Mesh Survey: When Will COLLADA-Compatible Meshes Come to Second Life?

Online Surveys & Market Research

COLLADA-compatible meshes, a groundbreaking feature that's now in closed Second Life Beta, were once set to make their debut in Second Life proper by last June. However, according to Tateru Nino, who checked with the Lindens, they're now indefinitely delayed:

The mesh upload project has not been cancelled, but we do not yet have a timeline for implementation that we can share. As Philip remarked at the inworld meeting, we’re proceeding carefully to be sure there’s a way to implement mesh upload with a positive impact on the inworld economy and without a detrimental impact on rez time and frame rate.

Commentary from Tateru here, and metaverse developer Gwyneth Llewellyn here. Interestingly, the recently fired Qarl Linden (now known in SL as Qarl Fizz), who led the mesh project, says in yesterday's NWN tech forum, "The single greatest reason for [Second Life render speed lag] is the inherent geometric inefficiency of prims. The (only) solution is the meshes project."

However, it's still unclear when meshes will come to SL. So I put the question to the wisdom of the New World Notes crowd -- especially folks now at the Second Life Community Convention, who can discuss the topic with Lindens, current and former. When will meshes be a part of Second Life? Take the survey, discuss in Comments! Results next week.

Pictured: A mesh object from a Linden Lab demo video.

Comments

[Tateru Nino]

Errr. Wednesday? :)

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

DRUNKHULK TAKE COMPUTER FROM PUNY IGGY (Drunkhulk find capslock key too).

Drunkhulk say pointyhair CEO Linden man no have fingers and toes enough to plug all leaks in sinking boat. Drunkhulk think CEO Linden man need bucket, not mesh!

[Indigo Mertel]

I say by June 2011... :)

[Ann Otoole InSL]

Please LL start using original creations for public demos. *rolls eyes*

[Jovin]

While I'm in favor of them being made available as an option they will upend the current creative community, whether they're meant to or not. Suddenly many builders in SL will find themselves unable to compete with experienced 3D modellers or ripped-off content from 3D model libraries.

Could there be a way to build with prim's inworld and then have the SL client itself convert that build (or sections of it) into compatible meshes? That way experienced SL builders can take advantage of meshes without having to signup to Maya for Beginners classes. It might keep the creative playing field a bit more level, which has always been one of the attractions of SL, since introducing an option that isn't actually implemented in the official client is silly - even if that's what happened with sculpts.

If they were delaying meshes in order to implement THAT I'd happily wait a bit longer...

[Psistorm Ikura]

Well now that they fired the guy who was working on meshes, id say never. Which is a shame, since it was THE groundbreaking advance SL was needing imho

[camilla]

they always told me : " before 2037 "

[comoro Infinity]

Meshes, if they were even ready or in near-beta stage, would negatively impact the economy in the short term... incidentally Linden Lab only has short terms to figure out and pretty much no long terms at all. Don't expect anything in the next 12 months.

[Little Lost Linden]

I think mesh imports will be ready by tomorrow night.

[DMC Jurassic]

Based on direct comments from Philip Rosedale, maybe Q3/Q4 2011.

[Nathan Adored]

My understanding is that the OpenSim developers have been independently working on their own version of Mesh importing, and have been holding off on releasing it until SL roll out theirs, in order to make sure the OpenSim version and the SL version... don't don't break each other, or something. If LL have decided to push release of Mesh importing back another year... what is the likelihood the OpenSim developers might just say "Screw it!!!" and roll out theirs *now*? Would the likelihood of that increase the more time LL drag their feet on this? Or are the OpenSim people tied down by some kind of NDA? (Presumably, they too may have been given opportunity to see LL's work on Mesh support... provided they signed an NDA first.)

[Metacam Oh]

Linden Lab doesn't care about the economy, they care about how they can make more money, that's about it.

[Breen Whitman]

Introduction of meshes will take down the economy of SL like the Gambling Ban and subsequent land collapse.

For it not to do that, from day 1 of introduction of meshes there would need to be plentiful and price competitive products in world, and on XStreet.

Why is this?

For no other reason than people will throttle their purchases for item 2.0 (item 1.0 being prim items).

In terms of price competitiveness, this will be tied to people time/skills, and fewer will be able to invest the time. And for those already who have on prim builds - to reinvest time.

