Well, Enhanced Avatar Physics are finally formally released – and blogged about by Samuel Linden, aided by Amanda Linden (honestly, the bouncy bits are that big they require a double team effort?!).
The news isn’t exactly new; people have been blogging and filming the new undulating body parts and having mild fits of hysterics playing with the sliders for a while now.
And truth be told, the enhanced physics are fun and add another level of realism to SL (and without the angst associated with the way bewbs bounce in viewers like Phoenix).
However, we’ve come through nigh-on a month of almost deafening silence from Linden Lab while a myriad of things bork, bomb and basically bugger-up (OK, not quite so alliterative, but you get the point). So you can understand it when people take a tongue-in-cheek line of reportage on the subject, or indeed, mix a little acidity into their view on the news, as Marx Dudek did (sorry; hard to avoid that particular alliterative bit) on Twitter:
What I like best about SL jiggly bits: My breasts bounce with just the right amount of realism while I hover after another failed teleport.
Yes, bouncy bits are fun – but unless this announcement marks a renewal of the Lab actively communicating with the community, people are going to remain pretty unimpressed, even if those of us blessed with them can have bits that wiggle and jiggle and bounce and flounce.
Figures collated by Tateru Nino (see below) show that the new Basic Mode of the Viewer have had a positive impact on user sign-ups, with a dramatic upward trend since its introduction at the end of March. The new sign-up pages, reported on yesterday, have had an even bigger impact, it would seem – and despite teething problems. The latter point was hinted at by Rodvik yesterday when he commented in a Tweet to myself:
Thanks, yeah should be fixed quickly. Even with those the results have been amazing.
This is a positive thing, and shouldn’t be dismissed as it demonstrates that without additional marketing and promotion, SL can generate user interest.
What remains unclear at present is how well the new Basic mode does at retaining users – and as Rodvik rightly points out, it’s going to be a few weeks before the figures on user retention become clear. Certainly, I’d still be somewhat concerned, as the “new user experience” leaves a lot to be desired, as Theia Magic and others have commented upon.
Rodvik has also indicated that the Basic Mode is to be enhanced over time; as I’ve previously mentioned, while some additional functionality would benefit the Basic mode, there is a risk that add too much, and the line between Basic and Advanced becomes so blurred as to be non-existent. Given this, I still hold to my position that it is the Viewer HELP functions that need to be overhauled, rather than simply dropping more and more into Basic (unless said “more” is modular in format and can be activated at a time of the user’s own choosing).
I’m really hoping that ears at LL are receptive to the idea of a more integrated HELP for Basic / Advanced modes; it would get a lot of people “over the wall” in terms of transitioning from one to the other a lot quicker.
Beyond this, the issue of orienting users once they are in SL does remain a problem. Some have called for a reinstatement of the mentors; others have called for a revamp of the welcome islands, etc., in line with some of the privately run welcome areas. From Theia’s reports, it would seem a degree of policing of the LL-run welcome points needs attention. It is a little ironic that the Lab is paranoid about adult language getting into the forums and the like – but anyone with Voice enabled can be immediately verbally abused on arriving in-world for the first time.
Personally, I’m confident that Rodvik is more than aware of what needs to be done – as does Bagman Linden. That the Basic mode has had such a positive impact is good news, and I cannot see anything other than it being capitalised upon in the coming weeks and months as more of the initial user experience is brought into focus and revised / improved.
(with thanks to Tateru Nino by way of Rodvik Linden)
Linden lab, as pointed to by Daniel Voyager, has overhauled the new user sign-up pages, making them cleaner and more direct. Gone are the old static pages, instead, a newcomer clicking on JOIN NOW is taken to a page that displays the new default avatars, which can be previewed in motion (to some extent) prior to selecting the most preferred one.
Once selected, the avatar slides over to a page requesting you assign it a user name, before sliding over to a third screen where the rest of the default information required to create an account is displayed (password, e-mail addy, etc. – all of which are mandatory).
