Last year I noted that the greatest Second Life artists like AM Radio emerged during the prim-based, pre-mesh era, and reader Kon Loon just posted a thought-provoking comment riffing on that:
"The fascination of SL was 'to be in a wold and to create in a world' (80% in-world, 20% Photoshop while online to tweak and re-upload)... then sculpties came (30% in-world, 70% 3D software/Photoshop while offline)... then mesh arrived (5% in-world, 95% 3D software/Photoshop while offline).
"Therefore SL lost its purpose (as a creative tool) completely. SL became just the last 5% of the process (which is, for most, the 'selling'). SL is not the start of the creative process anymore as it used to be ('What can I do here?') It became the end where ideas from other 'worlds' are just imported (now as obj).
"Actually, already since the arrival of sculpties, the creative energy started to decline (since mesh it became obvious) as SL isn't the creation place anymore, just the display place. And therefore, became disconnected from the creative process (the fantasy vanished and the recreation of the real world became all-embracing)."
However, Kon Loom does believe there's a way Linden Lab and Second Life can recapture this creative magic:
"If Linden Lab wants to stay relevant in any form (especially as a creative outlet (and therefore with a impact back on RL -- which it had for a short moment), they have to provide the tools that the whole (today with mesh) creation process can be done within SL. From the 3d modelling to the texture baking (and editing), to the rigging, etc etc.
Linden Lab has to implement full operational 3D tools (maybe even existing freeware like Sketch-up) into the viewer that can compete with any external tool (and therefore become again what it was at the start). Only then will the drain of creatives stop, and people like AM will start again to ask, 'what can I do with this, how can i push SL's limits?'"
Overall I agree, and will point to a couple things: As I wrote in my book, Second Life's core differentiator during its early Alpha stage was prim-based creation. Since than, however, Second Life has become less and less about prim-based creativity, while at the same time, Minecraft unveiled a system very much like prim-based building. (Guess which one has 100 million users, and which has less than a million.) I hope Linden Lab notes this fact when building Project Sansar, because if it doesn't come with a prim-based system, it may very well suffer a similar fate.
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Yes,sadly very true. I put the whole mesh creating on pause, I spent hours and hours creating with only logging in to upload, and it gets very boring after a while. I have only one small objection, and that is the amount of full perms making it less of a cost (good softwares comes with a big pricetag) and knowledge (rigged mesh had a pretty complex workflow regardless of your previous knowledge about SL and computers) but yes still its offline work most of the time.
Posted by: Fred | Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 12:50 PM
Prim base building and texture clothes made Second life creativ for everyone. Today i have to say i was wrong about mesh it is not for everybody and some are badly optimized for use in a virtual world.
I takes a lot of knowlege to use the right way.
Posted by: Cyberserenity | Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 01:02 PM
I agree. As an animator and pose maker, I use offworld programs a lot. Uploading and boxing or prepping for customers can be robotic or dull at times. There are some inworld pose creating tools, but those just felt clumsy to me. Plus, they work best if the sim is very low lag. And not too many places are truly low lag. Offworld programs usually don't lag unless the computer is not optimized for running the programs and then you get into program freezing issues or crashes, or other issues.
Second Life needs to solve the lagging issue and increase the limit for scripts that can run in every region without that lagged feel and behavior that we all know and hate.
I like the display aspect, actually. It allows me to travel, if only to view sims that resemble the real life location. Though those real life sims are disappearing. I remember this one Italian sim that I loved with a nice boardwalk and a picture of the actual boardwalk in RL. I think it was modeled after a place in Sorrento, Italy. It was just gorgeous.
-Victoria Lenoirre
Posted by: Victoria Lenoirre | Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 01:44 PM
Everything I make is mesh, yet it is all build inworld with prims.
So it only changes if you let it.
For me nothing changed.
Posted by: Jo Yardley | Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 04:38 PM
As an animator and texture maker and I couldn't disagree more. (Okay,technically I could, but humor me.)
I think this represents very narrow views of creation and creativity. Does one really have to rez a native prim to be creative? Torture the thing, texture the thing, link the thing, to be creative?
