Waiting for the buses... The Fitted Mesh Legacy

Since its announcement in November last year, many designers and builders in SL have as I have said previously been chomping at the bit, gagging for the technology to be developed, tested and deployed.

And its not been an easy wait. Near enough a month back I reported my issues over the official Linden Labs DAE files being borked - now it seems that people have finally noticed this only in the last week.
The simple fact is, I was hoping for Christmas time when Fitted was going to be released, even if I was knowingly being unrealistic over it.

I was guesstimating that Fitted Mesh would arrive on the grid at the end of Feb 2014, and I had my build program in place for this, with new products being tested, built and even boxed up ready for that day.
Imagine the coffee spillage and jaw on the desk, when out of the blue Linden Lab officially released Fitted Mesh last monday. This was unexpected.
I had been following the JIRA on this, watching for issues cropping up, and while it had been quiet and had slowed up during January, occasionally a show stop issue was cropping up.

So... its GOOD NEWS!!! Fitted Mesh is here, its released and is ready for use...
No... its not.

This has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, as Fitted Mesh isnt here really. The simple fact is, Fitted Mesh requires users viewers to be up to date.
Some people may resist the urge to update to the official Linden Labs Fitted Mesh viewer and personal choice is one thing.
But physically being unable to update to fitted mesh as its not available on your viewer of choice means that officially releasing fitted mesh is nothing more than a joke.

There really are two kinds of SL changes when it comes to technologies and viewers.
There is the minor changes - stuff thats nice to have, features that make life easier, or improve your inworld experience, but they arnt essential.
Then there are the major changes which are few and far between. In fact in the last 3 years I can only remember 3 such instances. Fitted Mesh, Project Sunshine, and surprisingly, the original Mesh.
What constitutes a major change is the fact its an essential and the world will not render correctly if you dont upgrade.
For Mesh - without a mesh capable viewer, the thousands of objects in world using mesh will be broken.
For Sunshine, without a viewer capable of sever side baking, you will see Grey people everywhere.
And for Fitted Mesh, any mesh using the new bones will appear on none fitted mesh viewers as a spagetti string being dragged into the bottom corner of the sim.

Back in late January, the team behind the Singularity Viewer (a frankly excellent Viewer 1 based viewer which is as good as, in my books at least, any viewer 3 viewer), released their Version 1.85.
That viewer offered dozens of fixes, upgrades, clean ups etc, but shockingly, and surprisingly they jumped the gun and integrated in Fitted Mesh.
At the time I questioned if this was a wise move as the JIRA for Fitted was still throwing up bugs, however hats off to them. Not only has that idea worked, but actually found some more bugs for the official project to fix therefore making a positive contribution to the development of fitted mesh.
It also allowed me to do beta testing on Fitted Mesh items without having to use the Test viewer form Linden Lab, which in itself is extremely positive for me.

Now with the official release of Fitted Mesh, and seemingly no changes to the operation of Fitted Mesh, Singularity is much like the Official Viewer, Fitted Mesh ready.

The problem is, Singularity is a Third Party Viewer, and for all its bonuses and smooth operations, its certainly not the biggest.
However, lets just get this straight.
Singularity is based on the original Viewer 1 - Not the latest generation of viewers. And the fantastic team there managed to retroengineer the Fitted Mesh system from Viewer 3 code, and fit it in to a Viewer 1 code, and it works perfectly. That deserves respect.

However, while two major viewers have adopted Fitted Mesh, the largest user base viewer on the grid, Firestom, hasnt got fitted mesh.
I will say fair enough - I got a surprise when it was released, and I was estimating a few more weeks before it arrived. However this isnt another "Facebook" feature - this is serious. This should have been planned out, tested and been ready for release. After all, Firestorm is based on Viewer 3, and the official Viewer 3 has fitted mesh. I know its not a matter of drag and drop, but considering Singularity managed to retroengineer the code and released it weeks ago in their viewer, why have Firestorm been caught with their pants down like this.

Firestorm announced last week that they had delayed their monthly meeting for a week and "Exciting news" would be coming.
Many builders saw this as either something major is going to happen, or, they were going to release the fitted mesh capable version of Firestorm.
This meeting was planned for this last Saturday night (UK time) and I logged in to the Firestorm site on Sunday morning to see what happened.
Short answer was, nothing. There is no new press releases or viewer releases.
In fact its now monday and the firestorm blog is still devoid of information and I had to go over to Nalates' blog to see what the crack was.
After trawling through all the information, it seems Firestorm is still "testing" their viewer. They are being deliberately vague over any release date and this is not good at all.
It could be released tomorrow, or next year for all they are giving us.

And for the first time in quite a while, I am very sad to say, Second Life is now outside of Linden Lab's control. They have officially released a new technology, but the actual practical release date for creators isnt what Linden Lab says it is. Its being dictacted by Firestorm. As the largest user base viewer on the grid, they control which technologies can and cant go "live".
Am I being a drama queen over this? Not really if you think about it.
Can I release any full fitted mesh products using the new bones?
According to Linden Lab, yes I can. The technology is in the official viewer.
Practically though, I can't. Firestorm doesnt have fitted mesh, and may not have it for weeks or months.
If the largest user base viewer on the grid doesnt support Fitted Mesh, then a large percentage of users cant see fitted mesh, other than pointy spagetti. That means practically, I cant release any fitted mesh products until Firestorm updates.
I suppose I could do, but the vast majority of the SL population will not accept having to move back to the official viewer or Singularity, and all I will get is bombarded by angry customers who cant see fitted mesh.

So... I guess we are stuck waiting for the number 22 Fitted Mesh bus to arrive in Firestormville.
I will post more when or even if there is news from Firestom.