AT home OFFLINE building.

Ok...this is just an Idea is there not a way that we could possibly have an Environment that we could work with at home offline. For example what I mean is we all know the servers cannot stay up 24/7 and there are some of us that like to build love to build etc.

Is there not a way that we could have an environment that is set when we leave SL Online that would allow our individual PCs to work on a project.

For example if I was working on building a house when I logged off the option to work offline would be given then all that data for that land would besaved to our PC and then we could work on it with just the amount of money we had.

All Texture uploads would be handled the same way as far as the costs were concerned but when we logged back on our Completed project would upload with us and it would update our finances for what we expended. But the only way to do that is if we have land. Meaning if a person didnt have a piece of property bought in game there would be no way for them to work on stuff offline.

I think this would be a great benifit to our illustrious builders and texture creators alike. However, due to the streaming ability Scripts would only work while the game is on line so those would have to be maintained as an online thing.

Not discriminating against scriptors mind you...just thinking of the mechanics of the game Clothes and buildings are static for the most part. Scripts are fluid....

Just an Idea Mind you...

ShadowWeaver

I would definately like this, espicially for those insomnia nights where you think your tired, and its after hours, and you log off, only to find you cant go to sleep and cant log back on... Plus it would give people a way to never leave SL completely, even when theyre not connected to the internet (which can also be a bad thing for us addicts).

I believe it would be incredibly difficult to impliment. One, you would need TONS of security so some bastard with programming experiance doesnt decompile the program and exploit stuff. Two, you would need to figure out a way to sync money better (what if you log off and build on one computer then log on on another). Three: um, just by the complexity of it, it would take a long time to code, with all the changes needing to be made to the uploading system in order to acomidate objects with textures, links, and possibly ::cough:: joints ::/cough::.

My $.02 and 2/9 cents.

an external modeler would be totally sweet, unfortunately(or maybe fortunately, because by not taking the time to make it, they have more time to spend on the actual online version) this is not a high priority. The lindens have mentioned that it is actually a bit tougher to do than it seems, so although it might happen, don't hold your breath.

this thread sums it up, although nexus reply is a bit... terse.

So projects probably isn't the place to put this.. maybe feature suggestions. <winks at Shadow> HOWEVER.. I agree that this would be a fun idea, no matter its priority level.

Something that might be fun instead is a texture previewer -- namely, for CLOTHING and how they fit on Avatars. I don't look forward to uploading the same thing time after time because there was one or more errors in my creation.

It's a little more localized, and while the process of how one would go about making such a program seems terribly complicated (and thusly making my head hurt), I bet it could be done! Call this a dream post, hehe.. ^.~

The goal of the game is to be open 24/7. The game will be open 24/7 long before an offline world editor etc. was available. Would you still want this if the world was open 24/7? The thoughts of the Lindens is that they don't - they would rather everything was done in world. I agree with that.

So noted, Ama.. and already a known factor. But it is nice to suppose these things, and it WOULD be nice to have a previewer to keep the cost of uploading clothes down. I'm not banging my fists and feet on the floor and sobbing in demand here.. ^.~

I know it would be hard...and the only thing I was looking at was the costs of uploading mistakes for example if I accidently selected a texture and my ferret ran accross my mouse cord as I clicked it and it selected another texture...poof misloaded texture and 10 linden dollars wasted. Twas just a thought and I understand its going to be up 24/7 I guess the thing I was looking at was a way to model stuff without having to be online due to even though the servers are going to be up....some times you cant always be connected<<<Hence mobile laptop users.

Oh well it was a dream thought...maybe we could reduce some costs if there were a way to check textures out before we uploaded them. Or...Or...build an ingame texture Editor that we upload a texture we want and then manipulate it in game instead of having to go in and out tinkering with it till we get it just so so.

ShadowWeaver

So would everyone be happy without an off-line editor if we:

1. Were online 24/7

2. Had a way to 'recall' a texture you had uploaded but never used in-world.

i know i would!

*raises hand* hehe

Define 'never used in world'? I always test out what I have uploaded to see how it looks, so I guess I would be unable to use that feature. <grins>

However, I'm all for the up 24/7 part! Liaisons available or no, it would be great.

