Was Second Life's Move to Mesh a Mistake? (Comment of the Week)

Pictured (via NPIRL): SL fashion from the pre-mesh era in 2008 created by Eshi Otawara -- which sold in a Relay for Life fundraiser for a $1700 donation 

Reader Madeline Blackbart made a point recently I've been wanting to bring up for quite awhile:

Remember when everyone cried that mesh would ruin Second Life, and we all laughed like they were just chicken little?

They were right, to be honest.

While mesh did help keep SL up with the times graphics-wise, somewhat, it is definitely the cause of its monopoly issues. The skill level required to create mesh just makes it damn near impossible for your average user to make marketable items.

And once mesh body monopolies (here's looking at you Maitreya) took over, the creative freedom, variety, and artistry of the masses, offered by the freely available and easy to learn building tools in SL, were a thing of the past.

Sure, also learning building tools is difficult -- but it's nowhere near as difficult to learn as 3D modeling. And your average user doesn't have time for that, let's be real.

So mesh was/is a double-edged sword: Needed to keep up with other modern games, but the cause of the death of a lot creativity in Second Life.

She made this observation around the same time a longtime reader (Patchouli Woollahra) reminded me of some SL fashion brilliance (above) before mesh was introduced in 2011. And while I've seen much mesh-based fashion made with great skill,  it rarely reaches that pre-mesh level of innovation -- and for that matter, rarely steps outside the standard fashion template you'd see in a real world shopping mall, or in a real world fashion magazine.

At the same time, whether or not mesh has improved or hurt Second Life as a creative platform, it definitely hasn't grown its userbase:

For instance, Minecraft and Roblox-based creation is not mesh dependent, with Minecraft much more like prim-based building, and they are VASTLY bigger in terms of active users than Second Life.  (Hundred million-plus versus hundreds of thousands.) Meanwhile, SL saw no significant growth in user activity since mesh was introduced in 2011.

This might not be an idyll coulda-shoulda-woulda observation. Reader Summer Haas has a potential solution:

If you think about it, building with prims could have been a difficult task, but they gave us easy to use tools. The problem isn't mesh, it's that Linden Lab didn't build a mesh editor into the client.

They could have invested in an offline mesh creation tool specifically geared for SL and its avatars, that would be relatively simple for everyone, instead they spent 10's of millions for the 3 people that use Sansar.

[I]t wouldn't have to be as good as Blender, just good enough to let entry level people create basic to intermediate things. Would it be so impossible to have an editor with primitive shapes and allow them to be merged and extruded? That at least would get people farther than they are now.

That could still happen, and might actually be a way to bring in new users from worlds like Roblox, while also bringing some diversity to the SL economy. 

Comments

[milly]

I think there was a lot of creativity taken out of the game with mesh. It isn't just that you don't find fantastical dresses like the Fish hook dress, but there is a limit to what avatars can do with the clothes they own.

Pre mesh things like dresses were multiple pieces and outfits were rarely one texture so it was easy to take pieces of a dress or outfit and make something different. Some of this depended on how things were textures but you could take the top part of a dress, a jacket from something else, a skirt off another dress and put it together for a new look. Now outfits are often one piece and you maybe able to use a HUD to change the pieces but it's not the same. And trying to layer things is nearly impossible unless you just need to take a picture and don't care if the bits of mesh poke through each other.

I knew some people who could create a new hairstyle but editing a hair they owned or combining pieces depending on the permissions.

[Nebulosus]

Yes, I agree with Madeline -- mesh made SL into a world of consumers and content creators with a harsh line running right down the middle. I'd also say that the introduction of mesh pushes creators more and more to "realistic" looking content, which... is fucking boring. It has its place, but why recreate the real world when we can literally create the metaverse into whatever we want it to look like??

[Grace]

You have no idea how much hate mail I got for this simple post. http://phasinggrace.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-mesh-will-reduce-lag_19.html

[Osiris Indigo]

I’m really old school. I believe the “first death” was when they switched to a web based marketplace. In world marketing dried up overnight. Then came the mesh-ocolypse, which was the “second death” in my opinion. I know that prim tools were designed back in the DSL communications days, so why not give us new prim tools that allow chamfer, fillet, lathing and extrusion?.... I think truthfully, they lost all their talent.

It would be so easy to get it all back. Combine the stuff above with a market based on building and selling in-world and drop the tier to prices that assist people in the creation process rather than hinder. We all know that opensim can have 150,000 prims on 1024x1024 regions. Imagine how SL would bloom overnight if they made regions sell for $100 a month rather than having to take out a second mortgage?

[Han Held]

The box is open and all that's left to do is for Pandora to call pest control.

There was at least an illusion back in the 2004-2011 era that anyone, with a little effort, could learn the skills to create content; viable content.

I've found that even in opensim (much less Secondlife) -I've given up building and have simply started consuming. As an amateur there's seriously no way I'm going to be able to create something that can hold a candle to what's current.

Anything I make will look shoddy and substandard and will be a source of embarrassment rather than of pride.

People these days are bringing a lot more skills to bear -for instance with photography it is now standard to enhance your photos with postwork in photoshop with filters and brushes. You can't simply pick a windlight, enable shadows and call it good.

Mind you, GIMP is free and the tools (phototools in particular) are right there in the viewer.

The training isn't, however.

I think that adapting some rinky-dink in-viewer blender tools won't make a difference for the exact same reason. It's not just the tools -it's the expertise; it's having professional in-college-level training.