No.
There are hundreds, nay thousands, of very creative groups in SL. Roleplay and community building are creative in, and of, themselves. It takes vision and drive to bring people together to work toward a common goal, or even in a common theme.
Decorating, landscaping, terraforming: designing a comfortable vista, or space in which to relax - or get manic - is creation.
"Artiste" types may prefer to think of these things as design, and not art in its truest form, and they are entitled to their opinions. But I see it as art. I can make kick-ass textures, which some folks view as art (I don't... it's more of a science, just like building with native prims in world). Design, art, whatever, it is creative.
There are dozens if not hundreds or thousands of writers and poets who get together in SL and share ideas and use SL as part of their creative process. There's so much inspiration. There are amazing and thought-provoking builds, of course. And those appeal to folks who consider themselves Literary. However, great story-telling requires great characterization, and there are a lot of characters in SL. But better still, there is a lot of dialogue in voice, where a writer can learn how people from other regions and countries speak, and text, where it is often easier to learn how others think. And of course, a lot of the writers groups in SL engage regularly in round-robin story telling. They could do that anywhere, but the ones I know choose SL because they feel more of a connection.
Another point: Most of the builders I know (162 on my friends list, 1314 in my personal group), rarely build with others. It's a solitary process, and it doesn't matter whether the building is done in world, or SL is just the display area for the building and creating that is done in other applications. If a person only logs in to upload, chances are good they rarely left their platform or the sandbox when they built in world.
And even though I have other points, the last I will address is this: By the time I first rezzed in 8 years ago, most of the people creating accounts weren't creating accounts to have a creative platform, they were creating accounts to make connections. Because they weren't easy to make, they left.
They still aren't easy to make, even though Linden Lab has made the UI more user friendly. They aren't easy to make because there are a lot of elitist attitudes, which began with the "artiste" types who couldn't lower themselves to reach out to noobs. And, as will happen because of human nature, the elitist attitudes infected the commercial builders and designers, who in turn infected the retail bloggers, who in turn have infected full time residents who've never blogged or built a thing in their SLives.
Moreover, this whole "OMG everything has to be *original* mesh!" happy crappy stifles the creativity of a lot of residents who would love to build with mesh kits, (or sculpts or even native prims), because no one will notice their work. They won't get feedback, in the form of comments (or the all-mighty L$) because their work is not original mesh.
Their work won't get seen because as we become a more mobile society in first life, residents rely on social media to find new things. Folks creating mesh don't want competition from people who are using kits, bloggers want things to blog, and it would seem they want to blog original mesh, especially original mesh from the elitist creators. You see the vicious cycle.
The Lab cannot fix human nature. It's up to the residents to keep new residents. It's a resident-built world. The residency has to be more welcoming and more tolerant to grow the residency, and to nurture creativity.
Myself included.
In closing: It's funny about the lag. The majority of our residents are not builders. And they will wade through rivers and oceans of lag at clubs and dance parties where there is healthy and fun conversation in local chat. They'll bitch and moan good-naturedly about it at retail events where others are talking openly and inclusively in local chat. In fact, they might not even notice the the lag after a few minutes.
Posted by: Kat Alderson | Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 05:39 PM
I think the worst possible thing ll could do would be include new tools. Don't believe me? How are those path making tools working out for you?
A working solution is to have a local mode for SL. A mode where you aren't logged in and you alone exist in a room only within your computer. Then you can use ANY tool you like to create anything you like, and test it on the viewer before spending money and time uploading it to SL proper. In this test mode, you get a perfect simulation of what your mesh or sculpt will look like, since you use the same viwer to preview and perfect it.
But since 12 year old bugs are unfixed and ll routinely takes the worst possible solution to any problem, I'd rather they continue to think everything is fine and not touch anything.
Posted by: Shockwave Yareach | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 06:57 AM
I'm not so sure on this. Bear in mind I have the first cube I saved (possibly the 3rd I rezzed) still safe in inv from jan 07 and also have the wonderful Ayumi Cassini 'Ultimate guide to prim twisting' still on speed dial. And that was updated July 2009 and has been bookmarked through 2 pcs and 4 browsers..