Regions, once showcase material, will pale as the new content builders slowly build new regions, those few then taking the spotlight away from hundreds(if not thousands) of showcase regions that exist today, rendering them as has-been. Disillusioned region owners will be forced to sell up as residents and shop owners bail to those greener pastures.

There will be blood on the floor.

[Breen Whitman]

@ Metacam Oh "Linden Lab doesn't care about the economy, they care about how they can make more money, that's about it."

SL economy health and LL income are synonymous. Excluding subscriptions and tier, turnover of economic items(purchases inworld and on XStreet, and Linden Exchange activity) account for a significant income for them.

[Samantha Poindexter]

Eh. I favor good old fashioned prims myself, but I reject Breen's scenario above. It's not as if we haven't been through similar transitions in the past. (Flexiprims and sculpties both come to mind, not to mention the current invisiprim/alpha layer transition.)

There are plenty of other reasons why SL's economy is screwed; in the overall scheme of things, mesh's effects would be minor.

[LokiLoki]

It'll be a viewer 2.0 feature? who uses viewer 2.0? maybe they will wait untill they create a viewer EVERYONE will want to use HAHHAHAHAHA HAHA

[Little Lost Linden]

"Introduction of meshes will take down the economy of SL like the Gambling Ban and subsequent land collapse."

Are the mesh builds really that good? Is there someone out there willing to break the fuzzy NDA so we can see what all the hype is about?

SL needs a little hyper boost as of late. The concurrency numbers seem very low. Anyone know when the next concurrency report is due out? Did a report get skipped or something?

I know summer is a slow time, but it seems extra slow this summer. Curious if the reports will reflect that or not.

I keep wondering when the 2 for 1 tier pricing is going to happen.

[Psion]

I see meshes and prims co-existing in SL. While a mesh delivers detail to structures that aren't based on simple geometric solids, prims are much faster to download than structures that are.

So while one would prefer to use a mesh to represent a flower or duck, it'd be dumb to use a mesh to model a basketball, wastebaskets, or canvas. A lot of structures in a virtual world are easily made from simple deformations of cubes or spheres. I'd build an observatory or grain silo or lighthouse from prims before I'd do it with a mesh.

The best builders will be the ones who creatively combine prims with meshes, going with prims to represent simpler solids while introducing meshes for intricate detail. They'll also be clever with vertex counts; carefully weighing the gains from extra detail versus download demands and sim CPU loads.

One last thing: I'd like to say as inoffensively as possible (like one buddy to another), that polling the community here about when they think meshes are coming to Second Life is pretty bone-headed. We don't have the information needed to render any kind of rational speculation on the subject. The people who do are the ones who work behind the virtual Iron Curtain of Linden Lab, and we're not likely to get any sort of participation from them in this matter.

[Nalates Urriah]

It does not look good for any time soon. I choose 2012 because I hope it is not never.

The delay offers OpenSim worlds a huge competitive opening. I no longer see Blue Mars as competition. Unity-3D is competition but I understand it is very difficult to setup and run compared to OpenSim.

May be LL management feels the competitive pressure is off. Letting Qarl go make so sense to me and suggests Collada meshes may be out all together.

[Metacam Oh]

The idea that mesh will kill the in world economy is absolutely ridiculous, IMO. Mesh would add a whole slew of new content and fun stuff, and I know I would go out and spend some Linden thats for sure.

[Cube Republic]

@ psion:

this wont be the case, having a load of prims with all there unique textures, hidden faces etc is actually harder on the server, than say 1 model with 1 texture.

If/when mesh hits the grid there will be, I suspect; a transitional period while people update their skills, just like there was with sculpties. Builds are not completely made of sculpts at the moment because it just wouldn't be a viable idea for most builders, as sculpts, with their curious LODs are hard to build with. I know there are a few outside cases. However, if you look at shoes and attachments, they are almost completely sculpted and baked these days.

The same will happen with mesh for building, because it does offer, unlike sculpts; a viable alternative to prims.

[Troy McConaghy]

In his SLCC keynote speech this morning, Philip said meshes *are* still coming, hopefully in public beta by the end of 2010.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

If any Lindens are reading this then you need to go read http://lordgreggreg.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/emerald-reassessment/

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

"Introduction of meshes will take down the economy of SL like the Gambling Ban and subsequent land collapse."

