What a MESH! Finally it’s coming to Second Life!
Yes, i would say FINALLY! Mesh has been a long feature to implement in Second Life but it seems finally it’s coming, at least that’s what Linden Lab is saying on its blog. Well, it is a huge feature that will change a lot Second Life, as Windlight® did… or Flexible and Sculpted prims too. Let me paste here this video by Draxtor about the arrival of Mesh, i find it pretty funny:
I blogged some months ago with the test i’ve been doing in the Beta Mesh Grid. The effect is just AWESOME! Really complex objects rezz just fast, way faster than sculpties, and the collision maps work just good as any normal prim. About the time of release in Main Grid Linden Lab said:
In July, we will enable a limited set of regions to use Mesh and will roll it out, in a phased approach, throughout August. By the end of August, everyone in Second Life will be able to import Mesh objects. Of course, if we run into unforeseen issues or bugs, then this time line will need to shift.
I’ll paste here also the video i filmed on my first visit to Mesh Beta:
Related articles
- SL Mesh, Update 3 (danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com)
New Search system in Second Life… search it, search it!
I just can say: YAY!!! Search is vital in Second Life, it’s the way to find people, places, stores, events, land for sale, groups with similar (or totally different) interest than you… And let’s be honest… Search in SL right now is, let’s say not the best it could be.
Right now Search is slow, sometimes inaccurate and even sometimes seems pretty random. Sometimes i think SL is a world that changes so fast that Linden Lab could not have a search engine good enough, but that can’t be possible. The web changes faster than SL and Google seems to work pretty good! So, finally, the Lindens posted a blogpost about the new Search engine, in Beta for what it seems. Torley Linden made also this video-tutorial:
For what i can see in the video it works pretty cool and they will be work on it improving it after its first release… so i think it’s a GREAT start. About the new Search system on SL Viewer 1.23 and 3rd party viewers, let me paste something that say in the blogpost i mentioned above, pretty important:
One of the first questions many will have is, “Will new search work in Viewer 1.23 and Third-Party Viewers?” New search will soon be available to you in the official SL Viewer and we will not be implementing it for the 1.23 Viewer. To be clear, you can still use the 1.23 Viewer, but search functionality will be impaired once new search is released into general availability, after the test period. (We cannot speak to which Third-Party Viewers will adopt the new search technology.)
After they fix Search… please.. start with Group Chat… 
The solved dilemma: SL Viewer Beta 2.6.0 with Basic and Advanced modes
Exactly 10 days ago i blogged about the possibility of having different configuration in SL viewers, basic and advanced modes, and… finally we got it here!!!
Rodvik Linden posted in the Community blog today about the release of a Beta Viewer (2.6.0) with this option. I think it’s a really interesting post to read and gives a lot of information about the project.
I downloaded the Beta and started playing with it, first of all you get the “Welcome” window and next to the Password area it appears a “switch” for the different modes. Switching modes will require a restart of the Viewer. For what i read in the post of Rodvik the default for new residents will be Basic:
"Welcome" screen with the Mode switch
There are many differences, but let me first paste the description Rodvik Linden made about the modes:
Basic mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24 pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.
Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.
So, as you can see in the next image the viewer is… let’s say REALLY basic:
SL Viewer Beta 2.6.0 in Basic Mode
I think it is a bit too basic, only Chat, friends, basic avatars, destinations and a simple “How to” information. No menus, no outfits, no inventory… but i think is a good idea. One of the things i remember when i logged on the first time is how hard was to work with the UI, and that’s a huge problem, there are a lot of people who create an account, try for some minutes and when they feel all is too hard all together they decide to not come back anymore. With this i’m sure more and more people will, at least, be there for some minutes more to just try and once they are used with the environment they will switch to the Advanced mode.
It is a Beta and probably they will change some things before releasing the Viewer, but i think this is a good start. It seems things are moving in the Lab.
The dilemma of the two SLviewers
I was checking Twitter lately and saw some people is speaking again about that “dilemma”… Should Linden Lab have only one viewer for Second Life, or to improve the usability is better to have two?
I think it was Anthony Hocken who restarted the topic, anyway this have been a topic long time discussed by a lot of people in a lot of places. Some people wonders (and for some comments by Rodvik Linden in Twitter that may be the way Linden Lab decides to go) if it would be better to have two kind of viewers instead of only one, one for basic users with a simple and improved UI and one for advanced users with all the options we have and maybe some more.
Even this may seem a good idea some people thinks that would keep the new users away from content creation since they would be used to a simple UI and may be scared to use an advanced one. One thing Rodvik Linden mentioned was the possibility of having only one viewer, but with a “switch” to change between both options.
Personally i think the two viewers option is not a bad idea. One of the big problems of Second Life is how hard the UI and the learning curve has been always keeping potential users away and making a lot of people create an account only to try it and never come back. Having a simplified viewer, or a web-based one, would be interesting to permit new users have a basic approach to Second Life and even to have access for SL from iPads, mobile phones or netbooks. This kind of viewer would permit also that integration as Facebook game some think is a good idea. I think having SL and Facebook together is not actually needed or even a good idea, but this is material for another blogpost.
Then, after this web-based viewer Linden Lab would have a really improved SL viewer (maybe 3.0?) with that “switch” Rodvik mentions. As now we have some menus as optional (Advanced and Develop for standard users) we would have a really improved and simple UI and at the same time the possibility to change to a more complex one but really powerful. And speaking about all this… please, Lindens… can you improve the building tool? Thanks! 
I don’t think that last option would keep new users away of content creation, i know people who were SLusers for the last 4 years and never created a simple plywood cube even they had the ability to do it in the viewer. The ones who would be interested in content creation would click the “switch” for sure and will experiment. At least is what i think… and you? *points at the comment section below*
Global Illumination in Second Life
In the last months i’ve seen in the Develop Menu of the Second Life Viewer 2 menus an option, near the Shadows option, called Global illumination and i was wondering what was that. Luckily we have the Wikipedia and it says:
Global illumination is a general name for a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light which comes directly from a light source (direct illumination), but also subsequent cases in which light rays from the same source are reflected by other surfaces in the scene, whether reflective or non (indirect illumination).
It uses to say in the menus “(experimental)” next to Global Illumination, but since i like to experiment things i tried it… with bad results normally. Not a crash maybe, but yes a black screen or some kind of problems with SL graphics. But it seems they fixed something in the SL Viewer 2.5.1 because now it seems to work. Anyway, there is a note saying something like “Only for top end computers” possibly because that global illumination will require the Graphics card to work some extra.
I decided to make a test and this is the result:
Snapshot without shadows or any effect
Snapshot with only shadows on
Snapshot with shadows and global illumination on
In all three cases used exactly the same camera angle and the same Windlight® setting, only activated Shadows for the second image and Shadows and Global Illumination in the third one. The setting was not highly illuminated, but anyway the third looks much more natural, specially on how my avatar is illuminated, between the light of the fire and the light of the sun from the window.
This feature is still experimental, but it seems it’s working better. Just wanted to make you know about it if you didn’t tried it still.
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