New alphas, a crash course

The new Materials feature has added in a number of new features- one being more control over alphas.  We've only been asking for the ability to use 1 bit alpha masks since....the introduction of the stupid alpha flicker issue so, that's, what, 7 years?  I don't even remember.  It's been a long time.  But we have them now, finally.

In the Texture panel in Build, there are more dropdowns and thingies now.  Right now, we are interested in Materials, Texture (diffuse).  Under that, Alpha mode, and the dropdown there gives us options, huzzah.  Note: make sure you've selected a texture face with an alpha (transparency).  No alpha, no options.

None just turns off the alpha channel, as if you uploaded a solid texture, no alpha channel at all.

Alpha blending is the default for textures with an alpha channel.  This means an 8 bit alpha mask, gradual alpha transparencies with gradients, the old potential alpha flicker issue.  They added an option in the Develop menu that would turn this "off" (make them 1 bit) for all alphas that were also set to 0% transparency a few viewer iterations ago, Develop>Rendering>Automatic Alpha Masks (non-deferred).  THAT IS STILL THERE.  THIS CAN SCREW STUFF UP.  If that is checked, which it appears to still be by default, even if you have it SET to use 8 bit transparency, it won't- if it doesn't feel like it.  Here's the fun part, kids, it used to always just set it to 1 bit, now it seems to decide for you, and it may not decide the way you want to.  To force it to use 8 bit transparency, up the Transparency % to 1%.  It's such a small bit you won't see it, but it will force it to use the alpha properly.  Why is this a deal?  Because any gradual transparencies will no longer be gradual.  It will be on or off, sharp edges, no transparent glass or soft edges or shadows- when it decides you shouldn't have them.  This is also a deal because it's set on the viewer side, NOT server side- so while you can set it in your viewer to show things the way you want, that doesn't guarantee what other people will see.  And because it's viewer side, there's no way to really know where the cutoff is for everyone (especially once you get into the whole mac vs. windows vs. linux thing).  Bright side?  It does actually seem to be smart about it now, whereas before it just destroyed everything.

But!  Now we have another problem.  Full bright no longer consistently works on alpha blended textures- even ones the deferred rendering makes solid.  For some people, it is never full bright, ever.  For me?  It is sometimes, and then not others, which is extra fun!  Generally it is renders fullbright to begin with (but doesn't even always start out full bright), it will cease to once I select it, and stay that way until I reload the object entirely (tp out and back in, relog, etc.- toggling the Automatic Alpha Masks also seems to go back and forth between full bright and not, turning non-deferred on kills full bright).  If you have alpha cutout vendors, this is a problem.  One that you will want to fix by using Alpha masking instead- but you sacrifice all gradual transparencies once you use that.

Alpha masking is 1 bit transparency.  This means everything is on/off, no gradient transparency.  Thankfully, it isn't entirely pixel by pixel based, but will smooth out your angled lines on the cuts- just like Automatic Alpha Masks (non-deferred).  Things that already used this are the avatar- alpha masks, and the edges of the system skirt when you had anything with a transparency- and system plants.  Upside to this?  No more alpha flicker!  That's why we've wanted it forever!  Also it's a little easier on the system in general, so it's a good idea to use it if you can get away with it anyway, but your alpha edges will be harsher, and smoothed angles still may not be actually straight, but may be lumpy.  Still, full bright with alpha masking seems to work properly for everyone!

There is a slider under Alpha masking for Mask cutoff.  This defaults to 0.  Defaulting to 0 is stupid.  That is just the same as setting it to None for the Alpha mode, it's solid.  What you will almost always want is 127, that is the center of the range.  Lower means more will be solid, higher means less will- if you have a haloing problem with your alphas, you'll probably want to set that number higher, possibly as close to 255 as you can without moth eating chunks in the middle unevenly.  And you'll want to learn ways to avoid that haloing issue, see my previous post for some tips on that (though for solid cutouts, which is what you need here, taking pictures huge with antialiasing off, and shrinking after you've cut them out from the background will work, so long as you fill the empty background with something like the solidify filter with your alpha channel in an actual channel).

The last option is Emissive mask.  This also turns your texture entirely solid.  Full bright also completely destroys this option, because what it does is choose WHAT to make full bright.  The solid parts of your texture will be fullbright- the transparent parts will be rendered with the surrounding lighting!  It does not do gradual transparencies well/at all, and you can't adjust what it sees as solid/bright, so make sure you have a VERY clean mask before using.  This and None are the least backwards compatible- it will just show the regular alphaed out texture if you are using a viewer without materials, both currently show no alpha, but also no emissive fullbright area, on a materials viewer with Advanced Lighting Model off.

Perfect alpha cutouts

Getting something cut out of a background in SL perfectly can be difficult and frustrating- unless you know the trick of it.  Many people use the green screen trick, but you can have slight acid green bleed in your semi transparent areas, like hair whisps.

First requirement: you need to be able to take at least 2 completely identical pictures, aside from background colour (if there are flexis, you might want to turn them off after you've gotten everything into position, including your camera- Advanced menu>Rendering Features>Flexible Objects.  This CAN be optional, your flexis might not move so long as nothing moves...but then again, they might, depending on settings and conditions)- and you need to be able to change that background colour.

Take one picture with your background solid fullbright white.  Take a second picture identical but for the background being solid black.  Optionally, take a third (or more) with the colour a general match for the touchy alpha issues- a vague match for your hair, any semi transparent spots, etc.

In Photoshop, one of the layer styles is "Difference"- copy paste the black or white background over the white or black background, and set the top layer to that.  The image will be all black and white- the background will be white, everything else in the shot will be black, with perfect alphaed edges for cutouts.  Select all and shift-copy, paste that into a channel mask for the image, and invert it, so it's a white outline on a black background.  If your picture has shadows, you probably WILL still have to clean this up in minor ways, due to lines and shadows rendering differently on different backgrounds- make sure the places that should be solid are white, with no grey spots from shadows not rendering quite the same, and if you're taking larger than screen size, the line problem will have to be fixed.  If you're not taking it with shadows on, your mask is already perfect- aside from occasional minor shiny glitches, so you might want to zoom in on those and make sure they're all white!

If your white and black aren't quite 100% pure (which can happen, even with fullbright- especially with shadows and Windlight), you may need to adjust the levels of your mask ever so slightly pulling the end arrow in to the center a tad.  You should not need much, if you need this step at all- but you can have a slightly messy background mask that is mostly, but not 100%, transparent, under some circumstances (i.e. SL having a bad day).

Now, you can use this mask on your white background picture, your black background picture, or the picture(s) with the alpha colours.  This last option works best- if you have multiple problem spots, layer them all only showing the bits you need where to prevent the colour bleed (if you're scaling the picture down, the colour bleed may disappear, depends on how much of a stickler you are as to how much effort to put in here- it's going to be minor even if you just use the white background version).  If you have antialiasing on, there will be VERY slight bleed over the entire outline, so if you're wearing black, might want to do your cutout on the black background copy (black halo can also be less immediately noticeable than white, "shadows" rather than "halo").  But whatever you decide to cut out, use that channel mask for your selection or mask for your cutout!

Lining up LODs

This is a prime example of why a public jira is a VERY GOOD THING.  I would have been thoroughly perplexed by the entire problem AND would have taken much longer (if ever) finding the solution without the ability to browse preexisting jiras for this problem.  (I made an assumption that was incorrect, because it made logical sense to work that way, and no logical sense to work the way it does.  And computers are all about logic, right?)

The problem: you can upload multiple separate mesh objects at once into one linked object (this is great for, say, everything already being in the right place instead of having to line shit up!  Hooray!).  HOWEVER, when one does this and attempts to also upload your own custom LODs and physics shapes, the objects do not always line up!  This leads to lower LODs being wacky shapes, or just plain saying "nope, not doing it" if you don't have the same material setup on them all (texture faces).  So....you can upload multiple items and have them all in the right places in respect to each other OR you can have control over your LODs.  Not both.  (As an aside, the auto generated LODs seem to trim off the objects semi randomly- sometimes one object will get the LOD jacked down a lot, and the other will be barely touched, it doesn't seem to do it evenly.)

The Real problem: the collada exporters just randomly decide on an order for your objects in the file, not based on order selected or any other criteria over which you have control.  This definitely holds true for the blender 2.62 exporter- but it is not alone, other programs also have this issue.

The solution: reorder your collada file by hand.  First step, in your modeling program, before exporting, name all your objects useful names.  You need to be able to distinguish what is the same object in different LODs by name only, so keep that nice and consistent!  Export your collada file now that everything is named and easy to tell apart blind.  Use a basic basic text editor (WordPad works perfectly), open up your dae file.  It's a bunch of xml code in there, nested <type> <subtype>.  Now, you're on your own here a bit, because collada files vary WILDLY in what they call things and how they're ordered.

