Reel Expression

Mildy funny story actually. So.. I get back into SL after month of being away and I had no idea what was going on. I knew WL was going to be released eventually, but I was hoping that it wouldn’t sneak up on me so quickly. But in actuality it snuck up on me twice!

A couple of weeks ago when I set up the subscribe-o-matic, for some reason when I tried to TP from their website it loaded and updated an old release candidate viewer that I had instead of the standard viewer. Of course I thought it was a standard viewer - I had forgotton I even had a release candidate viewer - so much to my suprize I found myself seeing the effects of WL.

My plan had been to deal with the extreme back log of CS stuff, set up the subscribe-o-matic and work on the new pose set + the new build. Imagine my horror to find how bad my avie looked on all presets! I did a lot of serching around to find a quick fix to I could wait to learn it when I had no time. The only thing I did figure out was that it hadn’t been released yet to the standard view.

So I calmed down, went back to the standard viewer feeling like a moron and went to work. Saddly, that only lasted for 2 days when on Wed LL made us all use WL. With all the problems SL has since + trying to figure out WL the pose set had to be pushed back. Why? Well, if you’ve read enough of this blog you’d know I am a perfectionist when it comes to my poses. During the tweaking phase I look at all different lighting conditions because the poses look different on each one. Harsh shadows can look like breaks in the skin where there is none. Most people used to take their shots facing the sun at sunset or sunrise, but on WL that looks like ass. Bright lights will cover some breaks or skin twisting and different lighting conditions will show different issues. Part of this is to make the best product I possibly can and partly because people are looking at them to purchase at many different times of the day. Now because of all the customization I can’t check as much as I’d like. Granted issues do slip past me then what I would like, but I’m worried more will now.

Then you have my least favourite part: taking the pictures, editing and then making the ads. I love taking RL photos, but for some reason not so much in SL. Luckily when SL was acting up too much to work on anything, I finally asked my mate Callie Cline since she has a finger on the pluse of SL fashion community… far more so then me. She directed me to Caliah Lyon’s post which is a bloody godsend.

I guess being frustrated doesn’t help with your googling skills, since I couldn’t find that post. So in case you also live under a rock, you can follow the steps here.

With all the issues of Sl for the past 24 hours, many of us have had the time to reflect on all that is wrong. Generally whenever SL gets this bad, you end up with a large cat fight between LL fanbois and those of us who are past fed up. Since building and uploading today is out of the question, I trolled the forums and saw a lot of people talking about just waiting for something better to come along. In all honesty, that’s what I (and I think many others) have been doing for years.

In the forums today Pie Psaltery wrote:

Thing is, what do you want from an alternate platform? Because there really are a lot of options out there for most of what SL does, minus the customizable content.

Personally I think what every one really wants *IS* SL, just with a molecule of customer support and perhaps an ounce of stablity.

I think he answered his own question within the first sentance. The only reason why there hasn’t yet been a mass exodus from the pile of crap SL has become, is that there isn’t a single other place for content creation without extreme limitation. Therefore there isn’t actually a true alternate platform - yet. As it stands now, the new trend is “developer programs” that each new platform has varring degrees of difficulty to get into. The only thing that is remotly close is There but they have extreme limitations on what you can make, an approval system, and a wonky exchange. Those other platforms will get the users who have no desire to make anything and just want to play with shiny bland things that “professional” developers have made. Personally, if that’s all I wanted to do I’d just only play shiny MMOs and go back to just film editing. The only reason why SL as a platform has had any type of sucess over premade worlds IS the content creation. People want to express themselves and you can’t do that with only someone else’s objects. Don’t agree? Why then does myspace allow for custimization? It’d look a lot better if people could only use “professional” templates, but I doubt it’d be as popluar. Same goes for blogs and websites.

