Category: News-Opinion

Mesh content creation: morph targets proposal

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Content Creation Improvement Informal User Group has started work on putting together an exploratory proposal for consideration by Linden Lab on the subject of morph targets.

Morph targets (also known as shape targets, per-vertex animation, blend shapes, shape interpolation in some 3D applications) are generally used for complex animations that would otherwise be hard to accomplish with skeletal animation – such as facial animation and avatar customisation. In this latter respect, the SL viewer already uses morph targets to a degree.  The proposal being drafted is aimed at the implementation of a more widespread use of morph targets, for use in such areas as:

  • Complex facial animations on rigged meshes
  • Additional ways for a user to customize the appearance of their avatar
  • Animating the surface of a prim without the need to use a custom skeleton
  • Fine grained control for content creators over how their clothing and avatars deform
Morph targets: animating facial features

It is with regards to this last bullet-point that morph targets are particularly interesting to content creators, as they are seen to have significant potential advantages for clothing deformation than might otherwise be offered by either the parametric deformer, or RedPoly’s alternative approach.

The proposal outlines some of the drawbacks in the latter two approaches, and covers some of the advantages and issues in adopting morph targets. One advantage in using morph targets is that they would allow a content creator to “sculpt” how a morph target should appear, directly within their 3D application of choice, thus giving them the ability to directly control over how a mesh deforms around an avatar (or how a rigged mesh replacement avatar deforms around the base avatar). A potential issue with the approach is that morph targets require additional information to be encoded either within a mesh, or within a texture. This means that additional bandwidth will be required to transmit any mesh which uses morph targets.

Morph targets: a better means of getting mesh clothing to deform?

As it stands, the proposal is in its early phase, although the intention is to complete it and submit it to LL for consideration and feedback as soon as it is felt enough information has been put together. Geenz Spad, co-chair of the CCIIUG, is aware that at the moment, much more input is required in order to get to that stage.

“There could be more input with regards to the content creator’s and the technical perspectives,” he commented to me in discussing the proposal, “The biggest bottleneck is just getting enough input to finish the proposal at this stage.” Of the two perspectives, Geenz feels that it is the technical side of things that is perhaps the more lacking of the two and he would like to see more input from those of a technical mind in terms of potential feature implementation, advantages, disadvantages, possible issues, and so on.

If you are in a position to provide input to the proposal itself, your views would be most welcome, as would your presence at the weekly CCIIUG meetings, which take place every Tuesday, from 15:00SLT at the Hippotropolis Auditorium.

Related Links

SL Marketplace Issues: July update

Posted on by Inara Pey

On July 31st, The Commerce Team issued the most recent update in the ongoing saga of SL Marketplace issues. The update reads in full:

UPDATE: July 31, 2012

We continue to work on testing the next Marketplace update, which includes a required upgrade (for the Marketplace, not for Residents). One benefit of this work is that we are seeing performance increases with page load and purchase completion during our testing. We are working to get this update completed as soon as possible.

Last week, fixes to help with WEB-4600 were deployed with viewer 3.3.4. We have also been working with Third Party Viewers to make sure they are handling the Merchant Outbox correctly going forward. In addition, some Third Party Viewers now support the Merchant Outbox on Linux. Please see the following Third Party Viewers if you would like to use the Merchant Outbox on Linux:

If your Third Party Viewer is not on this list, and it supports the Merchant Outbox on Linux, please send a notecard to CommerceTeam Linden. Please include a link to the download location, and it will be added to the above list.

Below is the updated set of outstanding issues with Direct Delivery and the Marketplace.

Direct Delivery

Here are the outstanding Direct Delivery issues:

  • WEB-4600 (Merchant Outbox failures): There are still outstanding issues with the Merchant Outbox, in addition to the issues addressed above. We continue to investigate and address these issues as they come up.
  • WEB-4554 (Test delivery permissions incorrect): This is on hold while we work on other issues.
  • Limited Quantity Support (Merchant does not have rights to copy the items for sale): This is currently being worked on. Magic Box migration will not be required until this is supported. (Note that Merchants can sell items that have next owner rights set to “No Copy”.)

Overall Marketplace

There are also several issues that occurred around the time of the Direct Delivery launch that we are still working to address, but are not issues with Direct Delivery.

  • WEB-4587 (listings with the wrong images): This will be addressed after the next Marketplace update.
  • WEB-4441 (Orders stuck in “Being Delivered” state): We have been able decrease the number of orders getting stuck and continue to work on preventing all orders from getting stuck.
  • WEB-4592 (Orders marked as “Delivery Partially Failed” on success): This issue is currently being worked on.
  • WEB-4138 (Confirmation emails failing to deliver): We are currently working on a solution to this issue.
  • WEB-2974 (Listing enhancement stuck in “Charging, cannot edit right now” state): This issue is on hold while we work on the other items on this list.
  • WEB-4696 (Deleted listings appearing in search results): This issue is on hold while we work on the other items on this list.
  • WEB-4567 (Bulk delete fails for some merchants): We will evaluate the priority of this once we have completed the above Direct Delivery fixes and features.

