New Material: Fabric

Noting the list of materials we can make objects out of, I would like to suggest a new one: fabric. When physics enabled, this would simply drap over whatever object it was on, thereby allowing for real dresses, hats, etc.

I'm guessing this is probably going to be hell on the servers, but it is something a lot of people have been interested in. And my guess is it's already in the pipeline, but I figured I'd mention it here anyway.

I've got to be a little tongue-in-cheek with this one... if Linden has this one in the works, then Second Life is going to be the most popular game ever, because I know modellers and animators who literally pull their hair out trying to hand-animate that, much less have it automated...

Sorry, couldn't resist. ^_^ It's an excellent idea, but far more difficult to pull of than you imagine. Nothing gives a coder more stress than a sentence beginning with "well can't you just..."

But seriously, to put it in perspective, the load one moderately animated dress would put on the servers would be equivalent to taking 10 primitives in a tight cluster, and dropping them all. Again. And again. Such is the problem of physics-induced animations across multiple clients...

I'd love to have this, but I think we'll see mechs rampaging the landscape at about the same time. ^_^

A PERFECT example here could be for anyone who's played Splinter Cell before (a PC demo is out if you wanna see it!). They do a VERY nice job of keeping the FPS high while being able to create fabric and soft plastic that drapes over the character in the correct and good looking manner. I have no idea how this would work in a multiplayer situation like the one we are in, but to see it implemented and working smoothly would be awesome =)

Unfortunately, there's a difference between spending months hand-crafting and coding a feature like that to work on pre-created items, that will be placed on a specific character, with a hand-written file detailing collision areas...

And crafting a system that will allow players to construct anything, and have it drape perfectly on any object or any player model, regardless of movement, and transmitting that smooth flowing in a massively multiplayer environment.

It's like saying that another game has huge mechs and towering buildings, so it can't be hard to tweak things so we can put them in SL. ^_^

I'm just merely giving an example of what I consider a good... example of what I'm looking for

Well, I was thinking maybe the Lindens had the idea in the pipeline... whether it was feasible or even being worked on is a different story.

Yes, I know the dread that comes with "why can't you just"

However, seeing as this is not my area of coding expertise, I really couldn't gauge just how hard it would be.

Still, it's a feature people would like, so it should be suggested no matter how far-fetched

It doesn't have to be perfect though. The avatar is already made of a deformable mesh, if there were some way to add to the mesh, and add control points and whatnot... I'm not saying it's easy, just possibly possible.

Gusy... hate to breask it to you.... but for that we ned a new physics engine... NOT to worry the Linden have one in the works ... Havok 2.0 I think