There's going to be material data in there (probably), which you can just skip by.  You're looking for geometry or something similar.  In my current exporter, I'm looking for <geometry id="object_name" name="object_name"> (Note: those names don't have to be the same, and they are things you set, so you should know what names you're looking for).  There will be a bunch of nested attributes, and then a close geometry tag, and then another open tag with a new name for the next data block.  Find out what order your data blocks are in there!  Then open up another LOD file, scroll down to the same geometry blocks, and reorder each entire block into the same order as the first file- repeat for all LODs (the ENTIRE block needs to be moved, from start to end tag for an object).  Save the newly reordered files (just as text, don't let it do anything fancy, don't rename from .dae).  Now they should line up so the objects agree across LODs instead of randomly assigning!

The Arcade

It's been forever since I've posted anything here, and even longer since a tourism update.  I want to do those more often (I've been preoccupied with moving and a broken thumb and too many events and an occasional fashiony blog- I haven't BEEN much of anywhere a lot lately).

This time, I'm cheating.  Because, you see, I got in early because I'm a participant, so I have pictures that aren't crammed full of eleven jillion people (or, you know...30.  whatever the avatar limit is).  The Arcade!


Aside from the actual, you know, the spendy money on awesome things reason to go, the venue is amazing.  It's an enclosed skydome, with an entire planned environment separate from everything else.

It is, as you can probably tell from looking, pretty much 100% mesh.  Mesh really does open up possibilities that were unavailable previously- sculpts helped (a LOT!), but mesh is much more flexible with efficiency and texture management.  (I'm also lucky/spoiled and can run with shadows on all the time on this computer, so I do, oh, how I do.)

You super duper want to sit on a donation kiosk, whether you toss any money their way or not. Make sure you've got default camera (hit escape a couple of times).

New Math

With meshes, we now have 2 ways to calculate prim count, old math (one prim = one prim), and new math (one prim = however many land impact prims depending on a number of variables). Any linkset linked to a mesh always uses new math (just one mesh in a linkset will force new math for the entire linkset, always). But you can choose to use new math on a linkset of traditional and sculpt prims as well.

But do that with care! There are reasons to do it, and reasons not to. Biggest reason to? In new math, a single prim can count as HALF a prim in a linkset, so one linkset of prims can be half the number of actual prims. Link six boxes and use new math? 3 land impact prims. (Note: this always rounds up. 5 prims will also be three prims, 7 prims will be 4). THIS ONLY APPLIES TO STATIC PRIMS. THEY CANNOT BE SCRIPTED OR PHYSICAL. It's a bonus modifier we get applied to "simple" prims, those that impact the server less.

However, new math is not straightforward like old math. There are 3 variables, and you have to figure out how to juggle them. Some people are just telling people to set entire linkset to Convex Hull and watch the savings: but if you don't have the right things in your linkset, your prims will count as MORE, and you may not be able to walk into your buildings anymore!

There is an easy way to find out what things will cost, and if it's worth trying (AND how to fix the not being able to walk into places problem). Click on the "More info" link to find out what your object will cost (it can take a bit to calculate though!):

That will bring up this second menu with all your infomation. The thing I currently have selected is 3 prims. The three things that make a difference to us for prim count are Download, Physics, and Server. This Features tab, with the Physics Shape thing? That's where you need to set Physics shape to use new math. If all prims in a linkset are traditional prims, and use Prim physics, that linkset will use old math. If ANY prims in the linkset are set to either of the other two options (Convex Hull or None), the entire linkset will use new math- this is how you set non mesh prims to mesh math.

Download is how complicated the object is. It calculates by number of faces and size, complicated prims have more faces. Aside from replacing prims with less complicated ones, or shrinking prims, or removing complicated prims from the linkset entirely, we can't get this number any lower. Sculpts are a MINIMUM of 1.3 Download, even tiny, even with faces thrown away in the sculpt map (that, in fact, doesn't seem to have any impact to sculpt calculation ever- sculpts seem to have a flat calculation, regardless of the sculpt). And they go up from there. Linking 2 sculpts together will become 2.6- which will count as THREE prims. So only use sculpts with new math if you can balance the cost with other prims! Sculpts and toruses and spheres and tubes- anything other than boxes and prisms (and how often do you use a prism?)- can cost you, depending on size and complexity, they can cost too much. Boxes are cool. Boxes are 0.1, even at 64mx64mx64m, hollowed (even circle hollowed) and cut! (NOT twisted. Twisted ads a very substantial amount more to it, because it requires many more faces for the twist.) So, say you have a linkset with a bunch of boxes and a sculpt? You may find you can link that together and use new math and prim count goes down. But you may not.

Physics is where you can really play with your linkset cost. Simple physics (boxes! But not as much cutting or hollowing this time!) cost very little. Complicated physics, especially hollowed or cut things, even boxes, start costing. You can reduce physics cost by making things Convex Hull, but that makes them VERY simple: you will not be able to walk though hollows or cuts, and the actual outer shape beyond that may not be what you expect (it's not straight up bounding box all the time, but sometimes it is). You can reduce physics further by setting SELECTED PRIMS IN THE LINKSET to None. The root prim CANNOT be set to None. Physics set to None works like Phantom: so you can mix Phantom and non Phantom prims in a linkset this way too! Hollowed or cut prims for doorways may have to be set to None (you can set them to Prim so long as the rest of your Physics allows for the calculations). Many sculpts you may want to set to None to take them out of the Physics calculation, as well as not having their physics get in the way. You can set all the prims in the linkset individually to your choice of the three options, and you may need to! These example prims? I need to set my physics to Convex Hull or None to bring down my cost before I use new math, or not use new math at all, as well as linking them together (in practice? The base had to be set as Convex Hull, AND all the linked prims had to be set to None, before I could get the Physics low enough to see enough savings to actually lower the prim count. They are a sculpt and 2 cut tubes, so, complicated- but those cut tubes actually don't cost all that much at this size, so I can get away with it, so long as I don't need proper physics collision).

The last variable here is Display. That will NEVER be less than half the number of prims in your linkset. In this case 3 prims, divided by 2, equals 1.5. This is an unscripted unphysical linkset, so I get the static bonus. If this is equal to the number of actual prims, it's not worth trying to use the new math, because you won't see any savings!

The largest of these three numbers will always be the one used. The land impact number is rounded by linkset, 1.5 will be 2 land impact prims, but 1.4 will round down to 1.

A lot of land impact can be saved if you are smart in how you juggle your physics- and in what you link together! But that large sculpt? You may want to unlink that to leave it using old math and make sure you select it too before you move your thing.

Adventures in Exporting

This is a run down of my personal glitches with the collada exporters in Blender. Your builds may not have the same problems, but I had to stumble around in the dark to find the ways around mine, so if these issues are plaguing you too, might be worth a try. This is not telling you how to export in Blender, or how to use Blender, it assumes you know that already- just that you are having these particular export glitches when doing it.

I primarily use Blender 2.49 (an old Jass build, that's long since not been available for download. It's comfortable for me, it predates Primstar, and it doesn't have some of the other glitches/intentional refusing to do what I want that was introduced that messed up my workflow). I haven't really jumped on the 2.5 bandwagon much yet, 2.49 does what I want, how I want it, and I haven't spent the time to find the way to work around 2.5 (just trying to cam around in it irks me with the new settings, and I haven't spent the time to get used to it or change it!)

Around half the time, exporting with the collada 1.4 exporter works just fine. The other half...it randomly divides out a few faces and assigns them to new texture space (the closest to tracking down any reason behind which faces it chooses I've come to is that sometimes, but only sometimes, when I merge edges, it glitches some of the faces to one side into a new texture space). This is NOT visible in Blender- it assigns texture faces just as you would expect, you only find out when uploading the collada and either the uploader fails because your models do not all have the same texture faces (or have too many- also note that you actually have to have all the _same_ textures assigned, not just the same number as well- or at least I do!), or you get it uploaded and find out you've got some straggler faces sprinkled around here and there that have a different texture face.

I've tried all sorts of ridiculous and time consuming experimentation with trying to track those down, fix them, replaced my collada exporting scripts with new versions, all to no avail. Finally I found one thing that actually fixed it: opening that blend file in Blender 2.5, and exporting in there.

