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We've mentioned numerous times in the past that doing so is simply not possible. Supporting this bug EVEN TEMPORARILY would cause an uproar when we later fix it. We're in the process of fixing it right now and will be removing this bug as a means of completely hiding your avatar. DO NOT SELL ANY AVATAR'S THAT USE THIS BUG!!! Whoever purchases it will be VERY UPSET once the invisibility part of it stops working. We've been extremely clear and consistent with this message. DO NOT USE THIS BUG!!!
While I understand that you don't want to support the hack, I really don't understand why you think you have to actively go out of your way to work on breaking this hack. I mean, just ignore that it is there and work on. Tell people clearly on the blog that this thing is not supported so if it breaks, it's their problem. If your changes happen to break it, you told everyone so. But actively going out to break content now for people, without a specific technical need, is rather strange ...
Further clarification. There is in fact a need to fix this. There's a bug in our visibility calculations that result in some objects that should be visible (in one particular case your avatar) not being visible. While the side-effect is useful for Tiny's, this is none-the-less a bug in the render that NEEDS to be fixed. We are not drawing something that we should be drawing, the exact definition of a bug. Just because the bug is beneficial to some use-cases doesn't make it any less harmful in others.
Since this bug was discovered not too long ago we've been loudly stating that it should not be relied on since it needed to be fixed. If we look the other way for the time being and delay a fix, it WILL be relied on by content creators more and more. Then when we implement the fix LATER, a lot of residents who purchased content will be very upset that it suddenly doesn't work. In some of those cases, the original builder will no longer be around to offer fixes and they will be stuck with a broken avatar. Their subsequent anger will be directed at us for fixing the bug in the first place, even though we messaged that it should not be relied on. For ALL of these reasons, this needs to be fixed promptly, as we've learned time and time again that in Second Life there is no such thing as temporarily supporting or looking the other way with a bug (see invisiprims as a well known example). I hope this explains a bit better some of the reasons why we simply cannot let this bug exist for the time being. Looking the other way now means that we have to support it for the long term, something which we simply can't do in this case. Well, your comment would sit much more comfortable with me if you guys would go after bugs that actually harm users with the same intensity as you do here after a bug where I still haven't seen any negative impact on users.
Reopened because there's no reason why the bug should be fixed in an update prior to the alpha masks update (isn't that the next scheduled update anyway?) BigPapi or anyone else has yet to address this JIRA specifically.
Another point that BigPapi fails to note: It's a heck of a lot easier to "fix" a broken megaprim bug avatar than one that uses megaprims. All it takes is wearing an alpha mask when they come available. No mod rights necessary, so even if the original avatar maker isn't around anymore the end user can still fix it. People will be a lot more angry if you don't give them an alternative.
You know, reading BigPapi's post just makes me hang my head. This bug really isn't harmful if it's attached to the avatar.
Instead of you guys adding crap to the clients that don't need to be added, why don't you get around to listening to the residents? Isn't SL BUILT by it's residents? Shouldn't it be OUR voices outspoken more than the Lindens? Don't worry about minor bugs that don't hurt the system. Find the bigger ones and sort them out first- OR! failing that, listen to what WE ask, and make the avatar mesh hidable! Still waiting for a REASON why the fix and masking ability can't be in the same update. Give me that and I'll be content. Until then, the residents will be heard.
Please do not open this or a similar jira again. The permanent solution for hiding your avatars has already been worked on internally and will be released in a future viewer version. In the meanwhile, keeping the current bug in a working state will lead to MORE broken content later if we hold off on the fix for it. I expect that RC1 or RC2 of viewer 1.23 to have the fix for the invisi-megaprim bug. I repeat: we cannot wait on the fix since doing so will break more content for more residents.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Re-closed because Papi's post didn't show up before. RC1 or 2 is acceptable to me. Thank you. Now, you should have said that BEFORE.
Your PR-fu is weak, grasshopper. Edited to add: Issue is not fixed. I was under the impression that alpha masking would be available in 1.23, which isn't the case. Alpha masking won't come until 1.24 or later, meaning people needing to hide their avatar mesh won't be able to do so until 1.24. Obviously that is not acceptable.
Unless alpha on avatars is implemented BEFORE this is taken out, this is still an issue and should be open wether BigPapi Linden thinks so or not.
