Caledon Oxbridge Q&A for 2013-09-29

15:00 Marion Questi It is 3 o'clock...let us begin.
15:00 Marion Questi Welcome everyone!
15:00 Marion Questi This is an "open mic" Q&A which we hold at this time every week. We, the Deans of Oxbridge, assemble to answer questions from the attendees about Oxbridge, it's mission and operation, or about SL in general.

Rather than introduce ourselves, you can find a list of all the Deans with summaries of their respective areas of responsibility, on the Oxbridge website: http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/qna_index.php
15:01 Marion Questi Who would care to aks the first question?
15:02 SoleSaver what are physics?
15:02 Jorge Serapis *raises hand*
15:02 Aarongood17 sorry about my form my other avatrs wont show up
15:02 Meora (menchor) has there been any thought to having a class on mesh?
15:02 Jorge Serapis *hands the floor to SoleSaver*
15:03 Tali Rosca "Physics" in SL parlance refers to objects not being "nailed down" like most SL objects are, but reacting to forces and being pushed around.
15:03 Wordsmith Jarvinen Physics are the simulation of velocity (momentum) and collisions. Collisions includes walking on objects.
15:03 Tali Rosca Vehicles would be an obvious example.
15:03 Marion Questi Mr Aarongood your mic is open.
15:04 SoleSaver thank you : )
15:04 Tali Rosca Or, indeed, avatars :-) The way we step up on things and pass over them, or collide with them if they are too high.
15:05 Marion Questi Professor Serapis?
15:05 Jorge Serapis I was wondering if LL had made any formal statement regarding the new Terms of Service.
15:05 Tali Rosca A world of no.
15:06 Wordsmith Jarvinen I noted that there was a meeting of interested parties earlier today.
15:06 Jorge Serapis Thank you. *puts projects on hold*
15:06 Tali Rosca nods. "I was there."
15:06 Wordsmith Jarvinen I surmised you might have been. ;)
15:06 Marion Questi I can't decide whether they are shocked at the response...or are wholly apathetic.
15:06 Tali Rosca Mostly, it was said "interested parties" meeting and seeing who each other was.
15:07 Aarongood17 seems quite interesting to go to a party isn't it?
15:07 Tali Rosca A group is being established for further discussion, and ideas on what to practically, actively do.
15:08 Aarongood17 *raises hand*
15:08 Wordsmith Jarvinen Just as background, this has to do with a statement in LL's new terms of service giving them rights to do anything at all with things uploaded.
15:08 Aarongood17 so what are the following parties?
15:09 SoleSaver and can you give an example?
15:09 Wordsmith Jarvinen Since creators don't wish to convey such rights or may not even have them, that has become an issue.
15:10 Marion Questi Sorry Mr Aarongood, I don't understand your last question.
15:10 Marion Questi Oh well...
15:10 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Maybe you could try to write the question
15:10 Gronk Seriman wonders if this all is getting ducks in a row for selling SL off.
15:11 Marion Questi "Parties" is an English word meaning People. Interested parties are interested people.
15:11 Wordsmith Jarvinen Or companies that, for example, create textures.
15:11 SoleSaver what would they want to do with the uploads?
15:11 Aarongood17 so i was wondering what is the following parties going to be like? i wont be on during the following weak
15:12 Tali Rosca Realistically speaking, LL is probably not going to do much with the uploaded content, except run SL.
15:12 TwinkyFluffington are you saying that sl woudl have exclusive rights over textures I create and upload ?
15:12 Tali Rosca But if they are not, it begs the question why they want to write that they *can* in the terms of service.
15:12 Wordsmith Jarvinen They are people and companies that create and don't wish to (or can't) convey to Linden Lab unlimited rights of use.
15:13 Tali Rosca No, not exclusive.
15:13 Fierri (fermii) yes, they could get sued over artist's rights
15:13 Aarongood17 ugh this is not how i wanted this day to go. *gets up and leaves*
15:13 Tali Rosca Non-exclusive, but with a license to use it for, and I quote, "any purpose whatsoever".
15:14 TwinkyFluffington thats just giving them full perm over my artwork
15:14 Tali Rosca It creates a fair bit of legal issues.
15:14 Marion Questi It's the same way Google claims to own (although not exclusively) all your emails, and the documents you create with their tools..etc
15:14 Tali Rosca No, it most emphatically is not.
15:14 Marion Questi No?
15:14 Fierri (fermii) the graphic artist's guild and their attorneys and the laws would smack them down for it eventually
15:14 Tali Rosca The key difference is that almost all such services include a clause stating "for the purpose of providing the service".
15:15 Tali Rosca Google claims rights to distribute your emails, because that's what they *do* with emails.
15:15 Tali Rosca They do not claim rights to publish them in a book and sell it as art.
