Was AWOL for 6 months

re-activated yesterday and was lucky that my stuff was still in the inventory.

I have a question. 6 month ago Linden showed a screenshot of the new engine which should be available with Second Life 2.0 I think. What happend to that? I didnt read / hear anything about the new engine. Is it still in process or canceled?

Thank you

There was a post a few weeks ago (on the 21st, I believe) by Steve Linden explaining that the internal workings of the SL engine make it dificult to just drop in a new rendering engine. But the techniques learned through those tests will make their way into SL improvements over the course of the next six months or so.

What? Seriously? So there will be no new rendering engine, so to speak? Just improvements over time (and nope, I don't believe "next 6 months" before you ask).

sounds like we may see several smaller steps throughout the second half of the year, while a possible larger leap will be forthcoming at some undetermined point in the future. that's pure speculation on my part, but it seems to be the gist of what's being said.

also, was that a hint at SpeedTree?!?

Good grief. I increasingly think that the code base for SL is an unmitigated mess. They only realised how problematic it would be when they tried to integrate it? They spent all that time developing it and then couldn't use it?

By the way, "organically" is another way or say it's an absolute fucking spaghetti mess of rubbish.

Havok 2/3 - who can tell?
New Renderer - who can tell?
Mono - who can tell?

This place is really going to the dogs. Bring on the competition. Second Life is rapidly in danger of looking laughable when the competition finally arrives.

Well, there is basically no competition there right now nor in the future. So LL might think they have the monopol and no need to rush new technology.

Isn't Steve citing the exact same excuses that Andrew uses about the Havok upgrade?

Basically, we were told 2.5 years ago that they were working to upgrade to Havok 2, but it required re-writing some of the existing code because of incompatabilities in the way it was orriginally writen, methods used, etc. Six months ago we were told that Andrew couldn't keep up with the task of re-writing the existing code as more things keep being added.

So are they telling us that the new additions to SL, and there have been a lot over the past 2.5 years, have all been written to the orriginal spec that is not compatible with Havok 2 / 3 ? Does the same apply to the new render engine? Will we never see the V2.0 render engine because other new "improvements" added from now into the future will continue to be written to work with v1.0 renderer?

I'm going to have to agree with Moopf on this one, things sure will get interesting!

I think in Ben's blog, he was talking about competition coming very soon, so they are aware and (I hope) ready for it.

Welcome back and well wishes Rant. Thanks for the notice of your return.

It sounds to me that they're basically undoing all the "house of cards" code they've been piling on since beta, and now they're properly programming.

We're already getting bits of the renderer, just very small pieces. For instance, diabling far clip is a step towards that, as well as a strange little visual artifact I get after flying around 5-6 sims; the draw distance clips the prims, but not the land outline. So, you can see the land outline for 6-7 sims away, but not the prims. Weird.

Anyways, I expect it's coming, but mostly under-the-hood improvements first.

On the flip side, I'm not really holding my breath.

Questions:

1. What's so great about Havoc 2/3 that everybody thinks we need to have it?

2. Doesn't this make that speculation about removing the joints so as to speed up Havoc 2 or 3 wrong? In which case, why remove the joints instead of fixing them?

3. What competition is on the horizon?

coco

I imagine people logging into the new version of Second Life. The one that finally has the glorious Havoc 3, and seeing people looking around with excitment and saying - "So where is it then?"

It's a bit sad really. All the pressure put on LL to add Havoc 2, and it's not really going to change anything. I think it's just become a big stick to beat Linden Lab with whenever we're feeling a little mischievous.

With all due respect, that's absolute rubbish. Havok 3 (which it will now be when it finally arrives, apparently) will offer a great improvement to SL simply because suddenly we'll have a much more capable physics system. Vehicles seriously suck big goblin balls in SL at the moment, when Havok 'x' finally arrives we should see a great improvement there. In addition we'll see much more flexibility in the physics, the ability to use physics more extensively without crashing every sim and their dog (hopefully) and overall better performance of sims.

Sure there will be some people saying "where is it", when in fact they'll be enjoying the benefits of it without even realising it - they'll just think that something's changed for the better.

I agree with Moopf in that this statement is complete and utter bullshit. Linden Lab is the one who put the expectations out there and said "hey, we will deliver this by this point, and this is what it will do". Then they did not deliver, to the point where it is reaching Duke Nukem Forever proportions. To say that the new physics engine would add nothing to SL at all is also false. I am surprised you of all people who constantly has come up against the limitations of the current system would be so blasé about its replacement.

If they are now a giant piñata, it is through their own inability to manage expectations and repeated failure to deliver on promises. Second Life is falling behind the curve. Their development priorities seem all over the map, and things long promised are just not being delivered. (Havok was most recently promised as a patch of 1.4). HTML anyone? 1.7's biggest PROMISED feature didn't make the cut. That responsibility falls upon LL - they are not just some big easy target. They are getting their just desserts for mismanaging the development process and customer expectations.

How dare you!!!

Well with all due respect!! I hope they bring Havoc 3 in and your rollerskates jam up and you fall over and die!! You big meanie!!

hehe, first they'd have to be physics-enabled, which they're not! But it would be fun if everybody wearing my skates started falling over because of the new Havok. Ah, but it is just a dream.

PS. The post needed the second - good call

Your skates are great!! Especially with a girl stuck in the top of them. I nearly married a girl I saw in them one day. Then I found out she was a guy. GrrRrrRrr! Skates can be soo misleading.