Just as the others stated, I don't see there being any issue with leaving this in until the LL sanctioned fix is actually implemented. Obviously if the LL fix comes along it will be widely available and an easy remedy to the avhider prim without any worries about bugging the creators of things using it. The scenario would go as follows: "Oh no, my avatar hiding prim doesn't seem to function anymore. I guess I should copy the invisible mesh into this folder and toss out the prim." Unfortunately the scenario presented here would go much like this: "Oh no, my avatar hiding prim isn't working anymore. Well crud, I don't have anything that can hide my avatar, I'm going to go complain to the creator. (And in turn the creator will be miffed at it's non-functioning and will probably contact LL in some form) " So... because this item is already in use and doesn't present any real issues (at least none were addressed here), it should not be delliberately disabled until there is an LL sanctioned remedy. I can understand that if it were to cease functioning on it's own, but to pull it out like this without a fix is just bad logic.
This is a reminder of the policies of Pjira as listed http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Issue_tracker#Be_courteous
Note: The Second Life Community Standards apply to all areas of Second Life, including the Second Life Public Issue Tracker. Any Resident who disregards these guidelines may be banned from future use of the issue tracker. Examples of specific behavior or actions which may result in removal from the Issue Tracker:
This has been marked as Won't Finish. The only people being discourteous here have the last name of "Linden".
Well, that's strange. that very same wiki page says the following about the status "resolved":
"This is an implicit assignment back to the reporter of the issue. It is not closed yet, but rather in a state of limbo that depends on the resolution. It's up to the Reporter to decide whether to reopen an issue, or close it." So Maya is absolutely entitled to reopen the issue according to the very same wiki page you quote to threaten Maya with being banned from the Jira. How about actually giving a technical reasoning, as this is a technical forum about bugs and problems? If you target the megaprim hack and disable it, you destroy existing content without - at least according to the current discussion - any technical imminent need to do so. Nobody expects you to make this a supported hack - it's just a question about timing. Your answer to that request is essentially "no, bugger off, we don't". I have to say that attitude you put up here doesn't go well to the tune of having payed several thousand dollar to you guys over the last years ... BigPapi Linden's behavior is egregiously rude.
While what's happening may be the definition of a bug, the fact is that there are many things in SL that are the very definition of a bug which the policy has long been standing that it will never be fixed because of content that relies on it. Such as invisiprims and the alpha sorting issue. Then there's also the llSitTarget teleportation that was fixed and subsequently unfixed. Also, there's a bug in LSL that causes repeated movements in a list for llSetPrimitiveParams to cause >10m movements in one frame. That was not only unfixed, but it was even added as a supported feature to Mono. Just because it's a bug doesn't mean there is a technical need to fix it. Traditional invisiprims are also technically a bug. They also technically cause something to not render when it should be rendering. Invisiprims rely on an 8bit texture. This texture was never intended to be placed on prims. When it is placed on prims, those 8bits get interpretted by the renderer as an alpha texture, but by the culling routines as a solid texture. The result is that any avatars or alpha textures behind it get culled. This bug was fixed at one point but got quickly unfixed due to community outcry. I personally feel that this "bug" should be left in until such a time as the alpha mapping is put in to the client as well, or possibly left in forever. There are problems that will arise if it is fixed. For starters, the only prims that cause this problem are so large as to be griefer material should the bug be fixed. Ontop of that, the prims are too large to have any practical use on an avatar to begin with. Then there's the people who will refuse to update the client who will still run around using it and thus getting false AR reports filed on them for using it in an avatar. Yes, something is not being rendered that technically should be rendered, but the consequences of rendering it far outweigh the consequences of not rendering it. As for it being impossible to do it simultaniously, that's a flat out lie. It can in-fact be done simultaniously. Strictly speaking, if it's impossible to do it simultaniously, then they'd have to unfix the avatar hiding bug inorder to get the alpha mapping put in. Again, BigPapi Linden's behavior while on the BigPapi Linden account reflects directly on Linden Lab. If you're going to represent a company, you don't shout (that is type in all caps) at the user base. Besides that, when the content creators stand up and say "leave this in" it wouldn't hurt to actually sit down and listen about why. To do otherwise is to be willfully disconnected from the needs and desires of the people who actually make SL profitable. No one likes a politician that is out of touch with his or her constituents. Likewise, no one likes a company that is out of touch with the people who make it profitable. The number one rule of business is to know your market. Perhaps instead of being hostile toward the users who feel differently than you, you could come up with some kind of a compromise that will please everyone or at the very least be open minded enough to take our opinions into consideration. Might I also remind Alexa Linden that the "be courteous" rule applies also to Lindens. The whole "one set of rules for us, one set of rules for users" thing is not good for PR. Also, as for this not being the place for opinions, any time it comes down to features to add or remove, or bugs which are useful for content creation, any argument for or against is going to be full of opinions. You can't address the issue without opinions. Did anyone else get an unexplained 1 day suspension? I did!
