When first surveyed, some 30 minutes after the sale had finished, it appeared that some 322 private regions were added to the grid, leading to a net gain of some 311 regions.
However, a later survey revealed that in fact a staggering total 689 regions were added to the grid as a result of the sale and sims returned to use, leading to a net gain of some 508 private regions after accounting for losses.
Of the total number of sims added to the grid:
464 were open to public access, and so could be surveyed with:
343 being full regions
117 being homestead regions
4 being OpenSpace regions
225 remain closed to public access and have yet to be surveyed as to type
The 464 accessible regions were purchased by a total of 381 individual estates with 252 purchasers having no other holdings. Only five of those purchasing multiple regions brought more that 3.
The revised totals are liable to be the focus of further debate around the “new” and “used” land markets – and those seeking to offload sims to other users may well feel every harder done-by on seeing these revised figures. Those who have paid the set-up fee, and who that have to recoup that on top of the cost of tier might also be aggrieved by these results as well, particularly if the new sims coming into the grid as a result of this sale are used within the commercial / residential markets.
It will be interesting to see what the overall impact of the sale turns out to be in terms of LL’s thinking. 689 regions does make even more of a powerful case for the set-up fees to be reduced (if possible) to something reasonably sensible, as I ruminated on when reporting the original figures released by Tyche.
Of course, the precedent for lowering set-up fees has already been set. Leave us not forget the fee for a full region was once $1675, so on the surface at least it’s not unheard of for LL to adjust this figure in line with costs. As such, it is something the company may opt to do again, and it is certainly more palatable to them than lowering tier, as some are calling for within the community.
Tier is something that will have to be reviewed; the case for reductions being needed in the future is growing. but for now, given the outcome of last weekend’s sale and that it is a) it is easily reproducible as a promotion and b) will likely achieve the same level of success if repeated in a few months time should a boost in revenue be required, one rather suspects LL may well sit on their laurels for a while longer and not hurry into any moves as regards tier or set-up fees just yet.
As currently implemented, mesh presents a number of problems for those wishing to design or wear mesh clothing. As anyone who has designed or purchased mesh clothing is aware, getting it to fit our avatar shapes in all their rich variety is no easy task. Purchasers can only modify the clothing to a limited extent before they may have to start modifying their shape to fit the clothes, while clothing designers are faced with no alternative but to provide outfits in a range of sizes and / or with various alpha layers to hide body part that might otherwise show through the mesh clothes and ruin their appearance. Hardly ideal situations.
Because of these issues, Maxwell Graf presented a means by which mesh clothing could be made to fit any avatar shape through the development of a Viewer-side parametric deformer. He even opened a JIRA on the idea which gained a lot of support from designers and consumers alike. Sadly, after showing a considerable amount of interest in the idea themselves, Linden Lab downgraded the JIRA to a status “Someday / Maybe”.
While not actually killing-off the idea, the downgrading did mean that any potential solution defined by the Lab would not be forthcoming while they dealt with other, more pressing issues – and even then, they might not commit resources to development of a solution at all. When the downgrading occurred, it was widely reported – but there the matter might have rested were it not been for a comment made by one Karl Stiefvater, better known to many at one time as Qarl Linden.
“Anyone wanna fund an ex-linden to do it?”
Qarl made this apparently throw-away comment on the NWN blog. Cutting a long story short, the comment caught Maxwell’s attention and started a series of wheels turning. As a result, the Mesh Parametric Deformer Project was born, wherein if $5400 could be raised, Qarl would produce code to a given requirement that would provide a compromise solution to the clothing issue, and this code would be made available for adoption into SL Viewers. The project was set-up with the aim of raising the funding in 60 days, or of rolling forward until such time as this target was reached.
As it turned out, the project didn’t require even the initial 60 days; the target figure was achieved on the 24th October, just 20 days after the project was first announced.
However you look at it, this is an impressive achievement – and one which may have far wider implications for code and Viewer development in the future. So – whither next for the project?
