Left and right: From August, bakes on mesh when using the updated SL viewer... and a 3rd party viewer at the time (as featured here, photos by Rhonda Huntress via this thread)
Great discussion last week verging on a rant in this post about the gradual, imperfect efforts by Linden Lab and the community to adapt Bakes on Mesh to Second Life content. An anonymous reader suggests the fundamental problem is far larger that that patch:
This really always comes down to Linden not doing its job, just trying to push its work on others.
New engine
New engine
New engineIf their current employees can't do it, then... get people who can or lease an engine that works the best with your files. It's 2019 and you're trying to constantly stitch together a 2003 engine time and time again. I'm pretty sure when the engine was made in '03 they couldn't even think of ray tracing,GPU Power, virtual reality, peer to peer, or even blockchain. All we can keep doing is fighting 'cause the company is lazy, and keeps saying downgrade downgrade back to '03.
There is no incentive for mesh body creators and clothes makers to update in Second Life. They don't get monthly payments from their customers , so it's really just you don't like it, "thanks for the fish" mentality. It's said in the Slink group chat everyday.
BOM won't be truly a WTF moment till the next Bento update comes up and they have to update their bodies to "BOM versions that are downgrades" and they say, oh yeah we stopped supporting your body that you paid for and liked for system avatar 2.0.
There's definitely a sense where upgrades like Bakes on Mesh and Bento feel like welding Ferrari chassis parts on a car with a Model T motor. In any case, another reader argues that Anonymous' points "don't appreciate the difficulty of upgrading a system that has been in almost non-stop operation for sixteen years and where upgrades need to get it right on first or second bounce as rollbacks may cause bigger problems than they solve." Which is also true, but here's Anon's reply:
That just seems like a straw man argument and fanboy talk, shutting down criticism because I'm not a computer programmer. [It] doesn't mean I'm not aware of tech and shouldn't [speak].
Wow shouldn't I be able to cross sim boarders? Oh wow my avatar did this yesterday, but can't today.
Wait why do I have to buy the same skin again when the UUID didn't change?
Wait why do I have to make my own alphas in paint when I didn't before?
Wait I don't get the big update because I didn't buy the whole store of feet and hands.
Games go dead from bad patches and ban hammers all the time. I want Bakes on Mesh to work, but it won't work if it's a consumer downgrade. I never say it's not a technique update, I always say consumer for a reason.
Do you really think a new engine at the end of the day on a program 17 years old wouldn't improve 99 percent of the problems in SL? I only say new engine now, because it doesn't seem avatars will ever be able to go past the system '03 avatar. If the new technical update needs to limit avatars back to system, then the writing it on the wall.
In many ways, Sansar was Linden Lab's attempt to create a whole new engine (which they did). The company once suggested that some transfer of SL content into Sansar would be possible. But that's something Linden Lab rarely talks about now... which may have been the writing on the wall there.
Anyway, it might not even be necessary to switch to a new engine. Instead, why not add another engine into the viewer (say Unity with a back-end provided by Improbable), one that's associated with a new Second Life continent that only supports the latest and greatest in 3D graphics? (During the teleport phase, the viewer would just switch to the new engine and back-end.) That way, users could still keep their existing content, while also start dipping their toes into a new world.
I sit in that group all day working on my own stuff, and I have never seen the comments you are claiming other than misunderstandings that designers will eventually add alphas
Posted by: Tuesday | Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 04:23 PM
...A crappy rant too. Might be time to find a new blog that knows what they are saying.
Posted by: Just no | Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 08:38 PM
What are you kidding me?
No man this not right.
Posted by: Kalpana | Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 10:23 PM
Unless you're logged in 24x7 you aren't going to see all the stupid rants in a group. But it is a fairly pointless rant.
No one has to make their own alphas. Plenty of people are making or giving away alphas that will work in most cases for your clothes of different bodies, the same way they worked for multiuse cases for fitmesh and standard body shapes.An alpha for a pair of pants or a jacket will generally work with another pair, mix and match, try and see. I've got alphas coming out of my ears that can fit most things and there's always adjusting a body shape. A lot of people forget that. Perhaps this is just a Slink thing? Maitryea users are still waiting to update but are still using Bakes on Mesh with a relay successfully.
Sim crossing varies by region and weekly updates. Seems to be better or worse day by day and always has done. It's still WAY better than years ago. There's been a lot of improvements in Secondlife and while I'm critical myself on occasion and agree it's far from perfect it's still better than it has been in the past.
Would anyone want to go back to how things were in 2009-10?
Posted by: Mondy | Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 05:04 AM
I agree with Mondy. There is also who used to sell clothing already with alphas before BoM, for the various mesh bodies plus classic mesh/fitmesh sizes. So it isn't really anything new for clothing designers to add alphas in the box. And it is much easier to use than messing up with alpha HUDs or auto alpha slices that work but sometimes don't and you have to wear the outfit again. Also for designers there is more creative freedom with BoM, as they are no longer constrained by the limited shapes of the alpha slices. Not to mention that with BoM you can save the outfit with the alphas in your normal saved outfits window.
As for Maitreya Lara, that body in the current state doesn't work well with Bakes on Mesh: you can change skin and tattoos, but that's all, alphas don't work on it. Being not mod you couldn't even fix it. You have to wait for an update... and BoM has been released 2 months ago, and it is on Firestorm since 1 month ago. Since Lara is the most popular body, it is delaying the adoption and giving a completely wrong idea about how to use BoM. Some people think it is complicated and needing HUDs, while in fact it is as simple as changing skin or dressing the classic avatar.
Posted by: Pulsar | Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 07:29 AM
This guy hates everything about Linden Corp and SL and claims to be a fan. Major whiner. Yes he called it a rant. Starts his blog post with a picture from SL viewer and a "Third party" viewer. What is the most used viewer? Firestorm. Did they adopt BoM already? YES. so the article Loses all credibility. More people use Firestorm than anything. Its like whinging that your web site doesn't work on some random Mozilla web browser that .01% of people use when it works on Chrome. Firefox and Internet explorer. Dude is a dope.
Posted by: MICHAEL Skosh | Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 07:33 AM
The economy is just not large enough to account for the resources an engine swap would require. LL is a small group, with very few programmers. They did bet on Sansar which has failed, I doubt they can do it again. The only thing left for LL to do is to force what's left of the SL users to Sansar and maybe patch up a way to migrate their assets to the new platform, maybe put together a semblance of a viewer that would run on macos and that's pretty much it.
Posted by: cormoran | Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 08:04 AM
If Anon understood game engines, then they would know that nobody knows how to do that. It can't be done, period.
Posted by: Jolene Benoir | Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 11:01 AM
"Instead, why not add another engine into the viewer (say Unity with a back-end provided by Improbable), one that's associated with a new Second Life continent that only supports the latest and greatest in 3D graphics?" It's a nice experiment, if you could convince LL to do it. They just created a new continent, and that is their preoccupation. It's doubtful they're going to just willy-nilly create continents to test game engines. At least for public use. It would be easier to implement a choice of island sim creation using Unity as an option. This way, when it breaks, everything is local to the island, and easier to spot.
Posted by: Joey1058 | Monday, November 04, 2019 at 05:30 AM