 I have to agree with the Lindens on this one.
Linden Lab may not always have the best PR but their technical expertise is correct on this issue. This bug did need to be fixed. It was far too strong and unreliable an exploit to be allowed to stay in and leaving it in any longer would have resulted in even more people using it, thus making it even more problematic if removed at a later date. I am certainly looking forward to alpha masking but Linden Lab should not keep this bug in while waiting for alpha masking, which is a very tricky feature to implement, to be finished since it is uncertain exactly WHEN alpha masking will be ready for release. Pandora, if you can show even so much as one practical attachment that causes it to happen due to the presence of a prim that triggers the bug, I'll concede. My thing is, I've only ever seen the bug be triggered by prims that are otherwise completely impractical on an attachment.
I'm being very pragmatic here. I have never seen a prim that would trigger this bug that you would actually want to show up unless you're looking to block peoples views and generally make a nuisance of yourself. That's why I say there's no technical reason to fix this. There is absolutely no practical reason to have a multi-kilometer prim on an attachment. Therefore, fixing the bug only means that people are going to be able to parade around with prims that are multiple kilometers on any given dimension, thus either obscuring peoples views or simply having no visible effect. A 65k * 65k * 65k prim can only show up if one puts a texture on a sphere of that size and turns the sphere inside out as an attachment. Then it obscures the sky. Again, no practical reason to fix it. Pandora, it's the fact that we don't know when the alpha masking will be implemented that people are pushing so hard for this to be left in. The fact is people have used this bug in their avatars, and without alpha masking the existing content will be broken for an unspecified period of time (look at other things that were supposed to be implemented soon after being announced, such as the much asked for server-side Windlight settings). In any other business, if something works people will continue using it until a real fix is created. Linden Lab should follow that trend and not patch this bug until alpha masking is introduced.
Scree is correct. The alpha masking has been being flat out demanded by many content creators for at least half a decade now. And they're only now getting around to announcing that they're going to do it.
Anyone remember how long it took the Havok engine to be updated? There's other features too, such as a materials system that was announced. I haven't seen even so much as one line of code written to that effect. Also, it was announced a very long time ago that we would get llTeleport for LSL (infact, it was even documented in one client update but not implemented). Then there's also the feature of updated, higher resolution avatar models that was announced. Haven't seen that come about either. The history of SL has shown that if a feature is "Coming Soon" then it might be anywhere from years down the road to never. Essentially, they're removing of this bug is most likely due to office politics rather than any technical need (which has yet to actually be shown or otherwise demonstrated to exist). The technical need has only been asserted that it exists. The claim that alpha mapping is "coming soon" to compensate is essentially the old magician's trick of misdirection as far as I'm concerned. If it's "coming soon" then put it into the same release that breaks (fixes) the avatar hiding prims. I'm not saying wait to fix it, I'm saying burn the midnight oil to get alpha mapping put in so that they will both happen at the same time. Or don't fix it at all as there as a technical need to fix the bug has yet to be conclusively shown. You shouldn't be using a hack unless it's something that's obviously harmless, or LL say it's okay. LL's official stance on megaprims has ALWAYS been vague, with no confirmation that it's okay to go around using them, so to use a mega-prim related hack in a product is irresponsible and stupid, I don't think anyone who's used it has any right to complain.