Training and expertise are absolutely required to make engaging content at this point in time. It's well past the point where you can learn it outside of school -at the least you have to take the equivalent course of study on your own.

It's just like the real world. No, you can't grow up to be president -sit down, STFU and vote for the rich turd. No, you can't practice in your garage and become an innovative musical act -sit down, STFU and consume your American Idol. No, you can't dink on an commodore 64 as a kid and grow up to write an operating system used on devices everywhere -sit down, STFU and use your Android. No, you can't become the next Barnesworth Anubis -sit down, STFU and consume your mesh goods and misc events.

Social mobility has pretty much been wiped out as a thing -replaced with inequality and passive consumption. It's across all of society. The divide in virtual worlds is merely an example of that.

Adding mesh tools to the viewer won't change that dynamic (at this point nothing really will). It will simply clutter up the viewer.

[Anonymous]

I think there is a clear divide in mindsets here. I joined SL very late (around 2014) and it's laughable to me that anyone would prefer prims and system avatars over mesh.

[camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Han:

Mesh does not obsolete parametric or sculpted prims. Many designers (at least those not designing rigged mesh) often still do initial blocking out and prototyping in parametrics. The viewer codebase already allows for exporting primsets to static COLLADA, ready for use as partially inefficent but usable mesh, or for further work elsewhere.

"Anything I make will look shoddy and substandard and will be a source of embarrassment rather than of pride." I should point out to you that embarassment can sometimes be an impetus to go harder. Further more, there are ways to design with parametric prims and sculpties that can still not be matched now even by mesh. Everytime I start to think in such a pessimistic way, I sit down and sharing cake with inworld friends out of a ten-year-old hairstyle. That often stops me from fretting about it fast:
(Cake Hairdo for reference: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Curio-Obscura-Let-Them-Eat-Cake-Off-Of-Your-Head/615021 (Has to be seen to be disbelieved))

As for training being an issue in getting people onto mesh - nobody has ever come into Second Life knowing everything they needed to know about how to build and texture with parametric prims. Why would there be any reason for this not to be the case with mesh, an endeavour that has significantly more depth and breadth, but also more lessons available? The Parametric approach to building has its merits, but it was also limiting in a Galapagos sort of way and that was not necessarily a good thing at times in terms of giving creators creative possibilities. (and no, I don't think introducing sculpted prims - a method of representing point placement of a limited bolus of geometry using the colors of pixels in an image map - was a solution either in that it was also unique to SL/OpenSim)

As for "It's like the real world":

1. Nothing will ever quite be like being President of the United States, but the Confederation of Democratic Simulators has a functional government complete with political parties, and it's not namby pamby roleplay, these guys take their stuff seriously. And it's half the time the rich guy loses
2. SL is home to a rich musical talent community, quite a few of of whom have gone on to become stars at some level or other even if under different names IRL. I believe Hamlet has mentioned Dizzy Banjo and Chouchou recently, and this blog has had a history of covering other musical talents occasionally.
3. Nanite Systems RLV controllers in SL actually run on a lightweight OS spread across multiple LSL scripts in a manner one would assume of a system designed to simulate mechatronics controls on an android, complete with a working API, basic scripting in Arabesque and LSL and hardware mods of all weird kinds. I don't care if you're offended that a lifestyle toy can be so complex, it's not the only case of "I built an OS as a prayer to my deity" SL has had. Chalk it up to creativity being sugar-borrowing neighbours with insanity.
4. Even Barnesworth Anubis had days when he was peddling dinky houses in only three different designs out of a corner stall. Everybody's small when they start. The key here is that they started and that they don't stop.

As for social mobility being dead: it isn't. After 13 years in SL, I still see newcomers in the creative fields in SL, and I see oldbies drop off to enjoy their SL more, only to suddenly pop back in and stir up a whole new batch of poop with new things. Personally, I've gone between being a noob, an actress, a medieval reenactor, a mentor, an educator, a artisan banking $500 a month in actual cash off commissions and toys, and a pariah. In random order and direction. Often, more than once. Often, in more than one role at the same time. Don't tell me it seems confusing, because I know it is.

Mobility means things can happen in both directions as well. This is mainly down to people being bloodyminded enough when faced with a need not being met to get creative about making something to fill that need.

If it also winds up being a solution or service that can be sold to others for at least pin money, great, but let's not get cut up if it turns out that your market consists of only you, it still counts as creativity, and in SL, I still believe creativity is the biggest currency in the land. You can have all the tier and land and L$ you can bankroll, but without creativity in the loop, all things will ever amount to is a limp Linden Land landscape, an orange haired noob in a white shirt and jeans (that'd be your avatar) and a plywood cube for a hat.

And that would be a bigger tragedy than what you think is a tragedy in your post. :p / xD

[Pulsar]

Market and competition aside, in-world creativity was part of the fun in SL. Sandboxes were full of people building houses, spaceships and all the crazy stuff. You could cooperate, learn from others, socialize (except trolls). Now sandboxes are mostly used to rez clothing boxes.
It's worth to note that "sculpties" required about the same skill level of the current mesh items to be made - you needed an external 3D modeling software too - but their capabilities were more limited and so you still needed legacy layers and prims to compensate. Still, overknee boots were terrible, adjusting a bunch of prims was a pain, and that bunch were inflating your inventory several times more. Prim and sculpt animal, monster and fantasy avatars (e.g. those sold by Grendel, now they have modern ones too) couldn't be animated so well and so smoothly as the current ones and they were slower to rez; on the other hand, you could adjust every single piece. Moreover, scripts can load a different sculpt-texture for some special case (e.g. Primpossible had one that could morph into any different furniture).