While I agree with the second line, many of us have lost hope. Instead of better customer support, they cut off lines of communication. Instead of better stability, they continue to fix 1 thing while breaking 2 unrelated working things. And lets really be honest with ourselves, things work a lot worse now then they did before. Until late last year, I’d never had a single person not recieve what they purchased. I never had an upload fail, espeically at 6am SLT. I never had textures snap back to where I have to almost always change them 10+ times on a new and empty sim. I used to be able to close group spam IMs. I’m not saying everything worked perfectly fine back then, we did have a lot of issues, but now there are more days I can’t work then I can. Programs are supposed to get better, not worse if they want to actually have paying customers. The fact is until something better comes along, LL can do whatever the fuck they want to and there is absolutly nothing we can do about it. That has always been the problem with monopolies.

Because no one actually reads the forums anymore, I’m going to paste what I wrote here. Maybe the 1509 of you who visted my little blog last month will find it mildly interesting. Who knows.

What do I want from an alternate platform?
- Unlimited content ceration. Not the developer programs that these newer platforms are doing. Yes SL has a lot of crap, but there is a lot of good stuff made by people who started out by making crap. Making content should not be limited to people who start out already knowing how to create. If you do, all you have is a squeaky clean world, where the residents have no stake, and little to no innovation. If SL closed content creation to just the developers group everything would look like the bland corporation isles. I’d rather wade through crap to find a dancing cow that makes me laugh then to log into a bland world.

- Ability to create animations. Well… that’s what I make and I have yet to see another platform offer this at all. I’m also pretty sure that LL has cornered the market on scripting. Where is the fun of making cool stuff if you can’t make it do cool things?

- Currency exchange.

- Stability. Or at the very least a company that understands that stability is more important in the scheme of things then whatever new shiny they feel like working on instead. I pay $195 a month for my isle and haven’t been able to do anything on it for over 24 hours now. That is more then just wrong.

- Updating that doesn’t break the few already working stuff. I’ve been here for 3 years now and LL still hasn’t figured out how to fix 1 thing without breaking 2. Most people give the excuse that it’s new technology and other BS, but the fact of the matter is is that they wrote the code and have been working with it for long enough to understand how it works.

SL is a lot more complicated (and not a game) but the closest I can compare it to is other MMOs. From my experience, during beta and the first part of release is pretty bad but usually within a few months they start working the kinks out and updates stop breaking already working stuff. Actually when this happens, I usually laugh and tell SL update horror stories.

SL has been out for 4 years and by now we shouldn’t still be living through this. Not to mention the fact that many times they wait months to fix what they broke.

- Scalibility. Or even at the very least a company who makes it scalible BEFORE they open the floodgates. I do not understand how the hell they didn’t know all this was going to happen before and during the massive PR rush to get millions of signups. I do not feel sorry for LL at all about the issues happening, as it was their own mistake.

- Customer Service. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen worse customer service. Every single problem I’ve ever had, I’ve had to fight to get past the wall of “it’s your fault” support. I seriously spent months trying to get support for my laptop that SL wouldn’t read the video card drivers correctly. Every single issue I had was always closed for having an unsupported video card, even though it was supported. I had to sit through months of 40fps for 10min then drop to 1fps for 5min before someone actually believed me through proof of my dxdiag. Finally ended it with “it’s a bug” that still hasn’t been fixed a year later. You’d think that concierge would be better, but they just respond “it’s your fault” quicker. Brand new empty sim and textures keep snapping back? “It’s your connection.”

I want a company that doesn’t put all the fault on the user and will admit mistakes. Every single bad thing that happens LL pushes it off as they aren’t responsible and are actually the victims. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder they make the same mistakes over and over again.

People who will respect their customer base, espeically those of us who have hung on for years. I’m tired of being talked down to by LL as if we all are a bunch of morons. I’m tired of all this bloody double speak and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. I’m tired of never answering questions. I’m tired of LL touting content creators in the press then turing around and treating us like insignificant bugs to be ignored. This is not saying bow down to every single grievience, but listen to the customer base and take thoughtfull steps in order to keep us as customers.

I have seen an increasing amount of people over the past 3 years say the same thing: as soon as something better comes along, I will leave. Personally I see that as a partial threat and partial truth. I don’t really believe that most of us want to see SL fail, but just want a program that works more often then not. If LL doesn’t shape up prior to a real competitor coming out, there will be an eventual mass exodus. It will start as people trying out the new platform and most of those will be the disgruntled content creators. Next will be creating content in both platforms until the only presense they have in SL will just be a store they never update.