Michelle Leckrone has produced a nice little video of these initial steps, which can be seen below.
Following these screens, you’re given the option of going for a free account, or a Premium, as shown on the left; once selected, you reach a screen inviting you to download and install the Viewer, as “Your avatar is awaiting you!”
Overall, it is a clean, slick approach to the sign-up process, although it does have a few teething troubles right now, and it again demonstrates the mistake LL made in doing away with the first name / last name format for avatar names.
The problems are in the fact that – once again – Linden Lab seem to have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to testing and QA: many users are reporting issues with the new sign-up system across all flavours of browsers. These are as minor as the selection bar on the first screen appearing OVER the avatars themselves, right up to the screen failing to load any avatars at all.
This isn’t really very clever, and needs fixing quickly. For my part I rant the process on the latest Chrome and Opera iterations, and found the selector bar issue in Opera, while Chrome displayed everything faultlessly.
The loss of a last name for an avatar is more of an issue inasmuch as it severely limits the choices available to users – hence the massive rise in names like “Jodie1234 Resident”. While it can be argued that the use of Display Names overcomes this limitation, the removal of the last name option – even when using a pre-selected list – has potentially lessened the external view of Second Life as being a digital “reality” and moved it closer to being viewed as just another game.
That said, this is overall a good move in cleaning up the user sign-up process – assuming the idiotic browser compatibility issues are rapidly sorted out (and for which there is simply no excuse). I certainly hope that the rest of the sign-up process is similarly revamped in a positive manner. As it stands, it still suffers from the bland (and misleading) videos and slide shows that do very little to entice new users or offer an actual meaningful explanation as to what SL is and what people can do within it. Hopefully, these will be addressed in the near future, and replaced with something more vibrant an appealing.
Why this is the case is subject to some debate in the official forum. While it would be dangerous to blame any single factor for the decline anyway,the parallel between the implementation of LL’s more unpopular policies couldn’t be clearer. At the start of 2009, concurrency was on a high, as the Alphaville Herald shows. However, the start of that year saw what many took to be the final bait-and-switch tacttic in the OpenSpace fiasco, to be followed later in the year by the Adult Change debacle, which was at best handled with a certain degree of outright incompetence by Linden Lab, and so on.
While things did rally a little at the end of the year, the downward trend continued throughout 2010, rallying briefly at the start of 2011 – mostly likely because of a combination of it being the holiday season (and people collectively the world over having more time to log-in) and hopes for the platform rising as a result of the announcement that Rod Humble had been appointed the new CEO.
However, Linden Lab aren’t solely to blame for the decline. much has happened to change the landscape of virtual worlds over the last 2-3 years. Blue Mars pitched up (albeit briefly) and carried a lot of attention away from Second Life – some of which is now drifting back). More importantly, OpenSim Grids started to show signs of maturity and stability. Some of these have become very attractive to SL content creators as being new and exciting markets in which to plunge; as a result of new content becoming available elsewhere, there has been a trend for people to start splitting their time between Second Life and other similar grids such as InWorldz that are now readily available. These other grids are also themselves more attractive to users because their pricing models significantly undercut Linden Lab’s own; whether such prices are sustainable as such platforms grow is debatable – but it cannot be denied that the absurdly high prices charged by LL for server space is limiting SL’s ability to grow, and is indicative that there does need to be a re-emphasis / re-alignments of LL’s revenue streams.
As well as spending more time elsewhere, or whatever reasons (and yes, it’s easy to point the finger and say, “I’m only in X because LL [fill in the blank]”, even when such a statement is not entirely accurate), the users of SL also share in some of the blame: this is a world that exists because we imagine it and create it – yet we seem to be failing ourselves in creating the kind of compelling content that once existed in SL.
What this decline does again demonstrate is that there needs to be a re-evaluation of the LL/ user relationship. If the downward spiral is to be halted, the Lab and the user community need to work more closely together, both in creating a stable, vibrant economy and in the promotion of Second Life to a wider audience. I don’t wish to appear to be blowing my own trumpet here – but the fact is that observations made in post such as Tell Me A Story… and Business, Growth and Collaboration aren’t exactly rocket science – and many SL commentators are saying more-or-less the same things in their own ways.