Everything has pro and cons.
But killing the in-world creativity was really a terrible con.

I agree, there should have been a function to merge the "prims" into "mesh" items in-world, but possibly auto-optimized a little, doing what you would do when you import a group of prims in Blender, removing the double, overlapping, hidden/unnecessary vertices, etc.

[Lina Pussycat]

I will say this as someone who has been in second life for 14 1/2 years. This idea that mesh is bad because it makes you feel lesser somehow is at best idiotic and at worst maliciously ignorant. We don't just halt the advancement of stuff because it might make you somehow feel like an inferior person or designer. You being embarrassed by your work or feeling somehow inferior is not anyone's problem but your own.

A lot of stores died before mesh and before sculpted prims and other shit. I know tons of skin stores that had to shut down because people got better at making more realistic skins and those that refused to learn to broaden their skill set in the realm were left behind. You can still be plenty creative with mesh, with normal prims, and with sculpted prims. The issue at hand is people that refuse to adapt or learn new things as time goes on. You get complacent with what is there you lose out.

I've seen countless stores in SL close over the years in SL because the designers of products in them literally were not releasing new products in any sort of steady time frame and that still happens now. I was part of the major growth in the clubbing scene in second life as well as the live music scene. I used to know about half of second life and could never go anywhere without seeing people I knew I have a long history here and I used to build heavily in prims. I adapted and started to use mesh in builds and have even gotten permission from designers to get a model of their buildings and modify them in blender for my own usage (most have been cool when approached properly about this so long as I promise them not to sell items).

Those refusing to adopt are refusing to learn a worthwhile skill set that can honestly factor into a whole slew of virtual worlds and not just second life. You can learn this skill set and translate it to VR virtual worlds that are popping up ,sell them on places like turbosquid or similar, get good at doing stuff and make items for daz, start making game assets to sell, start making architecture items in sketchup, go into commission work for making models or renders for people and the list goes on and on and on. It is refusing to adapt out of stubbornness, lethargy, laziness, some combination of the above, or really just at this point I'm not sure with some people.

The ones I see whine the most about this stuff are people that have always refused to adapt and learn and think that learning and broadening their skill set is somehow a bad thing. Only a fool truly thinks they've learned everything they can.

You do not need official schooling or anything of an equivalent course. I was creating 3d models long before I ever had any sort of "official schooling". Some of you (Han) seem to have a complete and utter stick up their ass about any sort of advancement in society. There are tons of acts formed from practicing and getting people together. A lot of bands that would of never gotten noticed got noticed because of ADVANCEMENTS in technology. Those that were good with prims and the like and are still around learned. Barnesworth Anubis is stil around because he learned and adapted and didn't have a hard head about shit. He still makes houses and they have turned to being MESH now.

Han by all measure you are just a stubborn person that thinks that because you feel slighted in having to actually learn a skill set that is outside your little basic comfort zone that it makes shit bad. You also bring up the US president. It has and always will be rich schmucks. Almost every single US president in the history of the US has been from an affluent family or built up massive wealth before becoming president. There are also plenty of music acts that aren't freaking idol (god your world view is so ignorant). You can still putz around and make your own operating system.

You seem to think android just manifested out of thin air. Android was a project before google bought them and it was just some guy that was trying to make something to replace blackberries that ended up becoming a big thing for mobile operating system. The training is free. There are tons of free tutorials on blender, lower cost modeling applications and the like. Literally tons of tutorials surroundings second life in particular, blender, gimp, and lots of other programs.

I can tell you I've taught multiple people 3d modeling and game design well enough for them to BUILD a portfolio and get into the game design business and I did so before I had any education on the matter and have probably forgotten more about the stuff than you could probably fathom. You still had to learn how to work with prims, how to texture well, how to modify well, and how to piece everything together properly to get stuff to look good in second life long before any of this shit. At this point not adapting and complaining about it is literally just you as an individual being a stubborn ass and not wanting to learn or poke your head in.

I was able to do and teach a lot of this stuff before I was 18. It doesn't take "professional expertise" it takes wanting to actually sit down and learn and do something. Your type are just slothful and lazy and never want to learn so you just complain and complain instead of learning. There is even free resources for blender such as blender noob to pro wiki book and tons of not super pricey (often on sale) tutorials on varying sites like udemy (they are having a big sale at the moment with a ton of tutorials under 20 bucks) and udemy has 346 different courses for varying things with blender. There is stuff that starts you out from square one even. There is even tutorials on how to learn to start using it to make rpgs or battle royale games in unity.

This idea that learning something new takes creativity out of shit is silly. The people that were not going to create were never going to create even with primitives and the people like you Han that never advanced their skill set are also people that never really had an interest in being anymore creative than you were at the time you discovered Second Life. Creativity expands and grows with you and it only gets better if you learn things.

Also pulsar. How exactly does it kill in-world creativity. The creators I knew were always the ones that created. Most non creators only ever resized their shit or what have you if something didn't fit right. The people that still want to be creative can be creative. It didn't destroy creativity in-world it just added other elements to it. And you can mix normal prims in with mesh as far as non rigged buildings go. I actually frequently did it when I helped some people build and sell basic homes.

