flexible attachments and hardware lighting in 1.9.1?

Sorry Lordfly - I don't detest everything.

I'm just fed up with the results of LLs policy of allowing developers to waste time on 'Ooooh - Shiny!' when there are FAR more serious issues that need fixing, preferably WITHOUT breaking too many other features for a change.

And there are one or two scripters out there who feel the same. Not to mention people who are suffering serious problems due to permissions errors which seem to be getting worse daily - these are CORE ISSUES (along with many, many more) which require addressing, as I suspect you'll agree when they start affecting you...

But, what are we getting? Floppy attachments and tasteless lighting effects apparently. Way to go LL!

Precisely - so much for 'improved physics', which is the point I was trying to make.

As for fixing Local Lighting, well that would be nice, but all I saw evidence of was 'glow', no obvious subtle shadow effects, though, how would you tell with lurid colours in a dark sim?

igh:

What exactly are you expecting, Doc? The second coming?

I'm more than happy with what there is, don't think we could reasonably expect much more and right now don't have any inclination to try and explain to you why.

Mmmm. Floppy. Just wondering... does the ability to make "floppy" prims mean our prim system is moving closer to real CSG? With CSG, you can combine multiple prims into one. You can also make arbitrary cuts to create "new" prim shapes.

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/model/csg.html

It looks like we would need hierarchical linking support to make CSG happen and I know the client was designed without hierarchical support in order to get SL up and running quickly. Here's hoping we are moving closer to CSG.

More speculation. Phil has always claimed that the client is "dumb" and that LL's intent is to keep the client dumb. Complex operations (physics) are done server-side and streamed to clients. Where will floppy prims be calculated? Server-side or client-side?

Afaik, the client doesn't yet have the ability to calculate transforms like we see in the floppy prims video. If floppy prims are calculated client side, as I imagine they would be, does this mean that more "intelligence" is being moved into the client?

Shiny is good, people buy and like shiny. SL has to appeal to the people who like shiny eyecandy as well as the serious tech heads. Torley's video was very entertaining, she spun and whirled like a watermelon ballerina on mescaline. I can't wait to play with these features.

The floppy prim bits are done client side. As a consequence, their collisions are phantom; notice how torley's flying banners go under the ground.

Particles are client-side, too; ergo, everyone sees a slightly different particle effect/position, just like they will with floppy prims.

I wonder if they'll allow the floppy prims to be governed by sim wind... that'd be fun, it'd make flags very easy now.

So you'd rather they kept software rendering of lights? Because lord knows I want 2 frames a second with local lighting on FOREVER.

This is going to make lights look better and run faster.

And you want SL to run faster, yes?

Life isn't all about bug fixes, you know.

Thanks for the info, Kelly! I'm really interested in seeing how the new features work out.

One concern regarding the practicality of flexi-prims: I seem to recall reading somewhere that prims in a linkset will only flex as individuals (i.e. the relative positions of the child prims stay fixed). Is this correct? Are there any plans to eventually add the ability to make an entire linkset flex as a whole? Otherwise, I fear applications such as tails may be pretty limited...

Doc and I don't always agree but this is one of those times when we're in complete agreement.

Adding new content is not a bad thing, but the bug list is ever growing and we seem to be getting more and more shiny and longer and longer bug lists. Maybe there's a link from the stretched dev team(s) here?

Having dev teams choose what looks cool sounds great for morale, but nasty bugs will (and appear to be) tend to accumulate because no one wants to look at them!

We diverge slightly too - let each dev group work on something cool. Then MAKE them work on a bug fix. Then something cool again... and keep going on that cycle. They can only start the new cool when the fix is ready, and if the fix is rolled out and breaks things back they go to it...

The effect on Linden morale might be less good, but on player morale might be higher.

The other thing that might help with player morale is better (if still automated) responses to bug reporting - saying when it's been looked at, what group it's in (new, on the list, unreproducible etc.) and also when it's marked as fixed - LL might pat itself on the back about such things, but for an open company in many respects it's remarkably crap about saying when it's fixed bugs to those of us that still make the effort to report them.

Looks nifty - I do hope they stick to the idea of adding something new, but also addressing current issues as well. Otherwise the list of 'half assed' grows.

Maybe another list should be implimented to run alongside of the BLOTTD - the BLOHAUS (Big List of Half Assed Unfinished Stuff)

I'm looking forward to the flexible prims with great anticipation. I -know- my computer can handle it.

I thought Torley's video was great, thought it probably should have come with a health warning about fits and travel sickness.

I think the growing list of bugs which remain unfixed while shiny new things are planned is a worry. Particularly when LL send out "it's OK the recent update fixed it!" notices on a lot of things which are clearly NOT fixed: texture bugs, not being able to edit linked parts, linking bug, rotation bugs to name but a few....

Finally...if the meaning of Kelly's post indicating that not all cards will support the new lighting options is that some people currently accessing SL ok will not be able to after the next update, I think that's a great shame. Not everyone wants to tread so heavily on our planet that they update their computer every few months.
Cali

I believe "sun and moon only" is the same as having local lighting off currently.

So. Can some prims flex on a linked object but others stay firm?

I believe so, recalling from that blurb I came across earlier. I wish I could remember where I saw it...

That's Mr. DaSilva to you.

Nice to see you're still green. It's not easy being green.

How about HW+Shadows?

Cripes.

I distinctly remember flexible prims showing up in a rant somebody posted on the subject of "How come LL never does what they promise huh huh huhhhH?". Hardware lighting was probably there too.

I fully expect that when Havok 5 and full sensoria immersion and perfect lag nullification go into SL, people will STILL be griping that they are adding new shiny things instead of focusing on the enormous list of typos in the help or something.

i'm interrested in knowing how one would decide the "anchor point" on a floppy prim. like on a tail..how do you tell it "this end of the tube is attached to my butt and stays put, while the other end of this tube swings in the wind. will there be some default point of origin on each prim type, or is it definable somehow? what about two flexible tubes linked together to form one long one? how will they stay connected properly in the middle? i can't wait for preview!

Will we be able to disable lights in attachments? A lot of jewels and some shoes do use light prims and would probably monopolize the closest X lights list in crowded places.