15:15 TwinkyFluffington but then I wont either according to that
15:16 Tali Rosca The whole point is that LL has removed that "for the purpose of providing the service" clause, and replaced it with "for any purpose whatsoever".
15:16 TwinkyFluffington this isnt a good catalyst or incentive to those to want to have their work in sl or bring more to it
15:16 Jorge Serapis (Sorry, didn't mean to open that can of worms!)
15:16 Fierri (fermii) LLs is famous for that stuff
15:18 Tali Rosca I can go on at great length about this, but I don't know if now is the time and place.
15:18 Gronk Seriman Think about it, though. LL has to keep EVERYTHING in their inventory. I have items I know you cannot get because the owner is gone.
15:19 Serene Jewell There are some folks contacting California Lawyers for the Arts next week to seek advice.
15:19 Wordsmith Jarvinen Yes. That falls under the "for the purpose of providing the service".
15:19 Fierri (fermii) which has changed
15:20 Jorge Serapis In that analogy then LL should be the storage bin, but the clearinghouse.
15:20 Jorge Serapis but=not
15:20 Fierri (fermii) since most of the work in SL is graphically based in some form or another, LLs may be heading for trouble with that clause
15:20 Tali Rosca Arguably, the graphical parts are the least critical.
15:21 Tali Rosca Few have use for 256x256 SL textures outside SL.
15:21 Fierri (fermii) mmm, no, since textures and graphics add depth and color and life here
15:21 Tali Rosca But text and actual business ideas could be truly valuable.
15:21 Fierri (fermii) yes, in a room filled with white blocks, lol
15:22 Tali Rosca Well, obviously SL needs the textures. My point is that I am not particularly worried that SL will run away and sell my uploaded textures.
15:22 Jorge Serapis I was thinking of producing some of my SL creations in RL.. but if LL now says they own those, then theoretically, I coulsn't.
15:23 TwinkyFluffington alot of the business ideas involve actual design concepts created in and for sl that can be adapted outside of it
15:23 Tali Rosca They do *not* own it.
15:23 Tali Rosca They have an non-exclusive license to use it.
15:23 Tali Rosca So they could compete with you.
15:23 Wordsmith Jarvinen Well, you could. But technically, they could compete with you.
15:23 Fierri (fermii) well yes, thats a good point, but IF,they ever sold it to someone else who might not be mindful of us, is all Im saying
15:23 Fierri (fermii) sold SL i mean
15:24 Tali Rosca nods. "That is part of the problem; if LL is sold or goes bankrupt, we have no idea where the rights to our work ends uo."
15:24 TwinkyFluffington which means they coudl outside of it take the walmart approach to taking small mom and pop creations and mass producing, marketing and copyrighting things that they didnt create based on that clause in tos in sl
15:24 Fierri (fermii) sigh, thats true
15:25 Wordsmith Jarvinen Likely should see if we have other questions.
15:25 Meora (menchor) has there been any thought to some kind of class on mesh?
15:25 Gronk Seriman That would be suicide for LL.
15:26 Martini Discovolante we have a class on mesh
15:26 Martini Discovolante burt cancelled this week
15:26 Martini Discovolante But*
15:27 Wordsmith Jarvinen Normally Wednesday nights at 7p. But I ended up with some flu after traveling.
15:27 Martini Discovolante aaaw!
15:27 Wordsmith Jarvinen Should be on as normal next Wednesday..
15:27 TwinkyFluffington id not been well either this week
15:28 Meora (menchor) makes note on calendar
15:29 Wordsmith Jarvinen The Sculpty and Animation classes were canceled because Professor Quixote's motherboard had something come loose.
15:29 TwinkyFluffington ouch
15:29 Tali Rosca Also, sculpts must die!
15:30 Fierri (fermii) nawww
15:30 TwinkyFluffington i love sculpts
15:30 Martini Discovolante :(
15:30 TwinkyFluffington less problematic than mesh and dont need scripting to work
15:31 Fierri (fermii) plus, if scripts are broken in the sim, mesh just doesnt show
15:31 Tali Rosca ??
15:31 Meora (menchor) ??
15:31 Wordsmith Jarvinen Mesh does not require scripting to display.
15:31 TwinkyFluffington since server side baking many dont see mesh rezzing right its worn on an arm of a naked person and things
15:31 Fierri (fermii) no idea, but at the dancehall i go to, we had some griefing attacks
15:31 Friends of Caledon Oxbridge Donation Medallion Jorge Serapis gave a generous donation to Friends of Caledon Oxbridge to help support classes, tutorials, & tier at Caledon's Oxbridge
15:31 Fierri (fermii) it broke scripts, then mesh stuff was gone
15:32 TwinkyFluffington well its wont rez where scripts are broken
15:32 Wordsmith Jarvinen The only feature sculpties have that mesh does not is the ability to change the same via using another UUID for the sculpt map.