Stopping the decline is going to take a concerted effort – and no single thing is going to reverse it: not bouncing bewbs, not a revamped new user experience and certainly not mesh; nor is simply taking potshots at LL and blaming them for everything. Second Life is a boat we’re all sitting in together – Lab and users.
It would be nice if we could all start rowing together under the guidance of Coxswain Humble.
So, SL is all lit up about the forthcoming bouncing bewbs et al in Viewer 2; so much so that people are stampeding over to the website and downloading the Snowstorm latest development version (2,6,3) of the Viewer in which Avatar Physics are to be found.
Setting the Avatar Physics rendering slider
To determine how well your Viewer renders Avatar Physics, go to ME -> PREFERENCES -> GRAPHICS, click on ADVANCED at the bottom of the tab, and then adjust the Avatar Physics detail slider.
In what might cause a little confusion for those used to using breast physics in TPVs, Avatar Physics are treated as a new clothing layer in Viewer 2. To enable them, therefore, you need to:
Open your Inventory and click “+” at the bottom of the Inventory tab
Select NEW CLOTHES -> NEW PHYSICS from the drop-down menu that appears
A new clothing layer is created called, by default, “New Physics”.
Once created, wear the new clothing layer, and:
Swap to the My Appearance tab in the Sidebar
Click on WEARING
Right click on the New Physics clothing layer (or whatever you’ve renamed it to) and select EDIT OUTFIT
Click on the tools icon to the right of the selected layer to display the Avatar Physics options tab.
Avatar Physics - main options
This tab contains a number of controllers:
Breast Bounce (open by default on first use)
Breast Cleavage
Breast Sway
Belly Bounce
Butt Bounce
Butt Sway
Advanced Parameters
Each of the first six options comprises a series of sliders rated from 0-100 which adjust four parameters: mass effect, spring, gain, and damping.
Advanced Parameters contains an additional set of parameters (mass, gravity, drag) for breasts, belly and butt respectively. Again, each of these is controller by a slider rated from 0-100.
In all cases, 0 = effect not seen; 100 = effect on maximum exaggeration. The best way to sort out how to set the sliders is through experimentation and finding something you’re happy with. Once you’re happy with things, click the SAVE button at the top of the tab, or SAVE AS at the bottom, if you wish to rename the layer.
Some things to note:
Like the Breast Physics in TPVs, activating Avatar Physics in Viewer 2 broadcasts the effects to other compatible Viewers
The Avatar Physics system is not compatible with the Breast Physics in TPVs – you won’t see bouncing bewbs for others using a TPV with Breast Physics enabled; similarly, they will not see your Avatar Physics.
Breast physics are not new to the world of Third-Party Viewers (or Third-Pervy Viewers as I once saw them called in a forum post). First introduced with Emerald, they are now available in most TPVs.
Until now, however, they’ve not been available in the “official” Viewer; but all that is about to change. Yes, bouncing bewbs are coming to Viewer 2. And not only bouncing bewbs, but also physics to make bellies and butt do their own thing.
Whether this leads to a wider uptake of Viewer 2 remains to be seen; I’ve personally found the bouncing bewbs thing to be a nevermind situation – I’m not particularly fussed if someone out there has parts of me madly boinging up and down to aid their visual jollies in a TP, but at least here, as a clothing layer, I retain full control of what is seen. This alone means there should be less screaming from people in terms of sexist attitudes or degrading the female form, as we’ve had in the past.
At the end of the day, if bouncy bits are fun to have and further mimic what we get in real life (well, if not taken to extremes), then well done to LL for finally jumping on the band wagon!
In the meantime – and with grateful thanks to Opensource Obscure, here’s a fun little video marking the soon-to-arrive features, currently available in Snowstorm.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 