.
Well, if the number of meshes per sim is reduced to a low enough level that will of course become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
In a later post, Drongle McMahon writes the following...
“3. (/me restrains himself) While discussion of meshes in isolation is very useful, it is my opinion that it is dangerous to ignore comparison with sculpties. The latter will be used instead of meshes if they are allowed, especially at 64m, without further restrictions. This is a very real problem for the uptake of mesh that threatens the resource efficiency and visual quality improvements that are otherwise offered. I will not say more, as requested.
PS. I guess the requested resp[onse tom the sculpty comparison is that a sim full of sculpties will not reach the performance required. So if people do fill up their sims with sculpties, that is their problem. We can't stop sculpties messing thins up, but we can stop meshes doing the same. That way people will eventually reject the sculpties?”
Now....before we get totally lost in the detail....
It seems to me, from these discussions, that I am getting more sculptie triangle for my Linden buck than I have any chance of getting using mesh.... and the idea is that it will be a positive thing if people reject sculpties and go for mesh.
This is surely not because LL will make more money from mesh uploads......
Is it because upgrading the servers or the server capacity would cost LL money and the same effect could be achieved by reducing the current 15,000 prims per sim in a poor exchange rate with mesh.? ...(poor for me, good for LL).
“So if people do fill up their sims with sculpties, that is their problem. We can't stop sculpties messing thins up, but we can stop meshes doing the same. That way people will eventually reject the sculpties?”
Now, I understand if Drongle is being misunderstood here, but it seems to me that putting 15,000 sculpties on my sim for $295 is a part of the deal, not me “messing things up”...??
The desire he has to convert us all to mesh because persistent use of sculpties.. “threatens the resource efficiency and visual quality improvements that are otherwise offered“ could surely be achieved by improved server functions.... anyway that’s tier.
So....to sum up... by restricting the number of meshes allowed on a sim “In order for Second Life to have a prayer of running well in a mesh build” LL will have less of a load on the servers than if I rezz 15,000 sculpties on my sim ... but... will I get a tier reduction if I convert to mesh? ...(smiles)...
In actual fact the uploading of mesh will be far more expensive than a sculptie. That is a prediction, not fact, but... logic dictates that when I upload a mesh, I am in fact uploading data on 3 different LOD (“level of detail”) and, for clothes, the rigging data too (how the clothes fit on the “skeleton”), that seems like a lot more data than a 64x64 pixel sculptie map...
..as this is pure speculation we will have to wait and see.
But, the question still remains, in my mind, who will benefit most from mesh?
Now the ecstatic fangirls are still spouting nonsense about Mesh, still oblivious to the fact that mesh can't be sized or flexible so the likelihood of it being used for clothes or hair is remote...2013/2014? and the most condescending of these posts from Gwyneth Llewelyn, but maybe I just misread the tone of the article... I apologise if I have in advance.
Anyway I just wanted to assure anyone who is in any doubt that my scepticism towards mesh is not due to the fact that I don't have a degree in Computer Science, or that I couldn't use Maya (if I had 3000$ to spend on software), I am happy to upload my Blender files as Collada instead of .tga. My scepticism comes from the past performance of LL when 'upgrading' the User Experience, the word Upgrading translates too often as Breaking.
I welcome any real improvement to the platform, but Runitai Linden knows, as we all do, that the first release will be buggy. After 18 months the V2 is apparently nearly usable, and by 2014 mesh may be a great feature... but fangirl hysteria (not a hypothetical techno fear) just inspires me to cynicism.
Meshy Christmas will more likely be a Messy Christmas.
:))
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Mesh and Cash
Well, we have now heard that mesh will start to be 'rolled out' on the SL grid from July/August. As the basic advice from top entrepreneurs is to get your product out into the market even before it works, we can expect a long series of complaints and fixes and etc etc so that September/October might be more realistic.
I was reading one of Maria's posts on mesh and followed a link to TurboSquid and searched trees there... one was $350, and far better than anything I could ever imagine making myself. It is 1.1 million polygons. Blender will make mesh but it looks increasingly like Maya and 3dsMax users will be the ones providing the best mesh.