The tools that were there when I joined are still there - with bits added via TPVs I could not live without now (all hail whoever gave use copy paste for prim params - we are not worthy). But the canard that the use of external tools to create is just that. Although you can build some amazing stuff with what you get as a total newcomer (just check whats in the library - its great fun) even bringing in your first tee shirt involved external tools. Textures eg.
When sculpties came out, there were external tools almost instantly - and yep still use a descendant to this day. As for animations..
Right now, I have inworld tools to make mesh [cel edman] (actually a hybrid approach if you include export to dae etc), sculpties [naonao] and even poses [animare] and they are used. A lot. All of these have an external component it is true but really only the extra step of an upload.
And the beta grid (or even Simona) are there to experiment with for free and especially the Beta Grid - it has all the stuff the main grid has so don't even need any special 'standalone' setup.
Yep, I do mesh externally and qavimate etc but all that is driven by inworld sketches and ideas first.
The 'solo creative' thing - yep true to a point but now theres dae and xml to exchange and work on jointly even that is easier. And to learn.
I dabbled with Minecraft and yep - my reaction is wow thats so neat. I have a happy that people are using it to make stuff. Same as when I read of the new ultramicro boards ala Pi and newer. Neat.
The creative side of SL has never gone away from me and has led me to trying out so many things nothing else has come close to, from 3d building to procedural texture generation to animation to even discovering again the fun of coding for the hell of it. Also swearing but its how I tend to learn stuff (ref c#, Proceesing, the Blender)
Would I like more tools built in? Ambivalent with that but its just the path I took, so yeah why not. And there are places where that joy is still being passed on. NCI, the brewery, Caledon .. those spring to mind and I doubt I am even aware of a 50th of resources inworld, let alone the group side.
And this only is the building stuffs side - so many other creative outlets are there. As Kat Alderson said 'The Lab cannot fix human nature.' And I hope it never tries :)
Posted by: sirhc deSantis | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 07:04 AM
Kat wrote: "It's funny about the lag. The majority of our residents are not builders. And they will wade through rivers and oceans of lag at clubs and dance parties where there is healthy and fun conversation in local chat. They'll bitch and moan good-naturedly about it at retail events where others are talking openly and inclusively in local chat. In fact, they might not even notice the the lag after a few minutes."
yeah that ^^
builders bitch about lag, when it slows/interferes with their workflow
patrons of places like Hair Fair get lagged to death all the time at these places and just go oh! well. Fashion babeh!!! always comes at a price. with pain even
same when in a 56,000+ member group like SL Frees & Offers get lagged, in group chat or when get a shoutout for some hot new offer or MM then kaboom. 30, 40 more avatars all piling in to the sim on the teleport. All textured, meshed, scripted and blinged up to death. and they go lol laagg oh! well. Fashion babeh! we love it and we die for it and if thats what happens then oh! well. lag??? pfft!
the fashion products created by all them creatives which are bitching about the lag on their workflows. Compared to fashionista lag then builder lag is pfft! for sure
(:
Posted by: irihapeti | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 07:24 AM
Yeah, to echo the above, the core audience of SL certainly has changed, but I don't think it's a change for the worse as implied here.
Is a bunch of people who get together to pretend to be elves and goblins and vampires in a fantasy realm less creative than a sandbox hermit? They're more social, certainly, which seems to be SL's true "killer app": other people.
Posted by: Aliasi Stonebender | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 01:09 PM
I remember saying this when sculpties started to appear. Of course they weren't the first content item that required an external tool—skins and animations always have, and scripting might as well be an external tool for all the connection it has to anything else (I used to script in a text editor and paste the results into the script box inworld). But they all required that one interacted to see the results, observe those, make changes and round and round.
Being able to do the entire creation outside of SL and import it as the last step intrinsically reduces one's attachment, and there are far more alternatives nowadays. If I wanted to build something interactive for general access, and needed to use Blender etc anyway, and only send the final result to SL at the last minute, why not just use Unity?