As Nyx Linden said; LL have pointed out several times when asked that it's not a supported feature, it's a bug. If you utilise bugs as features in your products, you do-so at your own risk, having it removed is that risk, so to use the technical expression; suck on it. Haravikk, at one point the Lindens actually fixed the traditional invisiprims. They said it was harmful and blah blah blah. But guess what, invisiprims were added back in.
Rather than saying "it's harmful" or "the Lindens said this" or "the Lindens said that" how about providing actual proof that it's harmful? Also the "suck on it" comment is unnecessary. I would ask that anyone who feels it should be removed show some sort of empirical evidence that leaving the bug in causes any kind of harm or that fixing the bug has any kind of benefit. Simply pointing to vague statements that do not offer any evidence for their statements does not contribute anything more to the discussion. Please provide evidence. Produce an attachment that has a practical use for this bug to be fixed. There are any number of practical reasons to not fix the bug. One of the large ones is the growing community of people making avatars that exploit the bug inorder to produce interesting avatars that were not previously possible without numerous graphical artifacts. The fact is that the argument for and against invisiprims was identical to the one going on about this bug right now. If this bug is fixed, such avatar producers will have to fall back to invisiprims which are visibly inferior in quality as they introduce many ugly artifacts. Also, invisiprims have a tendency to do things such as obscure shiny and alpha textures which may be required to make the avatar work. Quite simply put, fixing the bug lowers the commercial value of Second Life as it amputates an entire avatar market and only serves to punish innovators and deters anyone from producing emergent content. Absolutely all content in SL, even stuff produced with documented, supported features may, at a moment's notice, suddenly become obsolete. Look at the original prims which no longer rez properly. There's also the documented and supported hinges that were later removed. If the attitude is "don't make anything with a bug because it may be removed" then the attitude should likewise be "don't make anything with any feature either because it may be removed." Which of course means "don't make anything." Here is a casein point: Years ago, Jeffery Gomez made a video game on SL called "Primmies". The Lindens gave him an award for having made the game. Shortly after the award was given, they changed the way the LSL interpreter works, thus breaking the game. If even supported, award winning content can be broken and "don't make something because it might get broken by future updates" is the prevailing attitude, then I would serious go so far as to say that noone should ever make anything. They allow megaprims to exist, even after they shut down the hole that was used to create them. You could say that LL has unofficially said it is ok to use them, else why haven't they been removed? The fact is people have found a way to implement something in a way that works, and now LL has come out and said that they'll be removing that so they can implement a correct way to include that functionality, with no mention of when that functionality will be implemented. People would be happy to have the bug fixed if, and only if, they had another way to implement that bug's results at the time of its removal.
I will try to be as clear as possible with this post so there is no confusion.
1) This is a bug. The code that causes this to occur is an error in our source code. Are we breaking content by implementing this? yes. Content that we have warned would be broken. The longer we wait to disable this bug, the more content will be on the grid that will have to be broken. We have chosen to disable this bug now to make it clear to content creators NOT to create and distribute content that relies on this bug. Had we chosen to wait, we would be creating a messy situation that would put a lot of strain on our support system when we do fix it, as more and more avatars are relying on this bug. We are removing this bug for the following reasons: The proposal in this JIRA is not an option for us for the reasons stated above. The bug should be fixed in 1.23 RC1. We will not re-enable this bug. nyx, you're missing my point.
My point is that working, supported, and documented features have been broken in the past. Your concerns are ill founded. What about all the content that was broken due to the removal of a documented feature? What about Primmies by Jeffery Gomez? What about the problems that would be produced by having these prims be rendered? What about the entire market of innovation that can come about? Why not step up the schedule on avatar based alpha mapping? Why not also include that in the same RC? Noone is saying "leave it in for leaving it in's sake". What we're saying is if you're going to take it out, give us a replacement in the same stroke. Here's a brilliant idea. Rush the alpha mapping so that it's included. The usual length of time between feature announcement and feature release is between 3 years to infinity. If you're going to remove this without also providing a replacement to allow the same content market to continue at the same time, then you're lieing to yourself as well as others to say that the alpha mapping is a definite or that it is soon. It might never come out. Then you'll have permanently reduced the commercial value of SL by killing a off an entire branch of emergent content. Ultimately it boils down to this The client is an open source project. Linden Lab no longer has control over it. If the people want it to stay, the feature/bug will stay. The moment Linden Lab slapped GPL on the source code, Linden Lab lost control. People will continue using this bug regardless of the opinion, statements, or client releases of Linden Lab. So, ultimately, fixing this bug when so many people are against it is a futile gesture. Either people won't update to the new client or they'll go with some branched client that still supports the bug. The GPL license on the client means that the client is no longer a dictatorship, it's a democracy. why doesn't linden labs do something really wild and crazy and add a
You Patch IT status to jira throw some of these more wanted features into the group and see if somebody can make a patch for it (okay so the code is a massive hairball that compiles mainly by luck and deep wizardry but..) ---1) This is a bug. The code that causes this to occur is an error in our source code.