A few fanbois will stay and uninformed new residents will join, but the damage will be done. Without something better, the few who do leave are rarely missed as someone new is always there waiting to step into the spotlight. There are only a very small amount (Starax for example) who really are irreplaceable. The difference being is that a new platform will be a lot easier for those salavating for greatness to compete at the starting line. While we will see those try to take the place of those who left, if the competition is that much better, they will only be shooting themselves in the foot.

A year or so ago there was a lot of buzz around about competitors. Saddly that never panned out, but I do remember LL’s (Philip actually) smug response of being able to “out update any new company.” I think many will agree that they will take working updates that happen fewer then weekly broken ones. This not even remotly understanding the userbase and the “we can do no wrong” attitude will be the eventual downfall. Sometimes I want a good competitor to come out only to knock LL off their high horse to see the laggy and bugged filled mess they’ve made.

On Friday the SL herald posted an article about Gwyneth Llewelyn’s recent “my way or leave” blog post. You can read the article here. And even praised by SL’s most biased Reporter, Hamlet, at NWN.

Gwyn is and has always been an elitist cunt. There are two different types of elitist cunts in SL. 1. The content side - those who truly believe that content creators > everyone else but that only includes their cirlce of friends. 2. The self important (without reason) ones with their heads up the collected linden ass. These may seem simular but the first actually does contribute to the SL community.

I was going to post this on the comments of the SL herald, but I want to go into more detail so I chose to do it here.

Gwyn on Sculpties:
“You’ll have very high quality items from a handful of professional 3D modellers, and lots of junk (and copied material) from the rest of the residents.”

Incorrect. First off talented people do not create “junk.” “Talented amateurs,” is just a dirty word that talentless hacks throw around to make themseleves feel better. Talent is far more important in the process of creation than skill will ever be. People with talent have done really incredible things with the limited types of shapes. Only a person with their head so far up their ass would discount the type of creativity that’s already out there.

Skills are learned but talent can’t be. Maya and Blender are more difficult than the current tools, but have a lot more resourses for learning them. Yes it does take years of practice to be able to make a pixar film, but possibly a month to figure out the tools enough to make a chair for SL.

Some of you already know that I went to school for 3D modeling and animation - with the direction of visual effects for film. It was this program that straddled between the film department and the 3d department. We took beginning film classes along with 3d modeling and animation stuff. About 2 years into it and after my second editing class I switched majors to editing. I wasn’t absolutly terrible at 3d modeling, but I was competing against people who had a vast talent and skill for drawing. In the real world a person who was more focused on particle animation (me) wouldn’t be competing against the modelers, but in classes our grades were based on what rank our work was within the class. Everyone had started at the exact same skill level of the programs, but the inate talent very obviously shined through.

Now, I was damn good at particle animation - cgi effects like rain, water, snow, steam, fire, ect. A lot of it has to do with mathmatical equations and well, my first college degree of physics recieved at age 19 should tell you enough about that. It was challenging and yet fun, but it never compared to how it feels to edit. Now while my major technically shifted, I convinced the directors of the film department and 3d department to continue taking classes in each but to allow me to skip out on things that wasn’t of use on my path, like sound 2 - location sound recording. Getting educators to bend the “rules” for extremly determined students with specific goals is a lot easier then one would think.

During my years in the media world, I’ve seen enough to know that understanding the tools is not enough. From things like editors knowing Avid inside and out yet just not “get” how to tell a story. That working at a 3d factory like ILM where you work mostly off other’s conceptions doesn’t mean you can create from scratch something amazing. I saw more talent in projects from my first semester film class then some of the junk they show on tv - specifically a brilliant stop motion animation that was shot with a digi camera and cut tape to tape.

So yes, I know a lot about this subject of talent vs skill. Anyone at all can learn these tools, the point is is what you do with them. I do not believe for a second that just because someone has studied maya for years and years will make shoes better than Fally or hair better than Elika. Nor do I have any doubt in my mind that given enough determination and time that these “talented amateurs” would be able to utalise maya or blender to create even more fantastic things.

