Linden Lab Adds Avatar Physics (I.E. Bouncing Breasts) to Latest Second Life Dev Viewer, Here's How to Get Them

The latest version of Snowstorm 2.6.3, Linden Lab's open source Second Life viewer (which you can download here at this link) comes with an impressive innovation: Avatar body physics. Which is a very high-faluting way of saying: Virtual bouncing breasts, and an avatar booty which responds to gravitational pull. Don't take my word for it, watch this Newtonian demo video by Whirly Fizzle, which is almost certainly not safe for work viewing (unless, that is, you work in burlesque):

Breast physics, as regular Second Life users know, have been part of open source, third party Second Life viewers like Emerald for two years, contributing in significant part to their widespread adaption by the userbase. (Arguably making them more popular than the official viewer itself.) When he became Linden Lab's new CEO, Rod Humble said, of third party viewers, "I do have various features I like from each that I think we should learn from." Maybe this is what Mr. Humble had in mind? (If so, then I'm inclined to say: Rod... dude!)

In any case, if you want to try this out on your own avatar (and really, how can you not), Ms. Fizzle helpfully has a how-to after the break:

"Avatar Physics is a wearble clothing layer. So open inventory, click the +sign at the bottom (Add new item) -> New clothes -> New Physics. This will make a new Physics clothing layer in your inventory. Wear this. Then go to My Appearance tab on sidebar, Wearing tab, and right click the Physics layer -> Edit Outfit. Click the Physics layer and choose Edit this wearable. You can then edit all the Physics attributes, which are:

• Breasts Bounce
• Breasts Cleavage
• Belly Bounce
• Butt Bounce
• Butt Sway
• Advanced parameters

"The first 5 all have sliders for Max effect, Spring, Gain & Damping from 0 to 100. Under Advanced parameters theres options for:

• Breast Mass
• Breast Smoothing
• Breast Gravity
• Breast Bounce Drag
• Breast Cleavage Drag
• Belly Mass
• Belly Smoothing
• Belly Gravity
• Belly Bounce Drag
• Butt Mass
• Butt Smoothing
• Butt Gravity
• Butt Bounce Drag
• Butt Sway Drag

"Again all these sliders are from 0-100. Once you've chosen your settings, save changes, and away you bounce!"

Thank you, Ms. Fizzle. And God bless us all, and protect us and keep us. Especially from the flying nipples which will soon be whirling our way.

Comments

[Ann Otoole InSL]

yay!

[Saffia Widdershins]

Oh for goodness sake, Linden Lab. Fix Search. Fix Group Chat. Try to make border crossings smoother.

And just, for once, stop thinking like sniggering fourteen year old boys and think about how this is going to be interpreted by the real world media.

"Second Life ... oh yes, it's that game where people have pixel sex with each other and they've now got bouncing breasts."

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I think it should be pointed out that these avatar physics are set by you so that others (in appropriate viewers) see them working on you - whereas the Emerald/Phoenix implementation was set so that the person using it saw them applied to all avatars.

Also note that the link points to a 2.6.4 dev build - it is not Viewer 2.6.3.

[dancinggirl]

Just remember this is the development viewer, and things will change. In fact the settings above have already changed.

[Seymore]

This is great. Sure us long-timers have known about breast physics for awhile now, but perhaps this is the sort of thing the main viewer needs to possibly get newcomers to actually stick around and spend some money.

And the people who bitch about what should and shouldn't be fixed...chances are the developer who's so versed in physics programming and things of that sort would know very little about the sort of database encoding which would be the basis for a search or that sort of thing. It's sort of like a different type of math.

[Missy Restless]

I applaud the effort by LL at providing a more realistic optional avatar appearance. I'm not 100% clear on how this is implemented. It appears this is a new clothing layer like the tattoo layer. If so, the effect (on you) will be seen by all residents but you will only see it on yourself and any others who have enabled it. This is different from Phoenix where if you enable breast physics you see the effect on all avatars. Plus, I am not 100% sure what happens to prim attachments (e.g. nipples) in this physics layer implementation. I think there will still be a problem with breast movement not coordinating with prim attachment movement but now it is exacerbated by the fact that all residents will see this not just those with breast physics enabled. But, I could be wrong. Can anyone supply technical details on who sees what when and the implications for prim attachments ?

