Do we have an "SL-Killer"?

I am looking at the Blender interface and at the 3DS interace and 3DS looks 1000x friendlier and intuitive than Blender.

Blender feels like i am creating in a chaotic environment. 3DS looks neat and ordered.

I could never use Blender any of the times i tried it...even just now i have no idea where to start. But i am building in 3DS on first launch of the program..i guess a 3D mouse helps and i saw no way to use it in Blender.

You're still looking at it from the point of view of someone who's already used to building stuff in 3d programs and already looking to get into this world as a builder from the start.

What I'm talking about is everyone else. SL opens up building for everyone else, and it does it in a social way where you interact with people and learn from them as they build and they can help you as you build.

I can make them, when I need them. My point is that they're not as necessary as you think, and they're foam on the surf next to the basic building and scripting. Sure, I've built sculpties, I've even written a program to generate a water surface with wakes around embedded rocks and writing out an image file from scratch. This is NOT about ME.

Been there, done that, went back to prims. This is NOT ABOUT ME.

This is not about my limitations, this is about the process and environment of SL, which alone out of all the 3d environments lets you build in-world, and NOT coincidentally is also the only 3d environment where people do it, routinely, even the ones who say "I'm not a builder", and NOT coincidentally is also the one that we're all using.

Because I can't be arsed. Its got the worst UI of any 3d program I've ever used, and I've used plenty going back to Sculpt 3d on the Amiga in the '80s. And I don't need it (see above). THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME.

This is about the hundreds of people I've worked with, helped, learned from, over the past four years, of all levels of skill, from "I'm not a builder" people who ended up making their own scripted doors because the one in their house didn't work the way they wanted all the way up to people like Uchi and Wynx and Mickey and Cheetah Kitty.

In SL building is like playing Frisbee. You can just turn around and say "hey look at this" and the guy next to you goes "hey, I can do that too".

If you're not doing it in-world, you don't get that. And it's a critical part of what makes SL SL.

But you can't work WITH someone while you're doing it. It's not just "gazing at an artist as they work", it's being there and working with people.

lol, I had the same experience when I first opened Blender. I never learned it either because I use 3dSM but I read numerous accounts from people who say that once you know the program it is very intuitive. Much is done from the keyboard, which is always the fastest - once you know it. That being the catch. There are tutorials out there to learn it though. I remember finding a set of video tuts for it done by a kid who sounded to be about 10 years old. He was animating too.

I guess the biggest reason to learn Blender would be because you really want to develop for Blue Mars but can't afford 3d Studio Max or Maya. And I completely agree that 3d SM is more intuitive and faster to learn, but it is out of range for many. Blender is free. But if I didn't already have 3dSM I'd be learning Blender right now.

Argent, you really don't have to go to Blue Mars if you don't want to you know I suspect many of the high-end content creators from SL will though. And the consumers and socialites will follow.

This is my earlier point - it doesn't open it for "everyone else" because an unregulated social system can't be guaranteed to include everyone.

Based on that, wouldn't it be possible for smaller communities to form around particular 3D tools, supporting each other? Perhaps they can't help each other directly within the 3D package, but they could chat to each other surely?

Also, doesn't TrueSpace allow collaborative building?

Like I said, there's plenty of places where you've got millions of consumers and a few creators. MMORPGs like Warcraft, chat rooms like IMVU and Habbo. Many of them are more popular than SL. But they're not "SL Killers" because they're a completely different kind of product. That's what I'm getting at. An "SL killer" that doesn't scratch all the itches that SL scratches won't be an "SL Killer".

Yea this is a big drawback. It makes planning construction of a region harder to do among a group of people without artistic representations for each person to work from on their own machine and even then unless working from a kit with all the same pieces, things may look different as different parts of the region are built by different people - even within the bounds of the theme and using similar textures etc..

For collaborative work, SL is a virtual world where people can work together in real time to achieve the same goal dynamically.

Oh, so that is what you meant in your definition of virtual world a while back...i understand now.

Ja, that's a big part of what makes a virtual place a world.

To each his own, I guess. I am happiest in SL when I'm on my own building something new, figuring out a new tool, trying a new script. I don't do my best work with someone looking over my shoulder. I guess I'm not much of a collaborator

Luckily there's more than enough collaborators to keep hanging around the sandboxes luring newbies in with promises of sweet sweet prims.