Posted by: Ordinal Malaprop | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 02:47 PM
It doesn’t matter if most people don’t make their content from scratch. How many of us bake a cake from scratch, make our own furniture, or sew our own clothing? Even artists in RL use found objects and collage. What matters is the finished product – how it looks, what it says, how people relate to it, and how it impacts their lives.
Posted by: Persephone Emerald | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 02:48 PM
@Persephone
You just won the internet
Posted by: Dna | Friday, July 24, 2015 at 08:51 PM
Just reread the title of this post. Whoa! Isn't a platform like a display?
Platform has come to mean a software program base, right? Sorry if I don't explain it well enough, not a big software geek. So many words have multiple meanings now.
When I was learning to really write, I was taught that a platform was where objects and people can be displayed. A speaker's podium is on a platform or stage, an area from which we can see a person speaking or we can see a performance.
SL has always been a place to show off "the fruits of our labor." From the time I was learning to build with prims until now, I have always observed people's creations.
Inherent in SL, is the ability to display creations. That will never change. People upload in SL to show others what they can do. People upload photos to flickr to show others what they are doing. It's the same thing, right?
Ok I agree with all of you who commented on the lag. Ladies will brave the lag just to buy shoes or whatever. I just find it really annoying.
Posted by: Victoria Lenoirre | Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 12:04 PM
I find the lag really annoying.
Posted by: Victoria Lenoirre | Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 12:05 PM
An architect can make his home model in Blender then import it in Unity and create his scene. Then export from Unity into HTML5 format. Put the models into dropbox and then put the HTML5 code on a page. Upload the page to http://www.mymeshhouse.com and anyone can open their browser and completely explore the house with all possible details and camera viewpoints and so on. There you have the 3D experience. You can even use an avatar to walk around in that house and explore it.
Do you need Linden Lab for that?
Second Life should have remained a prim based world that did work and it was great. What is now is just dress up game and feed the animals game. It becomes more and more retarded by the day.
And we can all thank Ebbe Altberg and Linden Lab for this mess.
Posted by: Interesting | Monday, July 27, 2015 at 01:30 PM
In the virtual world everybody should be able to participate into the creation of the world and not 10 or 20 artists who create and then the rest can play around with those objects and that is it. People used to buy a house and then retexture the walls for the rooms as they wanted. People did even remodel the house, took out a wall or put in additional rooms. These days that is all no longer possible. Houses sell for 2 Dollars and most of them look like crap.
Creators used to work 6 months on a house and those were really interesting and well made builds. You could really experience the effort put into everything and such houses sold for 12000 Linden or more and people did pay that because they were worth it.
A 500 weekly skybox rental combined with a 400 Linden house and a sexbed. That is the Second Life experience these days, combined with the weekly visit to the dance club and tip the DJ 10 Linden make that 5 Linden cause who wants to overspend.
This huge mismanagement by Linden Lab has led to this current situation. I even doubt Linden Lab has a clue why their current platform does not function as it should.
Posted by: Interesting | Monday, July 27, 2015 at 01:42 PM
When mesh became an option in SL, I noticed a SINCERE drop off in people coming to me for custom work- why? Because why pay someone to make something, when you simply search the "web" find what you like, and import it yourself.....
They don't care if its a violation of IP rights- they just want...what they want, without having to pay for it. Its....been very, very obvious, as someone who for almost 9 years, has utilized Second Life as a sole source of income.
And they totally, care not, about the extremely high poly models they are importing.
90% of the models taken from the web, to import to SL, are NOT intended for display in such a game engine oriented medium.
Instead they are designed for high end production work for video broadcast/commercials and the like.
I've seen 75,000 poly high heel shoes-inside of SL... they were the most simplistic example of the most basic concept for high heels- yet they were 75,000 polygons------ Evil to force that on people in SL. Your average buyer, is not even aware of what they have purchased is a potential lag fest to display, calculate, render.
Posted by: Katana Woolley | Sunday, November 29, 2015 at 12:17 AM