(Recap) Of Mesh and Pink Elephants April 2012

I originally wrote this up a year ago as part of my "Mesh Investigation Project". Needless to say I felt rather robbed of time after spending a few months on Mesh and the results were underwhelming.

______________________________________________

Here at Violet Studios I am always interested in learning new design techniques, and obviously the big one out there at the moment is “Mesh” – the so called super amazing magic bullet that will remake Second Life. To that end, I have spent the last 4 weeks in research and learning mode getting to know this new “Super tool”.

At the outset, it seems there is two kind of mesh – the static “prim” style mesh, and the so called Rigged Mesh which you wear and works with your body.
Handling the static style first, my investigations have proved it to be a really good tool that has surpassed sculpties by light years. I will be doing many new items with mesh on this front and in fact the first generation of these items is already finished and ready for release.

When it comes to Rigged Mesh though. It is in my books perhaps the biggest pink elephant I have seen in my life. Second Life’s key selling point to people is infinite diversity. Thanks to the way the Avatar works, you can configure it how you want with ease – change the shape, the hair, the clothing, the skin, the prim attachments.
Its all easy.

With rigged mesh, you in theory can do the same. But the infinite diversity of the stock avatar is gone. You have to use the skins the mesh designer offers, you have to use the clothes the mesh designer offers, prim attachments don’t work. Its a mess.
So unless you have a 30 feet tall demon then simply forget using mesh to replace your stock avatar.
Will I be doing rigged complete mesh avatars? Short version yes, but I will only be doing a limited number of very special out of the ordinary models. I would love to do something to clean up the many errors you get on the SL AV, but the loss of functionality is too much of a bridge to cross. By that, I don’t mean for me. I mean for you, and I am not one to sell gimmick products.

Obviously another area with amazing possibilities is mesh clothes, however after a long research session looking in to this, and without getting too technical, the whole idea is fundamentally flawed thanks to the way that mesh  has been implemented.
My list of ideas went from infinite to just a handful.  This for me was actually one of the greatest disappointments. I know there is the mesh deformer toolkit in the works, but I am dubious if it will work in a predictable way, but I guess I will cross that bridge when I get there as we are months away from seeing this on the grid. I do find it ironic though that it is a 3rd Party who is designing this and not Linden Labs.
(Edit - I was being overoptimistic there... its now over a year on and the deformer tool kit has not arrived, and Linden Labs actually did their own version of it. Is it coming? At this point I am not holding my breath)

To really sum this up, Rigged mesh is a useful item but thanks to poor implementation its nothing more than a limited use tool. Mesh right now is the unrealised dream which promised a lot, and sadly seem to have become something of a pink elephant.

Over the next year I will be releasing many mesh items, but I do genuinely say this – don’t expect to be blown away by super amazing items. If and when mesh’s various flaws are fixed, who knows what will happen, but right here and now we are talking items that will offer more quality, and give a more natural feel. I think its fair to say after all the hype and rumours of the last few years, if Mesh was going to have transformed Second Life, we would be there already. Fact is, it hasn’t.

Mesh does offer some really nice features and I am pleased its in the toolbox for me but right now, from a commercial perspective, the Rigged Mesh system is a lost opportunity.