Turn off rendering by plot?

I shamelessly stole this from Chip Midnight (I think) in another thread.

But yeah... a handy feature that would eliminate the (current hot topic of) ugly-build-land-extortion problems, is to be able to turn off all object rendering in selected plots of land. Your neighbor's build is making your eyes bleed? Right-click on their land, About Land, and check a little box that tells your client to stop rendering things over that plot. No more (bloody) tears!

Okay, it's probably utterly unfeasible, but we can dream, can't we?

I've wanted this for along time, but not for that reason. Some builds lag me, ect.. There used to be a mall a sim over that made it hard to use our land and this would have been super, lol..

hehehe thanks Cross Steal away. I would love to see this. I doubt I'd use it personally but it seems it would save a lot of people quite a bit of stress and would be a good way to appease those who want total creative freedom and those that feel abused by having to see things they don't like. It's an issue that will never be agreed on and this would make it so it doesn't need to be.

Holy Jeez, I was thinking exactly this thing.

Please add my support.


Addendum: Perhaps this should only be able to select this in the single sim set as "Home". Possibly, in any sim which you currently own land.

Further: For ease-of-use, the plot should be set as a set of coordinates, and turn off "rendering" for WHATEVER parcel that currently contains these coordinates, so that it does not get "turned back on" just because the land changes hands, or gets joined, or renamed or have permissions changed or whatever.

This would kinda be like subspace pockets in the gridverse -- almost like dipping into an alternate reality of some sort where you're the only one around.

What was that famous sci-fi story called, where some dude got people to rent out his house? There was only one house, but he loaded each tenants into an alt-dimension. At the end, I think things went unstable and everyone got mashed together. Or something.

Anyone remember?

OMG, this just led me to an burp of inspiration.

In addition to being able to turn off rendering by plot, why not be able to Mute by avatar? Not just Mute their speech, but Mute their builds. How it would work:

If you choose to Mute an avatar's builds, then any object owned (possibly created too, or either/or) by that avatar would rezz in your viewer, except all textures would load as a single uniform alpha texture.

Pros:

-You would not be able to fly through a person's house, walls, etc just by "Muting" them. The walls would still be there, you just wouldn't have to view them. If you press "alt", the invisible objects will still be highlighted in red (though you may have to specifically set this option in Preferences)

-Potentially noticeable bandwidth ($$$) savings to LL, for textures of muted residents who are no longer being transmitted. Even greater savings, if this singular alpha texture is included in the SL viewer download, so that it does not need to be streamed every time someone wipes their cache.

-Potentially, reinforcing a positive social network and positive, creative builds, and reducing incidents of strong-arm-by-ugliness land tactics. One tool that people have at the moment to take away from the enjoyment of others is that, if they own land, there's not a lot that they're not permitted to rezz out on it. Some people deliberately create ugliness, either for land control tactics, for personal vengance against a neighbor, or simply because they delight in forcing others to look at the less-than-attractive things that they have built. Would there still be as many incidents of this, if anyone who did not like their builds could simply "Mute by builder"? I predict No.

People build because they want their things to be Seen or Used. If you could Mute a Real Estate Speculator's "For Sale" signs, or an ugly-fying builder, might they take more care in what they build? On the whole, I predict Yes.

Cons:

-If someone could make your objects invisible at will, it might also take away from privacy; if you wanted to have a "private moment" with someone else, a third party could easily take away from this and view, if not hear what you are doing by muting the walls of your house. However, with the camera system as it is, people can already "peep" on you against your will if they wish to, pretty much as easily. Skyboxes and security scripts assist in achieving privacy from prying eyes at the moment; I predict that Private Island owners will also eventually capitalize on this by renting time in protected environments, complete with, ahem, animations en-suite (Basically the equivalent of Motel Rooms for Second Life) Since privacy already in SL isn't very private, I don't know whether this objection would be enough to keep this feature from being implemented.

I second this with all my heart.

Nice feature suggestion

I, personally, don't like the idea.

However, IF it's implimented:

1. Avatars would need to be represented by something like a box with a name over it while in the muted land.
   
2. Everything within the land should show up normally if you fly within it.
   
3. The land should have blue "ban lines" to illustrate exactly which portions are muted.

However, I seriously don't like this idea.