In the meantime, the due date for Magic Box migration has again been extended (as of July 26th) to October 1st, 2012.

CCIG: Calling builders and devs

Posted on by Inara Pey

As I’ve previously reported, the informal Content Creation Improvement Group this week had its second meeting, the majority of which revolved around mesh deformation and the available / potential options.

While the current emphasis on mesh is understandable given all that is going on, the focus of the group shouldn’t be thought of as being “only” about mesh. As I commented in my piece announcing the group:

 It is intended for developers and content creators alike, with the aim of providing a collaborative atmosphere which will allow members to discuss features, workflows, and modifications with the aim of enhancing content creation for everyone on SL. As such, the focus of the new group will be:

  • To provide a forum in which content creators can voice their ideas and / or concerns about the overall state of content creation in SL
  • Encourage the spread of knowledge about content creation methodologies and tools
  • Suggest / discuss new ways to facilitate content creation in SL (including the use of new tools or possible improvements to the viewer)
  • To provide a focal-point where content creators can have questions answered and issues highlighted that might otherwise go unanswered in other user groups.

This being the case, Geenz Spad, the CCIG’s chair is keen to see more participation in the group from TPV developers – to whom he put out a request in this week’s TPV/Developer’s Group meeting – and from content creators and builders from across the grid, “It would be nice to have some feed back on other content creation issues that don’t necessarily centre on mesh,” he commented to me immediately prior to the TPV/Developer’s meeting on Friday, “I’m sure there’s plenty of builders who’d like some progress in making their workflows easier as well.”

One potential area for discussion is that of the build floater. This has already received various degrees of attention within various TPVs, with some adding extra tools and capabilities (such as the prim alignment tool) others even giving it a complete overhaul in terms of presentation. Capabilities such as pathfinding, which sees an additional information panel added to the Build floater, stand to make it even more crowded. So there is a question to be asked as to what might be done to update / improve the floater in order to provide better access to tools and options – and this potentially falls into the remit of the CCIG.

The current official build floater (l) and the Pathfinding build floater (r)

Of course, TPVs are free to determine how they wish to develop floaters, etc., for their audience – and they do take a lot of feedback from users in doing so. But the CCIG offers an opportunity for developers and creators to work together on ideas and to develop proposals that can be fed back to Linden Lab and possibly influence their thinking on things – and even help them determine what needs to be done in order to make the tools and floaters with the viewer more accessible and user-friendly.

Given the CCIG is still formulating itself, now would be an ideal time for builders and creators who haven’t previously attended meetings to pop along and get a feel for what is going on.

There is a wiki page which contains the meeting agenda and links to meeting transcripts. If there is something specific you would like to see discussed, drop Geenz Spad a line in-world to have it added to the agenda. Meetings themselves take place every Tuesday at the Hippotropolis Auditorium in SL, commencing at 15:00 SLT. See the links below for more details.

Related Links

Mesh clothing deformation: options

Posted on by Inara Pey

The informal content creation user group is into its 2nd week of meetings. I attended the first, but frequent Viewer crashes meant I lost a huge amount of context during the meeting (particularly as a non-specialist), and didn’t feel entirely comfortable providing a write-up based entirely on the transcript of the meeting. I also missed this week’s meeting due to working on other things.

However, Nalates Urriah provides an overview of the meeting and the core discussion on mesh clothing deformation, which I’m using, together with the meeting transcript, to provide a summary here.

As most people are aware two deformation options have been put forward: the parametric deformer first proposed by Max Graf and which Qarl Fizz has been developing (and versions of which have been made available through an SL Project Viewer), and recently the option presented by RedPoly Inventor.


An early video from Qarl on the parametric deformer

For content creators, both options have certain advantages and disadvantages, and opinion on both has been somewhat split. Of the two, however, the parametric deformer is furthest along in development and potentially offers the more direct means for creators to ensure mesh clothing fits. While RedPoly Inventor’s system offers the advantage of appearing to work with the existing shape sliders, in its current form it will be reliant on alpha layers to a far greater extent, adds complications to the process of weight painting mesh, and would likely require the development of a new set of avatar bones in order to fully work and meet consumer’s expectations.

During this week’s meeting, discussions continued around another “alternative”, that of using morph targets – a special shape that defines how a mesh should deform when a certain parameter is increased or decreased. Morph targets are widely used in 3D modelling and are in fact already employed in Second Life to some extent: they are activated when using the existing appearance sliders, However, in order for them to work in terms of mesh clothing, etc., would require updates to both the viewer and on the server-side and would be dependent upon additional data handling – so further support from Linden Lab would be required in order for this option to mature.