This is true, but I think it is irrelevant whether creation is done in-world or out-of-world (in a wysiwyg Sandbox) and uploaded.

However, one drawback of BM over SL is that collaborative work in the Sandbox is not possible, and it is completely standalone and permits only one client (unlike opensim standalone sims). Of course, modules can be worked on separately, then combined.

But I think that is a very small drawback, compared to the advantages, as I have seen very little collaborative work in SL in the years I have been in here. Almost all the creators I have ever come into contact with work alone, although I am sure that Argent will tell us that his experience is the exact opposite.

There was talk in the opensim developers forum a couple of weeks ago about improving the permissions and copyright system, over and above what SL provides. One of the suggestions was space for more than one creator to be listed in an object, in the case of collaborative work. This was squashed as it was felt the percentage of people who do this was so minute as to be not worth the effort.

Rock

Linden Lab continues to squander its great idea with Second Life, and eventually there will be an SL-Killer.

However, the thing that attracted me to Second Life was the ability to add my own content. (Not sell it; just being able to create and share.) And though Second Life could do far better in handling user-created content, I'm not aware of any other virtual world that has even attempted coming close to Second Life in that area.

So as dissatisfied as I am with Second Life much of the time, to draw me away, a virtual world would have to have to allow me somewhere near the ability to create content as I have on Second Life. And, I am not a pioneer (maybe I should be). I'm not excited about stumbling through the early stages of a virtual world; I will wait until other people have paved the way.

I do not think, however, I represent a large portion of the market for virtual worlds. (I don't represent the "mainstream," as it was put in another thread.) I think the large portion of the market wants to either socialize, or kill liesure time, with as little time and money investment as possible.

That is why another social world does not have to replicate everything that Second Life does to kill Second Life. It doesn't have to offer great content-creation ability if the overwhelming majority of Second Life users don't care about content creation. If it draws off the socializers and leaves the creators, the creators probably are not enough to sustain Second Life.

Residents like myself cannot be directly profitable for Second Life. I make a lot of demand on resources and pay pennies for it. I may be indirectly profitable for Second Life, in that I create things that keep the socializers happy and using Second Life. But draw off the socializers, and my use doesn't pay for sustaining Second Life.

Comparing Second Life to other virtual words may be like comparing apples to oranges. Apples and oranges may not be exact substitutes for each other. But if the apples are rotten enough, or the oranges are cheap enough, people will switch from apples to oranges.

Second message in this thread:

No single Killer, but it could be a death by a thousand cuts.

There are over 300 virtual worlds now, and approaching 50 clones of SL using opensim (and it has not even gone beta yet, that will happen perhaps by the end of this year).

There are communities at Openlife, OSgrid, 3rd Rock etc that used to be in SL. It does not matter if Free Realms is not your cup of tea, just take a look at the SL Universe forum, on alternative worlds, and see all the excitement there about Free Realms. A lot of SL folk have found it more stimulating than walking around deserted sims in SL. It isn't for me, or Argent, but it is for many others, who are/were in SL.

The crux is this, there is only a finite number of people who have a finite amount of leisure time, and the inclination to spend in a virtual world, and the more competition for that time that there is will syphon people away from SL, or syphon them from starting in SL in the first place.

All the people I have met in these early days of the BM beta are from SL, and once it launches (if it launches) I really fear for SL. It won't kill SL, but it will have a big impact.

There are diehard enthusiast groups for everything from the Amiga to Pacman, and if LL are not careful (in the way they respond to mounting competition and technical advances), then the SL community could become populated by such a small (but nonetheless very vociferous) diehard group, who still believe that prims rule over meshes.

Rock

Of which at least 250 are 3d or 2.5d chat systems, and not worlds at all.
Most of the people I met in Lively were from Second Life. THere's a lot of curiosity whenever people describe ANYTHING as a "virtual world", even when it fails to be such a thing by even the loosest definition.

And it's got nothing to do with "prims over meshes", it's got to do with "in-world" versus "out-of-world".

Then SL fails your own standard.

It has no inworld terrain creation tools, Blue Mars does
It has no inworld weather creation tools, Blue Mars does
It has no inworld facial expression editor, Blue Mars does
It has no inworld sound and music editor, Blue Mars does
It has no inworld animation editor, Blue Mars does
It has no inworld texture and material editor, Blue Mars does

or does (now) the mighty prim trump all those?

Do you seriously want to compare what SL has in terms of inworld creation tools over BM? Go ahead, I am up for it, and I have not listed half of them yet.