[Trilo Byte]

Mesh (3d model import) didn't ruin Second Life... but the way it was implemented by Linden Lab ruined it. Not just because it created a greater divide between the creator and consumer classes, but because there were no meaningful safeguards to keep IP theft and content ripping at bay. Prior to the ability to directly import 3D models, creating items involved a combination of in-world tools and/or outside software to create specialized sculpties. Unless there had been a permissions error or glitch or someone's goods had been copybotted, makers were relatively safe from bad actors and unfair competition. The way mesh import was implemented made it easy for nearly anyone to bring in questionable IP from gray market sources. That led to the market being flooded with RL knockoffs and copies of all shapes and sizes, and eventually also to things like 3rd world content farms.

That flood of outside content is also what led to the current issues with poorly optimized content. It wasn't made for Second Life (or in many cases any game engine), and the person "creating" the SL item doesn't have the modeling skills (or interest) they'd need to optimize content.

[Han Held]

Han by all measure you are just a stubborn person that thinks that because you feel slighted in having to actually learn a skill set that is outside your little basic comfort zone that it makes shit bad.

(god your world view is so ignorant).

the people like you Han that never advanced their skill set are also people that never really had an interest in being anymore creative than you were at the time you discovered Second Life.

You've been here 14 years? Congrats, so have I ...fuckass. But wait...who the fuck are you? Some jackoff that makes tattoos and owns a yiff club? At least according to your profile.

Your whole rambling spew is a mix of self-congratulatory delusion, dubious (or at least unsubstantiated) claims, deliberate misreading, strawmen and bad faith arguements.

Since you're an asbolute fucking moron let me boil down the point I was making for you.

To Be Relevant one needs to have college level skills -absolutely. To create up to current standards, yes -absolutely.

Basically, you're saying you're self taught. You had the time (didn't have to work because you were under 18, was it?) to learn the equivalent of a bachelors in art. As I read it that's the claim you're making.

Bully for you -for real. Doing the equivelent work of a BA is hard, hard work. But having done that, you're trying to minimize the amount of work it takes to create anything that is relevant today.

You cretenous jackass.

There is a difference between being able to write an operating system and have it reach a critical adoption rate.

There is a difference you resounding flaming fuckhole between putting a home made music video and being able to reasonably expect that with work you can have a viable career at it.

The person mostly responsible for Android you flea-ridden semen sponge would be Linus Torvalds. Who wrote the Linux kernel. Without google -based on what he knew of Minix. No Linux, no Android. You knew that though, right? Of course you didn't.

You hold up a claim which no one is making ("This idea that learning something new takes creativity out of shit is silly.") presumably because you've spent the last five days on a non-stop binge of self gratification that it's affected your reading capability.

No one is arguing against learning new things.

I have learned how to set up virtual world servers (mostly opensimulator -but also a little high fidelity), administrate websites, build inworld using prims and converted mesh, mange people and projects, budget and administrate groups -and that's only addressingwhat I've learned relevant to SL you stool slurping knuckle pumper.

That's not covering what I've learned regarding operating system and design, emulation, photography or any of my other hobbies.

My primary point -which you would have had to have addressed in order to refute, was that the barriers to entry to viable and relevant market creation have increased to the point where it is impractical to people who live and work in the real world (and aren't holed up in mumsy's basement studying blender cradling their waifu pillow) can come in and create things which are up to current standards.

Yes, people can take a zillion Udemy courses -if they don't have families to feed, jobs to do or rent to pay, to learn the needed skills.

But that is exactly what needs to be done to be relevant.

Class and socioeconomic mobility have flatlined compared to even 20 years ago, the barriers to entry across multiple fields has been raised to the point that people new to the field cannot expect to "learn as you go" and be relevant.

You seem to miss the fact that there's a difference between being a creator and being relevant -perhaps because you're not.

And that's fine -me neither, at this point. However only one of us seems to have the appropriate self awareness and perspective ...your perspective seems to mostly consist of fumes, bile and other by products found in the last stage of the human digestive tract.

There is one point where we agree -that there is malicious idiocy in these comments. However the truth is that the one who points out the fetid stench is likely the originator of same -and that would be you, Lina.

In closing: your post was bad and you should feel bad.

[Han Held]

As for training being an issue in getting people onto mesh - nobody has ever come into Second Life knowing everything they needed to know about how to build and texture with parametric prims. Why would there be any reason for this not to be the case with mesh, an endeavour that has significantly more depth and breadth, but also more lessons available?

Of course they havent. The difference between the time I cited and the current age is that the barrier to entry was lower (yes, because the tech was in many ways crappy). While some people did in fact come in knowing 3d, graphics design and more -it was still possible for folks to come in off of the street and with a little effort (an NCI course here, and NCI course there).

The Parametric approach to building has its merits, but it was also limiting in a Galapagos sort of way and that was not necessarily a good thing at times in terms of giving creators creative possibilities. (and no, I don't think introducing sculpted prims - a method of representing point placement of a limited bolus of geometry using the colors of pixels in an image map - was a solution either in that it was also unique to SL/OpenSim)

As for "It's like the real world":

Nothing will ever quite be like being President of the United States, but the Confederation of Democratic Simulators has a functional government complete with political parties, and it's not namby pamby roleplay, these guys take their stuff seriously. And it's half the time the rich guy loses

The CDS has changed since you've visited I suspect. Come check us out some time. We don't have factions any more; but we have regular events and (from what I understand) a more upbeat and positive crowd than we had in the bad old days.

Even Barnesworth Anubis had days when he was peddling dinky houses in only three different designs out of a corner stall.

Probably in Boardman, if I'm not very much mistaken. Yes -and that's half of my point. It isn't possible at this point to come in "cold" (off the street, with no training) do some self-study and be able to create competently (much less actually compete) and establish oneself as a dominant (or even viable) place in the market.

