Simulator User Group/Transcripts/2012.08.24

Simulator_User_Group
Prev 2012.08.21	Next 2012.08.28
== List of Speakers ==
Andrew Linden 	Baker Linden
Chieron Tenk 	Davido Chrome
Drake Spyker 	Drongle McMahon
MartinRJ 	Nalates Urriah
NeoBokrug Elytis	Simon Linden
Squirrel Wood 	Tiberious Neruda
== Transcript ==
[16:01] Simon Linden: I'll start with news about the releases - there will not be any code promoted from the RC channels next week
[16:01] Nalates Urriah: bummer. What happened?
[16:01] Simon Linden: There is a bug in both channels that we want to fix
[16:01] Drongle McMahon: Oh dear.
[16:02] Simon Linden: It's a change in permissions behaviors - I think there are a bunch of jiras on them but I don't have numbers at my fingertips
[16:02] Simon Linden: It's fairly obscure, but significant enough that we don't want to promote it
[16:03] Simon Linden: So on Tuesday there will not be updates, and Wednesday will have all the RC channels with minor updates that will remove that regression
[16:03] Simon Linden: Hopefully one of those versions will look good the following week
[16:04] Simon Linden: That's all I have -- Baker, did you have any news
[16:04] Simon Linden: ?
[16:04] Drongle McMahon: 8177, 8178 ?
[16:04] Nalates Urriah: Group Edit status?
[16:04] Baker Linden: I'm finding them
[16:05] Simon Linden: right, SVC-8177 is the bug holding back the RC promotions
[16:05] JIRA-helper: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8177
[#SVC-8177] There is different behaivior between the RC channels and the main channel involving permissions, objects loose modify permissions
[16:05] MartinRJ: ouch
[16:06] Drongle McMahon: I blame Schrodinger's cat over there.
[16:06] Tiberious Neruda: is that similar to the 'false' no-modify flag that shows when the container is mod-enabled, when some of its contents are no-mod?
[16:06] Simon Linden: yeah, it's along the same lines
[16:07] Baker Linden: I tried fixing them, but I made them worse. I think all of my fixes have been removed.
[16:08] MartinRJ: Hello Andrew!
[16:08] Andrew Linden: Hello.
[16:08] Nalates Urriah: Baker: How is Group Edit going?
[16:08] Simon Linden: We're reverting the code back to what the main server channel has now -- so we won't get the original bug fix or the breakage
[16:08] Andrew Linden: I'm going to just lurk today and let Simon run the meeting.
[16:08] Andrew Linden: Surprise! Simon.
[16:08] Simon Linden: ok, I'm been dancing around a bit, lol
[16:08] Tiberious Neruda: I mean, yeah, it's an annoyance, but it's one that's been around as long as I've been in SL
[16:08] Baker Linden: Pretty good, Nal. The data is coming over to the viewer -- now I'm just trying to get the viewer to display the information
[16:09] Tiberious Neruda: so at least we know how to work around it
[16:09] Nalates Urriah: That would be handy
[16:09] Simon Linden: Andrew, did you have any news? We covered the release plans
[16:09] Baker Linden: I attended the TPV meeting today and announced what I was doing. I've been working on a wiki doc for the data changes and how to get the data
[16:09] Baker Linden: He does not, Simon
[16:09] Andrew Linden: No news.
[16:10] Simon Linden: ok, so the invisible table is open for topics or questions
[16:10] Andrew Linden: Except the aforementioned permission bugs stuff.
[16:10] Baker Linden: I see the data viewer-side, but it's in the debug windows.
[16:10] Davido Chrome: Damn, I feel a bit out of the loop...
[16:10] Baker Linden: I'm trying to make the information display properly in our viewer
[16:11] Drongle McMahon: What information?
[16:11] Nalates Urriah: Group edit
[16:11] Baker Linden: displaying a list of group members
[16:11] Simon Linden: for large groups ... thinks currently break down if the groups get too large
[16:11] Simon Linden: Baker, what is the practical limit these days?
[16:12] Baker Linden: it took yesterday to figure out how that worked, so today I've been working on getting the new format working (when I'm not in meetings).
[16:12] Baker Linden: I'd say 10k would be an upper limit doing things now, and 10k will take a minute or two to get the data
[16:12] Davido Chrome: Any update on making animations set as mod to actually be modifiable?
[16:12] Baker Linden: once this comes out, there should be no problems getting the data, but it still may take some time.
[16:12] Simon Linden: No Alve, I've never heard of that issue
[16:13] Nalates Urriah: Some kind of progress indicator in the viewer would probably help...
