Second Life 2.0 Wish LIst

This is a thread for people to post pie-in-the-sky wishes for Second LIfe. That is, stuff that almost certainly can't be implemented without a new language model, a new physics model, etc. It isn't for bug-fixes since [hopefully] a redesigned SL wouldn't have any of the current bugs (but WILL have its own, all-new, all-improved bug-list).

Examples of 2.0 wishes:

new languages
new physics model
client-side plug-in architecture
language support for client-side calculations and/or distributed processing
joint-heirarchyies for robots and the like
standardized 3D modeling features, like setting pivot/rotation points (none of this quaternion rotation stuff currently required for a hinged door)
etc.

This is a thread related to:

/13/98/188398/1.html

and

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-255

Obviously, for robots, we need a new joint system. I'd like to see a system where you could define one or more joint hierarchies for a given linked set of prims.

In other words, you could have a linked set forming some kind of skeleton for a robot that is along the lines of what an avatar uses (dancing robots anyone?) AND you could define alternate hierarchies for special animations (maybe you have wings or tentacles coming out of the back that should move independently of the main animation).

You could specify the animation via a BVH file or something more advanced, or via a list/array or by doing rotations on-the-fly. Support for joints that involve translations, ala certain kinds of robots, would be good also. An example of this would be:

http://uwf.edu/ria/robotics/robotdraw/Modelrules.htm

This is quite doable already, you simply need to know your math (rotations and angles to be specific).

Most of this stuff is already available. Don't give the Lindens more things to "upgrade"break).

Ummm... No it isn't.

If you have this chain of prims:


hip => thigh => knee => calf

you cannot make those move properly with the existing system without much kludging.

Of course, if you don't mind that the joints and limbs disconnect temporarily while doing the rotation/translation, fine, but I'm a perfectionist. I like things to look decent.

A new language is available already?

Joints are available?

A full prim-hirarchy is available?

A new physics system is available?

client-side plug-in architecture is available?



And all these things are already on the wish-list for the Lindens. I'm just suggesting ttat they be pushed into the SL 2.0 design and made great, rather than be half-assed implementations on top of a system that was not designed to use them in the first place. A new physics system will break everything anyway, according to the Lindens, and MY suggestion is that instead of trying to retrofit SL 1.0 to sorta behave like a lame implementation of SL 2.0, they go with designing SL 2.0 from scratch with an eye to make it easy for everyone to upgrade when they migrate sim-by-sim into a 2.0 world while still keeping 1.0 sims as they are (concerning the 2.0 features) until the landowners migrate. That is a MUCH less buggy way of doing things than the retro-fit idea they've been talking about where everything has to work everywhere for every landowner and every attachment, script, etc, from the start.

Of course, SL 1.x can still be debugged and upgraded while 2.0 is being designed and implemented, but it is easier to debug a system that is designed for the features than to debug a system that is NOT designed for the features, so 1.x can receive incremental upgrades while the 2.0 gets the major overhauls. Even new features that might get implemented in 1.x can still be redesigned to be better in 2.0.

Creating tools for forward migration is the way to go, IMHO. Backwards compatibility of everything breeds countless bugs.

For SL to work like it did a year ago. Thats all.

Can I have it work like it did a year ago AND have sculpies and new LSL functions?

Instanced interiors of homes (for those who want them) only downloaded to those with permission to receive

Attachment points on at least one finger of each hand

Linked prims becoming one prim (is this possible?)

A way to change copyable items we own to no-copy if we want to, to prevent so many duplicates in inventory

Performance and fixed bugs. The end

X3D export and import. Without that, everyone's content is hostage to SL's fortune. (The SL management might think that an advantage though.)

A proper scenegraph hierarchy for linked groups of linked groups of linked groups of etc.

An IK system that lets you specify animations in terms of relationships of body parts, and the IK calculates the BVH data for any specific avatar. That would allow e.g. chairs that anyone can sit in without their feet going through the floor, however tall they are.

Camera constraints that prevent navigating the viewpoint through walls. (I know there's no way to force the client to do that, especially since being open-sourced, but sometimes I'd like to be able to limit my client to only let me see what my avatar could realistically see. The current camera constraints aren't as restrictive as that, and mouselook is too restrictive.)

Are SL hiring?

a thumbnail browser for all textures and clothes

I believe there is a cache of all inventory textures and such on the client-side already so this is a 1.x client feature you should ask for in jira. It shouldn't be that hard to implement if the cache already exists.

As long as its as stable as it was a year ago, sure. Never excluded anything..I just want stability and performance.

In my opinion, stability and performance will come from a complete rewrite, not from continual patching of bugs.

