What should Philip work on next?

QED

Kind of like http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1406 or maybe http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1115 ?

Yep.

/me votes.

These would be nice.

Trees - LL chooses speedtree in 2005? What happened?
http://www.speedtree.com/press/PR_Second_Life_Chooses_SpeedTree_March_22_05.pdf

Clouds - LL acquired Windward mark in Q2 2007. We have windlight, but where is nimble?
http://www.windwardmark.net/products.php?page=nimble&sub=technology

Avatars - I can't imagine too many people actually liking the current meshes that much anymore. It is 2009, isn't it time for an improvement?
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php

Shadows and per pixel lighting/shading - Apparently these are in the works, and they were passed to QA 3 or 4 months ago. When will we see them in an official viewer?

They don't even NEED speedtree.

The current Linden tree XML files are small enough to be stored in prim "extra" data.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-303

If I read that Jira correctly, allowing customising of the textures would just create more trees that are all the same shape. Even allowing custom settings of twist and droop and perhaps some others wouldn't make them any better looking. You would also need custom models for branches and trunks, and the ability to place branches in a more staggered/realistic way. They are currently just completely flawed.

- They don't get wider at the base like real trees
- No roots.
- They lean in the wrong direction in the wind if the z axis isn't set to 0.
- When they blow in the wind, they look retarded. They just splay out much like stabbing a paintbrush against a wall.
- Branches and trunks don't curve or bend as if they had grown naturally.
- At the joints where the fractal joins together, the models stick through too far, and protrude out of the other side.
- They change shape and size considerably at different LODs.
- You can't make them wider or taller, only bigger or smaller.
- There just isn't enough variety of various species of vegetation.

The Linden trees are ghastly altogether and need either completely redoing from scratch or replacing with a third party. The third party being the easiest option as most of the work is done for them already and speed tree already has hundreds of plants already.

Different types would not be the same shape as each other... there are different shape trees currently and they're all defined from this file. Different trees of the same type would have the same shape, yes, just as the current trees do. There are no doubt better packages that could be used, just as there are better packages for rendering non-geometric objects than the Linden sculpties. But the current code is there, and it's what we have to start with, if it can be modified a little to allow customization, then that's worth consideration. Not perfect, no, but possible beats perfect.
Is it open source, or even licenseable for redistribution for use with an open source application?

So you are saying this is more of a temporary measure, until a better tree system is implemented, rather than a long term solution? I guess it shouldn't be hard to allow scripts to be placed in trees, while extending lsl with "llSetTreeParams" or some such. Trees need to be improved drastically sooner rather than later though. Most of sl users seem to be purchasers rather than creators. Once more virtual worlds such as Blue Mars go live, I can imagine a lot of people will defect to the game that looks better/prettier.


Hmm, I didn't realise everything had to be open source. Why did LL want to use it in the first place, if everything has to be open source? :-/

I see this as a possible measure. Something that can be implemented now, and improved incrementally.
Possibly, but other people won't. There's a whole debate in the forums here between people who see the user created content as being a key feature of SL, and people who think it's irrelevant.
It doesn't have to be open source, but it has to be compatible with GPL distribution, or it has to be optional (like Quicktime). Why did they want to use it? Because they hadn't open-sourced the client yet when they started looking? I'm not sure of the timeline, but I could easily see that happening.

The viewer has been Open Source for 2years now?

Anything that is not Open Source can not be packaged up and included in the 3rd party viewers.

EDIT: grrrrrrrrrrrrr Hate licensing, deferring to Argent on this one. Change Open Source to GPL in above statement.

Sorry, I can't say I know much of the legal side of open source. I just assumed any non open source code could be pre compiled as a dll (or whatever mac/linux use) and distributed in the third party libraries pack.

That depends on the license restrictions on the software itself. That's why (for example) there's packages you can download from Linden Labs, and others you have to pull from the original vendor's websites. Not all commercial software is open-source compatible. I can easily see software like SpeedTree, that depends on sales of embedded content for income, having problems.

his god-awful hairstyle?

Simple project that texture sellers have been wishing for for years:

Make "no transfer" textures mean the texture inventory item cannot be transfered but objects you decorate with that texture still be able to be transfered.

Yeah. See http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3448.