Maya and 3dsMax cost around 3000$+ to buy.....so it's little wonder than no tree on TurboSquid costs less than 7800 L$, the top one mentioned above being ca. 80,000L$....(although, in reality, it would maybe be the only tree you could plant on a sim before crashing the whole grid...and could take a month to rezzz, I guess...) ...oh, by comparison, I don't think I've ever charged more than 2000L$, 500 -900 being my normal pricing.
I have complained before about the chickenfeed pricing of objects for sale in SL (Iwz the same) and the prices put on Art by the makers, similarly the wages offered by people who think that, because you are in VW's, you are prepared to work for silly money. So, it will be interesting to see if the costs associated with producing the top mesh content will actually make this less of a peanut economy, more related to RL pricing.... or will people simply not buy mesh??
I once paid 3300L$ for hair, and I was feeling very wealthy at the time.... thats probably the top item I ever bought.
Maybe the TechnoCommunists will make some free mesh trees and undermine the new mesh economy ...( they are a bugger to make with Google Sketch-Up)...
Now, as I've been busy I haven't kept you up to date with the latest SL blunders.... well.. it could be considered that the worst thing LL could do is to change their system of International Payment from one that works to one that doesn't work.... and I would have to agree that that is pretty bad....but...Client Data Leaks??....
...according to Inara Pey there are concerns about privacy and credit cards.... the possibility that DragonFish (the company now dealing, or nearly dealing, with International Payment), may have been compromised. It's only natural that such concerns come to the fore after Sony's spectacular breaches of recent weeks.
Now, her main point is that FJ Lined brushed aside the concerns, basically implying that it's down to spyware on the affected users computer, and behaving exactly like Tateru describes ...here... in a post entitled "you've got to take our word for it"... or to paraphrase "trust me, I'm an expert". The idea that any top company could have leaky security must be stamped out immediately it shows it's ugly head or a PR disaster could ensue.
The thing is, after having politicians lie to us for decades, and seeing the scandalous behaviour of top companies, saying "you can trust us"...isn't really good enough.
....and the way Inara has been attacked for suggesting such a thing... as Miso says "I'm only here for the LOLZ"...
The thing is...I have, genuinely, been getting a lot more spam recently.....and Indigo Mertel, who is a very reliable person (my email accounts are all a bit mixed up) I trust a lot.... and she's posted on the forum about this problem ...here.
well, it will, no doubt, all blow over...but a good PR machine could have helped...
What a messh. (sorry).
:))
I was reading one of Maria's posts on mesh and followed a link to TurboSquid and searched trees there... one was $350, and far better than anything I could ever imagine making myself. It is 1.1 million polygons. Blender will make mesh but it looks increasingly like Maya and 3dsMax users will be the ones providing the best mesh.
Maya and 3dsMax cost around 3000$+ to buy.....so it's little wonder than no tree on TurboSquid costs less than 7800 L$, the top one mentioned above being ca. 80,000L$....(although, in reality, it would maybe be the only tree you could plant on a sim before crashing the whole grid...and could take a month to rezzz, I guess...) ...oh, by comparison, I don't think I've ever charged more than 2000L$, 500 -900 being my normal pricing.
I have complained before about the chickenfeed pricing of objects for sale in SL (Iwz the same) and the prices put on Art by the makers, similarly the wages offered by people who think that, because you are in VW's, you are prepared to work for silly money. So, it will be interesting to see if the costs associated with producing the top mesh content will actually make this less of a peanut economy, more related to RL pricing.... or will people simply not buy mesh??
I once paid 3300L$ for hair, and I was feeling very wealthy at the time.... thats probably the top item I ever bought.
Maybe the TechnoCommunists will make some free mesh trees and undermine the new mesh economy ...( they are a bugger to make with Google Sketch-Up)...
Now, as I've been busy I haven't kept you up to date with the latest SL blunders.... well.. it could be considered that the worst thing LL could do is to change their system of International Payment from one that works to one that doesn't work.... and I would have to agree that that is pretty bad....but...Client Data Leaks??....
...according to Inara Pey there are concerns about privacy and credit cards.... the possibility that DragonFish (the company now dealing, or nearly dealing, with International Payment), may have been compromised. It's only natural that such concerns come to the fore after Sony's spectacular breaches of recent weeks.