However, it does offer advantages:

  • It is theoretically far more flexible than either the parametric deformer or RedPoly’s proposal
  • It would leave content creators entirely in control as to how a mesh deforms
  • It would probably offer faster rendering than Qarl’s deformer
  • Morph targets might be used for animating mesh avatar facial features

For those interested in the more technical discussion on morph targets and SL, the transcript of the meeting is the place to visit, covering as it does such diverse aspects as LSL support for the approach, working with avatar physics and so on. In particular, there is detailed discussion on what needs to be put into any proposal relating to the use of morph targets that could be put to LL – a discussion liable to continue in next week’s meeting.

As Nalates points out in her article, there was also discussion on how to move things forward vis-a-vis Qarl’s deformer – Qarl has previously indicated via Metareality that he is more-or-less waiting for a consensus from “the community” (although it is doubtful any consensus can be reached without LL having a cast of the dice). This also involved debate as to whether things have to be an either / or solution, or whether things could move forward on more than one front.

To this end, Nalates has set-up a poll on her blog. If you understand all of the issues involved on the situation, and have a clear opinion on what you would like to see, please take a minute to complete the poll.

A new TuTORial from Torley Linden!

Posted on by Inara Pey

So, I log on to my You Tube account, take a look at my subscriptions, and what do I find?

A video from Torley!

I don’t seem to have the old SL video links box appearing on my SL account dashboard, so no idea if that has gone or the page simply isn’t loading correctly & whether the video is listed there.

But a video TuTORial from Torley! Yay!

Is this a resumption of Torley’s excellent work? And if so, and assuming the lack of video lists on my Dashboard isn’t a glitch – can was have them back on the Dashboard page as well as on the YouTube channel, please, LL?

LL revises SL age verification

Posted on by Inara Pey

Note: On the basis of comments received, I’ve added links to past articles on age verification that will hopefully provide additional context.  

On Monday July 9th, Linden Lab made substantial revisions to the SL Age Verification system.

The Changes

The Age Verification section of the Dashboard Account services has been removed, and the Age-restricted Content section of the SL Knowledge Base has been revised. The key change is that the ability to access adult content is now determined on the basis of the date-of-birth a user supplies during the account sign-up process, as the Knowledge Base article makes clear:

“When you register for Second Life, you provide your birth date, because you are required to be at least 16 years old. If you are 13-15 years old, you may be allowed if you are restricted to the estate of a sponsoring organization. For more information, see Teens in Second Life.

“To access adult content, you must be at least 18 years old.”

Age Verification: the old (l) and gone from the new (r)

These changes mean that age verification is now the de facto means of determining a user’s ability to access adult content – the “either / or” link with having payment information on file (PIOF) is broken. While land holders can still additionally control access to their land by restricting it to those with PIOF, the new policy makes it clear that they must set access to those aged 18 or over if they have any adult content:

“Limiting land access by age

“Estate and parcel owners of adult-rated regions must limit access to Residents who are 18 years of age or older. Underage Residents are blocked from entry and receive a notification to this effect.”

In line with this,changes have been made to both the ESTATE tab in the REGION / ESTATE floater and to the ABOUT LAND floater in the latest Beta and Development viewer releases (and may already be in some recent TPV updates) – expect to see the changes in all viewers in the near future.

How the About Land floater has been updated to reflect the new policy. As it was (top) and as it will shortly appear in viewers (bottom)  – from the latest SL Dev viewer

At the same time, the land maturity ratings have been updated to replace references to age verification with the term “at least 18 years old”. Users must still set their content preferences within the viewer in order to access all land ratings – again providing their date-of-birth allows them to do so.

Issues

Following the change, users immediately began experiencing issues with accessing adult-rated land, with some finding they could now only set viewer preferences to GM where they were once GMA, others apparently finding they were unable to access adult content where they once could and so on. Reasons for the problems are unclear – but they were enough for LL to issue a Grid Status update on the 9th as more issues were reported:

“Age Verification Error

“[Posted 2:40pm PDT, 09 July 2012] We are aware that there are some issues with trying to access restricted areas of the grid.  We are looking into the cause and expect this issue to be resolved by the end of the day.  In the meantime if you need assistance with verifying your age, please contact support.”

Whether the situation was the cause of the “unscheduled maintenance” which commenced not long after is subject to speculation. Currently, it is unclear as to whether all issues have been properly resolved.

Commentary

User issues aside (and without trivialising them), this would appear to be an attempt to streamline the age verification process and make it less user-intrusive (using sign-up DoB rather than asking users to manually verify). Some of the thinking here may also be that under-18s could be signing-up under supervision (parental / teacher), so removal of the Age Verification option from the account dashboard does remove the temptation for young minds to alter things after-the-fact.

What is regretful is that Linden Lab has made no formal announcement on the change ahead of time. There was (again) nothing on the blogs or posted (so far as I can tell) to the forums. Thus, users have been left to either stumble on the changes by studying the Knowledge Base or through a head-on collision with problems resulting from the change, leaving them confused and not a little upset / angry.

Related Links

With thanks to Nyll Bergbahn.