If this idea is true, where are all the proffessional character animators? You can use maya for animations and I’m in the process of switching over. But I never took single character animation class. Ever. I really wish I would have, but I didn’t. Why haven’t I been cast out yet? Why, after 3 years the top animators still mostly “amateurs?” Why are still most of the dances made by downloaded mocaps instead of the thousands of proffesional animators out there? A good RL friend of mine who’s a CGI supervisor working on the Harry Potter films here in London - funny how I met him kickboxing in SF while I was still a 3d student - tried out SL for about 5min and couldn’t stand it.

What is with this hate speech of talented amateurs anyways? An amateur work (especially in film) is one where the inate talent of the creator is not visable because of the lack of skill. Making a piece of art that is not junk doesn’t take years and years to learn, nor do you have to use the most powerful tools out there. It’s understanding the tools you have access to enough to let your talent shine through. For instance in Gwyn’s use of the word, movies such as Clerks and El Mariachi were created by talented amateurs, why is it such a bad thing then?

One last note.. Gwyn has been in SL about a month less then I have. How could she not see the extreme growth of the quality of content since we both started? Bloody hell just look at the evolution of prim hair. I remember when it came out and I *still* have my first purchases of it, thats some pretty scary stuff. I swear my inventory is like a walking musem, I never delete innovative stuff away. I don’t do the sex ball thing, but right before animations came out I purchased an early stroker sex bed, it’s bloody brilliant.

Gwyn on voice:
“Sorry, immersionists — you’re out of this game. It’s augmentism from now on that will dominate the shaping of the Metaverse.”

I really hate this atitude that if you don’t agree with someone’s vision of SL you should just leave. This type of eltitist intollerance just pisses me off. I don’t like the sheep and their whoring, but I’m not screaming at them to get out of “my” SL. I really hate gor. I’ll debate with them all I want to, but they have just as much of a right to make SL how they personally want it as I do. I can’t stand bling either, most of which is because I’m mildly epileptic and prone to seizures with strobing. But I’m never rude to people about it. I ask nicely for them to take it off or I cam away depending on how long they are going to be around me. I never say get the fuck out of SL because you may cause me to have a seizure and possibly hit my head on the desk and die. I’m highly opinionated but extremly tolerant.

Anyways… I disagree that most of SL will embrace voice so much that anyone who doesn’t will just have to leave. It’s a pretty unpopular “feature” for many different reasons. I personally won’t use it because I just don’t want to. I don’t want to have my headphones on the entire time I’m in SL. I don’t want to have to listen to just anyone. I can easily ignore the chat when I go places, but sound is not so easy. The reasons why I’m pissed off the most about the idea are: 1. Every mainland sim will get voice, but those of us with grandfathered sims will not only have to pay double our tier but also pay for the upgrade. You want me to pay how much for a service that doesn’t even bloody work to use a feature I don’t even want and prolly won’t even work correctly? Ha fuck you LL. 2. While I don’t really care all that much about missing out on things, as people who really want to talk to me will type it, there will be a stigma placed on those who choose not to. Most likely that they have something to hide and are probably gender bending. I’m a chick. Anyone who goes to SLCC this year will see that. (ps anyone who fancies a piss up at some pubs with hubbie and I instead of the lame ball on sat just let me know)

I do think it will cause a divide. But Americans are good at creating them aren’t we? Especially the “great divide” that is only getting worse between the “anti american dirty liberals” and “moral majority.” Many people, including myself, believe that will be the cause of the eventual fall of the US unless the intollerant hate mongering stops. But I digress. Yes it’ll cause a divide. Fuck there are so many divides and rifts in SL as it is. Content creators vs anti-content creators. Blind LL supporters and those of us who question. Speaking of which…

Gwyn on Project Open Letter:
“… once more, residents are congregating to push their Luddite views upon Linden Lab. (snip) Hopefully LL re-introduces the series of the First Look viewers again — letting us enjoy a better Second Life while the Luddites remain happy within Sony Home and its vastly superior static content.”

How can someone in SL be a Luddite? Attacking people who want to see SL be what it advertises to be by comparing them to textile workers during the industrial revolution who destroyed textile mills. If we are so against technology what the fuck are we doing in SL? Or even owning a computer for that matter? To me, Gwyn is the type of person who calls a dem anti-american and against the troops for using our constitutional rights to challenge the government. Talk about bloody ludicrious.