Before answering that question, let’s deal with the issue of precisely what a parametric deformer is. Speaking recently on Designing Worlds, Maxwell Graf described it thus:
“[It’s] an invisible ‘cage’ that hovers slightly above all of the different points of your body in Second Life. What would happen is, when you put on an item of clothing that is made up of mesh polygons, it would slightly shrink-wrap to fit that cage, and the cage in turn would keep it a specific slight distance away from your body at all times, no matter where your body happens to move. The end effect of this would be that it would appear that whatever clothing you put on would shrink to fit your shape, no matter what that shape happened to be.”
This, he goes on to explain, solves a number of problems for both the user and the creator, “Primarily, the cage deformer, in a single layer, will make your clothing fit from a user standpoint, hopefully without an alpha map.
“From a creator standpoint, it will eliminate the need to do multiple sizes. It will [also] give you the option of rigging and adjusting the weights on your clothing or not – because this feature will be able to be turned on and off. So, if you still want to rig items you can, but if you don’t want to learn how to do that, and it’s extremely difficult to sort through all that, then you don’t have to.”
Maxwell Graf, speaking recently on Designing Worlds
Of Code and Viewers
The code itself applies to the Viewer – there is no additional code required at the server end of things. As such, the completed code will be available to any Viewer that wishes to include it.
However, this project should not be seen as a group of users getting fed-up with Linden Lab and marching off to “do their own thing”; nor should it been seen as some kind of “rival” to any potential Linden Lab may consider either now or in the future. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Max explained. “This isn’t something we wanted to make [into] some kind of statement like, ‘Oh, well if you won’t do it, we’ll do it without you!’ or anything like that.
“This was more a case that we understand that [LL’s] resources are limited, and quite honestly that stability is an issue with the [official ] client … But it’s also important that if the possibility existed to do this project and to move forward with it, then it could benefit everybody, and that was really the goal here.”
Mesh: can be messy
In other words, the project is being undertaken with the full knowledge of Linden Lab. Indeed, such is the openness surrounding it that the Lab have stated that, in lieu of them being able to identify an alternative solution they would wish to pursue, and providing the code Qarl develops does precisely what it is intended to do and he’s prepared to sign a Code Contribution Agreement (something Qarl has stated he would be OK with), they would be willing to consider adopting the completed code into the official Viewer.
That’s quite a positive piece of feedback. Of course, it doesn’t in any way guarantee LL will adopt the code, but the offer is certainly better than a flat-out refusal to have anything to do with it.
In fact, looked at objectively, the project is actually a win / win situation for the user community and the Lab. The user community stands to get something that is viewed as a major barrier to the more widespread adoption of mesh. LL stand to get the solution for, potentially, a fraction of the cost it might have otherwise cost them to develop internally.
As such, Qarl is the ideal candidate for the work. for a start, he is a known quantity within Linden Lab, having worked for them. He is also respected with the user community as a whole, and is known for bringing us the sculpty. Perhaps most importantly, he was the man who worked on the initial development of mesh rendering capability within the platform. He therefore brings a lot to the table in terms of his knowledge and abilities.
Not Just Second Life
But it is not just Second Life that will benefit from the development of a parametric deformer – and we mustn’t lose sight of this fact.
OpenSim has an SL-compatible implementation of mesh that was recently released in version 0.7.2. Like Second Life, this implementation suffers from the same issues around the creation and use of mesh clothing.
Given this, it is obvious that having a deformer available within the Viewer has enormous relevance to the OpenSim community, something that has been recognised by SL and OpenSim developer Judsen Jonstone, who has been working with Max and Qarl to engage the OpenSim community in the project. These efforts have resulted in a number of contributions for the project coming from the OpenSim community.
So the Money is In; Where Next?
Now the money has been raised, the way is clear for the work to commence. I asked Max when this was likely to be, if it hasn’t already happened, and whether he and Qarl had discussed a schedule. “I think he will start immediately if he hasn’t already,” he replied, “He seemed pretty familiar with this type of feature, and that will make things easier.”