[16:13] Davido Chrome: There's a Jira, let me find it.
[16:13] Baker Linden: yeah, that's something I want to add as well, though the first pass may not have that feature (it depends on if we have something like that already in our system -- I don't know)
[16:14] Davido Chrome: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-14703
[16:14] JIRA-helper: [#VWR-14703] Allow Modification of Animation Settings Post-Upload
[16:14] Davido Chrome: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8094
[16:14] JIRA-helper: [#SVC-8094] Implement edit options for animations - Once uploaded and in inventory you can't change the priority, for example
[16:15] Tiberious Neruda: oh yes...
[16:15] Tiberious Neruda: I'd LOVE to have some way to give joints individual priorities without resorting to trickery
[16:16] Davido Chrome: Oooh, that's a nice one-
[16:16] Andrew Linden: I remember what else I was supposed to get done since Tuesday (I found my notes)...
[16:16] Simon Linden: I don't think there's been any discussion of that as a feature request -- at least not that I heard
[16:16] Andrew Linden: (1) Ask Runitai about whether we should allow setting projector params via LSL calls.
[16:16] Andrew Linden: didn'
[16:16] Andrew Linden: didn'
[16:16] Andrew Linden: didn't get to that, Runitai has been out all week
[16:16] Davido Chrome: Honestly, I think it probably should count as a bug report. I mean, is there a reson why you can't even change the priority after upload?
[16:17] Andrew Linden: (2) Look into Lomoco Binder's bug about permissive group owned objects being unreadable by anyone
[16:17] Andrew Linden: Didn't get to that either... although I almost set up an attempt to reproduce before I got pulled away by some emergency.
[16:18] Andrew Linden: Still on my list of things to do.
[16:18] Simon Linden: I'm not familiar enough with the animation assets to know why they are so locked down
[16:20] Simon Linden: hmm, it looks like today will be a quiet meeting
[16:20] Davido Chrome: The ability to change the speed and have it play in reverse would be niiice too.
[16:20] Drake Spyker: That actually would be nice.
[16:21] Tiberious Neruda: I'm kinda curious how the default animations have different speeds based on how fast the avatar's moving
[16:21] Simon Linden: That should all happen viewer-side, I think
[16:22] Drake Spyker: I think he wants to know if it's possible to set an animation to do this yourself.
[16:23] Tiberious Neruda nods. "If we had the option, I know there are some who would use it, as long as we knew what velocity to animate for as a base"
[16:23] Simon Linden: I don't know of any way offhand, but I'm not very familiar with that system. From the server side, it doesn't do much with animations except tell the viewer which ones to play
[16:24] Andrew Linden: The reason the animations can't be changed after upload is that the upload goes to an asset, and the asset system is designed to be "write once never change"
[16:24] Davido Chrome: The eral issue is that animations that are set to mod, or that you uploaded yourself for that matter, can't have their settings edited, there is no immediately obvious reason to why animations are limited like that.
[16:24] Andrew Linden: so to change an animation you would basically create a new asset.
[16:24] Davido Chrome: Oh.
[16:24] Davido Chrome: Kinda makes sense.
[16:25] Tiberious Neruda: the only function "no-mod" disables for an animation is renaming, or changing the description
[16:25] Andrew Linden: It would be possible, in theory, to make the animation "editable" and to just upload the new asset under the hood...
[16:25] Davido Chrome: Maybe animations could have an external settings file, that would also be the interface
[16:25] Andrew Linden: however, it wouldn't change other copies of the original that are already being referenced elsewhere
[16:25] Davido Chrome: that the user use to interact with said animation?
[16:26] Nalates Urriah: If one were scale the speed of an unchangeable asset animation in the viewer, there would currently be no way to relay that info to to other viewers...
[16:26] Davido Chrome: Ah.
[16:26] Drake Spyker: I don't see where that's nessecarily a problem, Andrew. Changing an object or a notecard doesn't change copies of them that others have, either.
[16:27] Andrew Linden: Right. You'd need a "virtual animation" asset, sorta like that proposal for a "virtual landmark" in order to change an animation once and have it affect all copies everywhere...
[16:27] Andrew Linden: but then, that kinda breaks the cache system.
[16:27] Davido Chrome: So objects and notecards aren'ty assets, but categorized as something else?
[16:27] Andrew Linden: No, they really are assets. All notecards are assets...
[16:28] Andrew Linden: and all objects in your avatar's inventory, or in object contents, are also assets
[16:28] Davido Chrome: Andrew, you really wouldn't want changes to animations be global that way, really...