I would Philip!

have you noticed that the game is only 11 mb its because the game is ran on there server theres no way to play it without a server

I had a friend who told his wife that he didn't mean to buy that $300 peice of stereo equiptment off the internet, the cat jumped on the mouse.

Ok I have had a chance to rethink what I meant when I started this. In response to Phillip’s question for avatars YES definitely an offline Avatar editor for textures. That way we can experiment with clothing and clothing combinations. Then when its time to go in world we would have an exact price on how much it costs for the texture upload. We can have good textures to upload because we would know what they would look like on our avatars. But still yet not have the everlasting trial and error of upload waste 10 …dang it didn’t work right start all over.

I guess I could live without the building Objects offline for a while but I am sure it would be brought up latter down the road.

So in rethinking my position maybe an off line editor for the avatars and an offline builder
This is so that when we were ready to go into the game with our creations. We could just Upload them and when we res them in game we would then be charged for the object created.

ShadowWeaver

Or perhaps instead of a texture previewer, could we just have tweaked UV maps for our avatars so that our uploaded textures behave a bit more predictably? Just for those that don't know: a UV map is what the game uses to determine what parts of the texture go where, and how they're stretched and skewed.

It'd be quicker and easier for them to do than writing a separate utility, and if they need help I'll volunteer to have a crack at it

As long as i have the option in world to either accept or deny a texture i've loaded, i'll be happy

When i first started i didn't know quite how to get the alpha channels right, so my textures were all wrong, wasting alot of my money in the process.

I think an offline object/texture editor would be extremely handy... What I'm thinking is that it would NOT be linked to your online account balance or objects. Maybe you could export objects and textures from the game to use, and import completed or partial objects from the offline editor. The only time you would spend money in-game is when importing your off-line creations.

It shouldn't be THAT hard to do... All the rendering code is in the client portion anyway. The client would always have the textures, etc...

This could be something that they could sell as an add-on. Maybe even box it up in retail stores for $20.

Benefits:
1) MAJOR benefit would be seeing how an object looks with textures before spending money uploading textures
2) MAJOR benefit would be probably easier object creation.
3) MINOR benefit would be a much faster framerate and design process because we wouldn't have to render everything else in the game. I'm thinking maybe just a blank room like the holodeck looks like on ST:TNG when a program isn't running.
4) MINOR benefit would be saving bandwidth when all you're doing anyway is creating objects.

You could only export objects and textures that you have the right to modify and copy.

*applauds* I couldn't agree with you more on this Sydney. The UV mapping on the male avator is horrendous. I know it's a challenge to have one set of UV coords that works for both female and male form, but is that really the best they could do? There are so many small localized distortions that it's completely impossible to make a texture with any detail that won't skew all over the place.

Last night I mapped a grid onto my AV to see if I could map out the distortions and have a template to use so I knew exactly what needed to go where so it would look correct when put on my AV. When I saw how bad and erratic the distortions are I decided it simply isn't worth the effort. Who wants to spend $200 uploading textures to try and make one friggin shirt when it's still going to look like hell no matter how much time and effort you put into it? Please please please, if there's *any* way that can be improved it really needs to be improved. I'd like to be able to wear something more interesting than solid colors

Personally, and maybe it's just me, I find the objects rather hard to work with in great detail in-world. The camera system is a little shaky for 3D modelling in the manner i'm used to. It might be more of an adjustment thing, but i've been working in 3DS for many years, i'd love to be able to import meshes, or have an editor more in line with 3D modellers, (4 views at once, lockable views, etc). I don't think freeform mesh transformations and editing is possible given the engine, that would be my greatest dream though. Aside from that, the view system is really what i'd like to see the most. The system in place is amazing, but there's only so far you can take it with a single viewpoint. If I could get one view going on each of 3 monitors ala SGI modelling, i'd be in heaven.

Also, this may be something already in place I just can't find, but scripting functions to do morphs on polys would be great too. All of this may be too intense/non feasible for the interactive world though.

Yeah cont me in, Up 24/7 and recall textures!