BUT. The collada exporter in Blender 2.5 is twitchier. You MUST always make sure to tick the "export only selected" box in the file popup or it will export your entire blender scene with all pages in one piece (with my workflow, extra pages have the other LODs and collision and in progress working bits, so it's an enormous mess). ADDITIONALLY. IT ONLY SOMETIMES DOES NOT EXPORT THE UNSELECTED THINGS ANYWAY. This last go round, it would export around half of the rest of the stuff that had nothing to do with what I wanted to export, even though it wasn't selected! It was a consistent half, but it was not a helpful half.

So, time for making a copy of your blend file so you don't save over and lose everything. Open that in Blender 2.5. Delete everything on ALL the other pages. Delete everything you DO NOT NEED on the page with what you want to export. IF YOU ARE EXPORTING RIGGED MESH, DO NOT DELETE THE SKELETON. It needs that for the skeleton data. The body you're building around? All that can go, but not the skeleton itself. (And make sure it's the right skeleton if you've duplicated things for alternate working versions, of course.)

Last note: current version of the SL mesh uploader seems to require the collision object to have the same number of texture faces (and the same textures!) assigned as the LODs. Previous versions of the uploader did not, future versions may not again. There is no reason for collision to require textures assigned, and there is no helpful red error message, the button to calculate and upload just silently disables itself.

Drowsy

Drowsy has been closed for a while, while they remodel. I'm always a bit sad when that happens to a good sim- often it's great, but it still means all those places that I used to love are gone. For now, Drowsy has just a little bit open, high in the sky, while they work below.



The island in the sky hasn't quite escaped the wolves, but there are far fewer wolves lurking around, and quite a few more cats!



Bits and pieces of the sim below have collected together in shards, the clocktower, the library, the swings from the playground, all collapsed together in a small space.



Only BP* and Kurotsubaki have reopened in the sky, with their signature beautiful little bits and pieces, tucked here and there around the library and the rest of the island.



There's a room with a projector and mementos of previous festivals, ephemeral memories of Drowsy past.



Visit Drowsy.

2.0 jiras

List as of 2/28.

This is not every single jira relating to 2.0. I have weeded out some (all the language ones, for a start!) I'm including a mixed bag- some I have kept are badly worded, but good issues at the heart. Some are issues that I am in fact NOT voting on, but I can see how they would appeal to some people. Some I have not seen for myself as I do not use said features (like Voice), or cannot reproduce due to not using the system combination in question. Many do not really cover the whole issue, but are at least a start. I urge you to read up on the issues and make an informed choice of what you want to see fixed/added.

I WILL be adding more, and dividing them up into categories, until I run out of steam- they will be added to the end of the category for new additions.

SERVER SIDE:
No notifications when someone accepts inventory offers

SECURITY ISSUES:
Ability to copy UUIDs on NOT full perm assets
Automatic acceptance of inventory
HTML on a prim: IP and UUID security issues

GENERAL USABILITY:
Skins so we aren't limited to the harder to read light text on dark
Text too small, contrast, font options
Text too small, bold options
Again, readability issues

PERSISTENCE ISSUES:
Parent persistence catchall- appear to NOT include a few issues
RenderVolumeLODFactor sometimes reverts to default on relog
Ruthing issues

SNAPSHOTS:
Snapshot bugs, parent catchall Note: this parent issue is NOT viewer specific, there is a lot relating to many viewer versions
Hi rez snapshots broken
Hi rez snapshots broken
Hi rez snapshots broken- plus glow
Hi rez snapshots broken- INCLUDES TEMPORARY WORKAROUND OF UNTICKING RESTRAIN PROPORTIONS (and this is why it pays to slog through the jira- not only do you find issues to try to get them fixed, but sometimes people have found workarounds until they ARE fixed)

HOVERTIPS:
Bring back hovertip info
Hover has no context on how the object interacts- Touch/Sit/Buy/etc.

SIDEBAR:
Parent catchall for sidebar issues- this links to individual behavior issues
including: Americans with Disabilities Act violations, camera movement, HUDs getting messed up, sizing issues, undocking items
Only one Profile visible at once under current sidebar
Similar single Profile issue
Profile images are not the same ratio across Profile and Search
Missing Interests (Language!) in Profile
Proposed fix to many sidebar issues:pop out everything!
Group notices and Inventory occupying same space- added 3/1

INVENTORY:
Object properties difficult to use- can only edit one at a time due to side menu restrictions.
Request for easier renaming, following Windows convention

CHAT:
Object chat behavior broken
Make the chatbar go all the way across unused space
Chat popups too fast
Chat bar focus issue
Chat popups too fast- seizure and migraine issues
Ctrl-T shortcut to minimize chat removed
No minimizing chat at all
Popups too fast to join group without having to reopen
Visibility of popups, again

CONTEXTUAL MENU:
Build missing
General size and order issues
Useful and intended default functions like Sit/Buy/Pay buried low in menu

TOP BAR:
No build/script/fly/etc. icons on by default
Coords on by default

SEARCH:
Easy way to see what Events are on right now request
Search efficiency issues
Partial names no longer return results
Missing coordinates on Search results: harder to find things

MAP:
Coords not on Map view

NOTECARDS:
No Discard button

CLOTHING LAYERS:
Tattoo layer doesn't have tinting ability all other layers have
Drag and Drop broken on some parts of new layers (Note: appears to also effect the Upper/Lower bodies on the Tattoo Layer in my testing)

SCRIPTS:
Set Running progress window missing

MEDIA:
Flash not working for some users

VOICE:
No way to tell active/inactive speakers
Voice not connecting period

ALPHA ISSUES:
Unable to Pay object with transparant texture
Alphas on HUDs getting in way of interaction

ASSORTED BUGS:
Play and Pause buttons reversed
Group Role Abilities not applying correctly
Perfomance degradation on some systems
Sculpt loading issues
Cannot create clothing in appearance (Note: I've also experienced some wonky Save As issues with items saving OVER the current as well as Save As. I have not tested fully to report a jira, and if this is a problem for more than me there will eventually be a jira for it so I haven't started one up, yet)
Antialising won't turn on until you relog
Chatlogs saving in random places
Parcel media not restarting under after relogging
Standing from sitting makes you fly
Grid options not applying to Y immediately
Selection working strange (for me, this is but one part of how selection is working strange, but the rest may be related)
Prims not rendering randomly

Key binding request (Note: this is not the first time this issue has come up, but why not add it in now when it's easy?)

2.0 interface

This is all, obviously, personal opinion. I encourage you to develop your OWN opinions about what is right and what is wrong, and jira accordingly. Some of this will probably never make it to jira, or if they do, be totally ignored (limitations of the side tabbed thing, which I'm sure they're all chuffed about and won't be able to admit limitations). This is open letter no one of any import will read, as well as a personal reasoning through the reasons behind the knee-jerk annoyance. Plus! Maybe you found some of these preferences that I haven't found groping around in the dark yet to fix some of this!

Herein being a random smattering of things that hit me, edited periodically with more and for clarity. I'm harsh, I'm blunt, I'm not writing this as a true appeal, this is a recording of thoughts. I am talking about interface here, not features- they are not all the same thing. Alpha masking, the extra layer, HTML on a prim? Nothing to do with the interface, we just got them at the same time because there was a feature freeze until this interface was ready. They are the cherry on top to make you like the rest of it, which isn't a bad way to lure people to learn the new way, but that's what it is, they are not integral to the new interface, at all. That said, the UI for HTML on a prim? Bravo. Good solid intuitive focus changes behavior of tools to what you expect when you're doing the equivalent with tabbing out. It's intuitive to get in and out, to browse, when what shows where so you know what's happening (like the top bar- the way it goes in and out dependent on what it thinks you want...and it guesses WELL), degrading gracefully to texture on older viewers, everything is perfect (to me). I haven't seen a single thing I would want changed (other than bugfixing some issues of people not being able to see certain things even in 2.0). Still, this interface has nothing to do with the interface of the viewer as a while.

Stability is HUGELY improved for me in this version. I can do whizbang stuff that crashed me hard previously. I haven't crashed yet once, period. I lag significantly less. Backend here, they've done some seriously good work. This is THE most solid viewer I've used, hands down, since WL went live (weird funfact? The First Look WL viewer was a very good viewer for me, the day it went live everything tanked). That is ALSO not interface.

