Ex-Qarl Linden Creates an Alignment Tool for Second Life Building, Offers Code to Third Party Viewers - UPDATE: Qarl on Still Working in SL & What Else He's Working On

This is heavy ninja: Qarl Fizz, SL name of 3D graphics developer Karl Stiefvater, who was recently fired from Linden Lab, has continued developing tools for the Second Life community. To wit, this spectacularly useful alignment tool for lining up prims on a single plane while in the building editor. Be-fricking-hold:

He has posted the code for doing this here. "Third party viewers (Imprudence, Kirsten’s, etc, etc, etc) please feel free to include this code into yours," he writes. "Linden Lab? Well... my rates are very reasonable."

Update, 10:55am: I asked Karl via email why he continues making tools for the Second Life community, months after departing Linden, and here is what he said: "I've never wavered in my belief that SL is the coolest thing on the planet. You won't be able to get me out of here without pitchforks and torches."

And as it happens, this is not the only Second Life-related he's still involved with: "I've been doing ad-hoc development work for projects in SL. I just finished coding a strip-mine simulation for the documentary Deep Down. Bulldozers and cranes and dumptrucks and explosions and a wind farm and a hydro-electric plant and solar panels on barns." As he puts it, "The Linden Prize has some steep competition this year."

Comments

[LokiLoki]

Can Qarl make his own third party viewer called "AWESOME" Viewer?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

"Linden Lab? Well... my rates are very reasonable."

LOL! I'll bet they are. You go, Q!

[Rob Knop]

Heh. Of course, if a third party viewer includes it, it means that he's allowed it to be released under the GPL, so at least Linden's Snowglobe viewer could use it. But... they probably won't, because they also want to be able to distribute a non-GPL binary version.

I can't help but speculate if beeing freed from some of the "strategic initiatives" of Linden Lab might enable Qarl (and maybe some others) to do really useful things for Second Life. Too bad everybody has to get some other job to pay the bills. Think of the progress we could make otherwise!

[Metacam Oh]

Why was this guy laid off again, and where was this three years ago

[Luci]

I want I want I want

[Nexii Malthus]

Interesting implementation.

Looks like he has alignment and packing down. A few others are missing yet though, such as distribution (calculates average distance between each closest object and sets that for even distribution). Wanted to do this for ages but the tools system is maddening to work with.

[Doreen Garrigus]

Whoa...that's beautiful.

[Kirstenlee Cinquetti]

Grabbed with many thanks Qarl, adjusted and coded into S20 for next release :)

[Nan]

Drums fingers while counting hours of manual alignment....

[comoro Infinity]

With 3D mesh coming nobody could care less about aligning "prims" :)
Growth or not... we know it is "NOT", IF SL will be open for business in a year... about everything will be mesh, especially houses. Qarl is way not surprising me anymore.

[qarl]

> about everything will be mesh, especially houses.

yes... but how will you get your houses to line-up? or your mesh bookcase to lay flat against your mesh wall?

tsk tsk...

[Ciaran Laval]

Everything won't be about mesh, prims are and will still be, the inworld building tool that many many folks will use for their builds.

[Maria Korolov]

Love it, love it, love it.

And I hear that the Imprudence folks have already added it in -- way to go, open source community!

-- Maria Korolov
Hypergrid Business

[Pioneer Genesis]

It is thanks to people like Qarl and teams behind open source projects that the Internet, virtual worlds, and the way people are communicating today, evolve.

If it wasn't for everyone who is doing something for love of doing it, we would all be surrounded by corporate companies demanding more money from us in order to educate others how to improve quality of digital life...oh hello Linden lab.

[Metacam Oh]

After going through the mesh beta grid as an amateur creator, I can definitely tell you prims will always be useful. The notion that everything will turn into mesh over night is ludicrous

[Loraan Fierrens]

Wow... this looks really helpful and very intuitive. It's something I've been missing for a long time. and I'm really looking forward to using it in my builds. Thanks, Qarl!

[Mistletoe]

So much want.

[Psion]

"Linden Lab? Well... my rates are very reasonable."

I'm now busting a gut in laughter! I don't know what possessed LL to dismiss you, but they're idiots if they don't swallow their pride and bring you back in. Tools like this *and* mesh make SL a much more interesting place to build in again.

[KyleG]

Well done Qarl!

[Adeon Writer]

I see it's been committed to Phoenix as well. Awesome.

[Adec Alexandria]

just wanted to say I have been using Prim Docker for years.. does the same and more.. nice to have it as part of the build... but it has been around for builders for years..

[Shipwrecked]

Nice tool. Thank you! Hopefully many will use it and we will stop seeing flickering textures from crappy aligned prims in peoples no-mod objects.

I don't know a lot about what is going on and it sucks when someone is fired and out of a job, but I have to wonder..why weren't these cool things being released when people were working FOR LL? I think that company is a pile of bullocks. Its reminding me of all of the creativity unleashed when people got out from under record labels and went independent.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Uh, it won't all be mesh any more than it's all sculpties now. A prim cube is still the best way to make... a cube. Lots of things are cubical.

Even with mesh, you still need 'em to line up, and this is useful, as pointed out above. I eagerly hope the usual run of TPV teams incorporate this soon!

[solar phoenix]

They won't. They take forever to incororate that stuff, Aliasi. Sad as it may be, its true.