Those days are gone forever -over a long time ago.

I don't agree with much of your post -but I do appreciate that you made it without rancor -thank you!

-Han Held,
Chancellor of the 29th Representative Assembly
Confederation of Democratic Simulators
https://cdsdemocracy.org

[Han Held]

My comment above was in reply to camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra -unfortunately we seem to be unable to edit our posts to make corrections.

My apologies!

[camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Pulsar: unfortunately, the remeshing tech you described requires a lot more horsepower than the average SL resident can field even with a GPU doing part of the compute work needed, and is mainly the province of indie/professional 3d dcc software like Blender and Maya etc. It also tends to produce unwieldy geometry depending on the fidelity you demand out of it, further work by hand often needed to improve results.

Not necessarily something that could be easily popped into the viewer codebase without a significant hire of a team with experience developing 3D DCC tooling.

[camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Han:

Pleasantly surprised at that response to my mention on CDS. it is heartening to see it still exists even in the face of the cost of SL being what it is on that scale, based on ye olde "Money Where Your Mouth Is" principle.

I need to share that I've kind of slipped into virtual dotage myself. I'm still working with mesh and doing occasional mesh work but usually for low-rent causes and simple requests. so yes, I can partially understand what you were getting at. Which may have played a factor with me opting to taking it easy. Also, being impolite is best reserved for people who need a hard dose of reality, not a even-keeled debate. (Seriously, do NOT go looking for my Twitter account, it has more rancor in it than Dathomir LOLOLZ)

[Your World, Your Imagination]

This little rant by Lina Pussycat pretty much sums up the problem that's left with so much of the remaining SL population. It's like the sludge you get when the river has all but dried up. It's an unhealthy situation to attract new people.

Mesh is wonderful, but it was introduced in a short-sighted and half-assed manner. It was SL's deadly trade deal that sold out it's middle class for a quick buck.

People come to SL to pretend. It SHOULD be easier than real life. The technology should make it easy for people to live out their dreams. Their dream is to be a fashion designer, not a consumer. Their dream is to be a model, not a virtual doll assembler. Their dream is to be an architect or interior designer, not a home owner with a mortgage problems and budget constraints.

Contrary to the opinion of the remaining self-congratulatory diehards that have obsessed their way to this point of SL's existence, the bulk of the world isn't motivated to come to a virtual world to worship your elitism. They are people who have worked as hard or harder than you have to be successful in places that are unrelated to this game. They are willing to pay real money to buy their own pretend trophies to live out their fantasies of being successful in situations that real life can't give them. This was SL's original mission and it's been failed miserably by it's management.

It's all about "IMAGINATION". Repeat that until your little brains absorb what it means. It was never about sweat, blood, and technical skill. That's what people are willing to lay down their hard-earned real life cash for and why they don't want to do it any more. It's up to LL to create the tools to make that easy to do. It's their job. LL needed to advance their skills to keep up with the times, not the paying customers. Monopolies were created because skill became a scarcity and that's the failure of the game and LL. It's the reason they fail everything. Their mission is now exclusive, not inclusive.

This game is about dreams and who is able to conjure up the best ones. That's who should win this game... those with the best dreams to share.

[Lina Pussycat]

My little rant really? No it hasn't created sludge. I've been in SL 14 1/2 years. I helped bring up a lot of what SL was over the years in world. Your little quote at the end is what SL is still about, but your gutter snipe ass little child attitude is so short sighted that you go "la la la I can't hear you". The only person here with little brains are those that have some freaking problem actually advancing into the future. It isn't about elitism it is about actually sitting down, using your god damned head, imagination and learning a god damned new skill instead of being a child that has a damned attitude that everything needs to revolve around your skill level.

And Han no no you do not. I have not EVER needed a college education to stay current. Your attitude stems from you either being incapable of learning shit or having no desire to do so, but that isn't the fault of design. These people like Your World. Your Imagination and you that seem to think that you can just add in mesh in some half assed in world manner really have 0 idea on 3d design and the actual freaking impact trying to do anything like that in rael time would actually cause.

The original mission is still there it is just that your eyes are so filled with your own crap spewing out of your mouth that you cannot see it. Those barriers to entry increased, but they are not out of bounds and you can still build in world. You just opt not to again because you don't want to try. This idea that you can just sit on your ass and have everything handed to you is absurd. I started second life 14 1/2 years ago. I couldn't figure out how shit worked in world. I couldn't properly texture, and a slew of other things. This idea that it is "much harder" to actually get into making mesh items is frankly absurd and comes from very small minded individuals like you that just "gasp" at some kind of mysticism to it.

You opted to learn other skill sets, but it is you that is the knuckle dragging type. You are just mad you can't actually get good and need to be a flaming little cunt waffle about it Han. Get te fuck over yourself and grow the fuck up for once in your god damned life you little petulant child. I'm sick of your little shit heel attitude. A ton of people started music careers putting shit out there. Christina Perri used to put out covers and original songs online just singing on youtube crap to a small channel and made it big, there are couuntless others.

Reaching critical mass when writing an operating system takes diligent work and spreading things out there and making sure it is something that is good for the masses. You have your head so far up your own ass with your own hubris that you might as well just look like a giant piece of shit. Honestly I don't know where you get off thinking that just because YOU personally cannot do something that you need a college education to keep up. You are really just a jackass that tries to pretend you have anyone's best interest at heart other than your own.