Interfaces are HARD. They really are. You take them for granted using them, but developing a successful interface is really really difficult. There are a lot of things you need to juggle- making things familiar enough that using the interface comes naturally (i.e. basing interface on existing things with somewhat similar function- look at how many MMO's have copied WoW's interface to a large degree, WoW itself being based on things that came before it, etc.), making them different and exciting enough to not be boring and add new functionality (just directly copying an existing interface is bad from a lot of viewpoints), finding ways to "fix" previous interface mistakes because even the best interfaces have room for improvement, working ergonomically and being intuitive to a huge diverse subset who are all coming at it from different directions with different desires- which just becomes more and more of a problem when you've got something that does a lot. You're also prone to fall in love with your interface and be blind to its faults. Even when it's a team, and there are focus groups and feedback, it's very common to ignore concerns because you want to do it THIS way. An interface this complicated, that has so many hurdles to overcome, that no one yet has done truly right? That is really REALLY hard. But there are problems inherent in this, from very basic tenants, and that's an issue. (Now, if I believed they were this devious and thought ahead, I'd think that 2.01 was the REAL interface, and this was to shake us up enough to accept it, something that has some of the aspects of this but excludes a lot of the more radical and hard to deal with parts.)


My problem with any new interface is twofold- 1) I've been using the previous one and know my way around. This presents serious problems in any interface overhaul, the learning curve to the new is always a frustrating experience, even if it is 100% better (take Blender. Please. Er, I mean, look at Blender- it's got a clusterfuck of an interface, but once you find your way around it starts making sense. Almost anything would be an improvement, and yet, anything would cause a lot of stress in anyone who actually knows what they're doing because they know how to do it the hard way, and the easy way isn't obvious until they learn it). The aim here is new players, who are not familiar with this system in any manner. I'm not sure they've succeeded in a lot of what they were attempting, in part because they've gotten hung up in what's "slick", as well as using things for interface basis that doesn't necessarily carry over because we've got a lot more functionality, and things needing to be used across and at the same time (for instance, I go to _another interface_, my desktop, to drag and drop an image over a trillian window to offer an image the easy way. We've got drag and drop here, but we've got the place you drag from and the place you drop to, occupying the same space at the same time, which makes it impossible without breaking away from the _default_- that's an interface fail, if I have to find a way to make your system work in an unusual way to do simple tasks). 2) I'm not their test case, even as a noob- day 1, after groping my way out of Orientation Island, I started making a fishnet shirt. Literally, the first DAY in SL I started the process of making things. As the new interface is designed, creation tools are "out of the way" so as to "not confuse" the new player. That would have frustrated the crap out of me. I've always been interested in a 3d chat program far less than a 3d immersive world that I can create.

I'm trying to put aside BOTH of those biases to evaluate this and its usefulness to everyone. I may not always succeed.


The whole side menu thing: Herein we're going for style over function. It's "slick", it's gimmicky. It serves as a one window holds everything which is an interface trick that I'm never fond of, and usually falls flat on its face because it's confusing, and requires a one size fits none sizing scheme. Some, but not ALL, of the things stored there seem to have tear aways (new window inventory still hangs on my computer, and will probably crash me if I try to do it after being logged for a while, which is why it's a function I ceased using in previous viewers- in fact, so far inventory is the ONLY thing I've been able to tear away, I want to have the option for every. single. thing. Flexibility in interfacing is a GOOD thing). Inventory AND everything you want to drop things into FROM Inventory in the same space (Profiles, Group Notices...)...right there you're forcing people to find ways around the default. There's the "mini tab" with profiles, but this still requires more clicking through (ergonomics fail), but Group Notices just generally seem to say "well, we failed here by the default scheme, find the way around it!" That is not good interfacing. They've also generally introduced more action required to do a lot of tasks- the side tab is a big reason that's necessary, and that is also never good in interfacing- you want quick, easy, ergonomic design, not clunky. They're following the web interface linear click this to this model- but I thought even IE had tabbed browsing now? Not that I have used IE for anything but testing for....a very long time (that period when Netscape went the way of the dodo, before the rise of Firefox, those dark and dismal years), but I think that's been added to the feature list, and I've been using it on Firefox since it started. Prior to that, I opened a mess of windows at once. This moment, I have more than 20 sites open (yeah, I may have a problem), and tabs make for easy navigation back and forth, multiple windows wasn't bad either, I'd minimize what I wasn't looking at at the moment and grab new from the list. I do not browse linearly, and with the rise of tabs, I think it's pretty obvious I'm not the only one. I still open new windows at times when I want to see two at once instead of the tabbed thing. Yeah, we've got side tabs, but I want to have multiple of the same things open at once: profiles, groups, group notices, the list goes on. The popping out and recentering camera is understandable with the way this works BUT makes one queasy. Can I get used to it? Yeah, I can. There are people with disabilities who have serious problems with it, so even if I can, that's not the issue. That's a very serious issue regarding this choice, period- and it's a larger interfacing issue that's a very basic thing for anyone who knows anything about interfaces. Plus trying to scale it if you need to increase the size of the text in places is absolutely atrocious. Pros: you know where to look for (almost) everything.

On the absolute opposite side: defaulting chat to _un_ tabbed, so that's a huge clutter spread across everywhere. That has a setting, but I can't think of an IM client I've installed for years that didn't default to tabbed and let you tear away, instead of starting off the other direction (they also all had easy ways to merge tabs by dragging and dropping them over each other, not having to find a setting. I keep trying to merge chat windows and they just won't drop in). (Disclosure: I've never downloaded a straight AIM client, all my AIM has always been in a multi system IM client, so I don't know how AIM does it.) New users will be left tearing their hair out if they try to talk to more than one person at a time- power users won't have a problem to adapt, they will find the settings, but they're also trying to make new users have a better experience. Additionally, world chat can't be collapsed into that, so I'm still stuck with an extra window I would rather have the _option_ to be able to collapse into one, even if I _chose_ to expand it into multiples. Again: flexibility and the option for the user to alter the interface to suit them, and not being forced to conform to an interface that's awkward to them, is key, especially when it can be so easily managed. The user has to adapt, but the interface should make adapting EASY, and as flexible as possible.

I'm of 2 minds of the way popups are handled. Out of the way and non intrusive when I'm doing something else? Awesome. Super easy to miss entirely? Less awesome. Small icons in the corner of screen are an indicator, but not much of one. Lots of notices will go unread, lots of IMs will be accidentally ignored. That's a hard hard thing to find the sweet spot for though, the fine line between too intrusive and too subtle. All in all, this is probably a reasonable choice as is. The popup duration itself may bear more investigation. I don't have a problem with it. Other people DO have legitimate problems with it. I read fast and I don't have a history of seizures- those that differ from me in these respects have valid points. Have a setting for duration and you can get by all of those issues AND please everyone.

Inventory:
No contextual icons for "system" folders...now, icons can be cumbersome and cluttered, but I can't even tell the Trash at a glance? Tack on icons were easy indicator "you can't delete this folder". Ease of interface, no. I'm hoping this is just a "we're not done yet" because it's random and weird to exclude when everything else has new icon art (and they understood the concept in the previous viewers).

There's an inconsistent "sticky" inability to scroll past what item in inventory that's selected that is not useful. Not only because it's completely inconsistent and pops up when it pleases, but also if I tell you to scroll...I want you to SCROLL. This is consistent across most interfaces we are familiar with, and popping me back up is annoying and bothersome. Most let you keep selected off screen and only pop back when you move your arrow keys to select a neighbor- not just lock out the ability to scroll entirely. (This popped up a lot. It's a minor issue. It's also a stupid issue.) Because I've seen it happen sometimes and not others, I don't even know what is as intended and what's the bug functionality, or if there's context in the working/not that isn't readily apparent to me. I can find ways around it. Other users can find ways around it if they don't just simply get frustrated and say "fuck this" and leave SL before even starting. However, there is no apparent advantage to breaking from tradition in other interfaces- so interface fail.

Inability to edit properties on multiple items at once. This...has always been tedious and badly done (I should be able to batch set perms in inventory, always- the alternative of having to change settings, close window, change settings, close window, is tedious but less tedious than having to change settings, optionally go back if you haven't torn off a new inventory window, choose new item and right click to go into properties, etc.- a lot more work than click click ctrl-W. Of course the flip side to the problem the old way is that sometimes I want to change properties, sometimes I want to double click ctrl-V ctrl-W when batch renaming- still easier than this, but a speedbump to batch perms. Which is also tedious and a pain in the ass and there are easier ways but they are rarely used anywhere so I understand SL not trailblazing here, though it would be nice), but to remove it entirely...not so awesome.