Although I have to wonder if some texture seller at some point pushed for the current implementation, not realizing what a mess it would create. The reason I wonder: if you consider the incredible amount of special-case effort that goes into making it work stupidly as it does now, it's pretty clear it didn't get that way by accident. Watch the Contents tab when texturing with no-transfer textures, and what happens to the textured prim faces when you remove one of those embedded texture references by hand... and then by script. It's completely brain-damaged, but intentional, I think.

I dont know if anyone has said this yet but this business of either going out of control or crashing when you hit the boundaries between regions is LONG overdue for sorting as is the issue of experiencing trouble when you fly a vehicle into a parcel which is already full of prims.

I know a lot of people love aircraft and spacevehicles in sl and its time something was done for them,

He could also get us a method of putting text on prims, I'm amazed we still cant and he could get us some new shapes of prims (especially more polygons) and the ability to cut or put holes anywhere in the prim rather than its centre.

And its about time the old myths about megaprims were dispelled and Lindens followed the lead set by certain competitors and allowed prims up to 100 metres.

... I also keep saying the colonisation of the linden moon is late too

the most important technology issue to work on is HTTP Textures and assets. Slow loading textures are the single biggest thing holding SL back. It's the equivalent of dialup vs. broadband; once broadband began to be widely adopted, we saw a huge surge in the use of the internet, due to convenient, near-instant use. I imagine a lot of people get frustrated with SL in their "first hour" due to how slowly things load.

The most important policy issue would be traffic gaming and bot use. Make traffic gaming a TOS violation, and enforce it, and watch as the world opens up to new people (and oldbies!) who can find things much more easily.

It could be. The reason that Linden Labs originally decided not to provide the ability for non-voice users to see voice dots is apparently because someone who didn't want voice argued against it... and later regretted it. I could easily see this kind of restriction being pushed by someone who didn't think things through.

On the other hand, the half-assed privacy and security implementation in SL (the one that provides neither privacy nor security) is apparently home grown.

Some of us like our ban lines after being griefed, thankyouverymuch.

It's only a 512 lot, in the middle of a sim. It isn't harming anyone's SL enjoyment.

How about a warning that a ban line active parcel is coming up, when someone flies or sails in the water.

Wouldn't that solve most of it?

I wonder what your immediate neighbours think of those lovely huge red strips of lettering adjacent to their property ???

to me theyre as unsightly as any ad farm that ever existed... fortunately for you theyre invisible to you....

We need better protection against being griefed, too, because ban lines don't do much. Especially on a 512 meter parcel.

I *want* to better be able to control access to things I've built myself, but I can't use ban lines to do it because they're simply not effective. We need something better. I'm not talking about eliminating security, I'm talking about improving it.

You will not find a lot of sympathy for people using ban lines here in the forums. You were greifed one time, you were not physically assaulted, your property was not damaged, and because of this you are going to ruin the view of all of your neighbors, who btw feel no need to put up ban lines. So who is the greifer and who are the victims?

Another thing that could be improved is parcel return...would it be beyond the bounds of possibilty to have items returned individually rather than in great congealed gobbets... I'm sure that this has lead to item loss in my case.....

I wasn't looking for any sympathy. Ban lines are part of SL and available for people to use when they find it suitable. I don't have to justify it to a total stranger.

As I said, the parcel is tiny and in the middle of a sim. It's surrounded by other tiny parcels. No one's ever complained. Just today I moved back some trees and terra formed to allow my new neighbor a bit more breathing room despite it being well within my property line. She was setting up her own ban line/security system while I was there. This is not a picturesque sim whose view I'm ruining or whatever you're in a lather about.

Tell me how anyone is bothered by having to fly a bit to the right or the left?

As far as how the griefing affected me or what happened, you are being totally presumptive there. But you don't get to decide whether I deserve to have a ban line or not. Sorry. Also I resent the insinuation that protecting one's 'home' is "Griefing." Lol.

(To others: No the lines are not invisible to me. I get along with all my neighbors, and have not had any incident about the ban lines. I got a 512 in the first place due to constant trespassing. Personally I'd rather bounce off a ban line than be teleported home before I knew what was happening but others have no problem with orbs much of the time. To each their own. And no, it isn't the best protection but it's all there is so far.)