I second this, would make it a lot easier for me to ignore the many ugly/laggy builds out there. I personally would use it to disable all those plots that lag me down so much on the way from the telehub to my favourite sandbox area..

I don't think I'd include avatars at all. They should always be rendered. I wouldn't want to see ban lines either, but a visual indication when "show property lines" or "show land owners" is enabled would be a good idea.

I imagine this would also introduce some pretty sweet things like being able to create what looks like a wide-open landscape in what is in fact a crowded metropolis. Would speed things up too by not rendering them, making things more efficient. Sort of a "firing when cloaked" approach. Futuristic, but I would think it within our grasp -- I get a kick out of the special boxes that currently exist that make you invisible except for your attachments. ^_^

I really don't like this idea. I'm having a hard time imagining a good way to implement it, for starters. Moleculor had a few good starters...

Are we sure we want to go so far as to be able to make others dissapear? I'm not sure I want that ability. I would prefer to see the builds I don't like over walking around with blinders on. I want the opportunity to get to know the difference between builds I don't like and builds designed to harm. I'm ok with taking the weeks of time to deal with it and learn the difference. ( I know I'm quick to fetch a Linden over things, but my habit comes from RL, and is one I need to break for SL. )

My 2/100ths of a L$.

Though you may be opposed to the idea, I can think of a number of circumstances under which such a feature would be invaluable. I would probably not take advantage of this feature except in certain very rare circumstances. I also don't think it would be that difficult to implement.

Um, Jillian, Molecular, in your cases you would not turn this feature on. If you don't "Mute" a parcel's or person't objects, you'll be able to see them.

This is not a feature to turn off the ability for others to view your builds; you can already do this, by making them all alpha textured.

This feature is for people who are faced daily with builds that they do not want to see; therefore they "mute" the builds, either by parcel or by builder.

For example, if Molecular muted all of my spinning, particle-spewing For-Sale signs surrounding his property, he would be able to see an again empty landscape around him; his actions, however, would not at all affect what Jillian sees. Jillian, since you prefer to see all the builds around you, all you would have to do is, well, nothing. If you don't "mute" a parcel or a builder, you'd still see everything surrounding you.

Molecular, I don't think anyone was suggesting that we be able to "Turn off' the view of anyone else's avatar, only their builds. Anything of their person, their clothing, and presumably attached objects would remain visible. About the wierdest thing you'd experience would be seeing groups of people hanging around and dancing on thin air, for example if you "muted" the parcel that an annoying club is in. The only other thing would be that others could "mute" your build and see you, and possibly private activities that you are doing. However, they can (and are) seeing into your privacy anyway, just by making use of the easily manipulated camera.

I think this would damage the cohesiveness of SL. It's not just a personal preference thing that I'm seeing here. being able to be a hermit in a crowd sounds like fun, but in the end we just have a bunch of people seeing different things.

It ads only to divisiveness and to ever increasing disparity. I think it's a manifestation of denial.

Ok, I'm haveing a damn hard time putting this into words. I hope you understand that I belive such a thing could abrade the attempt to build a community in the limited sense it pertains here - that we live in SL with others and these others do things we don't always agree with.

But Jillian;

The system as it exists allows others to be divisive and abrasive just by building. A ne'er-do-well who wants to strongarm a neighbor into selling to them can make a hugely ugly build. For-Sale signs on land are consistently made as ugly as possible, I presume to make the other inhabitants of the sim buy up the land as quickly as possible. If I get into a fight with a neighbor, I can make an enormous wall riiiiiight up to the edge of the property, with flashing neon panels or pics of the Star-Wars-Jedi-Fat-Kid facing right at your house's windows; again, either to force you to move or to sell to me at a lower-than-fair price.

I could start a group devoted to Socially Relevant Art in a Virtual World, or Incisive Commentary, and proceed to build the most objectionable things I can think of, all the while claiming that the objections generated were Part of The Experiment.

The one thing that I'd always have to depend on, is that others HAVE to look at my builds; the uglier, flashier, more particle-vomiting I make them, the less capable everyone else is of ignoring them. What if others could turn this off?

