SL and the Next Generation VR

[Tad Carlucci]

When you open a box, the prims need to be changed to match the traits. For example, as mesh, the tail would need to be changed from a generic tail to the specific tail. So, when opening a box, you would need to grant permission to the cat to modify the linkset to allow the new tail. This also occurs when you change prim modes, use the Dock or a Magic Bottle.

When the cat sits, walks, etc., the leg prims need to be changed. Again, the cat needs permission the change the prims so the body bends properly, the legs bend properly, etc.

There is a work-arround, of course, that is to install ALL POSSIBLE primsets and rez them as-needed. Thus the cat does not 'walk' from point A to point B .. instead is slowly, jerkily re-rez over and over. Add a little lag and you'll be able to watch your cat wink in and out of existence as it walks. Cool, no?

[Ivy Norsk]

In many video games there are NPCs. They are mesh. They move in a particular way, and pathfind their way around parcels.
Now with kittycats, we have the cat, but it is heavily customized:
1 cat x 21 tails x 21 ears x 10 whisker colors x 18 whisker shapes however many shades that may not translate in the new world (or maybe will), multiplied by however-many furs and eyes, and 2 eye shapes and 2 pupil shapes.
And in SL all of that generates quickly.

So you seem to be talking about the difficulty of things moving about, but many games seem to have that handled with leg and arm movements. You seem to be saying that this is particularly difficult because of the customized parts? Or something different?

[Tad Carlucci]

It would be great if Second Life did rigged mesh for NPCs. But it doesn't. Maybe the new system will, but who knows. The easiest path, which is my understanding of the system, since it's mainly a proof-of-concept modification of the current system, with a new viewer supporting VR goggles, is that, so far, it's not vastly different in capabilities.

But, it's still early days. Who knows, maybe Linden Labs will actually do a real design and re-implement the entire dog-pile. At least they're talking about scrogging the kludged permissions system.

[Ivy Norsk]

Tad Wrote:It would be great if Second Life did rigged mesh for NPCs. But it doesn't. Maybe the new system will, but who knows.

They have said that they want Project Sansar to be a platform where people can build immersive games. NPCs are pretty crucial to a lot of that.
Callie and Equinox need to write to them and bang on their doors and say,

"We are the biggest breedable in SL. In order to take our amazing cats to the next level we Require rigged mesh for NPCs. We need to make our cats immersive."

We want them to make sure that it happens. I understand that Linden Lab won't make their decisions just on what KittyCatS tells them to do, but
This is what Creator Involvement and Feedback is FOR.
Linden Lab may not realize that a Breedables company is interested in what they may consider to be roleplaying gaming tools. They need to know that those tools have wide application if they don't already know it.

[Ivy Norsk]

So I was browsing forums and came to this on the official LL forum and found this tidbit:

Tyr Rozenblum Wrote:Animated mesh: I know that I have helped contribute to many users fall im frame rate (sorry guys you know ILU), doing mesh creatures with my partner Nina. The problem is saving frame for frame and over lapping mesh using alpha is just, not a responsible way to do things. Yes we still do it, but its the only way to have any kind of animated pets and animals via mesh. Is there plans in the future to add ACTUAL ways to do animated creatures? You know without killing your friends and loved one's frame rate.

and this was the answer from Ebbe Linden our CEO:

Ebbe Linden Wrote:Yes, we plan to support custom skeletons.

Now, this post (dated July), is very brief, cast in the future as something not yet done, and does not address the issues of NPCs exactly, although the question that was asked was asked specifically in the context of animated pets and mesh animals. I would say it looks like a positive answer on something that they haven't done yet.

[jwenting Resident]

The experience system is already in place in second life today. It's a way for sim owners/operators to design a "user experience" with seamless interaction, no need to grant animation and tp permissions explicitly for every object in the sim, a single permission to the entire experience carries over to any object the experience creator includes in the experience.
Each experience (at least that's the case now) has to be approved by LL, but that may change over time (the system's officially in a beta state).

It can een span multiple sims.
For example what we have on a complex of sims I help moderate is an experience linking areas in many sims together. You walk through a door in sim A and end up coming out another door in sim B 5 sims away from where you started and 1500 meters up.

It's got nothing to do with breedables.

[Ivy Norsk]

It's about objects.
Objects like cats.
What you're talking about is how Experiences are implemented in Second Life today. But for Project Sansar, Experiences may form the basis for the entire re-tooled object permissions system. KittyCatS will own the Experience of the cats.

This is the YouTube video for Experience Keys in SL today:
Second Life: Introducing Experience Keys You Tube
Notice that much of what is discussed is about how people interact with scripted objects. All those dialogue boxes about cuddling cats? - They would go away.

I guess the trick is to expand the experience opt-in from beyond the sims that KittyCats will own to any sim/land/Experience on the Project Sansar platform. It's all still in alpha...

[jwenting Resident]

I'd rather think they'd do it different and have an experience per region automatically set up so no permissions are needed to be given for things rezzed by the region owner (or maybe the landgroup even, though I'd like to be able to at least turn off permissions for that for a region, and better yet be asked at least once to approve them for the region).

If animation permissions are automatic just because the creator said it's to be so that takes away the entire point of having a permission system in the first place, which was introduced to prevent griefer objects from automatically animating people that bump into them.

[Ivy Norsk]

Ebbe Altberg gave another interview:

GeekDad: Project Sansar: Giving Virtual Reality a Second Life

There's a bit more in there about how the thing will be oriented around immersive Experiences (instead of sims). There isn't anything specifically said about objects, scripting, NPCs or such.

[Winter Phoenix]

I was watching a demo of an avatar picking up blocks with his hands,
and placing them on top of other blocks,
trying to keep them all balanced.

Theres some cool stuff being worked on out there,
but the 28,000 items in your inventory, are going out the window