Please give a reason why 1.23 does not allow the avatar mesh to be hidden

All I've been told is "If we allow the megprim hider to continue working until 1.24 when alpha masking will be available, more people will complain about content being broken."

Besides being really backwards logic, that isn't a technical reason. I've tried asking for the real reason, and just get the above line parroted to me. Please Lindens, explain why you must break so many cool avatars NOW rather than wait until we have a better, non-hacky method in 1.24? I really do not understand this logic.

I agree! I had to stop using the RC so that I could even see one of my favorite avatars...

It makes sense to me... break it now, before even more people use it. That way, less people have to rework their creations, and less people are upset by it being fixed(Broken).

Anyhow, no idea on the tech side.

Because that "Feature" was a "Bug" that came with an obscure ARC issue that was due to being fixed. Really... People rushed in too quickly to exploit the flaw and only hurt themselves by making content out if it. (>_<

No other way to hide the mesh, guys. What else were we supposed to do?

As for breaking content in the future, it's way easier to replace the megaprim than it is to replace invisiprims. More content being made with it in the future, versus all the content that already exists...not hard to figure out.

EDIT: Either way, they still haven't given a technical REASON.

I agree with ImNotGoingSideways *and* Maya on this one. It was a mistake exploiting this, but there's no reason not to leave it in. But, at the same time, BigPapi is also right.

The fact that Avatar makers can leave the invisi mesh bug device unlinked and replacable by a simple invisible skin texture will not stop idiots from A) Blaming LL for breaking their content and B) Not even trying to get an invisible skin.

Even if the Avatar maker dissappears from SL, that will only give skin makers a new market! I can see a "Generic Totally Invisible Skin" for most avatars and other custom invisible avatar segments (like a cyborg with sections of legs and arms/heads/torsos made invisible). People will still complain and not even try to find a replacement invisi skin.

If we get LL to leave this bug in, will we be willing to step up and defend LL when the real fix comes and be willing to whap the few idiots upside the head when they complain about the final fix ?

Sure, I do that anyway.

There are all kinds of things animal avatar makers use that are bugs or not supported in some way (animation over rides, for one), and we just go with the new feature when it comes. But LL has never taken away a popular method without providing an alternative like this, in my time at least. What makes it worse is their lack of communication.

So people are actually wearing megaprims, what use is this unless you have a giant robot avatar or something?
Are they megainvisiprims or something?
It sounds like a bad idea anyway, as megaprims are really for inanimate building use if we want to continue to keep them inworld.
Otherwise if people start hopping around in megaprim vehicles than span a few sims it will get messy.

You have it all wrong, Tedd. The object we're talking about is not rendered by the client, ever. It simply causes the avatar mesh to not render, while keeping prims, alpha, and the environment intact. Note how this micro (about a quarter meter tall) can stand in the water without causing "holes". It's not scripted like invisiprims, and as such causes less server lag.

here here. And I supported the new skin layers because it would allow future content creators to make better skins and aside from the redistributing is easily fixed if you have the files for the skins
HERE its simply a matter of me putting a notecard saying when the new 1.24 viewer is used that the current system will become defunct, come to my store and grab the new skin I will make avaliable at all my locations, which renders the mesh invisible, but until then you are blocking off an entire line of creation until you impliment what you delayed with "other needed content".

From the blog:

Maya, this was explained clearly in MISC-2723, and many months ago by Nyx in VWR-812. We have been absolutely consistent about this -- the invisi-megaprim hack is a hack that relied on a broken render pipeline. Continuing to support it causes problems now and will continue to cause problems in the future. Furthermore, properly laying the groundwork for alpha masking requires that this bug be fixed now.

I'm sorry that you've grown dependent on it, but we're not removing a supported feature here. We're fixing a bug and we even gave plenty of warning when it became clear that people were trying to build on it.

----

Ample warning, my foot. I only heard about its imminent borkage as a mere rumor, from a whole one person, just a couple of weeks ago. Ignoring that though, if there really IS a technical reason behind it, why not just freakin' say so? Is that really so difficult?