15:32 Fierri (fermii) lots of fragmented avas running around
15:32 Tali Rosca Actually, the have one more: The ability to create megaprims.
15:32 Tali Rosca For one LI
15:33 Tali Rosca Which arguably is a pretty horrible circumvention of the intention, but nevertheless a possibility.
15:33 Wordsmith Jarvinen As long as not linked to mesh or using "material" properties.
15:33 Fierri (fermii) lol
15:33 Wordsmith Jarvinen Server Side Baking applies to avatars, not to mesh.
15:34 Tali Rosca But apart from that, sculpts are merely less efficient versions of mesh.
15:34 TwinkyFluffington nevertheless many see this occur
15:34 Meora (menchor) that reminds me is any class covering the new materials functions?
15:34 Tali Rosca Whether *rigged* mesh screws up is another matter entirely.
15:34 TwinkyFluffington and it does frequently
15:34 Fierri (fermii) but, one has to have a decent knowlege of thrid party 3d sculpting to produce good mesh items
15:34 Tali Rosca But you are perfectly free to wear non-rigged mesh, just as you wear normal prims or sculpts.
15:35 Fierri (fermii) which i have, but many people struggle with it
15:35 Wordsmith Jarvinen I mention them in the mesh class and will be adding more on them (actually, redoing all the class slides)
15:35 Tali Rosca Sculpts are made in exactly the same tools as mesh, just with more convoluted restrictions.
15:35 Meora (menchor) great!
15:35 TwinkyFluffington please explain convoluted
15:35 Meora (menchor) and there are tools that let you turn prims into meshes
15:36 Tali Rosca The file format would be one thing.
15:36 Tali Rosca The restricted topology another.
15:36 Fierri (fermii) um, i use silo, then to 3d studio whereas sculpts require programs like Roruko, or somehting like that?
15:36 Tali Rosca For example, the hoops you need to jump through to create, say, branches on a tree.
15:36 Fierri (fermii) i may have the name wrong
15:36 TwinkyFluffington blender
15:37 Wordsmith Jarvinen No, those are simply simple ways of creating special kinds of sculpties.
15:37 Tali Rosca Blender is the go-to tool of choice for most SL creators, for both mesh and sculpts.
15:37 Tali Rosca Rokuro is a lathing program which, as Wordsmith says, can create certain simple, regular shapes.
15:38 Fierri (fermii) yeh, convert to collada
15:38 Martini Discovolante he has made other products, that can be used to make more complex items.. bu tit isi still simple.
15:38 Fierri (fermii) k, ill take the mesh class when it comes about
15:38 Wordsmith Jarvinen Mesh is exported as collada files from Blender. Sculpties have to be encoded into an RGB image.
15:39 Fierri (fermii) right
15:39 Fierri (fermii) but texturing is done inworld, correct?
15:39 Fierri (fermii) yes
15:39 Wordsmith Jarvinen Yes. Mesh provides far greater control of texturing.
15:39 Tali Rosca Mesh has faces, just like a prim.
15:40 Tali Rosca So you can apply textures to up to 8 different faces.
15:40 Ravelli Ormstein well, i do it in Blender first, the uv-mapping and defining the faces
15:40 Fierri (fermii) nods
15:41 Wordsmith Jarvinen You do the UV mapping in Blender, but don't actually need to apply the texture there.
15:41 Fierri (fermii) k
15:41 Wordsmith Jarvinen Unless you want to take advantage of some of Blender's shading capabilities to modify the original texture.
15:42 Meora (menchor) you can do that in Blender and import the texture
15:42 Tali Rosca But then you are essentially using Blender to generate a new texture you then apply inworld.
15:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen Right.
15:42 Fierri (fermii) will obj from another program, such as 3ds or modo transfer?
15:42 Fierri (fermii) the texture?
15:42 Tali Rosca Not directly, but converting from obj to Collada is fairly easy.
15:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen Blender can import obj files, although there are vagaries in how the axes are treated.
15:42 Fierri (fermii) ok, thats reasonable
15:43 Tali Rosca I think all programs which read/write Collada also handles obj.
15:43 Fierri (fermii) yes, about any do now
15:43 Tali Rosca Collada is a superset, handling more options than obj.
15:43 Tali Rosca Obj is pretty much the ASCII text of 3D modeling.
15:44 Fierri (fermii) yes
15:44 Fierri (fermii) i transfer all my models obj to be handled in other apps
15:44 Tali Rosca Collada has gained fairly wide support in the last, say, two years.
15:45 Tali Rosca It is specifically designed as an open standard, to transfer between systems.