If all goes according to plan, the code itself will be written and available in four or so weeks. What happens after that is pretty much down to those Viewer developers that decide to adopt the code. This means that while it is hoped the code will start to appear in Viewers sooner rather than later, it’s not going to suddenly materialise overnight.
However, TPV support is as critical for the project as getting the code written, as they are more likely to be in a position to immediately adopt the code once it is available. With this in mind, I asked Max if there has been any feedback from TPV developers about the work. “Some of them are chomping at the bit for this just like I am!” he replied, “I know Phoenix, Exodus and Singularity developers have [all] expressed interest in it, and there’s the OS Grid as well.”
It Doesn’t End There
But it doesn’t just end with the adoption of this particular iteration of the code by the Viewer community. What is being delivered will allow you to wear a single layer of mesh clothing that will “shrink-to-fit”.
But what if it were possible to have a multi-layer deformer that allowed multiple items of mesh clothing to be worn, with each successive layer conforming not only to your shape – but also to the mesh clothing beneath it?
This would allow you to wear mesh pants, tops jackets, all of which would shrink to fit your shape and one another without any bits of clothing or your body “poking through” the layer(s) covering them. Indeed, with such a multi-layer approach, You could even wear a new mesh avatar – robot, gorilla, whatever is out there – and the mesh clothes you wear with your “normal” shape would instantly “fit” over the avatar shape when worn with it. Each layer would instantly and properly conform to whatever lay beneath it.
Exciting idea, isn’t it?
Well, this could well be the next step for the deformer. Whether it in fact happens depends upon how well-received the initial single-layer solution is received. “The layered/hierarchy system is something that would definitely be a second stage for this, though how readily that will be done depends on how this first one goes,” Max said in confirmation of this. “I do know it will be easier once the first system is in place, but not sure if its something that can just be easily dropped into place or what that will require.”
Should the decision be taken to go ahead and enhance the deformer in this way at a later date, then a new project will be established. However, until that decision is taken, Max requests that people stop making contributions to the current project because the goal has been reached.
When considering the future, it’s impossible not to speculate – as some already have – as to whether this might mark the start of a new approach to developing specific features for the Viewer environment, with other attempting the funded route.However, Max is clear that he hopes this isn’t the case. “I don’t think that this should set a new precedent or become the accepted standard for feature development;” he informed me, “We shouldnt have to pay for features like this as a rule. In this instance, however, I think it was a viable solution.”
Positive Reflection
Whatever the future – both in terms of what happens with regards to enhancing the parametric deformer once delivered, or on the subject of the funding of specific Viewer enhancement projects – one thing remains undeniably clear. Raising $5400 in just 20 days is remarkable; something Max himself is keen to acknowledge as we wrap our conversation. “I think this is a great statement by the community that we want to see SL continue to evolve into something more usable, and we want to help push mesh to be what it can be,” he said. “This is a positive reflection on how much we as a community really want to see mesh become more accepted here.”
For my part, I can only agree, add my congratulations all who have contributed to the project. Every who has should feel justifiably proud of their involvement. Kudos to all, and I look forward to reporting on he the work progresses in the coming weeks. I’d also like, in closing, to thank Maxwell Graf for his time and input in making this article possible, and also thank Saffia Widdershins and Elrik Merlin for contributions to this article for their permission to use material first broadcast in Designing Worlds.
Note: there is now further information available on the total number of sims leased as a result of the sale.
I had doubts that the weekend’s Land Sale would prove popular among independent users and smaller estate owners. Rather, I thought that if it had any appeal at all, it would be with the larger estates.
I was completely and utterly wrong on both counts.
As Tyche Shepherd reveals, during the offer period, some 322 private regions were leased. Overall, this resulted in a net growth in private regions of some 311 – around 300 more, Tyche estimates, than might otherwise have been the case.
The 322 regions added to the grid currently comprise:
152 full regions
43 Homesteads
127 currently closed to public access (could be either full or Homestead)
In terms of purchasers, in the 195 regions open to public access:
177 are owned by different purchasers, with no single individual buying more than 3 regions
111 of the new owners have no other active land holdings
Some purchases were made by larger estates, but again, none exceed 3 purchases during the period of the sale
So, what does this mean? Certainly, it is a braking (I wouldn’t go so far to say “reversal”) of the recent private region losses. Whether this remains so will only be seen in the release of figures over the weeks.