Now, her main point is that FJ Lined brushed aside the concerns, basically implying that it's down to spyware on the affected users computer, and behaving exactly like Tateru describes ...here... in a post entitled "you've got to take our word for it"... or to paraphrase "trust me, I'm an expert". The idea that any top company could have leaky security must be stamped out immediately it shows it's ugly head or a PR disaster could ensue.
The thing is, after having politicians lie to us for decades, and seeing the scandalous behaviour of top companies, saying "you can trust us"...isn't really good enough.
....and the way Inara has been attacked for suggesting such a thing... as Miso says "I'm only here for the LOLZ"...
The thing is...I have, genuinely, been getting a lot more spam recently.....and Indigo Mertel, who is a very reliable person (my email accounts are all a bit mixed up) I trust a lot.... and she's posted on the forum about this problem ...here.
well, it will, no doubt, all blow over...but a good PR machine could have helped...
What a messh. (sorry).
:))
Thursday, 11 November 2010
ScienceSim
ScienceSim is another of those Boutique Grids which I mentioned in talking about Craft World. A possibility of offering space to a niche or specialised market where specific goals are placed to the fore of pure entertainment and tomfoolery. ..:))
Not that is the intention of those involved that it should be boring, more a place devoted to research and education, a side benefit being that it may be easier to justify to sponsors and funding bodies that this is 'serious research' etc.
As a good proportion of users may be noobs there are complete instructions given to new arrivals a bit in the way that Gaia, a French 'entry point' in SL used to have (it may well still be there, I haven't checked).
This method of written explanations is probably a good idea, as some, not all, do like to read instructions.
Now, there has been a contribution of 800 items (which they call "body of rich content we’re providing"...hmmm...800 items enough to be called a body??) by the Fashion Research Institute of 6 avatars, some accessories and landscaping items... press release ......here.... but if Third World Syndrome is something you suffer with, this will not help much.
Intel is the backer of this OpenSim based project which also has a land grant project for non commercial ventures.... and it will be interesting to see how it develops. They are not Hypergrid enabled for security reasons.
OpenSim is an interesting beast... I was reading someone's explanation of how TPV developers worked together the other day , basically saying, well, you have to let them get on with what they want to develop as they are all working for free.......this can result in a situation where no-one wants to do the boring jobs, like cleaning the toilets..... and Tateru posted an interesting take on LL too....here.... all reminding me of those years I spent in an office with the petty back-biting and sandpapering of egos...
It seems that the old divide of OpenSource and Commercial doesn't necessarily make a lot of difference when it comes to Office Wars as recently seen with Emeraldgate, on the one hand (free labour) and 2Crap2Use Viewer being the result of commercial sub-contracting. Now, with LL continuing to try to screw the TPV opposition, and it's dropping 1.23 on the SL downloads page, all the TPV devs will be coming under pressure to make the new viewers 2.XX compatible....we will see how well they can pull together over the next 3 to 6 months, (estimated), and, the same with LL....
I am repeatedly told how wonderful mesh is going to be, it better be, because the price that will be paid is the bugs and frustration that occurs when a new product is rushed to the market place (Marketplace might be an example) before the code is clean enough to take it.
I have always asked for new tools, and been ready to learn new stuff, but when people tell me they are "euphoric" about mesh... well, I guess I'm old enough to wait and see.... tho... Display Names is not a great commendation of the Lab's ability to implement new tools.
Have a great week...
:))
Not that is the intention of those involved that it should be boring, more a place devoted to research and education, a side benefit being that it may be easier to justify to sponsors and funding bodies that this is 'serious research' etc.
As a good proportion of users may be noobs there are complete instructions given to new arrivals a bit in the way that Gaia, a French 'entry point' in SL used to have (it may well still be there, I haven't checked).
This method of written explanations is probably a good idea, as some, not all, do like to read instructions.
Now, there has been a contribution of 800 items (which they call "body of rich content we’re providing"...hmmm...800 items enough to be called a body??) by the Fashion Research Institute of 6 avatars, some accessories and landscaping items... press release ......here.... but if Third World Syndrome is something you suffer with, this will not help much.
Intel is the backer of this OpenSim based project which also has a land grant project for non commercial ventures.... and it will be interesting to see how it develops. They are not Hypergrid enabled for security reasons.