And there is the crux of your argument a ME ME ME ME ME attitude of fucking epic proportion. OHH NO SOMETHING NEW WHERE I HAVE TO LEARN SOMETHING TO STAY RELEVANT WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LEMME JUST PULL OUT MY PETULANT CHILD ATTITUDE AND WHINE ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF ADAPTING AND LEARNING SHIT. Look I was going easier on you in my so called rant than I could of, but lets be real - Those complaining about mesh are being short sighted children and that includes you. You do not want to learn a new skill set so you bitch and whine about your irrelevance to no end instead of actually tackling the problem head on.

I'm far from someone with elitism. I always tell people I was far better at teaching 3d design and game design specific than I was at ever doing it because quite simply I was. You on the other hand want to feel like you are some sort of elite so you make up utter nonsense tripe.

[Claudiairis]

I cannot comment on the past of SL, I have been a resident for a little more than a year now, and the only thing that sincerely caught me is the possibility of creating (what I do also in RL) and writing about my experience (I leave the link for whom I am interested, but it is in Spanish, my language). My last note was about the problems we have to face those we build or create in SL. Photoshop Management, 3ds Max and I am learning Z-Brush, I also know the tools to build SL I am not very interested in the Blender, although it is the most used external program. I understand that these tools should add, not subtract. There are countless objects, settings, accessories, avatars, etc. that can not be done with the construction tools of SL, and the truth is that the quality achieved by some creators is admirable, and I think this is a contribution. The lack of creativity and originality, comes from copying, templates, theft, resale, and many other factors, and is very evident in some areas, such as clothing (something that does not interest me, but I think is the most profitable commercially speaking.) I think the Linden should improve the construction tools, although I don't know if this suits them, since they charge for uploading everything you create in mesh, and it would be important to keep the great creators in mind, There are and they are great. (Sorry for using translator).https://www.facebook.com/Second-Life-Las-cr%C3%B3nicas-267302563920686/

[Cathartes Aura]

Second Life has now morphed into a place I don't recognize. In 2006 when we all had access to the same semi-easy to use building tools and a level playing field - land tier wise, the place was BOOMING. Filled up with activity and buzz. And very cool interesting people to meet and socialize with. It was a pleasure to go in-world back in those days. Even to do work. Fun! And now?

Not Fun...

Second Life's been stagnant for more than a decade. Unfriendly "people" - see above posts. Unfriendly places... Filled up with azzholes - see above. No thanks. If I wanted to be around azzholes I'd be playing GTA V.

It became a burden to go in-world. Like getting a tooth pulled... And who's fault is that? LL's Board of Directors. And their string of incompetent CEO's. "They" rigged the SL economy to benefit a few at the expense of the rest of us. And the end result of "their" moronic decisions over the years?

Is SL better because of the string of INSANE decisions since 2006? More prosperous? Growing? The obvious answer is no. SL's been on life support for over a decade. Pull the plug... Whatever it once was - your world your imagination. It's over. And it ain't ever coming back... ;)

[Just Jimmy]

Geez... Some of y'all need to chill a bit. Happy Holidays
Ho ho ho peace on earth etcetc.
Lina and Han... Go in world and blow off some steam! Laugha bit love a bit build a bit consume a bit... But stop hammering each other!

[vwfan]

I'm one of the creators from the old days of SL who really enjoyed prims. Although, they had their inefficiencies especially when getting into complex designs. The in-world creativity, sanboxiness and collaborative building feeling was great.

While I welcome mesh, Linden Lab went about it wrong. There's quite a bit the Lab could do to improve the user experience, creation workflow, feature sets and responsible content creation. So many years passed, so many missed opportunities. If they worked on it more, I think working in mesh would be worthwhile.

Although, I still would like to see the old tools brought up to speed. Others above mentioned some good starting places for features.

[Summer Haas]

It really is a shame that they didn't put the money and effort they spent on Sansar into development tools for SL. Sansar was a knee-jerk reaction to High Fidelity because they thought it was going to steal market share. Now that that mess has been put to bed, maybe SL will get that focus that should have happened 2+ years ago.

I would really like to see some basic mesh building tools added as a client side option. You would still be logged in and interacting but able to make and manipulate mesh shapes on the fly until you commit them to the server as a new object. This doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult to implement and would go a long way on retaining users who feel that learning external tools is too much to ask.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Serious déjà vu here.

We never had complete in-world tools. You can't create textures in-world with virtual paintbrushes or airbrushes on canvases, or do virtual tie-dye, marbling, or batik. Instead, you must use out-of-world tools like Photoshop that require a great deal of training to use well, and which can be very expensive.

(And to repeat myself again, effort expended on in-world mesh building tools can't be devoted to something else SL might need more. The last time I recall this discussion coming up, SL had significantly cut back its staff. Will SL do as well as tools like Blender, or will it wind up with something like LSL, thrown together quickly like JavaScript but without the vast resources of browser makers to overcome its limitations?)

Art is influenced by the tools used to create it. Oscar Ogg, in The 26 Letters, shows this for the various hands and type faces over the centuries. In SL, you can see this by comparing the very Art Deco Varosha Buddha, built of prims, with the Buddha built up of slices in Lime. (These regions may no longer exist; check out http://vidasegunda.blogspot.com/2007/11/place-of-great-calm.html and http://vidasegunda.blogspot.com/2009/02/sliced-lime-buddha.html for pictures I took.) Somewhere, I'm sure, there's a sculptie and a mesh Buddha.

Is the prim Buddha beautiful? Yes, though it's not an exact replica of a real world Buddha statue. Is the sliced Buddha beautiful? I'm not sure, but it is admirably ingenious.