In terms of stemming LL’s revenue losses resulting from the fall-off in private regions, it tends to demonstrate that far from having to take “drastic” action as some have been demanding, LL actually need to do very little. Just imagine how many more sims might have been leased had the offer run for a week, or how well another such sale would be received if run, say, some time early in the New Year. Of course, whether such promotions have benefit beyond the balance sheet is quite another matter.
Certainly, the sale has generated a lot of debate around abolishing the set-up fee altogether. Some were actually making the call even before the sale was over, and the success of the sale would seem to support them. But abolishing set-up fees is not without risk; many have been reporting for a good while now that they are finding it increasingly difficult to “offload” sims due to the $100 transfer fee. Abolish the front-end set-up fee for new sims on a long-term basis, and this situation could get very much worse.
Perhaps the middle ground would be for LL to restructure (i.e. reduce) the front-end set-up fee while at the same time abolishing the sim transfer fee for “used” sims. Assuming contractual obligations with their co-location hosting company would allow this to happen, one might suggest that dropping set-up to the cost of tier might be a happy medium (so a full sim would cost $295 set-up + $295 tier, for example), alongside of transfer fees being dropped altogether.
When looking at the set-up fees, one has to say there does appear to be a gross imbalance, which suggests there might be some room for manoeuvre here. What is it about a full sim that makes the cost of setting it up some 2.5 times greater than the fee for setting-up a Homestead? At the end of the day, surely, both are more-or-less the same in terms of software, and both have to go through the same load, configuration and test processes prior to being released to the customer. As such, one would have thought that actual costs involved for both would be more-or-less comparable.
At the end of the day, however, what this sale has demonstrated (besides being very good for LL’s balance sheet) is that when given the right incentive, there is still a healthy market willing to invest in new sims. As such, it’s far to call the promotion a success. Nevertheless, whether it has itself been beneficial to the SL land market as a whole is another matter entirely. That is only likely to be known in another two or three months time via Tyche’s on-going grid surveys.
This weekend, Linden Lab are running a Land sale for both full and Homestead regions.
Case submissions received between 12:01 SLT today, Friday 21st October 2011 and 23:59 SLT on Sunday, 23rd October, and which are approved will have their associated set-up fees waived.
This means someone wishing to have a full private region will gain a saving of $705 (+VAT in Europe) and someone wanting to have a Homestead region (subject to them already owning a full region) will save $280 (+VAT in Europe).
But how attractive is the offer likely to be?
The full details of the promotion are available on the offer announcement page and on the promotional wiki page. This latter page also includes instructions on how to apply for a region as well.
Key points in the offer are:
To be eligible for the promotion, applicants must:
Have a valid method of payment on file when placing an order
Place their orders between 12:01 SLT on Friday 21st October 2011 and 23:59 on Sunday 23rd October 2011; orders received outside of these times will not be processed
Pay all associated tier as part of the monthly billing cycle, together with any VAT required, with the first payment due on taking delivery of the sim (normally combined with the set-up fee)
Developed (themed) islands are not part of the promotional offer
In the case of Homestead order, you must own at least one full private island sim
The offer cannot be combined with any other LL promotional offer.
All common starting terrains are available as part of the offer. Regions should be delivered within 24 hours of order acceptance.
It’s going to be interesting to see the response to the offer – if only for bloggers elsewhere. Much ado has been made about SL’s impending demise as a result of a declining private region count on several fronts, so doubtless there will be some out there who will paint this as a move to try to reverse the slide (something I don’t actually agree with – were it so, one would think the offer would be extended over a slightly longer period).
It’ll also be interesting to see, overall, how much impact this offer has for those who already have significant sim holdings in SL, and to whom this offer is likely to have something of a greater appeal – especially where Homesteads are concerned. How much appeal it has to the private individual within SL, however, is still questionable. The problem with land “ownership” in SL isn’t so much the set-up fee (although that obviously hurts), it’s the tremendously high tier fees.