This is all wishful thinking. A lot of bugs don't show up until the system is fully loaded. New software is also full of bugs, anyway. That would put residents off using the new version 2.0 and it might take a long, long time for it be reliable.

All true, but it is even more wishful thinking to think that the system (SL 1.x) that has had the same errors pop up over and over again in the past few years is going to magically support radically new features without even more bugs popping up again and again.


Linden has already said that they will "eventually" completely redesign the system to support a better Physics engine, but their history of introducing incremental updates of major features followed by non-stop patches to try to make those features viable, suggests that there are fundamental design flaws in SL 1.x and that more than one system besides Physics needs a redesign.

I'm just trying to get users aware that these issues exist and that for the system to become what users want, they will have to accept some cold, hard facts: not everything built on SL 1.x can last forever and they should be asking for SL to come out with a new design rather than just complaining about the never-ending stability issues with the current design. They certainly have the right to expect tools to help them transition to the new design, of course.

This thread, specifically, is about what COULD be done with a such new design if backwards compatibility was not the top priority.

SL 2.0 new feature: non-humanoid (4-legged) avatars with corresponding gesture and animation files. I know I have seen creatures as avatars, but this should be a standard, rather than some special kludge. If someone wants to have an octopus as an avatar and is willing to define the skeleton and create the corresponding BVH files required for the normal avatars' gestures and animations, they should be able to do it. Facial and hand animations should be modifiable as well, and if someone wants to create a Davy Jones or Cthulu avatar, complete with expressive tendrils, this should be supported. Even expressive particle effects (within limits) might be considered.

Likewise, pets and vehicles should have the option for avatar-like specifications and while we're at it, blur the distinction between avatars, pets and vehicles: if someone wants an avatar that looks like a car, being held in the hand of a vehicle that looks like Phil Linden, let'em.

The limit on size for custom avatars should be less restrictive, though a non-humanoid avatar attempts to wear clothing at its own risk.

Etc.

SL 2.0 new feature: support for client-side plugins and external tools for building. This means that there needs to be a way to import an entire building or other meta-model into SL. As long as it is composed of SL-compatible prims, I should be able to create the thing using AutoCad, or Maya or Blender or whtever, or some client-plugin, and directly upload it without using the rather primitive building tools. Support for embedding scripts and other allowable items into the prim's inventory should be provided in the specification for uploaded SL 2.0 meta-model.

For that matter, specifications for the other allowable items should all be available in XML format so that they can be created by plug-ins and third party applications as well.

Better support for client plug-ins for scripting should be provided also.

In my opinion, they can stop putting hew 'shinies' out and work on bugs alone and it will reach that point. No rewrite needed.

Total pie in the sky wishing?

Make one of the possibilities for your /base/ avatar a quad. (Anthro male, anthro female, quad male, quad female)

Some way of making a private space /really/ private. I like the instancing idea, a lot. I'm very aware of the sheer number of gadgets that would allow listening in on people's private lives, and some of these can eavesdrop on channels too.

A simple toolbox for landscaping, for landowners, where even the "I never read instructions" people could select "Cover the whole plot in grass" and do tree and flower and rock placements. Ideally it would also tell the user how many prims will be used up by this addition.

Almost forgot - a way to build on your own system and THEN upload to SL - it seems to me that this would reduce the load on the LL computers a lot, and you could fool around at length and leisure, undisturbed, until your build was Just Right.

~Rowen

Some of the bugs in the current system are almost certainly due to design issues. The IM bugs for instance,are due to the current design for message exchange, or so the Lindens say. They SAY they can shoe-horn in a new IM system without breaking things, and more power to them, but a lot of new things they have done obviously ARE breaking the original design, and they need to start from scratch and get it working in new prims and then retro-fit the new prims one-at-a-time, rather than all-at-once, as they've been doing.

Call the new prims "special sandboxes" if you like (that's what they say about the the transition to mono, anyway--that all existing scripts will need to be tested in 'special sandboxes' before they are switched to mono--there will be something along the lines of a new checkbox for non-mon/mono support in every existing script when the switch to mono takes place, just as there is a running checkbox right now).

Open it up to almost any kind of avatar. If you can define a BVH tree with a "max limit" of joints, then you should be able to specify BVH files that work with that BVH tree.

Allow facial animations/gestures, and let your tendrilled cthulu avatar show expression by the waving of tendrils. Etc.

Also: extend the BVH description to allow joints that translate rather than rotate (or both). That way you can have Transformer avatars, complete with morphing from one configuration to the other.

i would like to see them intergrate wings 3d or blender 3d into the building tools in SL