Rock

I think the SL-Killer will be one or a few source, not many. That is because of social inertia and social gravity.

Just like physical inertia, people build up momentum on their present course. For SL users to switch to a competitor, the competitor would have to be more than a little better. I think it would have to be better with a huge "Wow" factor to syphon off SL users.

And the social gravity at force is that people attract more people. If the alternative to SL is a little better than SL, but has a tenth of the users, new users are probably going to seek out where the party is and go to SL. Again, I think it will take a real "Wow" to divert new users from going to the established population in SL.

I think SL is more vulnerable to one big player making a big initial splash than a lot of smaller players starting out on a small scale. But time will tell.

Only if you're playing sillybuggers with definitions. You know what I mean. I know you know what I mean. You know I know you know what I mean.

In world or in the sandbox? If it really has all that in-world, why do you need the sandbox?

It isn't just other worlds luring SL users away, it is also the initial take-up rate. I have never been in WoW. I tried SL, liked it, and stayed. I had only a certain amount of time available a few years ago for virtual wanderings, and Sl was the one I landed on first. Had SL not existed I might have landed in WoW instead. I believe the reverse is also true, if WoW had not existed many people there who have never been in SL may have tried SL instead. Now, there are so many to choose from, including lots of clones of SL, with free land to boot.

So I think that the proliferation of virtual worlds will impact SL's initial take up rate, will impact their retention rate (people who get pissed off with SL for one reason or another will have alternatives, when that was not always the case), and SL's profile as a leading edge virtual world provider will also suffer, if they do not keep up with the technical advances others are taking advantage of.

Rock

This is Argent 'that is not a virtual world, I'll tell you what the definition of a virtual world is' Stonecutter talking, is it?



The Sandbox is to allow you to see your creations, and fine tune them, before uploading them into Blue Mars.

The Sandbox also has all the necessary import and export functions. Everything you create can be exported to many other virtual worlds, and objects in other worlds (including scripts) can be imported.

But your emphasis on inworld v. out-of-world is misplaced. The sofa with anims I create in my Opensim standalone, then upload into SL via Second Inventory is no less valid than if I created it inside SL.

I tried desperately last week to get the Opensim developers to accept the principal of its scripting language having 100% compatibility with LSL, but that proposal was shouted down by the core developers, so with only 90% compatibility, who would have confidence in creating scripts in one *hoping* it will work in the other? So right now, the SL scripting language can only be used inside SL, while the Opensim version of LSL will be available to nearly 50 grids now (while still in alpha) and goodness knows how many grids once it gets into beta, and then as a final release.

Rock

But does it actually have _in-world_ editors for these things, or just import/export tools?

I think it will have the necessary wow This is why:

- http://www.cryengine2.com/ - this is the CryENGINE2 site, the game engine used by Blue Mars. Check out the video playing on this page, this is why BM can do what it does.

- http://wiki.crymod.com/index.php/Category:Official:Tutorials - check out the top few links here to see how the game engine allows you to have random animals wander an area, terraform in micro detail, render vegetation automatically, paint on terrain, make incredibly realistic rivers and roads, change settings to create winter with naturally generated snow and ice, shadows, dynamic lighting, atmospheric effects, real game dynamics ...

How's it look?:

- http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=42488 - Forest

- http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/9736/00007rs8.jpg - water edge

- http://gigaom.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/blue-mars-waterfall.jpg - water fall

- http://tech2.in.com/media/images/2008/Feb/img_50511_blue_mars.jpg - purse store

- http://blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/briefingroom/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/vse-blue-mars.jpg - monorail in first Blue Mars city

And, an example of some of the professionally available content, here is one "city" (or region in SL):
http://www.virtualspaceentertainment.com/
click on EXPLORE and then on MEDIA for the best video

In-world editors AND import/export tools.

Blue Mars have stated that they *prefer* that all creation work is done outside of Blue Mars, in the Sandbox, then uploaded. But that suits me fine, as that is what I already do in SL by using my Opensim as a sandbox for quiet creation.

Imagine this in RL. Instead of all those cranes littering the city skyline, you just wake up one morning and new buildings are just there. No noise, no disruption, no construction eyesores. Hmmmm.

Rock

I don't know. I kind of like being in world messing with things. You really can't know what all the elements are going to look like until you bring them together.

When you go from "city" to "city", do you see a loading screen, or does your camera move from city to city?