However, whether Linden Lab release figures related to this offer is questionable; it’s likely the answer will only come in time via Tyche Shepherd’s monthly Grid Survey.
For more information on land ownership in general see the following LL knowledge base articles:
As Ciaran Laval reports, the Adult Community finally gets a visible forum section today.
This seems to be the latest step in Linden Lab’s long overdue acknowledgement that Second Life has a huge user base that engages in more “adult” activities, and does so despite mainstream media’s attempts to present us, tabloid-like, as a group that operates somewhere between the level of sleaze and the dirty brown overcoat brigade.
The Adult Content Forum itself isn’t actually that new – when Blondin was around, there was a closed-door Adult forum in which a selected few were able to participate. More recently (and possibly somewhat telling), since Amanda van Nuys (Amanda Linden) departed the Lab things have loosened-up somewhat.
There is an Adult section in the Destination Guide
At SLCC 2011, Viale Linden openly expressed a desire to see Adult content and activities better promoted
There has been – albeit laden with controversy and still awaiting a final outcome – an attempt towards establishing an Adult Gateway which can direct those coming into to SL who are specifically interested in adult activities towards suitable destinations around the grid.
Adult content in the Destination Guide – part of the opening up of Adult Content, which now includes an Adult Forum in the SL website
The new forum is subject to the usual Community Guidelines, which include specific warnings about posts keeping to the “General” rating, and that nude images, etc., should not be posted. However, this shouldn’t in any way hamper the use of the forum to discuss adult-oriented matters and themes – we all should be able to do so without resorting to the use of sexually explicit or vulgar language, etc. We are, um, adults, after all.
Whether or not the forum moderators will allow a little more latitude with this forum, however, should anyone stray near the edge, remains to be seen. Moderation within the forums as a whole has sometimes been akin to sledgehammer-to-walnut responses.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the forum develops now it is in the public domain. Coming on top of other moves by Linden Lab to make the Adult elements of Second Life more a part of the community as a whole and more obvious and easier for people to engage with at whatever level they choose, this should really be welcomed.
The grid, Twitter and various forums are awash with upset. In a repeat of a situation from February this year, Linden Lab have deleted popular megaprims from across the grid, impacting, as some have said, “thousands” of builds.Interestingly enough, now, as then, the name of Crowley Avro has been mentioned in connection with the situation.
Whether the affected prims were used in a girefing attack or not, and the items used removed on the basis of the creator’s name, rather than the owner’s name is unknown at this time.
A JIRA has been raised concerning matters – SVC-7382 and Alexa Linden was on the case fairly rapidly, and the blacklist was apparently reversed rapidly, but this has not helped those builds in-world.
For those who have been heavily impacted by this situation, Alexa is recommending they request a sim roolback (if you don’t own the sim, you will have to contact the owner and have them request a rollback), quoting the megaprim issue (I’d suggest the JIRA as well). However, as some have commented on the JIRA, back in February some requests for rollback were largely ignored. And rollback don’t exactly those who are based on the Mainland…
People are understandably angry over this, with fingers being pointed in all directions; it would be interesting to know the exact circumstances under which the affected megaprims / creator (however it was done) were / was blacklisted this time around. Not that we will, of course.
Update 23:00 BST
The following appeared on the SL Grid Status page at 20:53 BST:
“Due to a change we recently made to address a griefing problem, some megaprims were removed from the grid, which has affected users’ creations containing these megaprims. The issue has been resolved, and the megaprim objects can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time. If you do not have a copy of the affected build, please go to your support portal immediately and file a case.
“If you are Premium member or above, you can use these case types: “Technical Questions” > “Objects (Rezzed) Issues. If you have a free membership and your group owned land was affected, please use “Land & Region” > Report an Offline Region”. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and are reviewing our processes to try to avoid repeating this situation in the future.”
Tyche Shepherd has issued a revision to her initial findings following last weekend’s land sale by the Lab.
This weekend, Linden Lab are running a Land sale for both full and Homestead regions.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 