[16:28] Andrew Linden: but objects in world are a little different...
[16:29] Davido Chrome: You want changes to animations to work the same way as changes to in world objects.
[16:29] Andrew Linden: they exist as instances in the world, and are copied as backups to the region state (which live as assets btw, but are "temporary" in the long term, since they are continually replaced by newer copies)
[16:30] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is half over
[16:30] Andrew Linden: Ok, so the ask is for a particular instance of an animation that is currently in world to be editable?
[16:30] Andrew Linden: Such as an animation in the attachment that someone is wearing at the moment, right?
[16:30] Davido Chrome: I mean, imagine if I buy a car, and the creator totally redesigned it and that also affected the car I bought? Not at all certain I would be happy with th change...
[16:31] Davido Chrome: Yea
[16:31] Andrew Linden: You bought a car but the owner totally redesigned it... where "it" is an animation that relates to the car?
[16:32] Andrew Linden: Flesh that scenario out a bit more to help me understand, please.
[16:32] Davido Chrome: Uh, I made a paralell. The car "is" the animation in this case. Sorry, being needlessly obscure...
[16:32] Tiberious Neruda: the 'car' in this example is a copy from the 'master mold'. Under the "changes for all users" situation, updating the mold would turn all copies of that old car to the new one
[16:32] Drake Spyker: Yay metaphors
[16:34] Chieron Tenk: that would be nice and meaningful for landmarks. but for everythign else.. not so much.
[16:34] Tiberious Neruda: right
[16:34] Drake Spyker: Exactly.
[16:34] Simon Linden: Yes, landmarks really need an extra layer that allows them to be changeable
[16:34] Andrew Linden: Ok. I'm somewhat confused now. I need a good hypothetical scenario. Please keep the animation hypotheticals as animations.
[16:34] Tiberious Neruda: ...the one part that has me kinda curious, though... is the upload fee
[16:34] Davido Chrome: Also, as a creator, that would mean I can't use the same animation in different ways.
[16:35] Tiberious Neruda: would changing the animation (making a new asset) require a secondary upload fee?
[16:35] Davido Chrome: So I can't make one item with one set of settings for the animation, and another with another set of settings.
[16:36] Simon Linden: yeah, that would get into some interesting policy issues
[16:36] Simon Linden: and if you can do that to animations, why not textures?
[16:36] Davido Chrome: And what if I sell full perm animations, if everyone getting it change the settings for everyone when they change it, that would be bad...
[16:36] Drongle McMahon: Or meshes...
[16:36] MartinRJ: I think what was requested was an animation that can be modded after uploading, if it's permission says so: the speed, and the direction
[16:36] Andrew Linden: Ok, so you upload some animation. You'd like to take that animation, tweak it a little bit, and get a new one that is similar, but slightly different.
[16:36] Tiberious Neruda: and maybe the pelvis height
[16:37] Davido Chrome: Yeah.
[16:37] Andrew Linden: Rather than tweak it offline, save to some format, upload again, and then hunt for it in your inventory.
[16:37] Drongle McMahon: Think opf it as equivalent to stretching a rezzed mesh asset?
[16:37] Davido Chrome: I want to be able to have two copies with different settings, basically.
[16:37] Tiberious Neruda: (overall animation height... a KILLER for animations at the moment)
[16:37] Drongle McMahon: Just basic changes, not detailed ones
[16:37] Andrew Linden: Well... if we had a way to create animations in-world, like we do for objects, then that would be how it would work.
[16:38] Drongle McMahon: But we don't for meshes, and we can stretch them.
[16:38] Davido Chrome: What if you simultaneously create a settings file when you upload it?
[16:38] Nalates Urriah: Maybe just keep the animation static but allow the viewer to tweak the play speed...
[16:38] Chieron Tenk: while we are at it.. in that case being able to read out the changeable settings would be nice, too (i.e. having some feedback what priority an animation has)
[16:38] Andrew Linden: Likewise, if it were possible to "paint on the surface" of an object to produce a texture in-world, and then save the result, then you wouldn't have to upload the texture.
[16:38] MartinRJ: wow, that would be a great idea, btw
[16:39] Andrew Linden: Same story for in-world mesh creation, and probably a few others... sound files etc.
[16:39] NeoBokrug Elytis: Someday I secretly hope for paint on terrains
[16:39] Tiberious Neruda: speaking of sound files... what was the reasoning behind the 10-second limit?