Whatever your medium, making best use of it requires effort and study. You just have to decide what you want and what medium you can achieve it with.

The thing is that in SL you're not just buying or making wall hangings or furniture. You're buying or making how you are seen in world, and people for the most part don't want to be art deco abstractions or Ruth or blocks or one of a limited selection of pre-fab shapes. To do it up right, you want mesh for bodies and hair and the like, and you need the ability to customize it.

[Wili Clip]

I think that idea that LL could create an in-world 3D design tool for creating mesh is an excellent idea if its technically feasible.

The reason for success of Second Life and its early growth was because it introduced the tools of online creation in 3D environment. That same thing is the reason for massive success of Minecraft. Its very easy to build and create. Concept is very simple. Tools created to simplify creation while at the same time they'd still enable advanced use is the good way to go forward.

It is amazing that in within the same space/environment we can socialize, learn,create, test, market and sell our creations. And most importantly in this same space we can meet, share ideas, invent and create together with people from all over the world. Second Life is that space where we can do that and much more. Second Life is a space that also represents a pool of global talent of different skills-sets. Such online space if further improved or if any other new is developed that is based on those same concepts that make it easy enough for general population to socialize and learn to create within it can become the future of how we connect, cooperate and work together on a global scale.

Second Life offered people ability to create things inside this online shared space that is 3D with unique appeal because it is similar to our known natural environment. Inside Second Life we do not just create but we can also learn how to create. In SL everyone can share experience how to create and collaborate together.

Linden Lab could do very well with Second Life or any other similar project if they as organization gained a deeper understanding of process of human creativity and focused their energy and investments into creation of new and even more advanced tools for SL Residents to use and create with. New tools can foster further innovation and creativity of the masses that has so beautifully been expressed through SL. I believe LL as organization currently still has more than enough revenue to dedicate some small percent into creating new small creative teams who would explore new possibilities, experiment and develop new tools in-world.

With Second Life being today an unique global pool of talent and an amazing educational environment, LL has an unique opportunity to learn to mobilize and promote creativity and energy of the masses to further expand on what already works.

In my opinion LL could restructure into a learning organization and focus more on development of tools and keep improving existing ones iteratively.

SL is alive and it is ever evolving and should be treated like a living organism that needs help at its evolution. LL employees should be encouraged to organize into small teams behind creative new projects. Each project would implement something new into SL. The teams should make it possible to include more people to participate in the creative process and help with the projects. SL is full of creative and passionate people who would like to see SL grow and succeed even further.

SL needs new tools and things to be able to keep evolving just like a living organisms need mutations to gain new abilities to survive in ever changing environment. LL as an organization also keeps evolving and changing. Whoever is operating the LL space-ship or setting up a new one needs to be aware that the product like SL needs to be improved iteratively and this process of creation can never stop.

Concept of a virtual world as a tool or space where people can use set of tools to make magic happen is similar as the concept of a computer as a tool with its ever evolving programming languages that enable magic to happen. When computer went mass market it was not yet known what will come of it. I believe its similar for 3D simulated environments. Currently the best is still Second Life. There isn't anything like it.

In my free time from usual work in SL I am working on a creative and educative experiment. Through this experiment in SL I want to see what happens when people are put in a social environment where they are encouraged to freely share knowledge, experience, information, help each other at setting common goals to create and enable new things for the community that they co-create (from simpler to more complex systems).

For now its a small hobby project in-world of which goal is to create a FREE, easy and fun way for people to learn how to use LSL scripting language. It will feature fun, easy tasks that upon completion will earn players levels. LEVELS serve as a proof of their process and status in within the community. As players will level up they will acquire more and more scripting abilities (computer coding skills and understanding of it). After tasks for reaching 1st 3 LEVELs I'll release/announce the education game in my SL group with 15000+ members and everyone who reach LEVEL 3 will be able to suggest how to make the game even more fun and easy for newcomers who are taking their 1st steps into a world of coding. As the community forms it will provide valuable feedback on how to further improve and add LEVELS to reach to the game. Together we will create mini script products, simplified standards that we will work and learn on. If it takes off it will be interesting thing to see what the power of creative community can create.

[Cathartes Aura]

Minecraft doesn't use Mesh. 99% of building in Minecraft is done using in-world building tools. Minecraft has millions of daily users and is absolutely successful.

Second Life ain't. It's not successful. And hasn't been since 2006. Forcing builders/creators to do all their building/creating using out of world tools is obviously a complete failure.

The Mesh-Only diehards will never admit that it's imposition has led to an exodus of SL Residents, and Builders. It killed off building and creation by the vast majority of Residents.

And that was the entire purpose of Second Life. To foster creation and building by so-called "non-professionals". Create Your World Your Way. People who never had ANY experience doing textures, creating 3d Objects, scripting, etc. were all exposed to these things and were doing them successfully. And then Mesh hit...

Those who push Mesh only and NO in-world tools to do it want to limit the number of creators/builders in SL. It's good for "their" bottom line. Good for "their" "business".

So, keep up the mesh-only talk, keep up the "it's impossible to have in-world building tools for Mesh" talk. It's "you" who are killing off SL for good. It's been one of the main drivers behind SL losing Residents for over a decade and has SL circling the crapper.

LL pissed off millions and millions of dollars on absolute STUPIDITY over the last decade - "they" should have spent it on in-world Mesh Building Tools.

And for those who think this is still debatable. Look at where SL is - is it booming? Successful? Does it have millions of active daily users? Are more people building/creating now than did in 2006? Are folks chomping at the bit to install SL and become a resident?