[M.A. DeLuca]

These are obviously a huge improvement over the old Emerald approach. As Hitomi points out, you now have control over the physics of your own avatar; this means if you have nipple or belly attachments, you can simply disable the physics on those areas and you won't have odd bits floating fixed in front of your avatar.

I'm encouraged by this, but not for the reasons of a sniggering teenager. Realism has been neglected in SL for a long time. Improvements such as this and Mesh imports will radically transform SL and improve its immersive qualities. And Linden Lab *has* been making improvements to things like sim crossings -- there's still room for improvement, but I find it much easier to cross sim lines now than two months ago.

Search still sucks. Let's put a little jiggle into that, okay?

[Talvin Muircastle]

Hamlet, you are ignoring the many other features that make Third Party Viewers popular. Chief among them: a development team that listens. When I switched to Emerald and then Phoenix, it was for things that had nothing to do with Breast physics. I finally switched them on one day out of curiosity, and...I didn't notice a difference. Really, it's not all that.

I realize you have a fetish about this, but please leave it at home when you are pretending to be a respectable journalist.

[Ciaran Laval]

In some ways this is very shallow, but you hit the nail on the head when you point out this could be a popular feature that gives people a reason for using viewer 2.

Once the tittering (someone had to say it) has died down, this will be useful, especially for machinima.

Opensource Obscure made a video that concentrates more on all the features of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1xol1cCTwI

[Aeonix Aeon]

To me, the physics layer is something to applaud, especially in the thinking for how it is to be implemented. It's not a one size fits all, and there is control over how your body physically reacts versus everyone else.

I see this as a good first step towards taking a look at the features in TPVs and listening to what the community has long wanted or have been accustomed to. Of course it is not an end-all-to-be-all, but a nice gesture forward in paying attention to the community.

I look forward to other changes going forward and implementations, and even fixes for the things that are currently out of whack. Personally I'm happy about the physics, not just for the breasts - just for the added realism level being added for immersion. I'm sure it could be a precursor to other things like ... cloth physics... hair physics... (Soft Body Physics).

Teleportation between sims has definitely been improved with the compression, so border crossing could be on their list of things to do.

I think we're in for a lot of interesting things going forward, if only we are patient.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

@Saffia, priorities, priorities. LL knows it is never going to get much mainstream respect, and they know the males of the species: guys' heads are bouncing up and down, following the physics, and saying "Duh-uh, Search? What's Search? Border crossings? I ain't goin' NOWHERE, dude. Pass the Doritos."

Between this post and last week's flyaway prim-nipples, Hamlet, you might want to rebrand this blog "Nipple World Notes" :)

[Ann Otoole InSL]

awww you missed Opensource Obscure's early video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1xol1cCTwI

(he is like always first lol)

Here's mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whzQm9I-jfU

The fight with IMVU is on biatches!

[Hitomi Tiponi]

@Missy - the prim attachments won't move as you jiggle, so it will be best not to wear things like belly and nipple piercings if you are using avatar physics.

Viewers that have the code which can display them will see the avatar physics movement - this will be just the Snowstorm dev version (and some TPV dev versions) for now but will move into Viewer 2 and Viewer 2-based TPVs pretty soon.

[qarl]

anyone know who did the implementation?

[Whirly Fizzle]

@ Saffia While I do tend to agree with what you say, I think this is a smart move by LL. Viewer 2 is in desperate need of new shinys that the user will actually WANT, not what LL thinks they want. Looks like finally LL is starting to be intouch with what will be popular with the majority of its userbase.

I personally love this feature, though admittedly mostly for the LOLs. Its very well done, knocking spots off the the way its implemented in Phoenix Viewer.

Also in Phoenix, the control of the booby bounce is totally in control of the observer. They set their preferred Breast Physics settings & this is what they see on all female avatars.
We have had a few complaints from users who arnt happy that they have no control over whether they bounce to others or not.

However, something that has bothered me as soon as I saw how LL's Avatar Physics would be implemented is that there's no way for the observer to turn it off.
If an avi wears the Physics layer, they will bounce about with whatever settings they have chosen & anyone on a viewer that will render the Physics layer will see this. There is no "off" option for the observer, something which LL should think about adding in my opinion.
We've all seen the "Boob sliders to the max" avatars wandering about. This will be much worse. You can make a complete mess of your avatar with these settings, have your butt swaying 2m either side & following you 2m behind as you waddle about, while your belly trails along on the terrain - Some people will just NOT want to see that.

