Strawberry Meme & Liquid Mesh

I read the memes that Strawberry comes up with each Monday. I’ve never taken the time to do one. The post Strawberry wrote to start this week’s meme is one of the better articles on Liquid Mesh. Her position is intelligent and rational. I decided to provide more of the background on my thinking about Liquid Mesh. Rereading my articles I think I the last one was overly negative. See: Inventory Meme & Liquid Mesh.

And consider.

Liquid Mesh items are being sold across the grid. Not all are labeled Liquid Mesh, but the advertising term is gaining popularity. As word of the possible destruction of Liquid Mesh spreads we may see more items sold under other promotional names. All will convey the idea that a mesh item can be changed to fit your shape. There is no official Linden supported way to do that that supports a change when the Leg Muscles setting in the Appearance editor is changed.

We don’t know that Liquid Mesh items will be cleared from the grid. I expect they will remain. Mega prims are the example I base my thinking on. I am well aware that history does not reliably predict the future. But, it is an excellent predictor of future human behavior. Humans will respond to new situations that are seen the same as previous situations in the same way. If we see differences in the situation, we will likely respond differently. So, let’s look at mega-prims, which were before my time, and see what happened and what parts of that issue match with the Liquid Mesh scenario.

Mega-prims were devised as a work-around for prim size limits, which were 10x10x10m at the time. –Liquid Mesh is a work-around for not having a mesh deformation tool.

Mega-prims were causing problems on the grid. To this day 256x256x?m mega-prims are used as griefer tools/toys. But, they also have legitimate uses. The use of Mega-prims was rumored to have an impact on the Lab’s income, fewer prims needed to build meant less tier. But, we have no hard data to support that rumor, just opinion. The change to 64x64x64m prim limits tends to support the hypothesis it was not a money issue. – Liquid Mesh items create no known problems.

Mega-prims were cleaned from the grid by the Lab. Apparently the process was so destructive to legitimate builds (buildings and places) the removal was reversed. People screamed loudly. The final Linden action was to block the creation of new mega-prims. – Removal of Liquid Mesh items would not affect builds. But, it would upset those people that have purchased Liquid Mesh items. So, probably lots of loud screaming. Blocking new Liquid Mesh would limit, or at least reduce, any future impact of breaking Liquid Mesh.

I think the situations are similar enough that the Lab will behave the same way: new Liquid Mesh will be blocked and existing items will be left on the grid. But, I am speculating on how the Lab will see things.

Probably most important in all this is the answer to the question, “Will Liquid Mesh break some day?We don’t know. The reason we do not know is because we do not know how the avatar may change in the future. The Lab doesn’t know. The Lab will not commit one way or the other. Until they sit down and figure out what they are going to do, they want to keep as much design freedom as possible.

From a technical viewpoint I seriously doubt Liquid Mesh will ever be broken. Simply because of how ALL avatars are made in 3D virtual worlds. The system of making avatars using mesh connected to a skeleton is unlikely to ever change. If it does, so much of SL will have to change the breaking of Liquid Mesh will be a minor issue. But, this is a perception based on today’s information. Someone could come up with a bright idea and everything could change tomorrow. And that is possible.

Strawberry’s recommendation is rational. It also exhibits a free market approach. Let people make their own decisions. Wise people will be well informed and make a decision based on available information and personal research.

Strawberry also points out that some merchants will take an enlightened approach. If customers have a concern, the merchant will find a way to handle the concern to the customers’ satisfaction to improve the possibility of a sale. In a free system things work for both sides of a deal or it doesn’t happen.

I expect some merchants follow in BAX Coen Designs’ footsteps and make similar guarantees.

You’ll have to take responsibility, decide to be informed or not, and make your decision on whether to purchase Liquid Mesh or not. We will know who didn’t do that by how loudly they scream if Liquid Mesh is ever broken. One thing I am pretty certain of: those that scream the loudest will take the lest responsibility.

Nice Mesh Pants - Not Liquid

Nice Mesh Pants – Not Liquid

Mime

What is your current inventory number? 33,698 after about 4 years… 33,325 after emptying the trash.

If you had to delete your whole inventory and could only keep one thing, what would it be? I am torn between hair and shoes.

What is the last thing you purchased? Indyra Originals – Mesh- Lola! Gaia Pants Sets – My only purchased mesh pants.

Which item do you wear most often? Skin & Shape – Skin: Nomine WL Mocha – natural nude. I made my shape.

When you search for the word penis, how many items pop up? 29… OMG, I have a penis tail in my inventory.

Oops

4 thoughts on “Strawberry Meme & Liquid Mesh

  1. Thank you so much for covering liquid mesh in a detailed and informative way, I have really learned a lot from your posts. Also, you have no idea how happy I am that you have more penis than me, lol! 😛

  2. I might buy clothes from those designers who can guarantee a replacement of their Liquid Mesh clothes, if they become broken. But there is a problem: this summer I saw shops going out of business even if they where established 4 or 5 years ago. SL economy doesn’t seem very reliable now. Who can guarantee that those shops will be still around if/when Liquid Mesh will be broken? So I’d buy only cheap mesh items made with that hack and/or only few.

    To me come to mind invisiprims: they where unsupported as well and lasted for long, but now they are half broken. An hack on vehicles (phantom child link) got broken as well. And SL now (in the last couple of years) is changing more quickly and deeply than it did before.
    So I’m not feeling so comfortable in buying “Liquid Mesh”.

    • You make a good point about merchants disappearing and businesses failing. We face the same problems iRL.

      We each make out own decisions. The problems are in having the information to make intelligent decisions and the people that can’t take responsibility for their decisions.

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