Import 3D Mesh Objects Into Second Life (Someday)

Hulk like full articulation in metaverse. What you're looking at above is a Second Life statue built on a mesh, created from industry standard 3D modeling software. It was perhaps the most "Oooooh!"-worthy portion of Tom Hale/T. Linden's roadmap presentation yesterday, a feature Hale says is under development by a Linden staffer, and is coming to Second Life at some point.

Hale showed video of the mesh-based object responding to a dynamic lighting system which also seems to be a step or two above the existing version that's now in unsupported Beta. (Objects responded not just to the sun and moon, but the reflected illumination from the marble stone the Hulk was standing on.) Both are much-desired features by content creators, especially those who want to make use of existing assets made in Maya and other industry standard building tools. However, Hale made no promises on when they'd be available, so for now at least, this is just a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come.

Comments

[Raven Haalan]

Yaknow, this stuff is all waaay cool and all but was there a presentation on fixing bugs and improving stability? Boooring I know, but methinks much more eagerly received by the average resident.

[Tristin Mikazuki]

Isnt have a av of the hulk a copyright violation? lol

[radar]

If LL waited until every bug was gone to keep on developing a roadmap, there wouldn't be one. The "can't they fix things before they do X?" questions can die now, thank you.

What DOES piss me off is that, according to Dusan's blog post on the topic at http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/08/17/silicon-valleys-sleeper-sensation-linden-lab-takes-a-rocket-launcher-to-social-media/ he indicates that Tom said that shadows are a windows only thing. This is bad, and shortsighted.

If they want to be a BlueMars wannabe, that's fine, but I'm not going to buy a copy of Windows to run SL. It's just not happening. I'll wave bye bye and get on with all my other projects that are in RL instead.

[qarl]

hey Radar -

i think i'm not allowed to speak for linden lab anymore - but as a random graphics developer, i can say that the "windows only" thing is probably only a temporary issue - SL uses opengl as its underlying technology, and that's VERY portable. as a random developer and not speaking at all for linden lab, i'd guess that shadows would have full win/mac/linux support by the time they become a full-blown feature, seeing as how easy the work would be.

[azdel slade]

this is already possible today in realXtend, which just shows how Linden Labs can't keep up with open source projects.

[Ann Otoole]

Someone please tell these guys to stop using obviously infringing content in demos. It makes LL look completely ... never mind.

And make sure the collision meshes are done right or this is fail out of the gate.

If people think the problem of copyright infringement is bad now they haven't seen anything yet. All those not for commercial distribution characters on renderosity will be in SL and on xstreet all for sale within 24 hours which will necessarily prompt a strong multi plaintiff legal response. We just don't need any more controversy for SL.

[Adric Antfarm]

I don't know understand the mesh>prim relationship so I'm scared of 2321 prim objects and if they find a way to say it's worth more than 10L to upload.

Let's hope a DMCA is filed on Hulk.

[Net Antwerp]

Qarl,

Do you think Deferred Shading is the *right* way to do things in terms of Shadows, Reflections and Per-pixel lighting?

The current Deferred Shading Implementation by Linden gives horrible performance loss (50-75%) with ATi GPUs.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If Marvel (tm) filed suit against Linden Labs (tm), I think a Fair Use defense would prevail. But it's bad practice nonetheless, because it sends the wrong message to creators ("nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!")

[Connie Sec]

Let me preface this comment with the fact that I'm no 3D grafix guru. However, in my experience using both the Shadowdraft viewer and the Blue Mars dev client, it seems that the SL "engine" is groaning under the weight of improvements for which it was not designed. I find the BM experience graphically to be a generation ahead of what is available in SL Coupling this with BM's ability to already import from professional standard 3D apps does not bode well for the future of SL. There will of course be some that will poo poo all this "eye candy". However, if you look at the development of content in SL (for example, skins) there has always been a movement toward increasing the "reality" of the experience.
My feeling is that SL will need a radical overhaul of its underlying engine, Avatar mesh and way that clothing and skins are textured in both resolution and performance. This will cause great gnashing of teeth and content that will not be usable anymore. However..better to do that sooner, rather than later

[qarl]

hey all - i'd love to answer your questions (concerns) - but can we change venue? i hold office hours each week on fridays - does that work?

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Qarl_Linden/Office_Hours

[Net Antwerp]

@qarl:

Rigid office hours aren't really useful when asking someone's personal opinion on things. Especially when the 'office hours' are held when people are asleep, at work etc etc.

Short twitter convos work well also.

[Wordfromthe Wise]

@azdel slade

like QARL said ..
SL uses opengl as its underlying technology, and that's VERY portable.

