Because of the large interest in JIRA SH-2374 (Rigged Mesh Deformer) I expected an interesting meeting and it was. We did learn that the Lindens are still working on how to handle the problem. The relegation to ‘Someday/Maybe’ status still upsets some. The lack of explanation upsets even more people. But, at last we got some explanation.

Mesh Meeting 10/3/2011

Charlar Linden said he would be adding more notes to the JIRA item. On the 4^th Charlar added this comment to the JIRA.

Hi everybody,
First, because we’ve wrapped the Mesh release 2 project, we’re moving items into other backlogs. We don’t have any subsequent dedicated mesh project planned so all remaining items, including this one, will end up on our general viewer or the server backlogs.

This does not mean anything as extreme as some residents have assumed. The fact that the backlog is called “someday/maybe” means that it’s something we want to do, but can’t commit to a timeframe yet.

We did some investigation into the problem that Maxwell’s solution attempts to solve. We’re doing some more research and prototyping, trying to find a solution that might be faster/easier to implement. We have Top People on it.

As we said in the Usergroup, we’ll have the results in about two weeks. At that time we’ll update this ticket and also talk about it in the usergroup.

I can’t promise anything – we might come back and say ‘no’, we might say ‘yes, but later’ and we might say ‘here’s what we doing’. We might say something i haven’t thought of yet.

thanks

In the Office Hour Meeting he said,

The ‘someday/maybe’ title for the backlog it got moved to is not bad, like it might imply. It just means we don’t have it scheduled currently. We do also have some internal tasks to research, which aren’t visible. Sorry for the confusion around that.

When you read someone saying that ‘Someday/Maybe’ means file 13, that the Lindens don’t care, or that it will not be fixed you’ll know they are basically clueless to how the Lindens work or are hyping the issue.

If you want to have any influence on this topic, visit JIRA SH-2374 and click WATCH. It is obvious from this item that 3 of 4 people are clueless on this idea and click VOTE. The Lindens only consider WATCH.

OpenGL Compatibility

Runitai Linden is working on OpenGL compatibility issues. Incompatibilities are crashing the SLViewer 3.

External Development

The idea of external development has come up in the user community. Some users are curious whether Linden Lab would accept code developed by third parties and paid for by users. The Lindens are considering it. Before they will give an answer they want to decide on the technology they want implemented.

CTS JIRA Items

The CTS category is being phased out now that the Mesh Project is complete. Bugs reported and in the CTS category will still be addressed. New CTS items will not be allowed. New issues will be either viewer or server issues.

Rigged Content and Avatar Collision Volumes

I only sort of understand this. I think this is about our standard avatar having a standard collision shape. I think it only changes shape a little as our height is adjusted.

With the introduction of full mesh avatar bodies one might want to change that shape. Consider a big bellied monster. It could have a belly much larger than any we can make on our avatars. So, with a custom mesh body we may need a custom shape to prevent the belly passing through walls and stuff..

The Lindens want people to submit examples of rigged mesh items that make use of custom physics shapes. So, I suppose they are considering how this will work and plan to get it working correctly. So, if you have any such rigged objects, get a copy to Charlar.

Path Finding

Path Finding as used here is dynamic object movement thru the world. This would be a process of a bot or vehicle finding its way around the SL world without having a preprogrammed route.

If you are interested in this idea/feature, contact Charlar Linden – charlar at lindenlab dot com.

Summing It Up

I think Charlar’s request for help on Rigged Mesh Collisions and Path Finding put with Rod’s recent post suggest features that will soon come to Second Life. We know that OpenSim has been working on getting their NPC’s (None Player Character) working and the Lindens are talking about NPC’s for SL. It looks like we will at some point get alternate skeletons, custom avatar collision shapes, and NPC navigation tools.

May be in another month we will start to hear more about what is coming… or we’ll see more office hours closing.

UPDATE
Things are moving on the third party to fix it idea. Hamlet at New World Notes has an article, SL Mesh Users Launch Fundraiser for Ex-Linden Dev to Fix Mesh Issues Now That Linden Lab Has Delayed Fixing, that gets into that idea. Right now it is hire Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden, to add the feature.

Hamlet links to the project here: Mesh Clothing Parametric Deformer Project.

Saffia Widdershins, Maxwell Graf, and Aisling Sinclair wrote about the plan here: Mesh: A Cry for Help, Answered!

How well this will or won’t work is anyone’s guess. It will be interesting if things work out. So, go give them some money.