[16:39] Davido Chrome: Andrew, I am mainly talking about the settings you define at upload, not editing the animation itself in world.
[16:39] Drongle McMahon: Well, if it ever goes that way, you can still charge for ass
[16:39] MartinRJ: I think the creator of landmap is working on such a tool, neo
[16:40] Drongle McMahon: ...asset storage instead of upload
[16:40] Andrew Linden: Theoretically possible, but we haven't tackled (er... have not successfully tackled and completed) the task of providing in-world animation creation tools.
[16:40] Andrew Linden: We did attempt it a long time ago, but the implementation was flawed, not completed, and shelved.
[16:41] Nalates Urriah: That seems like a large viewer project...
[16:41] Tiberious Neruda: perhaps that's something that can be set out as a challenge to TPV developers?
[16:41] Andrew Linden: We've kicked around the idea of in-world painting. And many of us would love to be able to do it, but it is a little complicated and so we haven't actually started that one.
[16:41] Tiberious Neruda: ...now, does the internal format for SL allow for keyframing individual rotation axes, instead of overall frames?
[16:42] Andrew Linden: In-world mesh creation... we also kicked that idea around. I think it would be nice, but again, haven't started that one.
[16:42] Drongle McMahon: You need to make (simplified) Blender a plugin.
[16:42] Davido Chrome: There are allready third party in world tools for all that that actually works.
[16:43] Andrew Linden: We got mesh uploads done first, and I think in-world mesh creation was left as a "someday it would be great, but would involve reimplementing much of 3Dstudio MAX into the viewer so we'll do it later".
[16:43] Davido Chrome: Including Mesh creation.
[16:43] Drongle McMahon: Auto temp display locally, then pat fee to upload.
[16:43] Tiberious Neruda: I'd just be happy with some of the texturing options Blender had
[16:43] Andrew Linden: Yeah, a plugin would be cool.
[16:43] Tiberious Neruda: err has
[16:43] Andrew Linden: 3rd party viewers do it? Yeah, I believe it.
[16:44] Davido Chrome: Andrew, noo, I am talking about in world tools, Like Anypose and Mesh studio. Totally viewer independent...
[16:45] Drongle McMahon: But they depend on an externa;l server, don't they?
[16:45] Andrew Linden: In-world animation and texture creation... that would have to be done viewer-only as a preview, and then there would have to be a "save state to server" button that would actually upload the new asset.
[16:46] Drongle McMahon: Yes ... same for mesh editing plugin...
[16:46] Davido Chrome: Drongle, yes. But the modelling is in world.
[16:47] Davido Chrome: Mesh studio converts in world prim linksets and sculpts into Mesh.
[16:47] Simon Linden: One thing that could be totally done on the viewer is a "create mesh from object" feature - take the triangle info know on the viewer and generate a mesh asset for uploading
[16:47] Drongle McMahon: Alve - but is it prim modelling ... that's rathger restricted.
[16:47] Simon Linden: Not that that is easy, but it wouldn't require server work
[16:47] Davido Chrome: Yeah. but it can work in conjunction with Sculpt studio.
[16:48] MartinRJ: would there be a hypothetical way back?
[16:48] MartinRJ: from mesh to sl-prim?
[16:48] Davido Chrome: Simon, That's what Mesh stiudio does, only difference is that the scripts read the prim info and sends to a server that renders the modelbased on it.
[16:49] Simon Linden: That sounds like it would be alot harder, Martin. You'd have to somehow figure out the twisted prim values to create a mesh shape
[16:49] Simon Linden: Whereas prim-to-mesh has all the triangles for the mesh already, but you want to to a reduction on the hidden surfaces or the areas with too much detail
[16:49] Drongle McMahon: Yes ... so you could have the server as part of the viewer or server. But you still can't do much real modelling.
[16:50] Davido Chrome: Simon, Mesh studio actually does that.
[16:50] Simon Linden: cool
[16:50] Davido Chrome: And this isanypose, in world animation tool.
[16:51] Davido Chrome: Have you guys actually seen the in world modelling wonder that is sculpt studio?
[16:51] Drongle McMahon: How does it work with the boolean parts of that? That's the hard part ... doing that without excessive triangle proliferation.
[16:51] Andrew Linden: No, I don't think I've seen it.
[16:52] Simon Linden: fyi I found Mesh Studio at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Mesh-Studio/2993083
[16:52] Davido Chrome: In world modelling tool.
[16:53] Andrew Linden: So it uses an army of scripted prims to send parameters to an external server
[16:53] Andrew Linden: which then takes that input and produces... what? a mesh or a sculpt?