OpenSim is an interesting beast... I was reading someone's explanation of how TPV developers worked together the other day , basically saying, well, you have to let them get on with what they want to develop as they are all working for free.......this can result in a situation where no-one wants to do the boring jobs, like cleaning the toilets..... and Tateru posted an interesting take on LL too....here.... all reminding me of those years I spent in an office with the petty back-biting and sandpapering of egos...
It seems that the old divide of OpenSource and Commercial doesn't necessarily make a lot of difference when it comes to Office Wars as recently seen with Emeraldgate, on the one hand (free labour) and 2Crap2Use Viewer being the result of commercial sub-contracting. Now, with LL continuing to try to screw the TPV opposition, and it's dropping 1.23 on the SL downloads page, all the TPV devs will be coming under pressure to make the new viewers 2.XX compatible....we will see how well they can pull together over the next 3 to 6 months, (estimated), and, the same with LL....
I am repeatedly told how wonderful mesh is going to be, it better be, because the price that will be paid is the bugs and frustration that occurs when a new product is rushed to the market place (Marketplace might be an example) before the code is clean enough to take it.
I have always asked for new tools, and been ready to learn new stuff, but when people tell me they are "euphoric" about mesh... well, I guess I'm old enough to wait and see.... tho... Display Names is not a great commendation of the Lab's ability to implement new tools.
Have a great week...
:))
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
More about Mesh.
Well, as you no doubt have seen or heard mesh has begun trials and I have been trying to find some more informative stuff on what it will actually mean to me, and you.
I have read a lot of pretty “wow this is wonderful” stuff, most of it with little concrete info, so it was great to come across Nalates blogpost where he has taken the time to record the conversations at a ‘mesh office hours’. I would suggest you read the whole post if you have time..... or interest....
...if you don’t... here are a few things that cut through the hype. I’ve picked out a few things that might effect my reader...:))
It seems like new avatars, purpose made to replace the SL avatar will not be great shakes. There will not be the possibility of emoting, i.e. no smiles or grimaces, no lip synch or blinking....
The “skeleton”, called rigging will remain the same, so the way an avatar moves will be similar, that is, animations will have to use the same rigging.
“IDestroyed Tomorrow: I’ve read online in several places that there is work being done on custom rigging that does not rely on the default SL avatar skeleton to work. Is this true, and if so when can we expect to see it in action?”
Nyx Linden: it works already! see our walkthrough for uploading a “rigged” mesh. You just have to provide bone weights for each of the vertices
Nyx Linden: sorry I was wrong on that last one – we don’t support custom skeletons yet, you have to use our rig, just not our mesh.
Nyx Linden: adding support for custom skeletons would be nice, but we don’t have any work started on that yet."
(seems like not everyone knows everything.)
Having personally questioned the supposed Mesh Hair Revolution myself and watching Wizzy being abused in comments... it now turns out we were right and mesh hair will be crap.
It will be non flexi... quote “” tx Oh: another question: the positive effect of meshes should be mesh hairs instead of prim hairs. But meshes are not flexible. Do you go to support flexible meshes or at least flexible sculpts?” — Falcon Linden: No, there are no plans to support this in the future and it is extremely unlikely we will support it. However many votes it might get. Flexies are unreasonably expensive. However, you might have more success pushing for proper cloth simulation (it’s already something we’ve thought about, though with no actual plans and almost certainly not in the next year)
No swishy dresses for a while then, for the same reason...
from Liz Venenbaum “ Since I’m tied to a slow internet connection, meshes won’t rez at all, since the viewer uses like 60 connections at once, which drown my network bandwidth…”, this is something which should be sorted out before they go public ... ( and a personal worry I have with future ‘cloud’ computing as I have control over my computer, but not over my ISP.)
there’s also a long legal disclaimer from the Lab on buying meshes and using them in SL.... basically it ends with...”If you are uncertain about your rights in any situation, we suggest that you consult an attorney for legal advice or err on the side of caution and not upload the meshes to Second Life.’
Yeh.. like I’m gonna ring a lawyer before I buy something from the web.... unlikely, I think.
Now, for the simple How to Do IT... Easy style... you can’t get better than Gwyneth...here.