The JIRA is opened but we all know LL doesnt care about the tiny or mini community , or the non human community for the most part. Look at the easter event ) they didnt even have a tiny danceball.

http://jira.secondlife.com/secure/ViewVoters!default.jspa?id=32858

I hadn't heard of it either, but are they suppossed to wait for confirmation from every builder in SL to fix it, meanwhile more and more start using it.

Wait for 1.24.

I hate like hell to tell you of all people that I told you so, but I did.

That's actually assuming this isn't another steaming load being dumped on us by LL. Based on LL track record, mesh hiding may never see the light of day...remember server side windlight settings? Those were supposed to come 'next update'....still waiting.

Their line about 'if we wait more people will complain about broken content' is bogus...when 1.23 goes live avatar makers have to listen to angry buyers AND have no fix other than 'wait for it'. If LL left it live till 1.24, those complaining could easily be given an updated part. I do not see how any sane individual would find the first case (angry customers having to wait for a fix) is preferable to the latter ... not a bit of logic to LL's position.

And as far as reverting back, not missing much. Illogical pie menu changes, trees that are broken, etc.

They tell one or two of their open source / devlist buddies, usually at 'office hours' conveniently held to be inaccessable to anyone working (US) or who likes to sleep (Europe) and call that 'ample notice'.

And if they knew it was going to be an issue, they could have blogged it...far more read that than subscribe to the dev list or attend 'coder linden's' badly scheduled office hour. People might have been a touch less hostile about it if there was some communication outside the annointed few that can make office hours.

You know, I was at the hours when I heard wind of the change... and I'm STILL pissed off.

I mean, I'd be on-board with fixing it in 1.23 if they gave us, oh, I dunno, a checkbox to kill the mesh with?

Since that's exactly what this mega-attachment 'bug' does, we need SOMETHING with the same functionality if it's going to be taken away from us.

Wanna remove the checkbox for disabling the mesh when 1.24 hits and an even better solution is implemented? Fine. We'll use the alpha mask then. There'll probably even be a freebie mesh-killer mask made available shortly after it goes gold.

Just don't break useful content that relies on an exploit until something official takes its place.

Learn from warpPos(), FFS!

Alpha masking ... ohhhhhh! Yum!!

Is there a roadmap for viewer releases? I'd like to have some idea of when we may expect the release of 1.24. Are we talking a year? Years?

Thank GHOD that thing is gone.

There are other ways to hide the mesh when/where needed without using a 65k by 65k sized megaprim!

It also did not work well in some cases. It was a pretty messed up bug. with annoying artifacts.

Just continue using invisoprims as you have been till a REAL option is provided.

Thing is I'm thinking of putting a line of stuff up for sale but I don't want to take folks money for something that will be obsolete in the not-to-distant future.

I read up on the history of viewer releases and it isn't clear that we have to go through every iteration of 1.23 before getting to 1.24 so I'm wondering if it might be better to wait. I'm sure they don't schedule these releases to the day but it would be good to have an idea when the alpha masking feature will be available.

As a dedicated user of the release candidate viewers I fail to grasp how you guys think ample warning was not provided.

I have known about the fact that this bug has been fixed literally for months, because I use the RC and I read the info about what changes are being made to them.

If you insist on pushing the envelope and trying new things that exploit bugs in SL, then shouldn't you also be staying abreast of client changes by paying attention to the RC cycles?

I'll be dealing with this, the way that real software companies do.

I didn't build on an unsupported trick. I used invisiprims in my av design, which are proven and have been reliable for years. People begged me for a version that didn't use megaprims, I refused.. It was an unsupported glitch, and I knew the moment I first saw it (all their attachments kept reloading constantly).. that this wasn't going to be a solution in the long term.

I've watched very carefully this whole issue, because I do make avatars with invisiprims, and I do want to make more.. but until I see an official function that's better than invisiprims, I'll keep using them.

Meanwhile, I've kept a list of the name of just about every person who has ever bought one of my bot avatars.

When something better comes along in an official viewer, I'll more than likely send out an update. In the meantime, I sell the invisiprim version.