The obvious answer is No... ;)

[Your World, Your Imagination]

Lina Pussycat, I think you need to approach this from the point of view of a customer. It's what you have to do if you want to make money. You can berate customers all you want. It can make you feel all superior, right up to the point when you have to start reconciling your books.

Over the years, the customers have said their piece about SL. The numbers don't lie and they don't support your view. The more difficult SL becomes to navigate, the less money it makes.

Your ME ME ME argument is unhinged from a business point of view. It's always about me, I'm the customer. I'm the one who is paying premium dollars for the service. Yes, I want to grow, but It's up to the provider to make sure that my experience stays within the reasonable confines of their service. If they can't provide me with the tools I need to use their service, then screw them. It's not fun. It's complicated drudgery. I'm no longer my character. I'm not socially engaged. I'm not part of my SL anymore. I'm just me and I'm thinking do I really aspire to be a 3D modeler? No I don't. If I have to go out and become a student again, then I'm going to go learn something that's relevant to my earning potential or something that's going to bring me joy in my real life. I'll take a cooking class, sewing, or maybe I'll take up oil painting.

You're a horrible advocate for SL. You're the poster child for the person nobody wants to end up being.

[Old Hand]

Some of the replies posted here typify what is wrong with Second Life - demonstrating an attitude of self-righteous entitlement and an inability to accept positive change.

Keeping Second Life relevent entails introducing improvements one of which was Mesh. As an aside, it's all mesh, anyway. The only difference is that so-called 'prims' are pre-made mesh objects, as opposed to custom mesh objects.

Creating custom mesh obviously requires more skill than simply putting pre-made (and tortured) shapes together. Inevitably, this does raise the barrier to creative entry for those unprepared to continue with the basic prim building blocks.

I first tried Second Life 11 years ago, and even at that point, the things that could be built in-world were being bested by things created from and with assets produced in 3rd party packages and imported to Second Life.

Houses with scripted lighting and doors, and photo-real textures were not created 100% in-world, for instance. However, that didn't stop people from making more basic houses in-world and it still doesn't stop people from making things in-world.

It's perfectly feasible to wear a standard SL body and make and wear prim clothing.

The other side of this it that the tools for creation in-world haven't changed. They remain functionally very basic and have an associated basic usability.

That's all

[Miriam]

Looks like this time SL is actually doomed, since in the past 10 years SL became inaccessible for people who can't afford expensive computers that still can barely handle Sls 20 years from the future content. LL lost plenty of people who would have migrated from teen platforms such as Habbo if they weren't met with a slideshow and crashed the moment they tp into regions with a few meshed out 1-2million polygon and multiple 1024x1024 sized textured avatars. Gamers who buy more powerful machines are usually not interested in what is basically "The Sims: 3D Chatroom With Some Extras". It's the social types, the Sims and Habbo players with low and mid range computers who are most likely to be intersted in SL and those are the people that are being driven away.

IMO SL could be way more popular today if LL would have put up restrictions on what mesh content can be uploaded and enforced polygon and texture limits for avatars.

[Eliza]

I was very active in SL from 2005 until around 2014. I still pop in from time to time. Usually surprised to see some of my market place items still sell occasionally. I don't think mesh damaged SL as much as a lot of the other poor decisions LL made in the 00s that tried to force the wacky anarchy of SL into some 'internet is serious business' model. It may have turned a bigger profit, but it killed the 'what crazy thing is going to happen today' vibe that drove me to log on and spend hours a day bouncing around and having a ball.

[Leah Shikami]

Here's my two cents. I've been in SL since 2008. I have created things that I still sell on Marketplace. I have owned land and created many environments there. I have tried to learn Blender several times, and just didn't stick with it long enough to "get" it. It's not easy. My opinion is this. I LOVE mesh objects because you are always up against the land impact limits and it is brilliant to be able to have a gorgeous bed, house, desk with accessories, kitchen pantry, etc. for an absolute fraction of what the same items created with prims used to be, and they look much better - organic shapes, detailed textures, it's wonderful. But it's true, as a builder I can't compete with mesh built objects without learning to build with mesh. I have "cheated" by buying full perm meshes to incorporate into my builds, but that is limiting and you still have the texture issue to deal with. So bottom line, I am really glad SL has mesh now. And if I want to built mesh objects, then I have to learn Blender, and it's on me. I can and do still use prims for simpler things, it's not as if they have been taken away. I haven't tried the in-world prim-to-mesh converters, but I may. Although they apparently work for some people, reviews for these don't seem to be so great and they cost a fair amount of money to take a chance. People who want to build and sell in SL seriously find the time and will to learn Blender. There have always been "special skills" in SL - scripting, particles, MoCap for dance and sex animations, etc. and those who are drawn to these learn them. Same with Mesh.

[Pride Vice]

I am on the fence about mesh items.
I love the fact that items that you use, such as beds, homes, buildings are a great idea that allow you to save on the prim allowance on most grids, however i dont like that they cause more lag on sims.
They may look nice as clothing as well, but ONE SIZE does not fit all! Such as system creations do, SO now it looks like a bunch of cloned bodies walking around in different skin just to wear mesh clothing. But wait you cant wear mesh clothing that fits this other mesh body type without it looking to big or inside your body. Yes there are alpha bodies, so now we have become ghosts?!?
I feel that mesh bodies/clothing were a mistake and has killed open worlds, but i feel that objects that dont overtake your avatar were a great idea.