Kitely Forums

According to recent reports,
a recent SL content creation
meeting brought fascinating
and exciting news.

DaveP Linden
(who implemented
spacenavigator support in
SL and was working at
Sansar for some years)
is investingating implementing
PBR for SL. Also they want
to implement GLTF support
while Rider Linden is
considering custom origin
for meshes.. btw, Phillip Rosedale
ia back at SL with the old
gang to make all these
new features and more
to happen..

If these features do
happen at SL is there
hope to see it on
Opensim as well?

Or is there something
better secretly brewing
behind the scenes?

Btw, Vircadia is looking
better and better with
their updates...

Hi Gusher,

Most of the features you mentioned should be viewer-side so, assuming SL implements them as part of their open-source viewer, it shouldn't be a lot of work for the OpenSim core dev team to get them to work on OpenSim as well.

Quite exciting, particularly PBR support... second to that custom mesh origins... GLTF will be the fbx killer...

Would be really cool to get PBR, looking forward to that already for years. Let's see if and when though, don't want to be negative but mostly it takes a considerable time. Custom origin meshes? Can you clarify pls, system as the use of instancing? Or?

Custom origin feature for the collada mesh uploads, allows to move the axis pivot where you want, useful for many animated props like doors and such. The current old way is a workaround just before uploading mesh.

Zed deTremont wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:20 am

Would be really cool to get PBR, looking forward to that already for years. Let's see if and when though, don't want to be negative but mostly it takes a considerable time. Custom origin meshes? Can you clarify pls, system as the use of instancing? Or?

[PP

Thank you, yes that is something that was on the wish list for a long time. It would be seriously more handy even thought there are work arounds/script is you want to handle a situation where you need a pivot that is not in the center without adding extra prims etc.

Gusher Castaignede wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:02 pm

Custom origin feature for the collada mesh uploads, allows to move the axis pivot where you want.

I wonder if they've been reading old JIRAs. There are already two "undocumented features" that allow us to offset the pivot point of a mesh by extending the bounding box and a few years ago I filed a suggetion they could make it official.

For those who are unfamiliar with the two methods:

1. The loose vertice trick

• Add a loose vertice to your mesh placed so the center of the mesh including the loose vertice corresponds with the pivot point you want.
• Sort the vetice list so the loose one is no. 1
• Export and import.

The reason this works is that the first vertice on the list is used as the reference point for all the other vertices so although it is removed by the uploader, it causes the entire mesh to be offset within its nominal bounding box.

2. The 8+ face mesh trick

• Make a box with eight "dummy" materials, not used for the actual mesh you want to end up with. Make the box big enough to encompass your mesh completely (but not bigger than necessary) and make sure the dummy materials are listed before the materials you're actually going to use.
• Position the actual mesh inside the box with the deisred pivot point corresponding to the center of the box.
• Export and import.
• Unlink and delete the box.

This works because if you try to upload a mesh with more than eight faces, it's split into two or more separate meshes but they all whare the same bounding box.

....that's the current workaround, but the cleaner way is on already imported meshes, moving only the pivot axis, so it is a big deal...

Gusher Castaignede wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 23, 2022 12:23 pm

....that's the current workaround, but the cleaner way is on already imported meshes, moving only the pivot axis, so it is a big deal...

It'll be interesting to see which solution LL goes for and it'll say a lot about how seriously they take upgrades of basic functionalities. Back when I filed that JIRA, even persuading them to make an official and practical implementation of a function that already existed was a long shot. "Upgrades" at that time were still mostly about piling new shinies on top of old worn out shinies. Not that I'm blaming them for it; this was during the Ebbe/Oz period when the understaffed dev team had their hands full trying to clean up the mess from six years of neglect. But maybe they're ready for more thorough upgrades of core functionalities now. We'll see.

Take a look, PBR is now in SL...