[16:53] Tiberious Neruda: a sculpt, it appears
[16:54] Drongle McMahon: Mesh studio -> Mesh
[16:54] Simon Linden: Mesh Studios says it makes mesh files -- collada
[16:54] Squirrel Wood: mesh studio is quite nice
[16:54] Andrew Linden: Yup, I get it.
[16:54] Drongle McMahon: Sculpt studio -> Sculpty ?
[16:54] Davido Chrome: A sculpt. But it can interface with mesh studio which can convert the sculpt you make similarly to the way it converts prims.
[16:55] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is almost over
[16:55] Simon Linden: I'm curious how they are grabbing the shape data
[16:55] Simon Linden: ... for the in-world prims
[16:55] Davido Chrome: llGetPrimitiveParams.
[16:55] Squirrel Wood: they simply read out the prim parameters and build mesh prims based on that
[16:56] Drake Spyker: The prim's shape is known, so they probably just do a ton of math on the parameter data
[16:56] Simon Linden: ah, ok -- grab the prim parameters, then use the viewer code to go from prims to triangle sets, and merge it all into a mesh
[16:56] Andrew Linden: It looks like they slice the shape, and each slice provides a bunch of points.
[16:56] Squirrel Wood: mind you, round objects converted to mesh still use up a lot of land impact.
[16:56] Davido Chrome: Simion, it never uses the viewer code I think. Wouldn't have to.
[16:56] Andrew Linden: All they need are the collections of all the points, and software that knows how to translate them to sculpt textures.
[16:57] Davido Chrome: Maybe. I don't know though.
[16:57] Simon Linden: Right, you end up with a lot of triangles if you want it to look round
[16:58] Andrew Linden: While pretty cool and clever... how do you reallly like the final UI interface of the sculpt studio?
[16:59] Andrew Linden: That is, it makes soomething possible that is in-world, but would its usability be acceptible for an equivalent finished feature in the viewer?
[16:59] Davido Chrome: It's damn good considering it's all in world. Not the same flow as SS, but that you can design parts for a model in world and fit it directly to the model or your avatar is priceless.
[16:59] Andrew Linden: Ah, good point.
[17:00] Meeter: Thank you for coming to the Server User Group
[17:00] Drongle McMahon: Im afraid I would be happier and faster using Blender.
[17:00] Davido Chrome: I mean, not the same work fflow as Blender. This is SS, Sculpt Studio.
[17:01] Simon Linden: I have to head out -- thanks everyone for coming today and the chat
[17:01] Drongle McMahon: How does Mesh Studio do the UV maps? Same as the prims in SL?
[17:01] Davido Chrome: I use both. I made a cod piece by modelling it around my avatar in world. Then I imported the result into blender and did the detailing there.
[17:01] Davido Chrome: Drongle, I do not quite remember that.
[17:02] Simon Linden: Bye everyone - I'll see you next time
[17:02] Davido Chrome: I haven't used it myself, just repeating what TheBlackBox told us on his office hour.
[17:02] Andrew Linden: Wait simon...
[17:02] Chieron Tenk: bye simon
[17:02] Simon Linden: ...yes?
[17:02] Drongle McMahon: I guess the flexibilioty of uv mapping would be something I would miss. But if you don't know it ....
[17:02] Andrew Linden: Can you copy the transcripts for me? From the start?
[17:02] Simon Linden: sure, I have it saved already in an email draft, I'll send it to you
[17:02] Andrew Linden: Thanks.
[17:03] MartinRJ: Goodbye everyone!
[17:03] Andrew Linden: Ok, I'm out too, but thank you for showing the Sculpt Studio Davido.
[17:03] Drongle McMahon: And Alve ... with that sculpt method, can you bend the slices?
[17:03] Davido Chrome: No problem!
[17:03] Davido Chrome: Drongle, yes, if you open them.
[17:04] Drongle McMahon: ok
[17:04] Davido Chrome: I could have shown you if you had asked me before I removed it. XD
[17:04] Andrew Linden: Cheers.
[17:04] MartinRJ: : )
[17:04] Davido Chrome: Thank you Lindens!
[17:04] Andrew Linden: I will now shoot my Crayon gun, because it is still cool after all these years.
[17:05] Davido Chrome: Yeeehaw!
[17:05] Drongle McMahon: I still wonder if people would prefer something less explicitly connected to the underlying sculpty format. Hmm...
[17:05] Drongle McMahon: Missed!
Simulator_User_Group
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