You can mute me in the Forums, if you found the things I said to be objectionable enough; you could mute me in-world too (I think), if I kept typing annoying things on the public channel. Why not be able to mute my builds, if you found them to be equally objectionable? Or maybe just the builds on a particular parcel of land? It would go a long way towards taking away my power to annoy you into submission, or selling your land to me. And if I KNEW that you had this ability to begin with, would I be as likely to build the most ugly things imagineable on my land? If you could turn them "off", with just a tick in a checkbox?

I'm not defending the current system. I simply belive this suggestion may come with worse consequences in the long run than other solutions. Including zoning, clarity of rules about server and client program resource use, and enforcable moderation.

Jillian, could you describe how it may make moderation more difficult, or result in zoning?

Maybe I'm looking with blinders, because I support the idea, therefore I'm invested in it.

As far as I can see, it could ONLY result in LESS zoning and EASIER moderation; the reason? There are fewer things that residents of a sim could have to complain about their neighbors for, if they could simply turn their builds "off" when they view the world around them. The objects would still be there, on the server and phyisically; as well as visually for anyone who did not turn them "off". The only difference would be that, if you did not want to see the certain ugly builds around you, you could choose not to; literally, and you would see an empty plot of land there instead. If I complained to the Lindens about my neighbor's awful flashing technicolor dreamhouse, they could simply inform me of that option; if I don't like it, I can turn it visually off; I wouldn't have to see it, ever, and it would probably help with the processing on my GPU, by lightening the load. It solves both our problems, by letting me be rid of a sight I can't stand, while not at all infringing on the other fellow's right to build whatever the heck he wants on his land.

And, like I said, if his build were a deliberate attempt to annoy me, he might not get so elaborate about it if he knew, from the beginning, that I could and would "Mute" his build the moment it became too annoying for me.

Keep in mind, most people would probably reserve use of this for one of several reasons:

-to mute the builds of another neighbor or neighboring plot that they do not like. This will mean that the effects are local to a person's home neighborhood; their sim or the next one over.

-to mute the builds of another avatar, world-wide, who they find particularly objectionable, either for personal or aesthetic reasons. The best example of this that I can think of are For-Sale signs by Land-Barons or Group-Owned items by a particularly detested group (this would also often be land-barons, since for financial reasons much of their land/objects are donated into "Groups" of which they are about the only member)

It's unlikely that individuals would start muting plots wholesale, because they'd be faced with the prospect of constantly bumping into invisible walls around the world that they can't see, because, um, they chose not to see them.

I'm all for that. Preserved freedom for everyone: freedom to build things other might not like, and freedom for others to just not see them anymore.

Those were offered as alternatives to "muting" parcels. Sorry if I was unclear.

As for the rest of you points: I can see where you're going with it, yes. However, in my experience muting often fails to end a problem, and can sometimes escelate a feud. Someone determined to get to you will expand thier attacks to your freinds (and in this case, I'd assume neighbors also)... For less extreme cases, all the mute manages to do is use a low effort way around a disagreement. Nothing is settled, no one learned, no attempt was made at community.

Of course, I'm the sort that even on USENet - where the vitriol flows ever so freely - I don't mute anyone for more than a day. So, that's where I'm comming from. *shrug*

The reason I included avatars in the "muting" process when they're over muted land is because A) otherwise you're going to be able to mute your way past a build and have a nice, unobstructed view of someone fucking their girlfriend/boyfriend/furryfriend. Likewise the same goes in the opposite direction... someone could easily mute YOUR build and see YOU.

The reason I said avatars should be rendered by SOMETHING, just not themselves, is to prevent the ability for someone to spy if they figure out you've muted a plot.

That said, I really don't like this suggestion.

A) It's against the CS to create an "annoyance" build. Creating a mute function would result in LL taking fewer steps to remove annoyance builds and more to just say "Oh, just mute it", which never solves anything.

B) Once muting is developed, all people need to do to get around it is rez prims on their plot and move them onto yours. A smart scripter would create objects that would only do it while you're around, making it harder for LL to catch. Sure, it's against the CS, but so are annoyance builds. If you're willing to report moving annoyances, why not the annoyance build itself? Muting plots just makes it "harder" for someone to annoy you, not impossible. Reporting them makes it impossible.