RealXtend and Bluemars are using DirectX next to openGL and thats not so portable as it is windows Technology:-)

[qarl]

hey Net -

that's a fair point. and you're asking a well defined question, so i think i can give you a decent answer without much back-and-forth.

yes, i DO think that deferred shading is the right way to go. i think it's gotten a reputation as new/experimental/unstable technique - but that's unwarranted: maya's IPR renderer has been using a very similar technique for over 10 years now, and it's one of maya's major selling points.

for us, it gives two HUGE benefits:

1) it speeds-up the rendering by computing shading ONLY for surfaces that are actually seen in the final image. with a naive renderer, you're computing shadows on objects that are hidden behind other objects. not a good thing.

2) it speeds-up the rendering by computing lighting ONLY for pixels that are affected by a local light. with a naive renderer, a candle in a cave on the other side of the sim will slow you down. that's why we're able to jump from 6 local lights to hundreds, without much of a performance hit.

of course, like all things, it has drawbacks:

1) it doesn't handle complex shading. for semi-transparent objects, we have to use the old rendering technique.

2) it makes anti-aliasing much harder.

overall, yeah, it's the right way to go for now - the concept is very sound. and yes, i can believe you're getting bad performance on your ATI card - we haven't yet begun the process of fine-tuning for the wonky differences between the various cards. but again, that shouldn't be a problem when we get to it - the idea is sound.

hope that answers you.

best,

K.

[dahlia]

So that's a "statue"? Any animation features planned?

[Chip Midnight]

Thanks for the additional info, Qarl. I've very much looking forward to seeing mesh import added, especially if we're able to define our own LOD meshes as well. Sculpties are great but very poly inefficient and the LOD is a killer. The GI looks very impressive also. Here's hoping we see this stuff sooner rather than later.

[Pathfinder Linden]

FYI, that Hulk model was purchased legitimately from Turbosquid for use in our mesh import testing. You can see the model listed here.

I know this, because I'm the guy who bought it. ;)

[Hypatia Callisto]

Also bear in mind that the Sponza Atrium building is available for free on the Internet, and is part of the Radiosity Challenge. It is very frequently seen in graphics tests. Why Ann is screaming about copyright here is beyond me. It's a freebie meant to be used in exactly this way.

http://hdri.cgtechniques.com/~sponza/files/

http://hdri.cgtechniques.com/~sponza/

[Nalates Urriah]

Now that we have heard from Pathfinder and Hypatia many be we will hear some apologies for slandering SL?

No... probably not. But it does demonstrate one should avoid assuming.

[Juko Tempel]

Ann and Pathfinder and Hypatia have neatly covered 2 key aspects of the IP/Copyright issues inherent in this - 1. it does matter and will be pursued, and the perception of violation matters too and 2. it is important to be able to say 'this is legal use' when it is - we need better ways to do that.

I love the push for fabulous graphics in SL, but I can't help hoping we will all still be able to create our own little bit of SL without having to become rl developers..

[Feynt Mistral]

I believe the term is libel, slander covers spoken word. >)

Here I was going to make my avatar again in sculpties, and in a few months I could just make it much faster in my conventional way as one contiguous mesh. I'd love to see some animation support (the Quake 3 engine's open source, so MD3s are available for model/animation support with code examples. MD5 is also available as per: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/MD5_%28file_format%29) but it's not a necessity at the moment. However I think a lack of animation for imported models is going to hurt overall, think of all the robots we could be making from just one mesh.

[Gregory Newman]

The model of the hulk is a violation of trademark law, not copyright. It is illegal under trademark law to sell products featuring trademarked characters without the express consent of the trademark owner. Of course for purely noncommercial, personal use (IE, not publishing) this does not apply.

At the very least, the person who is selling the hulk model is violating trademark law. Linden Lab has endorsed this illegal activity by buying the model. That is incontrovertible. It is directly analogous to buying a pirated DVD knowing it is such; I don't think Pathfinder is so ignorant to think that they purchased trademark use rights from Marvel.

NWN is also potentially violating trademark law by posting the depiction of the hulk character. This is less clear-cut, however, and isn't as directly reprehensible as purchasing obviously illegal content.

[Deana]

I wouldn't worry to much about LL using images of anything copywritten or not in their promos because if you read the TOS closely you see that LL acquires ownership of all rights to everything uploaded to their servers. So assuming they are operating on that basis they now own all rights to the image of the hulk and there is no legal basis for them to be sued as a result, however sadly theu will most like assume that gives them the right to sue anyone else using the image... Look out Marvel, you're infringing on LL.

[Trendkill Neximus]

Gotta love trolls. If they have nothing to bitch about they will bitch about not having anything to bitch about.