Related: double click pulling up Properties. This is counter to just about every interface we use. Look at your desktop, cluttered with icons of various sorts (or if you're not a desktop slob like me, look in a folder). What happens when you double click any of those things? Why, they do their task. I get to see that image, read that text file, listen to that music, browse that website. Properties/File Info have always been just a right click away (or an apple-I/flipper click away in my beloved Mac of a decade plus ago. I still miss apple-I), but you need that LESS than you need them to do their purpose: in inventory, that means wear that stuff! With the rise of double click to take off as well in alt viewers, I'd say that should also be included: it's obvious, it's easy, it's intuitive. Even though they are not always worn, it's actually even MORE imperative for the new user with Objects- prim hair, shoes, skirts, etc. will be confusing to a new user when they can't figure out how to put them ON. Notecards: read that notecard! Script: read that script! Landmark: oh shiny crap I didn't mean to TP in my underwear! (Not their fault I think about About Landmark instead, that is the way it should be done. As for finger slippage, it happens with any interface.) We're looking at new user experience here: how often do you NEED to go into Properties unless you're building something to give away/sell? Changing clothing? WAY more useful, especially to new users. And it's just a right click away, just like on your desktop, when you need it. I'd love to see a similar renaming ability (i.e. you don't have to right click, select, pause, select to rename, or some combo of hover and select) as that _is_ a bit tedious, but I hardly ever rename there anyway (I go into Properties....which adds to the blow-age of only being able to do one at a time that steals focus from what else you were doing). Generally: the old way of inventory management did a lot more obviously, more intuitively, and more what everyone, even a new user would expect- and there are a lot of changes made just to change, with no redeeming features at all I can find.


Tabs no longer respond on drag: I'm torn on this. Doing it accidentally is annoying as sin, but this is a very obvious and common way of doing things (other interfaces use this a lot- and consistency is good to follow in interfacing unless you have a very good reason not to) and does have drag and drop advantages. (To illustrate what I'm talking about, Edit an object, grab a texture in inventory, whole holding it drag it over the Texture tab to go into Texture to be able to drop it in the correct place. Pre 2.0- this would pop into Texture for you so you could change tabs on the fly. In 2.0 it does nothing.)


Notecard links (like images) are too long. Across the entire line means it's easier to accidentally click. This is not a big gripe, but this is a "this is confusing for people and a simple little choice that should have been made the other way." This is also a very common interface snafu that slips by (accidentally or intentionally) and people often complain about it. Sometimes it gets changed, sometimes it's left as is. Landmarks in notecards seem to have some sticky issues with triggering, I'm guessing/hoping that's a "beta" thing, not as intended. Everything going straight to inventory (like LMs), no having to choose to copy over, will mean a HUGE amount of inventory clutter. Which also is an issue with no Discard button on things- I read notices, check out what I want, and Discard so I don't keep them- now I've got a bunch of notecards I need to keep going back and nuking.


And where did my About Landmap, view on Map, copy slurl to Clipboard go? I like not having to haul ass all over creation (in my underwear) to be able to make slurls. Or have to build them on my own. New user unfriendly. Old user additional unnecessary tedium.


Map coordinates! PLEASE! Why can't I enter in my coords on Map, there's even the empty space for it right there? I NEED my z. I go from 1300 one place, to 50 another, to 1100 another, to 30 another, etc. Flying the whole way is tedious when I can just GO straight there. Yeah, I can go, THEN type in new z in top coords. But...why? I don't need to double teleport constantly. Why not just have it in Map where it makes sense? I can't find a setting to reenable anywhere, if we think new users will be scared of all those nummmmmmbers.


I rather love the multipurpose top bar (which hid my coords until I found out it did stuff- as well as hiding land icons which make more sense to be on by default than off so you know damage/no build/no script/etc.) for the most part. It's something that I thought the OnRez viewer did really really right. However, the multipurpose search next to it (that they also did), is less cool. Bring back a search button. I'm ALL for having both- top bar quicksearch is like my google bar. It's awesome convenience. Search button that opens search window (like, going to google.com) gives more straight up targeted searching, which is ALSO good, so both would be nice. Search in SL is already tedious and somewhat awful, making it more restrictive makes things harder, not easier. You know how interfaces are hard? Good search algorithms are also hard. I'll cut you some slack, though you've still got to integrate basic basic search interface features that should have been there from the start. In practice though, there is a HUGE step backwards in how search functions as well, that actually makes it HARDER to find things now.


Images...I really really love the aspect ratio dropdown in the bottom corner. But why, oh why, can't you open it by default to the ratio of the actual texture? You already do that in previous viewers! It's easy! I could change it if necessary, but the, what is that, 3:2?, default is silly. Nothing is that size natively, nothing. You even made profile square (finally! Though that's going to be a long period of everyone's profiles looking like crap in one or the other). Though...and here's the huge issue: INCONSISTENTLY. Now you can see the same image in multiple places, with different aspect ratios (Search vs. actual Profile). This means you can NEVER EVER have a profile image that actually works across everything- huge, and I do mean HUGE, mistake. Pick one and stick with it everywhere, period. That just speaks of utter carelessness, and not giving a damn. More parts of profile at a glance, like 2nd and 1st lives? I'm all for. Or more accurately I don't care either way, people should have always been filling out their profiles like anyone could be looking through all of it...because they could be. Maybe this will be a "hey, don't put shit in 1st life you don't want people to see" reminder. We've lost some info as well, or appear to have at least- the Interests tab, while most of the info was potentially interesting if they filled it out and you wanted to know if they were a builder or not, also held LANGUAGE, which is a huge thing. Huge. Have you forgotten we are multicultural and don't all speak English? (Maybe you have. God knows the jira is full of very careless fuckups on alternate language versions of the viewer. Lots and lots of typos and stupid little mistakes that never should have made it this far, because you should have had actual decent translators working with you on this. Again: going public with this degree of careless mistake, even in a Beta, makes you look bad and like you don't give a fuck. A few things slipping through? Fine. Pages and pages of jira entries just on language screwups? Should have been fixed in internal Alpha.)


Context menus: A-fucking-MEN getting rid of the pie menu, but these need to be scalable without scaling everything (the sidebar scales horribly: the context menus, however, start out on the small side by default). I'm sure most of the people reading loved it- it's not intuitive. It's limiting and you either have wasted space or need to divide into new pages for no good reason (see: the problems with the side tab, you've replaced one one size fits none with another). The plus side to the pie menu is that you don't have strenuous order enforced, so contextually you don't have to decide on a good order for "Sit" and "Edit" (and all the rest of the stuff that's in a bad order in the contextual menus), and nice _large_ trigger spaces make things easier- especially with the aforementioned scales horribly. Unfortunately the contextual menu's advantages are offset by options in the Context menu being an an order that I can't see making sense to ANYONE, and the entire "Remove" menu is just plain in backwards order. Accidental ARs for everything, hoo ray! The actual order of options now makes a HUGE difference, as you are saying "this is more important than this." (And apparently we don't actually want you sitting on chairs any more, let's discourage interactivity!) Most of the menus I would juggle order, and even coming at it from a not-builder I'd still be juggling the order of most of them. So far the groupings have been great though, just badly ordered. Generally all the menus are...weird and some following in the footsteps of some interfaces that were later scrapped in some cases, but they've actually pretty well organized for all that they've spread things out. As someone who runs with Advanced options all the time I like the easy link to the _second_ Advanced menu at the bottom of the first, having a menu option (in Help maybe?) to the first as well, instead of just relying on hotkeys, would be a really good idea. Maybe you haven't noticed, but people access Advanced a LOT- especially unhobbling certain features (like RenderVolumeLODFactor)- even people who aren't exceptionally well versed learn how to get into those options because the default is just plain too low. Upload in Inventory threw me for a loop initially, but it actually makes very solid sense since that's where you're uploading _to_- that's very much a user of previous system bias.


User list: why oh why have you hidden who can see me online/map me/mod my stuff/whose stuff I can mod? You've got ACRES of space there to continue it across like current because you're in the huger than necessary side tab. It's harder to accidentally turn on, yes, but you always had warnings- and now it's very very hard to get a feel for who still has mod on your stuff following a project, and that slipping and THAT causing problems (you had a falling out with your best friend and you forget to take that off? WHOOPS). Going into stealth mode for a few hours so you aren't pestered by IMs while working (bravo to the Busy and Away easily accessible, btw- but those are not always enough, sometimes just not appearing online is better) just became a LOT more complicated/tedious/pain in the ass, as well as a lot easier to miss turning it all back ON visible (yeah, not a fan of Emerald letting you know if someone has you invisible for that reason: it may not be permanent. It may be "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I have too much to do if anyone talks to me I'm going to SCREAM"). I now have to go through a complex process just to see what people are set to to remind myself. Info at a glance: good. Hiding things: bad.


Tooltips: why have you forsaken me? Not only can I not find settings ANYWHERE (on all is good sometimes, trust me), but only item name? This is really REALLY bad. Especially for new players- they NEED to be able to see the price of things at a glance (we ALL DO). Tooltips need to have name, description (because there's often useful info when it is set- a LOT of Pay vendors put the price there so you can see it without opening up Pay, and it's a really good idea so you have an idea what something costs at a glance), PRICE, and owner. These are necessary. Not in a separate popup, but in hover, so you can see things at a glance. Having to click through to find out necessary info loses sales in a world driven by commerce, not to mention all the other problems it creates, ESPECIALLY for new users. And don't truncate that because you don't feel like putting it all in, either. Don't throw the baby away with the bathwater just because you want a change.


