f13.net

Looks like they finally added mesh support to second life today. I'm imagining a huge rush on turbosquid and the google repository are occurring as people start trying to sell others stuff.

Mesh has a pretty good chance of making some parts of SL be attractive. As any 3d file that can be exported to a Collada format is now importable to SL.  They are also allowing it to be mappable to the avatar skeleton so clothing/fur suits that bend with the avatars joints will be appearing soon.

(crap this should have been in mmog...)

It's moved!

I have no idea what any of that actually means.


Can I just assume the raining penii will be even more life like?

It means you can use simple apps like Poser to play in Second Life.

Google sketchup might be a better choice, or blender or Maya.

Is this move enough (or enough of a start) to bring SL back to the point that it matters?

It's enough to make it interesting for the next few months. I'd imagine if you had enough talent to make rigged clothing or boots you could make a few grand.

Basically instead of everything being made of a crapload of squares,circles,etc they'll have meshes which are what games have been using since quake.

I also believe you are not limited to a 10x10x10 shape. Something like 60x60x60 which allows you to make an entire building out of one mesh...

Looking at it I guess the compelling thing (if you can call it that) is that you can use meshes with animations instead of the shitty default deformable body mesh for your avatar.   So I guess the new thing will be walking penis avatars and a complete set of penis emotes.

The furries will rejoice.

I think they're the only ones left.

Originally all geometry in second life was procedural, its made inside the game using the game editor (http://youtu.be/bQL8_HB1HtQ). The never allowed Polysoup ( or regular meshes like other games ) before now, with the possible exception of avatars, those have been sporting any poser model and animations for years.

So, this changes means you can use any common mesh + texture model in addition tot he above. Sadly, the largest overhead for the client has always been the 100% procedural content and all the transforms and CPU required to assemble and render them. Though, years ago this tech was impressive, its has visual limitations. When you fly around SL, your not just loading models, you were assembling them point by point, line by line from data streamed to you.

I actually just might get into SL because of this.  Working with something like ue3, unity, poser, etc. and being able to inject that into an MMO is a powerful thing.   Hell, with mesh you dont even need textures.

:ye_gods:

 :headscratch:

I'd bake in an AO map at least.

Why are you scratching your head?  A static mesh in UE3 complete with lightmap doesnt require any kind of texture futzing.... if I recall.  Or rather the texture package is just called from an entirely different place.  I forgot.  Your headscratch may be somewhat valid.  In any case, it's really easy to play with.

There is software you can just paint a texture directly onto a 3d animateable mesh though.  Zbrush users use this technique sometimes.

A little late.

All-but-dead graphical mush adds furry-enabling technology.

The most important question for just about everyone n SL:

Will this make the different versions of catching people to be your forced sex slaves more playable? Because right now the thing is terrible for playing FPS style, and that's what people are trying to incorporate into any community with combat. If the answer is "yes", then this could be a pretty huge thing for the game. There's a moderately popular Mechwarrior sim that would be much more enjoyable if the combat wasn't crap.

That's probably more related to their havok implementation. It should make it prettier....