in game tools

I was just thinking....one of the reasons I don't like to create things like textures, is because I have to be out of the game to do it. Wouldn't it be nice if SL could incorporate texture making tools and animation creating tools so someone doesn't have to leave SL to use Photoshop, PSP, or poser for hours before returning to the game?? What are the pros and cons to this???

The quickshot that blazes from my inner Buddha is I'd feel more at peace having some basic texture manipulation tools. Brightness, contrast—as you can darken a texture with grays but can't lighten!—and a few simple parameters to add a lot more spice and flava to the variety of art inworld would be great. These don't sound technically difficult to implement and would add many more variations. In the case of them being cumulatively resource-intensive, they could be reprocessed as new textures (for the standard L$10 fee) without much hassle. Namaste.

it would be pretty cool to integrate something like POVray

I'd even go for being able to add text (with colors and different fonts of course) to in game pics rather than having to prt. screen, got to psp, add text, upload. it's not even the upload fee, its the time required...and if you get it in game and see something that you want changed you have to do it all over again. UGH...

I recall LL mentioning a move to procedural textures. If they do that, I expect texture creation tools will come with them. Only not drawing/painting tools. That's a different battle. And others have already requested animation tools inside SL. I think it's a nice idea myself.

A large part of the whole blob for me is... spontaneity. Sometimes I just want to pull some quick stuff out and have fun, and as musicteacher pointed to, it can be a drag if it takes time. Setting up a sign in realtime, sketching on it, blending it and adding some effects and then maybe dropping a flight script into it and riding it into the Welcome Area, all EAT AT JOEZ style would rock!

Words like "intuitivity" and "transparency" are bound to come up again.

I'm of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I think adding to the in-world toolset would benefit many people. But more to the point, creators will just be more comfortable with the tools they already know, including Photoshop, GIMP, Sound Editors, and even Poser (*cringe*). I also think we should be moving in the direction of letting people use the 3D modelling tools they're comfortable with for building SL content.

Easy reason why. Linden Labs is a small house, and recreating the wheel (needlessly) is something that I feel should not be done. First, because LL simply cannot compete with professional tool providers while developing Second Life. Second, it would require (or at least expect) people to shift over to their system for creating content, which would waste all of our time too (though newbies to all of the above might like it).

But the real killstroke, to me, is time. If LL takes away from precious dev time to give people tools we can already get free, we all lose.


Either way, when building, chances are you're paying more attention to the creation window than what's going on around you anyway. So I really don't see the need where immersion is concerned.

With one exception. A simple animation creator in-world would be nice, simply because the one viable way to make animations for Second Life (Poser), Sucks with a capital "S." It's also about $100, and does not import perfectly, either.

Speaking from experience, writing that kind of tool would not take very long, and would benefit a lot of people. This actually marks a change of opinion - I had originally been against the creation of an in-world animation maker. But after dealing with Poser for some of the newer animations I've made.... .... ..........

Beyond that, I'd rather not think about it.


PS: I think when they say "procedural texture system," they're referring to default 3D layers (ambient, diffuse, speculative, bumpmap, etc) as opposed to texture "mixers?" I ask because the context for that was a 3D question I asked for a Town Hall.

Now this I could go for! Just everybody would appreciate the ability to add text without jumping through hoops.

In TSO we used to beg for some way to add letters (without having to click on a sign to read the message). They would have been so useful in games, etc. But we were told we couldn't have them because we might write something naughty with them.

Well, obviously we are light-years beyond that here. But it would be a lot easier on so many folks just to be able to add text directly to a sign (or anything) with a basic texture already on it. Wonder how hard this would be to implement?

coco

Actually, a well-kept secret: You can use Quicktime for text! Just set a text file to a plot URL.

'course, that only works if a person is on the parcel, and only for one text file at a time. But it's still fun.

And you can use a lot of tags to change the font, size, color, etc... while it runs A simple test would be to use one the a trillion subtitle QT files out there.


Yes please !

Jeffrey, do you use those programs? How do they compare to the programs such as photoshop or PSP or poser as far as ease of use and features? Also I'm not suggesting that they make the current way unable to work, but just to add something in for the casual or beginning creator.

Jesrad - hehe...you've just shown me how basic my knowledge of the different tools both in and out of game is because I didn't understand a word of that

I'd make a proposal but I'm not familiar enough with anything but PSP or any features besides creating textures or adding text to pictures to get it to make any sense...anyone want to try?

Instead of trying to turn SL into everything but the kitchensink. I think it's better to have easy and transparent interfaces from external apps to SL. We've seen several request for 3rd-party text editor integration, (and also for some 3d software packages), but the same could work for graphics software.

Basically i would like (generalized) SL-APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces = directly accessing parts of SL from other computers/software), allowing people to easily get to information to list ,get, upload, update and delete all kinds of inventory items: prims, notecards, scripts and textures.

After the interface in SL is available, the community will probably develop the client parts.

For photoshop, this would allow for instance to:
- see all textures in your texture folder using browse/gallery.
- open (download) and and edit them, and
- directly upload them.

For an application that's not a game. SL sorely lacks in public APIs atm...

Wow..that actually made sense to me, I think....what about in reverse? Interfaces that allow you to access photoshop from within SL? For me it's really me wanting to stay in SL while I do all my creating rather than leaving for 2-3 hours to work on a texture. Being able to get step by step help in-game (like you can while building) rather than having to exchange msn/yahoo/aol IM with them to get help or switching back and forth between programs to get help (like when learning how to do alpha's). just a couple of the more simple examples.

Honestly, I just run Second Life in a window, and whatever programs I please above or below it.