C) I happen to live in a sim where over 45,000m2 of it is owned by one group. Three sides of my plot borders this land. If a griefer manages to buy land in something similar to this configuration (say a whole 200m2 surrounding your plot), you're going to have to mute a plot that you're GUARANTEED to have to fly through if you want to go anywhere nearby. So muting solves nothing in this case.

Poor newbies will think "Oh, this is an annoying build. I wish there was something I could do about it, but there must not be because "mute plot" is available as an option. Or: Newbie Using Live Help: Hey! Uh, there's this really loud, annoying, ugly build right next to me trying to get me to buy it just for peace and quiet. What do I do? Live Helper: Mute the land. (The answer SHOULD have been "report the problem to the Lindens".)

See what I mean? This is just a stopgap solution. Stopgap solutions are never really a solution.

If you have a problem with a build, report it.

I want something like what was suggested. I want to be able to turn off the hidious build someone put up that has turned a beautiful sim where the other residents took a lot of time and effort to make really nice builds into a slum with burned out buildings and a huge toilet. Yes a huge, dirty toilet. I know it is a bad idea in the big picture but when I look out my front window and see a toilet where once was a nice view I want to be able to turn off this throbbing hemorriod. If you could mute this sort of build, they would likely not build it because they are looking for a reaction.

You dare not say anything or negrate because these type of people are looking for a fight, they have an arsenal of griefing tools just waiting to unleash on you.

Molecular,

a)The CS is so vaguely worded that nearly anything COULD be considered a violation; it pretty much says that anything you do that reduces another's enjoyment of their virtual existence can and might get you disciplined, and doesn't say anything as to how reasonable the "offended" person's opinions have to be. Further, most "annoyance" builds can and seem to be defended with "hey, you might not like it, but it's mine, I do like it, and it's on my property." And as long as the objects/particles stay on the proper side of the property line, most seem to get left alone. Currently, the spinning for-sale signs are still there. Ugly-fied neighbors are still annoying the peaceful citizenry.

Yes, this is exactly what would happen; fewer incidences of Lindens steppig in to solve neighbor disputes; further, this is exactly what we should be striving for; system tools that allow us to solve our OWN problems, and still permits the greatest degree of freedom to create and make us of paid-for resources (land/prims/bandwidth). Quite a bit like on these forums. The Lindens take a laissez-faire attidude towards foulness and profanity in here; "poo-language" isn't censored like on so many forums; however, while you may post all sorts of awful language that you'd be ashamed to say in front of Grandmama, you have no gruarantees that anyone else will be reading your posts, because anyone else can and will mute you if they decide to. Also, you brush right by the fact that this WOULD solve things, very much, in the most efficient, equitable and (infinitely scaleable! ) way possible. If you DON'T like someone else's builds, or the constructions of a particular parcel, you can turn them visually "off". The problem is solved.

b) Okee, I'll try to answer this one. If I have muted objects by "Parcel", and designated a neigbor's parcel to be muted, then all objects not currently attached to an avatar in that parcel will be invisible. If they move out of the parcel, they become visible. If they move back in, (bam!) alpha-textured again. So if your neighbor has scripted his objects to move back and forth between his plot and yours, they'd be invisible, visible, invisible, visible, etc. If this becomes a problem, you can set the auto-return timer down low on your property; or, you could just stand around and try to catch it with video capture or snapshot, and THEN report it to the Lindens.

If the problem is seeing the objects rather than having them on your land, you could mute objects by "Owner" in which case they'd still be invisible and you'd not have to see them. If you found yourself bumping into invisible prims on your property regularly, it would clearly be because they belong to someone that you have a problem with (otherwise their objects wouldn't be muted), and you could Un-mute their stuff long enough to photograph/document it, call a linden, and report. Stuff left accidentally on your property could be a misunderstanding. Stuff left consistently on your property by the same person is grounds for a report, and presumably a parcel-ban. Can a person move their objects onto your property (assume ground level, not 500m up) if they are banned from it? I don't know.