Personally, I am yet to be convinced that mesh will offer a great alternative to sculpties, it may just be an occasional option.... but I hope to be proven wrong.
...and finally... another great post by Nalates... here. He suggests that Open Sim will see mesh before SL .... and, for real mesh enthusiasts the actual cost of uploading mesh to SL will have them turning to OS as a huge mesh sand box.
The costs are still being calculated and I think the Boys will be missing a trick if they don’t earn a few extra bucks on this uploading lark.
Maximize the moneterization as Miso might say (but better...)
:))
I have read a lot of pretty “wow this is wonderful” stuff, most of it with little concrete info, so it was great to come across Nalates blogpost where he has taken the time to record the conversations at a ‘mesh office hours’. I would suggest you read the whole post if you have time..... or interest....
...if you don’t... here are a few things that cut through the hype. I’ve picked out a few things that might effect my reader...:))
It seems like new avatars, purpose made to replace the SL avatar will not be great shakes. There will not be the possibility of emoting, i.e. no smiles or grimaces, no lip synch or blinking....
The “skeleton”, called rigging will remain the same, so the way an avatar moves will be similar, that is, animations will have to use the same rigging.
“IDestroyed Tomorrow: I’ve read online in several places that there is work being done on custom rigging that does not rely on the default SL avatar skeleton to work. Is this true, and if so when can we expect to see it in action?”
Nyx Linden: it works already! see our walkthrough for uploading a “rigged” mesh. You just have to provide bone weights for each of the vertices
Nyx Linden: sorry I was wrong on that last one – we don’t support custom skeletons yet, you have to use our rig, just not our mesh.
Nyx Linden: adding support for custom skeletons would be nice, but we don’t have any work started on that yet."
(seems like not everyone knows everything.)
Having personally questioned the supposed Mesh Hair Revolution myself and watching Wizzy being abused in comments... it now turns out we were right and mesh hair will be crap.
It will be non flexi... quote “” tx Oh: another question: the positive effect of meshes should be mesh hairs instead of prim hairs. But meshes are not flexible. Do you go to support flexible meshes or at least flexible sculpts?” — Falcon Linden: No, there are no plans to support this in the future and it is extremely unlikely we will support it. However many votes it might get. Flexies are unreasonably expensive. However, you might have more success pushing for proper cloth simulation (it’s already something we’ve thought about, though with no actual plans and almost certainly not in the next year)
No swishy dresses for a while then, for the same reason...
from Liz Venenbaum “ Since I’m tied to a slow internet connection, meshes won’t rez at all, since the viewer uses like 60 connections at once, which drown my network bandwidth…”, this is something which should be sorted out before they go public ... ( and a personal worry I have with future ‘cloud’ computing as I have control over my computer, but not over my ISP.)
there’s also a long legal disclaimer from the Lab on buying meshes and using them in SL.... basically it ends with...”If you are uncertain about your rights in any situation, we suggest that you consult an attorney for legal advice or err on the side of caution and not upload the meshes to Second Life.’
Yeh.. like I’m gonna ring a lawyer before I buy something from the web.... unlikely, I think.
Now, for the simple How to Do IT... Easy style... you can’t get better than Gwyneth...here.
Personally, I am yet to be convinced that mesh will offer a great alternative to sculpties, it may just be an occasional option.... but I hope to be proven wrong.
...and finally... another great post by Nalates... here. He suggests that Open Sim will see mesh before SL .... and, for real mesh enthusiasts the actual cost of uploading mesh to SL will have them turning to OS as a huge mesh sand box.
The costs are still being calculated and I think the Boys will be missing a trick if they don’t earn a few extra bucks on this uploading lark.
Maximize the moneterization as Miso might say (but better...)
:))
Saturday, 25 September 2010
We deal with it.
There has been a fair amount of criticism levelled at the recent video on Mesh which was brought out with good intentions, no doubt. Both Dusan Writer and Phaylen Fairchild are very annoyed at the 'mesh is coming...deal with it' comment at the end of the video, but more so with the comments on Dusans blog by amongst others the insecure but arrogant fool who called me uneducated and opinionated for trying to gain some clarity on a previous post.
Luckily there are people around who helped gain a bit of clarity with regard to a couple of my queries.