The Worn tab: now, I get that with virtual links and junk that worn works differently now, so I can understand this choice....but not being able to see the folder the ACTUAL items I am wearing are in is really kinda...not so cool. Worn tab in alt viewers is great because I can put the rest of my boots back on after taking the uppers off for pants, without trying to hunt for where I put the damn things- or any other other parts of the same folder/area, it's both good for easy reference of "oh right! That's where I filed that!" and Attach All in a folder when I know there are just the other bits I want to wear at the same time. This is a minor annoyance, but it does make this Worn tab less useful than the Worn tab in everything previous.


Colour scheme: This...is...Interface 101. I saw previews of 2 additional alternate skins on a blog a while back in addition to this one. I'm rather shocked I can't find an easy way to flip back and forth now (did we learn NOTHING from Dazzle?) Both of the alternates were dark text on light. Anyone who knows anything whatsoever about interfaces knows this simple fact: dark text on light is significantly more readable than light text on dark. Light on dark is cool, it's pretty, it's slick for the gamers and the kids with good eyes, it's something you see on games and blogs that don't actually care. SL is not targeted exclusively to that group- in fact, SL is only vaguely targeted at it period (for reasons including SL being a joke in the gaming community due to engine, prims instead of meshes, and a lot of other things they've been trying to do something about like, oh, WL and shadows. It'll NEVER be a real gaming platform, because from a basic control standpoint, combat sucks, and is largely thrown in as an afterthought and clunkily hacked and slashed in with LSL). Educators, people with disabilities, older users, people who want to read without wrecking their eyesight...DARK TEXT ON LIGHT. (That said, I'm happy with light on dark, I've been using dark skins for a while. I have white text on black here, you can see. I'm a spooky fucker, but I would never ever present this as the only option to a client, and would only suggest it as an option at all if it fit them. It's just not a good idea to be the only option, period.)


There are a LOT of useful features that were just removed for no reason at all (tooltips are but one example). Why take out things that weren't "confusing", that added obvious functionality, without giving anything back? Just because you wanted to throw out everything? This is a bad bad move. Also a puzzling one.


And, you know, in any interface: hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys. Need to be more, preferably need to be user set, and defaults also need to be in the menu (be it context or bar) next to that option so you can find it and look and say "oh, hey, that's useful, I need to remember that!" (They are, at least- but being so they also illustrate how few there are.) Say...oh...ctrl-I for Properties? Hotkeys are a HUGE boon in ergonomics for those users who choose to use them. No user should be forced to use them (unless you are Blender, and then you just delight in making us grab our heads in pain).

Generally, feature list: look to Emerald and other alt viewers. People want built in radar (which is here...but often broken, I was finally able to get it to work and it seems to be 1/4 sim, with zero context on distance. How about settable range, to at least entire sim, preferably everything you can see on minimap? And colour coded chat range please- bold and strong in chat, not bold and faded out of. Generally the ability to SEE how far away people are helps, a lot, in meters- so you know where people actually are), people want built in AOs (with script limits impending, this is ALSO a big thing, though generally it's friendlier to do it client side for lag anyway). I want to throw away my flight feather (or equivalent), and be able to ungimp my flight height in viewer. I'm fine with default being default, but give me the option, I want to fly up to MY OWN SKYBOX without an attachment. I'm not talking boob physics (though some people want that too), but there are a lot of solid features alt viewers and script attachments have pioneered that have made the user experience better- AND easier- even for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I want to be able to NOT have to give a friend I'm introducing to SL a huge pack of confusing script attachments to get them around limitations in the viewer.


p.s. Can we have auto follow finally? Pretty please? Yes, I am still a refugee from WoW at heart and I miss being able to tag along AND type when someone is showing me around (yes, I know there are attachments, but shouldn't more things be built into the viewer and not hacked around it? Like AOs!) I lose people when touristing around a LOT, at least yellow dots mean I have some faint hope of figuring out where they went now. WoW has the ability for addons to improve the viewer experience, having an official viewer that could be altered with plugins wouldn't be a horrible idea either.

My problem with the roadmap

So, I've been pondering the real reasons I'm so displeased with the xstreet thing. The initial knee-jerk is of course "wow, fuck you for adding yet another surcharge without providing anything in return." But the real reason I really really don't like the change goes a lot deeper than that.

The freebies thing...kinda sucks, and kinda doesn't. I don't like it, but it may actually not be a horrible idea: I don't know whether it can actually _work_ (in fact, I think it stands a snowball's chance in hell of actually helping any), but it's a reaction from LL to the fact that freebies have gotten out of control, and freebies do not drive the economy. They can't ban freebies in world, where the problem has gotten to be more of an epidemic, this is one place where they can try to stem the tide and hope that it spills over- problem being, there are a LOT of freebies that benefit the community as a whole that wouldn't be as useful if they weren't freely available, as well as the fact that freebies lure new users into joining and staying, and eventually putting money into the system to stimulate the economy. I don't know for sure, as I don't browse the freebies on xstreet really, but I think that most of the free swag on xstreet is of that type, and most of the type that stagnates the economy is available only in world. So I doubt this will truly have any positive impact upon the real base problem, that too much is available for free as "promotion", but that's backfiring and causing people to not see the reason to pay for anything, period.

The bigger problem, is the 10L per month per item fee that's slipped in there. Firstly, they tried to slip it in so we wouldn't notice- note the name of the article is Managing Freebies, and that's the main thrust of the article, and this is snuck in such that many people (including myself) missed it on first reading. That is underhanded, and you don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when you realize someone is trying to hide the fact they want to fuck you over.

And fuck you over it does: aside from the fact that, quite simply, merchants will have to waste a shitload of their time delisting items to avoid fees that xstreet does not support (after having wasted a shitload of time listing in the first place on a system with a miserable interface), this also inherently changes the entire service of xstreet- it removes a service that worked in one way, and replaces it with an entirely different service that I do not think will be anywhere near as useful- I know, with absolute certainty, that it will in fact turn a useful service into a useless one, for me personally. And THAT is my deeper issue here.

I've talked to a number of people about xstreet (and onrez before that) for a number of years. Everyone that I've talked to uses these services in somewhat similar manners:


1) Web based searching, even though xstreet has an absolutely horrible search system (onrez's was far superior, which was just yet another reason killing off onrez and not implementing the better features as promised was a mistake), is still a lot easier than in world searching. In world searching will always have a lot of problems because there's simply too much out there, and it's a lot harder to find what you're looking for. You need to search in All to be able to _try_ to pick up on people who've thought to tick their vendors for search, and then you have to sift through all the things that have nothing to do with what you want to buy- if I'm looking to purchase a particular style of building, I don't really want to end up in sims with that theme instead. Additionally it takes a lot of time to go to a sim, wait for things to rez, find the particular vendor you're looking for, wait for it to rez, and then find out if you're actually interested in that, or want to keep looking down the list. There's a huge inconvenience factor when it comes to shopping in this manner- and xstreet fills a very necessary gap in services. I'm far more likely to get frustrated and give up, if I'm limited to in world options- and with less being listed on xstreet, I AM limited to in world options. It won't be worth it to even try to find things on xstreet, knowing that an already limited pool is limited even further to such a drastic degree- I just plain won't bother to even try. They should be moving towards having more listed on xstreet, not less, for a convenience to find what I'm looking for. Now, the real kicker here, is that unless there's a special deal or only available on xstreet, I would go IN WORLD and buy the item I found. There's no way to know that xstreet fostered that sale, because I wanted to see the other things people had in world, as well as the whole buying process being a bit more cozy if I can go see their place, and the way they've decorated and get a feel for the whole thing, and pay the box and get the thing instantly- instead of fearing yet another layer of failed transactions (there are still failed transactions on xstreet, far more commonly than in world, and my transaction records prove it). And if it's something I can actually _see_ physically in world, like poses? You'd better believe that xstreet fostered that sale, but could not MAKE the sale on its own.