As far as Prim attatchments go, major fail. Nipple rings, Belly rings etc & the good 'ol freenis stay firmly put while the avatar does its jelly jiggle.
Im not sure if its even possible, but adding matching bounce to the attatchment points would definitely be a win feature.

Whirly Fizzle
Phoenix Support Team

[Ann Otoole InSL]

oh please whirley your team has titty jiggle griefed for ages. Now comes you saying there should be other controls AFTER LL decides to move forward. Implement to LL standards or be marginalized.

The faster people get on LL's viewer the more secure SL is.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Now Ann, stop being so darned snarky. There's serious money involved here.

Besides, one must admit that "Butt Physics" is a new thing under the fake sun.

[Metacam Oh]

How can you go wrong with bouncing breasts?

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Did anything ever come of the flexible sculpted prim experimental code? (And can we expect flexible meshes?)

[Doreen Garrigus]

Oh, flexi-sculpts would be so nice. Flexible meshes would be even nicer.

[Galatea Gynoid]

Meshes will be flexible through the "rigging" feature, if I understand correctly.

[bodz]

Well I have to say I tried it out and I like it.
Although clearly there will be much exagerrated use of this for burlesque type situations, this really does add to the realism of the avatar. Turned down low the settings add just that little percentage extra to the realism that's hard to place but really makes a difference.

Also: the implementation is so good I can't wait till they come up with a version of this for hair and cloth. It will be awesome!

[Rin Tae]

I have almost lost faith in ever seeing this again! It is after all months ago, that this bouncing-system has been shown for the first time and then it has dropped back into absolute silence like many other projects and needed fixes (script limits, search .. was LL not going to roll out a new group chat system?).

I have never used the bounce feature in the viewer because of its obvious limitation and lack of appeal for me but any step towards full-body physics is great!

Now if we could get mesh too then I would be happy since I still think that once this comes in, then in a matter of weeks, SL will be totally transformed (64m prims .. don't forget the 64m prims!)

[Adeon Writer]

Rigging isn't flexi and can't be used for it. Flexisculpt or Fleximesh would need to be a new feature for that to be possible.

[Foneco Zuzu]

Well lets see it on phoenix viewer:)
And Btw, I USE AND TRUST PHOENIX TEAM MUCH MORE THEN ANY OFICIAL VIEWER!
Thats for you, Ann Otoole!

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If this is the first step towards avatars that flex, twist, bend and deform like real people with real muscle systems over real skeletons, then bring on the jiggle.

I'm tired of dislocating my shoulder every time I strike a pose, only to be stabbed through the heart with my hair.

SL's avatar customization is at the top of the VW/MMO market, although aspects of it have become very dated. This is a strength that LL should continue to update, improve and capitalize upon.

Other priorities are more important, but they don't require graphics specialists.

[followmeimthe Piedpiper]

would someone like to post a list of reccommended settings? Ann??

[Nyoko Salome]

:) :0 i've already added a couple mod/copiable example physics pieces to my 'bounce on toes' free kit, along with a more wriggly 'superbounce' ani, lol to test them out! ;) log in with the dev, grab a set to try, and have fun! :)

[Kim Anubis]

Yeah, whatever. Someone let me know when they add "package" bounce and maybe I'll be less offended.

[disapointed :(]

Saffia Widdershins, i am glad someone soke like an adult about this, why are they spending there time on trashy disrespectful things to add to sl, and why not take the time to make things work better? it took alot of time for people to start to realize that they dont need to degrade themselves in sl, and though many people still are, alot have come a long way and see sl more as a place to create tasteful respectful to you and me, ART! but this, it is just begging for people to turn into "meat watchers"...more intrested in showing flesh then showing the best of themsleves. this breeds all the wrong things, and degrades people all the more. i really wish they would rethink this. :(

[Doreen Garrigus]

So, right away as a disclaimer I want to say that I don't use SL for romantic relationships or for sex. It is not my interest, now, and I have no plans to do so in the future.

But I do not consider making avatar bodies that behave like flesh instead of like plastic to be disrespectful in any way. I consider it one more step on the road to realism and something LL must do to keep pace with changing standards. The molded plastic mannequin look doesn't work anymore.