A letter that states that the residents love SL, want to see it succeed but are worried about the lack of communication about what is being done about the growing number of issues. How is that such a dirty thing? Oh wait yeah. Anyone who disagrees with Gwyn’s world, Gwyn’s imagination is wrong and should leave and go to Sony Home.

I personally didn’t sign POL for a number of different reasons. 1. It’ll do no good. And that was proven by the joke of a town hall, and the rushed release of voice, sculpties and age verification. 2. The issues were discussed on the second citizen forums. While I like many of the regs individually, as a group they are pure venom. So yeah, I’m biased. I at least admit it. 3. No mention was made on the fact that LL announced they will close logins to basic members when too many were logged in, but they never do. 4. Not a single question about anti-idle camping. 5. Stability, transactions, and building? If you are going to add 1 of the ways of content creation, you have to add them all.

I woke up this morning to an interesting blog post. I’m actually a bit shocked at the severe reaction it’s had so far. I have never seen this many people rant and rave this much about something that anyone could see a mile away. The really humourous part is that people are stuck on the giving the last 4 digits of their social security number, rightly so, but have really overlooked that it is one of the many different types of ways to verify - including drivers license which is something that LL already does when a resident’s age is in question.

Not to mention the freak out about it dealing with mature land, where it is clearly written that they will be adding the abilty for any parcel to be flagged as “adult content” - meaning sexually explicit and/or extreme violence. Mature will stay as it is with no verification needed. I think of it in movie terms. Mature = PG-13, R, (nudity, swearing). New adult title = XXX (public sex). PG = disney. The only problem is is that “sexually explicit” is a vague term and every cultre, country, religion, ect has their own veiw as what that actually means.

The one thing that is out there that does bother me some, is that a company will have RL name/address/dob for everyone who wants to engage in public sex in SL, buy sex balls, or go to a strip club. That could be very damaging.

Anyways… I was lurking on the second citizen forums - which I should never do because those people are down right crazy - and wrote the following post. As always with those forums, my logic seemed to go unnoticed.

This is not surprising in the least. Businesses are in SL for the sole purpose of marketing, but aren’t able to reach the main advertising market - kids. Children are not only the most impressionable to adverts but middle class kids have the most dispensible cash. Just look at the music industry. Bleh.

That was the biggest issue I heard about SL at the Virtual Worlds Spring Conference. There was being highly touted as “kid friendly” because of the horrible system of approving content. Especially after listening to all the panels, I’d much rather have the corps stay out of SL, but LL doesn’t seem to agree with me.

This isn’t about covering their ass in lawsuits, as they already have that covered, it’s about PR image and corps.

Personally I’m torn on the issue. I’d rather corps go to There and MTV’s crap, but then again I welcome teens being able to shop in my store. I also am very happy about the distinction of Mature and XXX and do hope that the search will revert back to allowing mature to be default again. I’d really like the ability to call someone a cunt whenever the fuck I want to on the private isle I pay $195 per month without being hidden from search just because I “may” run a public sex club. Not to mention this really sucks for those who do sell adult orientated items. They are going to loose a lot of business during the transition and perhaps in the long run because of the way people feel about giving so much information.

They are really going to need to have a clear definition of “overtly sexual.” To me, nudity isn’t necessarily sexual but to some crazy christians it is. Not to mention will “private” homes need to be declared as adult because they may engage in private consentual adult relations with their partner?

The way I read it is that there are different options. You don’t necessarily need to give out your social security number. I personally have no issue with giving out my passport info. As an American resident of the UK, loads of people have photocopies of mine. Every single job I’ve ever interviewed at took a photocopy of it and my visa. As a freelancer who usually never works at the same place for more then a month, thats a lot of companies. Not to mention my agent, every bank I ever went to, immigration, and even the really creapy people at the job centre to get my national insurance card. It doesn’t bother me too much because they need to have a valid one to use and getting a replacement is really fucking difficult.

But then again why are they wasting even a moment on this crap when so many things are broken. Grr.