15:46 Ravelli Ormstein the IEEE had chosen Collada as the main file format for objects in virtual worlds in general
15:46 Tali Rosca Handled by the Khronos Group, which has member from pretty big and diverse players.
15:47 Tali Rosca It is gaining some traction as the format to use in WebGL frameworks, too.
15:47 Fierri (fermii) which means transfer of assets to video games in general for the most part, regardless of the engine
15:49 Marion Questi Next question anyone?
15:49 Wordsmith Jarvinen And, for SL, why mesh has control of Level of Detail, physical shape, and definition of faces while sculpties only have visual shape and have to stay with their original topology (mxn).
15:49 Fierri (fermii) gotcha
15:50 Wordsmith Jarvinen And no vertex shifting from round-off.
15:50 Tali Rosca Well, not until *far* bigger differences in magnitude at least.
15:51 Wordsmith Jarvinen ;) Was thinking that as soon as I said it. Not infinite precision, but you're not likely to see the shifts.
15:51 Tali Rosca :-P
15:52 Wordsmith Jarvinen Another question?
15:52 Gronk Seriman So what's the battle cry on sculpties again?
15:52 Tali Rosca REMEMBER TUNNEL 17!
15:53 Fierri (fermii) the 17th pillar, lol
15:53 Gronk Seriman smiles
15:53 Fierri (fermii) er 13th
15:53 TwinkyFluffington yes thats a good question can mesh and non mesh creators live peacefully side by side or must there be a conflict ?
15:53 Fierri (fermii) i say war!
15:53 Fierri (fermii) jk
15:53 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) :-P
15:53 Ravelli Ormstein no need to start a battle
15:54 Tali Rosca Tools for the trade.
15:54 Tali Rosca Some things are good for some, other for other. If a prim suffices, no need to fire up Blender.
15:54 Tali Rosca But I prefer my ballroom gown not to be made of cubes.
15:54 Fierri (fermii) a well made product is a well made product, no matter what is used-junk is junk
15:54 Tali Rosca Minecraft players may disagree.
15:54 TwinkyFluffington well I observe much of that and would create for commerce but dont wand conflict
15:55 Ravelli Ormstein prim, sculpts and mesh can co-exist pretty well. the point about sculpt is, that they were just a workaround and they are not that performant than mesh
15:55 TwinkyFluffington i prefer my ballroom gown to not be something i have to reshape myself for that others might see me naked wearing it on my hand too
15:55 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Well, MC players are not in the business of making virtual clothing :-)
15:55 Marion Questi There is still a lot of good sculpty content in SL. It's not going away....My hat for example...:)
15:56 Fierri (fermii) yes, some sculpts are wonderful
15:56 Tali Rosca One thing I think, and I have mentioned before, is that creators are not yet good enough at *combining* rigged and non-rigged mesh and flexi sculpts.
15:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen And mesh is not flexi, in the sense of floating in the wind.
15:56 Tali Rosca Flexi *prims*, I mean. Sculpts can't flex.
15:56 Fierri (fermii) yes, the sculpt hair looks like play-dough
15:57 Tali Rosca Right now, everybody are cutting their teeth on mesh, seeing what can be done with that.
15:57 TwinkyFluffington honestly it looks well on things that are not worn but for wearables there are those of us would rather go nude than wear what weve seen so far
15:58 Tali Rosca (And as for reshaping my body to fit... don't get me started on standard shapes. I have muscles, which is apparently a mortal sin for women).
15:58 Fierri (fermii) Ive seen some good makers of mesh clothes, but they arent that common
15:58 TwinkyFluffington i have muscles
15:59 Gronk Seriman I don;t foresee a melting of mesh avatars and Old Inverntoru clothing soming up soom.
16:00 Gronk Seriman Gah!
16:00 Marion Questi Folks...we are out of time.
16:00 Ravelli Ormstein pity!
16:01 SoleSaver Thank you very much
16:01 Marion Questi Thank you all for coming!
16:01 ?hillys ?aybe (phillysmaybe) wow.. that went fast!!
16:01 Tarn Wyeth (tarnwyeth) Thank you Deans, great session!
16:01 Meora (menchor) good session
16:01 Wordsmith Jarvinen Thanks you all for coming and participating.
16:01 TwinkyFluffington indeed was a very informative and lively discussion thank you all
16:01 Wordsmith Jarvinen (much more interesting than just talking to ourselves)
16:01 Ravelli Ormstein see you all next week again, or before!
16:01 SoleSaver : D
16:01 Gronk Seriman My typonese ended it?!? Gah!
16:01 Marion Questi Good night.
16:01 Serene Jewell Nice to see everyone again. I'm running off to a Blender class.
16:01 Fierri (fermii) ty guys, it really helped