New World Notes

Does the SL Community Care Enough to Clamor for Well-Optimized Mesh?

Pictured: Slink Redux body bundle, a rare example of popular SL mesh avatar content that's also well-optimized

Last Friday I wrote about the new Black Dragon viewer update which checks whether a mesh avatar is well-optimized or not. Reader "Down With Underboob" (LOL) tried it out in SL over the weekend, to see how much mesh content was poorly optimized, and came away shocked:

So I took Black Dragon out for a spin at a fairly busy club. There's only one avatar in the place who is "decently optimized" per the report. This guy is wearing a system avi and system clothes... I like what BD offers, but please get real. Nobody wants to go back to looking like an avatar from 2008. Photographers like to use BD's capabilities, but again, they're not going to use system avatars to pass these complexity tests.

Show me some mesh bodies, heads, and clothes that pass these tests and don't look like they're from 2008, and I'll consider trying them. Does he think we're all going to run around bald? I don't want Warcraft hair in SL. Until then, I'll stick with what I have. I'm satisfied with the 15-20 fps I get at this club and I can get upwards of 100 FPS when I'm hanging out on my platform at home in Bellisseria.

I'd also point out that he's tilting at windmills if he thinks designers are going to start posting complexity/triangle counts in their vendor ads.

I'd say it's the responsibility of the many SL bloggers and YouTubers to report on the complexity/triangle counts of the content they feature, warning them that high poly items will likely cause lag. Failing to do so would be like a real life fashion reporter failing to mention the clothing items they're recommending are made of toxic materials.

As to her request for optimized mesh to try out, Slink is among the few mesh body creators well-known for optimization.

But is there a market for good optimization in general? Reader "Seph" thinks not so:

Top 5 Posts Last Week Including an NSF-Funded Study of SL During the Pandemic, and How Oculus' Facebook ID Requirement Harms VR Developers

• New Black Dragon Feature Shows Your Much Lag Your Second Life Mesh Avatar Is Causing (Likely A Lot)
• VRChat User Survey: Will You Buy The New Plus Subscription?
• Roblox's Jaw-Dropping IPO Filing: 31 Million+ Daily Users, $589M+ In 2020 Revenue, Most From Mobile; User Creators Earned $209M+, Up 3X From 2019
• Acclaimed VR Game Developer Locked Out Of Oculus Platform Due To Facebook's Mandatory ID Policy -- Warns Of Its Dangers To Developers In LGBT & Other Vulnerable Communities
• SL Users: Please Take This Survey From UC Irvine's Tom Boellstorff On Your Virtual World Usage During The Pandemic

New Black Dragon Feature Shows Your Much Lag Your Second Life Mesh Avatar Is Causing (Likely a Lot)

Pictured: Niran in a Belleza 5.2 Bento mesh body -- which has over 1.5 MILLION triangles

There's a new update to The Black Dragon viewer for Second Life, and it comes with a great new feature: An option to check how well-optimized your mesh avatar is -- and shows you via a color code whether it is (green) or poorly optimized (yellow/orange/red):

So rather than confusing the user with an artificial "maximum" it now clearly states that it is simply recommended to stay below a certain point. Reaching this point also no longer immediately results in the "super bad" red rating but rather gives you the "eh" yellow/orange rating, see it as warning. As before you get a summary of all ratings together, right now its still very simple but i might actually add a 3-point answer that takes the 3 worst offenders and gives you hints and possibly even guides (or links to those) how to solve these.

As previously reported, most of the top-selling mesh bodies in SL are very poorly optimized, and a key culprit for Second Life's poor performance in general. Linden Lab refuses to do anything about this -- the CEO basically told me "So what?" when I asked him face to face -- but Black Dragon creator NiranV is a passionate advocate of optimization, and wants to improve SL's environment:

Carmen King Explores Sansar as Only Carmen Can -- And Has Tips for Making It Better

After basically becoming the queen of Second Life YouTubers, Ms. Carmen King reluctantly donned her dusty Vive headset --"I get insane motion sickness... [and] "normally can't last 10 minutes in VR", she says -- to re-visit the social VR world of Sansar.

"First time I tried,"  she casually notes, while getting strapped in, "I saw people trying to fuck in the middle of the ocean."

No such luck this time, but she does narrowly avoid an alien probing and inevitably wields some dildo-shaped hand controls. Further Carmen-esque NSFW hilarity ensues, so just watch.

