/OMG wake me up when HTML gets here....

yeah yea yeah!

Wake me up!

all this camera talk.. in 1.9
Do they want us want to make porno movies or something.....

HTML won't arrive for at least 6 months in my opinion. There still appears to be a lot to do and there's no telling if LL will get bored with it, forget about it, or shelve it for later.

Whats that? Porno? New klind of prim? - Pls tell me...

/Tina

HTML on a prim, well, it's cool and all, but I'm in no hurry. I also certainly hope it's going to be limited in a similar way to video streaming; I don't want dozens of browsers spawning every time I go into an area, thanks.

And I REALLY don't want Flash billboards.

Yes, Linden Lab is working hard to turn SL into a viable platform for virtual porn. Their goal is to outcompete other porno movie producers by using virtual actors. Every time anyone sits on a poseball, Video Linden is there filming, he's just invisible. They've also recently hired several well-known pornstars to read the feature suggestions forum to look for ideas that will help them exand their virtual porn empire.

What makes me the angriest about this release is the claim that the much needed llTeleportAgent function, which they mentioned in the release notes of 1.8, has been demoted in importance apparently and is just not as important to implement right this minute as scriptable cameras (I suppose machinima generates more cool buzz than P2P) or whatever other things they can come up with.

It makes me wonder who is dictating development priorities. I look also to the tremendous amount of effort that has been put into the web map API and SLURL (both of which are of dubious value - especially the former) and I wonder why such things as a secure web API for paying third party sites with L$ does not exist (instead of sites having to implement the half assed pay into an account solution), why there is no secure inventory delivery gateway API (again, instead of the jury rigged solutions sites have to use today that give no confirmation that an item has been received, and rely on the painfully inadequate email and neutered XML-RPC implementation). These are important features that could help add more third party commerce growth for SL - but all of the development efforts are going into flashy Web 2.0 Google map knockoffs.

Also, yet again, HTML is still not anywhere on the horizon - and it was a promised feature of 1.7 that just magically disappeared. That has been the most disappointing of all. I have lost my love of building in SL because the building tools just never cease to frustrate me with how buggy and imprecise they are, so the one thing I have really enjoyed has been developing a site that interacts with SL. There is so much more I could do with Snapzilla if I could integrate it in world, but all of that is on hold (as is a project waiting on llTeleportAgent).

I recognize that development takes time, that resources are limited, and that everyone has their own priorities. However, I would really like to know how scriptable cameras are in any way a priority at this point in time when there is so much more that needs to be done, and that is of very little value to the user base overall.

I couldn't agree more Cristiano. The feeling of frustration at what Linden Lab decides to do, or says they'll do then don't, or just avoids altogether, just seems to grow and grow. They're a small company that doesn't have the necessary ability to focus to design and produce intelligently, rather it spreads itself around thinly and seemingly does little well. I think there are some serious corporate issues at Linden Lab as to who is deciding what is being done, how that is being managed, and how they communicate this to their customers.

I have this image of the office being filled with individuals who are either unable, unwilling or just not required to act as a group.

Well they are using that "Bells" movie to promote second life, so they are putting all these camera features for people who joined second life and want to make these films.

Well the thing is, they are working on tons of projects in the same time, and that dont work really good.

If its not done, please dont promise stuff when it cannot be delivered, dont keep the custumers with high hopes..

See, flashy feature added for sole purpose of trying to attract a niche market.

It's probably a lot more fun to code camera scripting, if you're an SL developer.

Yes, but they've even over-sold Second Life on that! They produced their own special version of the client that allowed them to do the lip-synching for the film - not something anybody else can do in Second Life. And please, let's not talk about attaching prims, matching those up to the face and running Quicktime on them as was suggested on another thread, which I'd defy anybody to get looking good.

So they're even going to disappoint those they bring in to do Machinima.

Except "Bells" was almost entirely pre-production and post-production work. This is not to say that it wasn't good work, just that you can tell which are the bits that used SL (the jumpy, pans and zooms, and the texture deformation on avatars, etc.) and the parts that weren't (the excellent texturing, the pre-rendered bottle shadows on the bar, and the "Clutch Cargo" faces and mouths).

The "Bells" site freely admits this stuff; saying it was SL is sorta like streaming Star Wars to your parcel, recording that, and saying "see this is what SL can do".

I'm sure it is - the flashy features get the wow factor. However, when the basics are still as flawed as SL's are - the UI, the inventory window, etc.. and long promised features have never been implemented, while the flashy features may wow potential new customers, they often piss off existing ones. It is a balancing act always, but they just seem to be juggling way too many things, and ultimately, end up dropping the ball (yeah a bunch of mixed metaphors but you get the point)

I wany my VidWindow already!

Y'know even if we can't get HTML on a prim, it'd be nice if they would at least make URLs clickable in the chat history.

I would settle for just TEXT on a prim without using parts of textures. Like Notepad instead of Firefox.

*whistles innocently*