Gaia Clary, author of the Avastar Blender add-on, has posted an article on Second Life™ Liquid Mesh. See: Liquid Mesh. Gaia commented on Strawberry Singh’s blog at the end of the article: Hucci Akita Boots & Questions regarding “Liquid Mesh”
Gaia provides the same take on Liquid Mesh that I do. Gaia is, however, more strongly saying creative types should be avoiding the use of the technique in products.
Gaia has a stronger belief than I do that collision bones won’t go away. I suspect there will always be some part of the avatar that is used for detecting/calculating collisions. There is no doubt collisions will always be need to be detected. That is part of how virtual work.
Neither of us has any idea how likely a change to collision detection is if the avatar changes. Nor can we anticipate what changes to Second Life performance might be an incentive to change the detection system.
Gaia, like I, says there is no answer to the questions many of us have. That means we each have to decide and then act according to our decision. We will reap the benefits and costs of our decision. That is what freedom is about.
Of course what would Second Life be without drama? There will be a collection of people that make their decision and then attempt to force it on others. That is pretty much what fascist forms of government are. And governments are run by humans and we humans can certainly be fascists.
We may see a whole group decide to impose their idea that Liquid Mesh somehow hurts the grid. Then go into propaganda mode trying to convince others Liquid Mesh is bad. It isn’t. It may break some day. But, until then creators and their customers are free to make use of the technique.
How will you handle their choices?
I see no reason not to use the liquid mesh technique. The arguments and cautions against using it are all around IF there is a change to the avatar. At present time we are pretty sure there is no plan to change the avatar. Even if LL were to tell us that there is a new avatar in the works, you could bet that it would probably be at least a year to a year and a half out from the day they first mention it. There is no guarantee that there ever will be a new avatar.
Fashions change. Stock grows old and needs to be refreshed. Whether or not there is a change, anything you make today will only really sell well for one to two years max. Any clothing designer knows you have to have new stock moving through your store all the time. By the time that LL made changes that might break liquid mesh, anything made today would have already had its peak selling period.
We are used to clothing becoming redundant. Once flex prims hit the grid, old system clothing using textures only, and clothing using stiff prims became obsolete. I had to go through my stock and remove all that old stuff when flex prims came in. Then sculpties came in, and everyone wanted clothing with sculpted parts. Once again, the old stock was obsolete. That was fine, it had reached the end of its life and peak sales anyway.
I say go ahead, design using the liquid mesh technique. It may never be broken. It might be broken. Chances are, if it is ever broken, that time is far enough into the future that clothing you make today will have reached the end of its peak sales period anyway.
I doubt the going out of style concept works for Liquid Mesh. New mesh items may go out of style. But, they will be replaced by newer more in style with RL today mesh items. A mesh dress may go out of style only to be replaced by a new style of dress made from mesh. I expect the same is true of Liquid Mesh items.
System clothes like shirts and pants have gone out of style and do not sell as they did when new. But, there are new system shirts made exactly the same way that are a new style shirt.
What I am saying is the basic construction process of how things are rigged does not have a 1 to 2 year life any more than how system clothes are made had a 1 to 2 year life. They started out using UVMap templates and they still use UVMap templates.
My argument suggests that Liquid Mesh will be around indefinitely, unless the Lindens decide to stop its use. The items made today may not sell. But the items made a year from now will and they will likely be made using Liquid Mesh.
The way I see it, a fully functional deformer is a ways off. We will likely not see it until LL reworks the avatar. Until then I will use mesh clothes when I can find something I like *that works*. In all likelihood by the time there is a problem I will be ready to buy new stuff anyway.
“Nor can we anticipate what changes to Second Life performance might be an incentive to change the detection system. ”
Gaming. If they wanted faster FPS style gaming, they would make collision work through a simple box the general size of the avatar. On the other hand, if they decided speed was a non issue and there was no lag in SL, they might go for a collision system that matched the visible avatar – which is what it seems they have – but that kind of system can require an absurd amount of calculations to be required anytime things come within potential range of a collision check…
I suspect SL could be made a lot more gamer friendly by reverting the collision system to a simple box around the avatar.
Also:
Fascism implies an imposed system. Well, actually it means a government run by a military industrial complex.
Persuading others, even to the point of strongly suggesting a given choice is in their best interests, is not fascism, but the cornerstone of debate, itself a pillar of any democratic model. The near opposite of fascism.
And when one makes a persuasive argument, it weakens that argument to claim any opposition to the argument would be fascism.
You missed the point… and look up the definition of fascist. One does not have to be a government to be fascist.
For more than any anyone wants to advice otherwise, liquid mesh will keep being used by those who can because there is a demand for it. If you don’t want builders to use liquid mesh, convince the buyers to not buy it.
I just want buyers to be informed. I don’t really care what they decide from an informed position.