The way to handle people who put unwanted objects on your land really is a separate discussion than "people/groups who build things that I can't stand the sight of". The solution to this is, of course, a better permissions system that goes just beyond Selling Objects For Money. I've suggested the beginnings of a better system, and I hope that the Lindens are working on something, even it it's not what I envision.


c) Your scenario is possible, certainly, but I think only a very few cases would fall into this category. I do not think that many residents of SL exist in a situation where their land is completely surrounded by another individual's land or group's land, AND do not get along with the other landowner (person or group). Even in this RARE instance however, you would still be Ok:

-If you found it necessary to mute all the parcels surrounding yours, the objects would still be there, physical, just alpha textured. Currently you MIGHT have to set this in preferences, but if you hold down ALT, all alpha-textured objects become silhouetted. So, you could quickly glance at where things are, and fly over/above/around/past them.

-Chances are, if this plot of land of yours were important enough to you that you'd want to mute ALL your surrounding neighbors, it is your primary location, your home. Guess what? You can tp there, in a moment. Have friends flying in to visit, and worried about their navigation? No problemo; after all, they haven't muted your neighbors yet, so they'll see the builds, in all their neon-flashing, particle-spewing glory. If they choose to mute the parcels also, because they visit frequently, they have the same option for navigating past that you did; hold ALT, and the alpha-objects are silhouetted in red, thus marked out.

-If navigation is really a problem for you and it's too hard to use the ALT key, you can always unmute the other builds, at any time. It'd be a toggle option, and always up to you. So, you can always weigh what is more important to you, beauty of landscape or ease-of-navigation. So, lots of options.
Again, that's assuming that you should ever find yourself in the situation that you are surrounded completely by another person or group's land, AND you find the builds on that land objectionable enough to want to be rid of them. Mole, I've got $100L that says this doesn't happen to you in the next 3 months, a good frame of time for measuring happenings in-world; FURTHER, that in the same time-frame, there will be HUNDREDS of residents who have builds near them that they dearly wish they could be rid of; visually, if not physically. I certainly can't prove the "hundreds" numbers with a poll, but do you think I'm wrong on this?

As to the privacy invasions, yes, this is the one objection I can see as reasonable; But, we should ask ourselves how reasonable an objection is, considering that privacy is alreay being invaded through such simple means as box-sit-edit, and camera angle zoom/rotate.
Privacy in regular small-size parcels is really more illusion than fact. It can be gotten with some effort, through the use of skyboxes and purchased security scripts; I have a feeling it will soon be more widely available on "invisible" islands, rented in timeslots from the owners on a Pay4Play basis. Does the ability to "Mute" other resident's builds GROSSLY violate privacy, in a way that other methods do not? Are these other methods of violating "privacy" (box-sit-edit and camera) loopholes that are about to be eliminated in a near update? If they are not going to be updated anytime soon, perhaps the objection to "Muting builds" is not so severe; privacy at ground-level in a smallish-sized build might be written off as not-really attainable, and therefore leave us to the idea that "you have as much privacy in SL as you can procure/pay for/script)"

Great idea, Mol! I was a little bothered by that myself, once I'd thought of it. Mind, there isn't really any privacy in SL outside of IM's, unless you own your own private island.

Edit: Oh geez, I just realized we already can invade people's privacy with disgusting ease. It's called the Debug menu.



Hehe, it's not really against the TOS, unless the Lindens enforce it. Are they removing those blatant land-extortion builds that've been popping up? Without any tools to help ourselves, they just get burdened with more of it, and they're already overworked.



Someone can always find a way to annoy people, if they're determined. However, deliberately sneaking objects onto people's land without permission is a much more serious TOS violation than 'annoyance building' is.



Well, mostly I perceived this idea as making sure everyone had a decent view while they're on their own land. True, it doesn't do much in the above situation when you have to cross their land... but how often is this sort of configuration going to pop up?



Well, the Live Helper could give the correct answer, "Report the problem to the Lindens, then mute the land." That the Live Help isn't giving the right information wouldn't be the fault of the existance of the tool.



Unless it's a gross violation of the TOS, I doubt much will happen.

Hehe... I've also wanted the 'Mute Resident' function to be a lot more effective. Basically cause the client to just not render the muted player, or anything they own. It'd be like they no longer exist! Hehe, but I daresay, that function would probably open up a really really big, squirmy, gooey, great-for-fishing can of worms.