2) Gifting no transfer items is also a huge convenience perk on xstreet- I can try to do it manually, but I have to notecard the merchant, wait for them to be online, find out how they want me to deal with it, get them to send the item, hope they actually do (thankfully I've never run into anyone who didn't, but you do need to have a certain level of trust in who you're buying from, a stranger who is doing it by hand and in whose control it entirely lies). Doing it through xstreet means I see something that I think a friend would like in SL, I know this merchant has xstreet so I bring up their profile, find the item, send it off, and I'm all done. Convenience is a huge motivator in commerce- or really, the converse is more true, inconvenience is a huge detractor. If the line at the store is too long and I don't really need what I've got in my cart, I may just walk out without buying what I'd chosen- I may buy the items there later, but on the other hand, I may buy them somewhere else, or I may simply not buy them at all. xstreet provides a very necessary way to conveniently bypass a problem inherent in the way SL has to work- especially as copy/no trans is what more people have moved towards because of transaction and asset failure (additionally there is a huge convenience factor in resizing prims and such- but that could also be gotten around if the permissions system was more sophisticated). In other words, xstreet provides a way to work around the problems that LL has never FIXED. And, the Christmas season is coming up! A time when gift giving (whether it be Xmas presents or Hanukkah or whatnot) is on the rise- this is the LAST time you want to encourage people to be taking things off xstreet. In fact, this is the time you want to be encouraging merchants to put their entire stock ON xstreet.

3) In a related point, xstreet serves as a great place for a merchant to keep stock- they can keep old retired stock, but additionally they can provide a different browsing experience- both "Textures loading slowly for you today? Browse on xstreet!", and offering an alternate organizational scheme (which, unfortunately, is another something that xstreet does NOT do well, and onrez did far better, between tags and the ability to browse tags by owner, I could easily "build" pages with different options that were related and link them in the description, in a far more flexible manner than could ever be presented in world). I had my entire catalog, constantly kept up to date as part of my releasing process, on onrez before it was bought out and discontinued. It worked as a great supplement even though people rarely bought through it. I've recently started trying to build up my catalog on xstreet again, as listing is far less friendly and takes far longer than onrez- so you've also got the pissed offedness over all the wasted time- I've spent literally DAYS updating xstreet, and will be deactivating at least 90% of what I have there, if I stay at all. The whole system with alternates (say, different colours) of an item also means that if I stay, I will be unlisting a LOT of things that LL has received sales commissions on- there's no reason to have more than one "display" colour up, even though they sell, on xstreet as well as in world, in _all_ colours.


The new system is trying to turn xstreet into a standalone marketplace- and I don't think that SL is a system that can truly support that. I know that it's not something I can actually see any benefit in having, turning the entire system just into a "spotlight" of "best sellers"- on top of that, I don't think LL really wants to be showing the world, in a forum easily viewed by outsiders without taking the time to even create an account and see the system, what ARE the top sellers. Badly made stripper wear, blinging stripper heels, that full prim schoolgirl skirt with the dropping and mooning animation that was constantly on the front page? You already have enough of a problem with SL being seen by outsiders as a den of iniquity and sex and perverts, and this is NOT an image you want, and you know this. It's the image you are more than likely to get however, because these things _do_ sell, and I could make a hell of a lot more money in SL if I sold out and didn't care and made crappily made stripper gear. Sex sells, and the internet is made for porn (the internet is also a filthy perverted place, and for the tiniest bit of proof, go to google and type in- why won't - and watch what it autocompletes. This is also why searching in SL DOESN'T WORK, until the computer can read my mind and interface with other sophisticated computers that are capable of truly understanding, we rely on algorithms, and they are always inherently flawed, it's just a case of making them the least flawed possible. Also, be very very happy I chose that as an example, not any of the truly fucked up things out there, that make clown gangbangs look tame). Now, thing is, sex doesn't sell to me, and the higher proportion of stripper wear and blingtard heels will serve to alienate me, and all the people like me who aren't interested in it, out of the market. It may not be all that's there, but it will go up in percentage, which will make it look like there is so much more of it, and so much less of anything in which I am interested. Not only will there be less I am interested in, but there will appear to be EVEN less because the things in which I am not interested will stay in a higher percentage than the things in which I am. And as that happens, it will foster the trend to continue, snowballing until there's no reason to ever use it for anything else.

People have been defending it by comparing it to ebay- without considering that ebay does offer a number of free insertions a month, it's an insertion fee, not a recurring one, and, when it comes down to it, you're comparing apples and oranges. They're both fruit, but the two systems are, and always will be simply due to the way SL works, completely different in very fundamental ways. I can't see a truly ebay like system being able to flourish in any real way in SL- limited quantities and time sensitivity are things that are more foreign to this medium, and you have to do intentionally, instead of coming naturally.

There are some other intrinsic problems here: if xstreet is such a money pit, why did you buy not one, but two of these services that were doing quite alright on their own, where they didn't have the rest of the infrastructure in place that should make this cheaper for LL to run, not more expensive. Either someone didn't do their research to start with (and a very high, higher than has happened, growth after the takeover should have been expected and included as part of this research), or something has been handled very very badly. Neither inspire any sort of confidence whatsoever in LL's ability to handle ANYTHING.

Additionally, "money" doesn't mean the same thing to LL- it is the carrot and the stick approach (mostly the stick), not what money converts to. They print the money, they control the supply, they have the money sinks of uploads, classifieds, etc. as money sinks to keep the economy moving (outside money needs to be brought into the system for it to continue functioning, additionally this means _less_ money can be taken out of the system, leaving them with the difference)- they give things worth. Textures have some intrinsic worth not simply because of the work involved in making them, but they have also an actual dollar amount (fractional as it is) added on top of that- which ceases it from being entirely "free" in any way, which instills some sliver of actual concrete "worth". Classifieds have the money system so there's a way to be "on top" by being willing to spend more than anyone else. LL doesn't "make money" directly off of these fees, instead they make money by removing this money from the system. Lindens are imaginary money until they are cashed- except to LL, when they are real money that belongs to them, until they are cashed, so they need to keep money coming into the system to keep paying for things, as well as have certain ways to keep it in the system. (Land fees are a somewhat related issue, although there's a more direct added cost on top of that that gives it more direct "worth".)

So, by instituting these fees, they're adding another money sink- but its direct result will be the stick. It actually serves as a disincentive, just as upload fees serve as a disincentive to upload trash to the asset servers. The disincentive is a mechanism of control, to mold the system into what they want it to be instead of what it is, NOT a way to make money.

And, the real problem at the end of it? The system they want it to be, is one that certainly is less useful to me, and may in fact be entirely useless. It certainly means that I have been operating under an entirely different set of assumptions when using this system, both as consumer and merchant- and the new rules don't have any benefit to me. They want to foster commerce because that's what brings them money- however I can only see them removing convenience, and placing roadblocks in the way of commerce, instead.

xstreet alternatives- a recap

So, a short form of the 6 services:

Metaverse Exchange:
My top choice, as the services are currently, semi tied with apez. Beats out meta-life because that excluded itself from being useful to me. Beats out apez (somewhat) because it has somewhat better bulk listing. Listing itself is weird and takes a lot of getting used to, may in fact be harder to list individual items than any other service, so it's not super awesome.

apez.biz:
Semi ties with MVX, in fact I'm still waffling as to which of these two I prefer. MVX has easier and more interesting bulk listings (which I like...but also kinda don't like, because you can't SEE everything at once easily), but apez has some semi decent bulk listing features, so long as you never, ever, EVER change your mind. I would say it's easier set up than MVX for singles, LOVE the collections way of grouping items.

meta-life:
Mostly a pretty damn great service. Pretty damn near totally useless for me because of the image thing. Wish it would have website image uploads, and apez's collections- with a few very minor interface tweaks on top of that meta would quite possibly be my perfect service.

slapt.me:
Of the four I could get up and running, slapt was the most lackluster. No bulk features, just about as clunky listing wise as xstreet (and if I have to choose something else, I'm choosing something with BETTER features), and interface problems that make it almost unusable for me because I have problems figuring out what things say at all.

vitty:
Suffers from the "if I need to move, I should move to something that makes my life easier" problem- listing looks similarly clunky, about on par with xstreet. Geared towards the Japanese market, _and_ has a deal on commissions for low priced items, so, as a consumer, this is quite possibly a hidden gem full of holy crap that's amazing and I need it right now. It's just not something I'd use for selling on, currently.

Cariama:
Not yet open (the website itself only launched at all the beginning of last month), so out of the running.

xstreet alternatives- cariama & vitty

Test drive 5: Cariama

Not actually open yet! So. That was fast. Somehow someone has listed 1 item (maybe a test item in some manner?) but otherwise, this isn't running yet.


Test drive 6: vitty

I am guessing vitty's having issues with the influx of people, I'm incapable of getting a box delivered to me to try a listing. However, looking through the help docs, there is no bulk listing feature at all, so that kinda excludes it as an option for me. Additionally, I'm not fluent in Japanese (and not even barely literate), so as it's a Japanese site, I would be excluding most of the audience by being unable to list in Japanese. The website itself is set up well for English speakers though, and for people looking to expand into the Japanese market, I think this would bear looking into just for that.

