Open Forum: Mesh Finally Goes Gridwide Across SL, What Do You Think & What Have You Seen?

Mesh is finally here across SL, Linden Lab just announced, fulfilling a Linden promise that it would arrive this month, but after many delays and false starts. I've written about what mesh will do for SL fashion, and just earlier today, for avatars and machinima, and now we finally get a chance to see it in action across SL. Please share links (screenshots and video) in Comments, as I'll be highlighting this evolution as much as possible in coming weeks (or months.) Just be sure to download the latest viewer, to get your mesh on.

Update, 11:40PM: Added what looks like the first YouTube video of a mesh object for sale in SL, a pretty cool looking alien avatar, shot by Blaze Borgin, which he reportedly bought for L$300.

Comments

[Damien Fate]

How exciting!

My line of mesh templates has now hit the Marketplace :D

Here is a mesh video too hot to embed on the blog! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYmkFCUZLZE (slightly NSFW)

[JJcccART]

LoL they released a product that didnt work in beta it crashes constantly why i wonder

[e (16)]

I tried on some mesh clothes today. OMG!!! I've put on 20lbs (:

Is cool tho.

[Rusalka Writer]

JJcccART, mesh is just one product in a long line that works for 90%+ of all users and doesn't for a small percentage. Consider that the problem is not with LL and SL, but on the user end. I've been part of the mesh beta for fifteen months or so, and LL has bent over backward trying to make it work for everyone, whether they have a cutting-edge computer or an old notebook running an Intel graphics chip. Be assured that the vast majority of us are using mesh successfully and the forums can help many people make mesh work for them, but that a small group of users will always have problems with new technology. Mesh will continue to change and improve, but it is functional. Make sure you keep updating your viewer, and try the mesh beta. One may work better than the other.

[Cinder Roxley]

A dress I purchased last night and filmed. The Sack Dress by JANE.

http://vimeo.com/28087765

[Random Creator]

No, the Lindens didn't bend over backwards for everyone in the mesh group. For some they never bothered to even get the downloads working.

Mesh is *a* tool in the box. It's not the only tool in the box, nor is it going to replace the other prim types. Many creators will never need/want it.

What it is being used for now is a whip or a knife to harm others .... 'You're not up to date, you refuse to change,' are some of the milder comments.

It's ART folks. Some people use film, some people use digital. Stonecarving is still an accepted form of art, so is printing on the latest greatest silicon chips.

It's the Artist's vision, not the medium that counts. If an artist can make incredible meshes, that are meaningless and soulless, is that somehow "better" than someone making incredible art with other prim forms?

I don't think so, and I think people need to get off the bandwagon and the soap boxes. Oh gee whiz it's super exciting, but don't beat up on others because you've learned a new computer program and you don't think they have.

I can't tell you the number of people have been incredibly rude to me this week because I have not released something *this instant* made from mesh. I am waiting to see it shake out. I have tried it and I'm working in it. That doesn't stop the haters.

I wish people would stop the hate. That there are two viewers is unfortunate; that one of them doesn't work for many users is a fact.

Jamming "you're out of date" in people's faces who are unable to use a tool is merely gratuitous rudeness, unbecoming the member of a community that needs to pull together to survive.

My 2cents.

[Metacam Oh]

Random Creator, who is hating? You seem to be making a story out of nothing. No one is saying transfer to mesh or die, no one is saying prims will replace mesh, just that mesh is very cool and a nice add on. If anyone is making a mountain out of a mole hill it is you.

[Ajax Manatiso]

I have to agree with Random Creator on this one. I posted somewhere else that I am not excited about mesh and not interested in switching to a slower viewer just to see them -- and got bombarded with a ton of hate posts. I go onto SL to interact and viewing SL artworks is not among my purposes.

[Mariko Nightfire]

I've watched the mesh alien avatar video. Am I suppose to be impressed?

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

I suspect that anyone comparing the avatar in the video with pre-mesh attempts to do the same thing, or the relative effort required, would be impressed.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

There's art and then there's art. Nowadays people say Shaker furniture is art, but at least at one time it had a practical function, and one can objectively determine how well and how efficiently it performs that function.

You'll recall Qarl Fizz né Linden writing in this very blog the following: "...but mostly, when gamers complain about lag - they mean the render speed lag (2), usually measured in frames per second (FPS). the single greatest reason for this lag is the inherent geometric inefficiency of prims. the (only) solution is the meshes project."

Does that mean all mesh items will be great? No. This is Second Life, home of user-generated content. There's nothing to keep someone from scripting who thinks that a great way to sort things is to shuffle them repeatedly until they happen to come out in order, and there's nothing to keep someone from creating or importing a horribly inefficient mesh--nothing but the workings of the market. Unfortunately, the information that is supposed to be available in a perfect market isn't available in SL; if you buy something that turns out to be slow, do you know whether it's because its creator wrote O(n!) scripts for it? Probably not, most likely you can't even see the scripts. Most likely you just shrug and say "!@#%!@#$! lag... !@#%!@#$! SL!" and go on.

SL desperately needs a Second Life equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories.