By Avatar JayR Cela
Back on October 30th I reported on a new Kick Start Project. The Mesh Clothing Parametric Deformer.
http://jayrcelasecondlifetechnologist.blogspot.com/2011/10/secondlife-mesh-clothing-parametric.html
Basically it would allow designers to no longer be limited when producing mesh clothing. As it is right now, wardrobes consisting of mesh articles only fit the person that they were designed for. Not very good for designers, or customers. ( Effectively Rendering Mesh Clothing Design A Total No Go ) So this was to be an open source mash up by multiple SL programmers under a new concept. Rather than wait around for the Lab, that had previously stated that this issue would eventually be addressed, Maybe, Someday.
Hmmmm, does this sound familiar ? I have been in SL for over 6 years, and am tired of hearing this kind of bull crap from the lab. Does crossing a Sim border while using a vehicle or just walking, and not flying off into never never land come to mind ? This issue was supposed to have been addressed 5 years ago.
Let's look how long it took LL to finally admit that the original Viewer2 User Interface was a steaming pile of dog poop. And finally start adopting some of the vastly superior TPV redesigned UI enhancements By FireStorm, Kirsten, and Hitomi's StarLight skin, and incorporate them into Viewer3.2. All Most 2 FREAKING YEARS !!!!!!!
The Kick Start Program headed by former LL employee Quarl Linden sounded great. The idea was raise $5400 U.S. Real Life money from numerous independent SL programmers and get the ball rolling as quickly as possible.
And since this project was supposed to be completely separate and independently developed with no LL involvement what so ever, it sounded very promising. That is until today.
After having raised the capitol and brought on the developer's. Seems as if the Lab wants to meddle and slow things down, yep that's correct. I guess some higher up's at LL have convinced Quarl ( Karl Stiefvater ) to slow down.
Ok needless to say, Karl's decision to put the project temporarily on hold has got more that a few people upset. Perhaps there are some underlying legal issues that have not been reported yet. ( Non Disclosure or Non Compete Agreement's come to my mind ) But that is just conjecture on my part.
You can read yesterdays blog post by James Au Wagner here.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/11/second-life-mesh-fix-karl.html
JayR Cela :(
2 comments:
I'm not sure your position reflects the facts.
The Parametric Deformer project was an initiative started by Maxwell Graf, which is leveraging Karl's position and knowledge. It came about as a result of Max contacting Karl because of a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment Karl made on the pages of NWN.
As to LL's involvement, let's see what Karl says in full:
"They want to play nice. The idea is to start a dialog now so we can maximize the chance Linden Lab will accept it when it's done. My feeling is THIS IS THE BEST POSSIBLE RESULT AT THIS POINT. But it also adds delays: I don't have a reply to my initial spec, and I've switched to a different project while I wait. So."
Note my emphasis: "the best possible result at this point", delays notwithstanding.
Why?
Because it should help ensure that the solution developed doesn't result in LL going off at a tangent and developing something that is wholly incompatible with TPVs - it requires the use of the Havok engine, for example (which has caused TPVs considerable headaches in getting mesh upload capabilities up-and-running).
What's more, having them engage now may lead to start-up delays, but could lead to a faster adoption of the deformer overall, as developed code will likely be more fit for acceptance into the Snowstorm code base a lot quicker than might otherwise be the case. This also has potential dividends for TPVs using the code - if it is supplied as a part of the Snowstorm code, then it reduces some of the overhead they'll face in having to take the code from elsewhere and regression test it against both their own Viewer code *and* Snowstorm releases from LL.
As such, I'd rather LL *did* come to their senses now and play ball, even if if does mean a temporary slow-down, rather than them pitch up in 4 weeks time offering the means by which the code could be incorporated into Snowstorm - but at the cost of greater delays because "some" re-coding is required.
And even should it turn out that LL are creating undue delay to the project, there is still no reason why Max and Karl - given they are talking directly to TPVs as well - cannot simply say, "Enough!" and push on.
Sure, this may risk LL coming up with their own solution down the road (eventually). But in the meantime, we'll still get a parametric deformer that meets the requirements of mesh clothing creators within and beyond SL (remembering that OpenSim also faces this issue) - and which can be freely adopted by any TPV that wishes to incorporate it.
So, having LL willing (at this point) to play ball is actually a win-win-win scenario (for the deformer, users and LL), rather than a possible indication that the Lab are up to some nefarious trick.
Hi there Inara
Thanks for the extra info, I appreciate you taking the time to post your comment here.
I just do not want to see a truly great idea fall down that big deep dark empty LL hole of, It's not really that important, we will get around to it, MAYBE!
JayR Cela :_)
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