Additionally, there's no commission at all on any item under 51L, so it would be a great market for cheap promos. (Standard 5% on 51L and up)

xstreet alternative- metaverse exchange

Test drive 4: Metaverse Exchange

We may have a winner, for me. It's strange, and not 100% ideal, and reinvents the wheel. But, it might be my best option.

Also, you'll see that my evaluation is coloured by previous things- meta-life plus proper image integration is currently what I'm measuring things against (in other words, I want to see them get close to that, _or_ similar convenience in another package- this approaches the second). I'm also more concerned with cursory listings and will work on more of the extras later, while skimming through each to get the overview.

For convenience (and my wrist's) sake, I'm going to be referring to this as MVX because I can barely _remember_ the full name, aside from it being long. The info from digging around the website looked interesting- a "listing here is weird, but that's because we actually let you group alternates". And listing IS weird.

Signup's a little strange because this is an "integrate all your virtual worlds into one account" thing (as well as multiple SL accounts, from the looks of it)- there's currently one other world (Legends Online? or something like that. I've heard of it, never been), set up an account, integrate it to your SL account second, and they actually USE your email address in sign up...so it makes sense to ask (maybe that's why the whole email signup process on slapt was weird to me? I don't know). Box gets sent, you don't have to leave the privacy of your skybox while wearing awesome but wacky demos and other neat things people send you while you're standing around. p.s. I'm also a fan of convenience.


Good Things:

Multiple options of the same item (like colour alts) collapse into one really easily. One listing, dropdown for all the items on that listing. Totally different system than any of the others, and a nice one- cuts down on the dreaded clutter that omg is the reason the sky is falling and we have to fuck with you. Editing the batch is also pretty quick and reasonably simple...once you know what you're doing, which is not easy.

Image uploading with multiple options, including the ability to grab previously uploaded images fairly easily. Also, you can assign a crapton of images to any single thing (I threw in all 30 alts of the shirt, just to see if I could- it doesn't have a scrollbar, so it's rather useless beyond the first 5 or so, but it DID let me), though it doesn't tell you in the thumbnail that there are other images than just the default. It automatically reorders things as you assign in a manner that appeared random to me, so beyond image 1, who knows what the order will be- this only makes any difference when you have too many images and some may get shoved off screen!

edit: I just looked back- thumbnails are smaller than before so I can see more, AND it now scrolls sideways if you have more than fit. So, something may have been hinkey when I first checked that's ironed itself out.

I think you can do copy and transfer options integrated into single listings easily as well, if you choose to. I largely avoid transfer on web based systems when I have a copy alternative because I don't trust redelivery and unscrupulous people. (Generally, this is why I don't like transfer, period, btw, and only offer it in very particular cases now.)


Bad Things:

Holy crap is listing confusing. It sort of kinda makes sense once you've done it, but even then, parts are NOT where you expect them to be, divided up between two sections- and some things in one part don't carry over but others do...generally, very steep learning curve. You WILL need to have the Help page open while you're listing, and will have to look back at it for every. single. step. The instructions are pretty good, but they are 100% necessary, and it will probably take me a handful of listings to get used to it at all to where I _don't_ have to refer back constantly. I also got totally turned around trying to edit a listing, and learned a lot the first time that will help out next time, but did a LOT wrong the first time, even going through their instructions. It would be nice if there was an easy way to integrate fatpacks too? However I think that would involve changing the system a bit- prices seem to be constant, and that should be a somewhat different option in the dropdown instead of just alphabetical...so, I don't see an easy way to do it that wouldn't just cause more confusion. This is also assuming that there isn't that ability and I just didn't see it because I'm still picking up on the system. But I was able to easily edit the non fatpack and the fatpack listings to link to each other (BB Code, not HTML- I'm more comfortable with HTML, but BB is pretty common and what most of these sites use anyway, and it's not bad)...once I figured out how to edit active listings (I also made it active before I meant to- again, first listing WILL confuse the crap out of you).

Generally, I'd overhaul the organization in certain ways and move some of the info back and forth- the setting info from one to apply to all thing doesn't make as much sense when you've also got a SECOND place to put in info that applies to all, and the division doesn't entirely seem to make sense. Some does. I also found it may not have applied things across right, and couldn't see where to change the info in the individual and apply it across to all _again_- which is useful.

Images are not bad, but could be yet less clunky. Meta-life's the only one that gets close- let me apply secondary images to all the selected at one click, please. Also, would love to see thumbnails at the item list so I had a clue which ones I'd done what with yet! I had to go through my listing repeatedly to make sure I hadn't listed everything, and some of that won't change with practice, because it isn't so easy to see how the lot of it is set up at a glance. This is less a "bad thing" and a "wish it was this way thing", of course!


All shirts, plus fatpacks, listed. Took (quite a bit) longer than meta-life because a) figuring out system, b) actually changing the pictures for each one! Proper meta-life listings WILL take longer as I didn't slot out the image for each, and c) it may still take slightly longer generally because of the way things are set out across two pages, and how that info there is organized. But, listing all didn't take much longer than one (main problem being assigning images to each)- so for colour alts and such, very good. Listing singles is divided up in the same manner, so that _is_ a little clunkier than some, but not altogether horrible. Still, this is my current personal frontrunner, with meta-life not having uploadable images supported. It has beaten out apez in my book, although single listings are probably a bit more time consuming in the long run than apez.

xstreet alternatives-slapt.me

Test drive 3: slapt.me

Now, people have been raving about this one, so I figured I would go with it next. But I started off less into it, and I'm not entirely sure why. Was it the initial screen before you can go into the site proper? Was it the "look" of it generally? The sign up process continued this slightly...off feeling. Put in a valid email...not your av name. We won't do anything for signing up with that email, go here, say this in local chat out loud on channel 0 (not that it's something that matters really...) and we'll sign you up. The whole thing is just...not the way I want it done, and makes me slightly uncomfortable for reasons I can't put my finger on.

But, then we've got nice shop profiles, yay! Mind you, it's one per avatar, the multi shop thing on meta-life spoiled me, I like that feature. There are split profits- I'm not doing that right now, so I don't know if it applies to all across the board or what (nor will I be looking into that now, as it doesn't apply to me- if it applies to you, check it out!)

Door to door box service, which is "how it should be." Something good about all of them so far- they wait to update so you aren't constantly cycling when adding a group, or changing or whatnot (I've had to change in box perms on a bunch of things before, my xstreet box went postal).


Bad Things:

The category listing box...is too narrow...and I can't SEE the categories to figure out where to list something. /facepalm Now, this is because my browser window isn't maximized, but, even with it, I can't see it all and it will cause more trouble with listings. Generally, the interface is too size dependent and has the sidebars that block it in, and this causes a lot of "wait, what's that supposed to be? Ok, first two letters...what might that spell?"- some even with my browser maximized. My screen may be a laptop screen, but it's large for one of those, so I can see this causing trouble. I could lower my font size to squinty...maybe.

The image file cutoff is _way_ lower, and my first try told me "no sir, this is too big!" Now, this _is_ a fairly large image, but is effectively 1024x1024, not above SL sizes.

I'm not seeing any way to make "bulk" listings easier. I put up with that from xstreet because it was "the" thing, there are alternatives that have it, and that means thumbs down from me. I only listed on onrez until after the takeover and killing of it, and never listed as much on xstreet (in fact, until a month ago, I had very little on xstreet, and only just started listing more with the spotlights).

It strips out HTML (oh, you wanted to link to something there? Too damn bad, you get the links that we tack on to the end of everything, and you'll like it), and ignores BB code, so looks like just text is what you get. This also...does not thrill me. The links there at the bottom of each entry auto generated? That's awesome. But, I want the ability to offer other links, for various reasons. What if this has something to do with a location that only this item has to deal with? And I obsessively link pages to the blog entry for that item- this links to the blog...but not the right page. Now- some people DO have lists. So, there may be a way around some, if not all, of this. But the obvious ways to me are not it.

Collections appear to only apply to in world vendors? Which makes them useless to me.


Good Things:

It's not xstreet? Honestly, it's about on par for clunkiness with xstreet (though it's prettier), unless there is a way I'm not seeing here. You can upload images, unlike meta-life, which continues to make me curse the world for not allowing that. In other words: not a fan, don't know why people are raving so much.

And the searching system doesn't suck- but so far all of them do it way better than xstreet, so that doesn't give it a leg up in this race.


I listed....2 shirts. And gave up. Barring not seeing a LOT of useful features, slapt is not for me.