Now, there are a couple of comments that suggest that, as SL residents, we oppose all changes and 'new things' that LL tries to implement, one comment says...
"Thank goodness the inventors throughout history weren’t SL residents. It continually cracks me up that people in a virtual world, which is cutting edge enough that most people still don’t get it, are all anti-change and AFRAID of learning something new.
Pussies."
This guy who calls himself radar needs to look at our recent history...
1) LL introduces a new viewer that is so amazingly irritating and full of bugs that people shun it like the plague. LL tries to enlist people to work for free fixing something they broke.
2) instead of fixing search, for example, we are offered voice morphing...
3) with things gradually becoming less efficient (post) we are given a name changing possibility which is a griefers charter to cause chaos.
4) SL MarketCockup is an ongoing chaos caused by LL (Snickers post)... again...they broke it.
5) Teen Grid and Avatars United get closed presumably because LL can't make money at it.
I would personally rephrase radar's remark to say..." Thank goodness inventors throughout history did't have to rely on LL....etc"
Against the background of the above history it is no surprise that LL's clients are dubious, worried and sceptical about mesh.
Anne OToole, who only a fool would call uneducated has this to say about mesh..."Everything I have seen of SL mesh thus far looks like amateur dog shit. Like that green turd looking robot thing in that video."
There are still some fairly HUGE gaps in information about mesh that an idiot would dismiss, we have no idea of the prim cost, the maximum file size, or how the poor servers will deal with collada uploads considering what trouble they have with simple textures recently. So, it is naive and pathetic to hail mesh as the best thing since sliced carrots until we see it working.
Now, as a final kick in the private parts to such fools as Steamroller and radar, I would like to point you at the most beautiful post written by Miso Susanowa today.
In spite of everything we have dealt with, in spite of terrible customer service (European office now closed), in spite of early release of dodgy products (even viewer 2.2 isn't as good as TPV), in spite of the pervasive deafness of the Lab, we deal with it, daily, and we create beauty. So stop talking crap, get your heads out of the clouds and realise mesh may not be the new messiah, it depends a lot on how well it is introduced.
Fools.
Luckily there are people around who helped gain a bit of clarity with regard to a couple of my queries.
Now, there are a couple of comments that suggest that, as SL residents, we oppose all changes and 'new things' that LL tries to implement, one comment says...
"Thank goodness the inventors throughout history weren’t SL residents. It continually cracks me up that people in a virtual world, which is cutting edge enough that most people still don’t get it, are all anti-change and AFRAID of learning something new.
Pussies."
This guy who calls himself radar needs to look at our recent history...
1) LL introduces a new viewer that is so amazingly irritating and full of bugs that people shun it like the plague. LL tries to enlist people to work for free fixing something they broke.
2) instead of fixing search, for example, we are offered voice morphing...
3) with things gradually becoming less efficient (post) we are given a name changing possibility which is a griefers charter to cause chaos.
4) SL MarketCockup is an ongoing chaos caused by LL (Snickers post)... again...they broke it.
5) Teen Grid and Avatars United get closed presumably because LL can't make money at it.
I would personally rephrase radar's remark to say..." Thank goodness inventors throughout history did't have to rely on LL....etc"
Against the background of the above history it is no surprise that LL's clients are dubious, worried and sceptical about mesh.
Anne OToole, who only a fool would call uneducated has this to say about mesh..."Everything I have seen of SL mesh thus far looks like amateur dog shit. Like that green turd looking robot thing in that video."
There are still some fairly HUGE gaps in information about mesh that an idiot would dismiss, we have no idea of the prim cost, the maximum file size, or how the poor servers will deal with collada uploads considering what trouble they have with simple textures recently. So, it is naive and pathetic to hail mesh as the best thing since sliced carrots until we see it working.
Now, as a final kick in the private parts to such fools as Steamroller and radar, I would like to point you at the most beautiful post written by Miso Susanowa today.
In spite of everything we have dealt with, in spite of terrible customer service (European office now closed), in spite of early release of dodgy products (even viewer 2.2 isn't as good as TPV), in spite of the pervasive deafness of the Lab, we deal with it, daily, and we create beauty. So stop talking crap, get your heads out of the clouds and realise mesh may not be the new messiah, it depends a lot on how well it is introduced.