"Sansar seems really fun and I love how smooth the game runs," she tells me now.  "Virtual Reality makes it a lot more exciting as you feel like you’re actually in the game!"

Sansar was originally developed by Linden Lab before its acquisition by Wookey; but does she prefer it to Linden's original world, Second Life?

VRChat User Survey: Will You Buy the New Plus Subscription?

NOTE: If you're viewing this on a mobile device you might need to tap-slide-scroll on the survey below to view and take it:

After many years in free-to-play Beta and seeing impressive growth, VRChat is finally offering a paid subscription option (details here and summarized below). But are VRChat players actually interested in paying? Please take this survey, even if you're a very casual VRChatter -results shared next week!

Friday Fashion Tips for Tween Avatars from SL Style Blogger Arti Love

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I love Arti Love’s self-named blog. I also love the pun, “Art I Love” whether intentional or not. He has a young teen/tween blog that is great fun. I mean, I didn’t know I needed “The Little Prince” in Second Life, but now I see Arti’s Little Prince, I sure do. Mostly I need the asteroid and the stars. 

• ::C&P:: Asteroid B-612
• REALISTIC ROSE DECOR – RED by Mad Match
• {anc} nebra beads [Heavenlyblue]
• {anc} nebra beads [sungold]

More for boys who never grow up ahead. 

Roblox's Jaw-Dropping IPO Filing: 31 Million+ Daily Users, $589M+ in 2020 Revenue, Most from Mobile; User Creators Earned $209M+, Up 3X from 2019

Above: Image from ROBLOX's stock filing, data from the first 9 months of 2020

ROBLOX just filed its Form S-1 in preparation for going public, giving us a good glimpse at the virtual world platform's metrics. And they're pretty amazing! I'm still digging into it, but its 2020 standout stats for me so far:

31 million daily active users in 2020, nearly doubling since 2018:  "Daily active users, or DAUs, on Roblox grew 47%, from 12.0 million DAUs in 2018 to 17.6 million in 2019, and grew 82%, from 17.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2019 to 31.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2020."

52% of Roblox's revenue now from mobile apps: "For the nine months ended September 30, 2020, 34% of our revenue was attributable to Robux sales through the Apple App Store and 18% of our revenue was attributable to Robux sales through the Google Play Store..." The vast majority of Roblox's activity is from mobile usage too: "[D]uring the same period 68% of our engagement hours on the platform were from users who signed up through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store." 

With nearly $600 million in 2020 revenue for company by September, total annual revenue could exceed $800 million or (with the new pandemic quarantine and people indoors during the holidays) even reach toward $1 billion. But how much of that revenue is shared with Roblox's user creators, who make the bulk of the games and other interactive entertainment on the platform? That brings us to another interesting point:

SL Flickr Photographer of the Day: Banana Lecker

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Banana Lecker’s photos are fun and often light-hearted microblog. I love this picture with her enjoying a hot cocoa at an outdoor food stand. It’s a wooden handcart, a rare sight today. Living in a city of over 500 food carts, though, it’s nice to see the culture honored in Second Life. 

More fashionable photos ahead:

Watch: New Video from Yasushi Watanabe, Top J-Pop Composer Who Created a Spinoff Project Based Around Second Life

Dropping on YouTube just an hour or so ago, here's the latest music video of BYNORAL, aka Yasushi Watanabe, a major figure in the J-Pop world (he's composed songs for top girl groups AKB48 and Nogizaka46) who earlier this year spun off a side project creating music videos in Second Life. Video summary:

This track is a sentimental song that incorporates various elements of electro, chill, and pop with the theme of light and darkness of modern society.

Not quite seeing the dark side of this beautifully shot, candy-colored video, but maybe the lyrics are where the shadows reside.  He was actually active in SL ten years ago, so this side gig represents a return to the virtual world.  (His new brand "BYNORAL”, by the way, is a play on "binaural stereo system."

Stunning SL Images With Disciplined Use of Color and Light

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Kalliope’s “Not a Wish-Granting Factory” is a fun visual play on the idea of wishing upon a star. Of course, it’s not a star she is perched upon, it is a moon. But that is a petty quibble for a lovely and fun photo. I love her color story, all in blue including the light leak overlay that gives it a flash of moonlight. 

More stunning photos with intriguing and fun titles.