No, it's not like those. The gambling ban was a restriction imposed on SL. The introduction of meshes to SL is an example of what someone coined the term "creative destruction" for. I'm reminded of the line from Todd Rundgren's "Honest Work": "...'twas I who did arrange/to pay my union dues so I'd not have to learn or change." Content creators who can't be bothered to actually learn something will mostly fade away, save a few so good at their pre-mesh niche that they will still have a market, and that's how markets work, at least when they work right. I feel a little sorry for buggy whip makers, but not so much that I would deny the public the advantages of cars.

You see what Qarl ex-Linden, probably the best-informed person on the subject, has to say about meshes. I hope that quote spreads far and wide. Even if meshes didn't expand the possibilities for objects (and, I hope, avatars) in SL enormously. Just that, "The (only) solution (to SL render speed lag) is the meshes project", should cause a huge clamor for mesh support to be completed and brought to SL in general.

[Featherby McMerryweather]

COLLADA mesh support signals The End Times.

Also, it will ruin the SLeconomy, much as sculpties have. How will these sculpty creators be able to afford a copy of Blender or learn how to export as COLLADA?

[Vivienne]

Mesh import, if not carefully pwnalized, will kill the prim count ecosystem in very first place and within a very short time, and kill Linden Lab. And every game ripper on the planet will hammer another nail into the Linden Lab legal coffin. Give us in-worl mesh creation tools instead of unleashing another disaster, LL.

[Vivienne]

I forgot to mention that "updating your skills" means either updating your desktop with a 5,000 dollar 3D application or go for an illegal copy of a 5,000 dollar 3D application. If LL, as suggested, will tie Mesh upload to personal ID information, you can be pretty sure that for SOME reason the "ripped 3D app" method will not work without a certain risk. And you can be sure that it takes some time to learn the clumsy Blender, which isn´t even an accepted 3D authoring app standard.

And all you out there who call SL being a "market": It never was one and never will be one. It´s just LLs personal little casino wih hundredthousand content creators earning just as much as LL charges for server space.

Mesh import will turn SL pro, for the benefit of a few who can afford professional 3D authoring and have the skills to do so. This will cause a major exodus of these hundredthousands who will not be willing or able to compete - and cause a devastating loss for LL. And the ones who can compete will face an invasion of free, ripped objects from tenthousands of websites offering free 3D objects which only wait to be converted easily.

Forget it folks, if mesh imoport comes up, the sky WILL fall.

And Q. Linden was fired for some reason, right? He´s a coder nerd, and coder nerds should not get involved into any kind of strategical management planning regarding the future of SL as a platform. Unfortunately these nerds were involved way too much.

[Rodion Resistance]

Featherby said:
"How will these sculpty creators be able to afford a copy of Blender..."

Blender is FREE.

"...or learn how to export as COLLADA..."

When I first started out with sculpty's I said to myself "I'm never going to learn how to do this." Yet now I can make a fairly decent Venus de Milo in SL.

[bodzette Coignet]

"COLLADA mesh support signals The End Times.

Also, it will ruin the SLeconomy, much as sculpties have. How will these sculpty creators be able to afford a copy of Blender or learn how to export as COLLADA?"

That's tongue-in-cheek right? Given that 1. Blender is FREE 2. Both Opensim and SL are doomed WITHOUT mesh.

[Atila]

I would say most of you look at this issue from biased view. There are few facts: meshes will dramatically improve SL "look", the enviroment will be on a whole new visual level in a year. It wont look as cartoony and underdeveloped as it is right now. The technical performance will improve, unlike with the sculpties, meshes are actually very efficient both in draw time and the demands on your graphics. Another positive surprise is the implementations from lindens that will drive the creators to achieve reasonable effectivness and not overwhelm the servers and computers of users. There will be a flux of 3d models from other enviroments, but their numbers and quality are questionable, not to mention they will probably be inefficient and just crash the sim, so they will leave sl as fast as theyll spam it. Meshes will be the best thing that ever happened to SL, right now sl looks like a low detail 3d game, but in a year or so it will be top knotch graphically and your market wont be 100k people but closer to a million.