Fools.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Mystified Musings on Madame Mesh.
This is Madam Mesh, she’s a part of the recent announcement of an announcement which the Lab has issued to take your minds off the fact that things are falling apart currently (see previous post).
Now, as in 2008, when flexible prims were a faint possibility, I would certainly welcome mesh imports to Second Life, but I am not quite euphoric as some of my fellow bloggers for a number of reasons.
I am not worried about competition, pirated stuff, any of those things, I am simply wary.
I am mystified by a number of things (nothing new there then), the first being why, as a presentation, Madam Mesh is rolled out (the bug-eyed monsters I welcome with open arms).
She will never take off in SL, she is a dodo, extinct before she starts.
She can’t change her underwear, take her clothes off or change shape or size before she is re-Blendered. If you buy her from a creator, that creator will have to sell you a new sculpt map, worse than that from what I understand, 5 maps, before she can change shape or size.
" Each mesh will consist of five component meshes: four for different Levels Of Detail and one for collisions (for Havok).
Levels of detail will be needed for each object, as they cannot be generated on the fly (as they are with sculpted prims). This means modelers will need to create four versions of the same object. Starting with the most detailed version of the asset, each decrement will need to consist of around a 50% less polygons than the previous level. These levels of detail can technically be generated by the Second Life client’s mesh import tools, but this takes exact control out of the hands of the user.” [From the blog post by Sand castle Studios, as are all the subsequent quotes.]
Maya is a very expensive piece of software and I don’t expect these things to be cheap.
OK, and the next thing that mystifies me is ...do they really think any female in SL is gonna wear hair that looks like its been carved out of concrete?? I mean.... haven’t they heard of conditioner?
Our avatars are already mesh imports ..why present Madame Mesh as an example of the wonders of mesh? Any single one of my friends dresses better than that.
...and, Boys, don’t talk to me about ARC (avatar rendering cost), I am not dressing down for anyone. I pay my Membership ... you sort out the servers, don’t ask me to look crap so you have an easier life....
Madam Mesh is an avatar from another game, she doesn’t belong here, and will never sell, why drag her out now?
I have more than one question about textures too. Texturing a mesh, which can be as big as 25x15x30, is that supposed to be done with a 1024x1024? it will look crap. Imagine an texturing an octopus.... This will do nothing to increase the resolution of SL unless they allow 2048x2048 on meshes...
" Meshes will need specifically made textures." ... that means none of the textures currently in world, in our inventories, will be of any use at all.... and from what I currently know about texturing in Blender it’s bloody complicated.
Ok...so..moving on ...prim cost..
" Like other in-world objects, mesh objects will have an associated prim cost. The prim count of mesh objects is determined by the file size of the highest level of detail, or the physics cost, whichever is higher.
As it stands, the mesh economy is governed by virtual prim count associated with each mesh object. This prim count is based on the storage (memory) size of a given object, a rough translation being the higher amount of polygons an object consists of, the greater its prim count will be. However, other aspects of a mesh object can also play a role in its associated storage size, such as smooth versus hard-edged normals. There is a hard limit of ~60k polygons per mesh object, although such an object would cost a great deal of prims."
So... if you thought one mesh = one prim, you are wrong. one mesh=X prims, X being a number the Lab will decide.
Now, I have seen written countless times that mesh imports are gonna reduce lag. The argument goes like this.... one mesh replaces many prims, therefore, less prims = less lag. This argument exactly is the one that is rejected when applied to megas.... one 30x30x1 mega prim = 9 standard prims. So...why is this argument being rolled out now??
Linden Lab get paid, by tier owners, per prim.
One mega costs one prim, therefore the Tier Payer saves money (prims) the Lab loses.
One mesh costs X prims, therefore the Lab gains, Tier Payer loses.
...and...if a mesh object can be up to 60k polygons...lol... tell me again how that is gonna reduce lag....
So...only time will tell, firstly if they can solve the texturing problem, how expensive they are, and how much lag they make... and secondly if it's a good enough reason for people to use the Infuriating viewer. The other viewers will not be able to import em, as far as I understand.
... oh and thirdly, if it actually ever happens....
Will it be a Mass Mesh Mash-up?
:))
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