So are invisiprims, deformers, megaprims, and a bunch of other really cool and useful things. ---2) The fact that an attached prim can change the extents of your rendered avatar affects both regular and impostor rendering Another benefit as far as I'm concerned, since Avatar Imposters hinders performance. ---3) Every time this bug has been brought up, we have very clearly stated that it is a bug and should not be relied upon. That we will be "fixing" the bug at some arbitrary time in the future. Like when? The alpha mask JIRA? News flash, not everyone combs the JIRA looking for warnings about harmless bugs being fixed. I didn't know this bug would be fixed until a couple of weeks ago. That ---4) In addition, we have stated that users should NOT make and sell avatars that rely on this bug as we intend to break it in the near future. See above. ---5) As was pointed out earlier in this thread, at several times in the past Linden Lab has allowed bugs to remain without fixing them. The result has been the need to continuously re-implement and support these bugs to the point where they are considered critical features. You say that like it's a bad thing. I don't see LL whining about invisiprims. Most of the Lindens I've met that don't use human avatars use them. In the end, SL is for its customers, and you have to listen to them. ---6) We will NOT make the mistake in #5 again in this case. See above. ---7) Already several content creators have been creating and selling avatars that rely on this bug. Because we had no choice. Ever seen an old micro? They don't animate because the avatar mesh is hidden underground. Hiding the avatar mesh some other way is infinitely better since it allows articulation. ---8) The longer we wait to disable this bug, the more such content is created. Again, so? There's still content out there using joints. See the various comments on how easy it is for an end user to replace the megaprim, but how that isn't going to be possible, and will result in customers IMing the creators and LL. ---1) We're concerned about possible unforseen complications of allowing an avatar's extents to be hyper-inflated due to the attachment of huge megaprims. ...What? ---2) Leaving this bug alone would result in more content that relies on it, resulting in more content that we will have to break at some point in the future Addressed several times. ---3) The more content is broken, the more stress is put on our support staff. Waiting until the creation of alpha masks is enabled in the client is not an option. Why? LL has yet to answer that burning question. The more you fail to give a real reason (such as technical issues, etc) the more it looks like you're doing it "because I said so", which reflects very poorly on the company, and SL itself. Doing so will also cause more uproar from the community...which is why I was trying to warn you all last week. It's not that great an inconvenience to me personally to have this broken, I'll just use a viewer that supports it until 1.24. But the customer base is different, they'll keep complaining. And I'm still waiting for an answer on whether 1.23 will be mandatory or not. @ robertltux McCallen: That's a good idea, but I have no idea on how to go about it. I'm not a programmer, just a content creator. It's also possible that the existing code isn't available to the open source community yet. I don't know about that though.
Easy way not to break avs: Leave the bug code in until the alpha skin code is implemented. Once this happens, create a fully alpha'd skin and run a replace query on the inventory database that removes every instance of the megaprim and replaces it with a copy of the alpha skin.
I think every Av builder recognizes some of the risks involved with building and selling on SL. That being said, having LL break an avatar is not the end of the world. If they see this issue has a serious bug, then they have all rights to remove it as quickly as possible, with or without warning. The issue here is that someone discovered this bug (Since it's not a 'feature' the Lindens knew nothing of it) and gave it out to people like wildfire, which they started using. Does LL have to warn anyone about bug and exploit fixes, even if you're using them? No, of course not. Since day one that I've started using the Invisiprims, I cringed in wait that one day they would fix the bug. When the Windlight viewer came out, they caused 168 of my avatars to spontaneously break, which I spent six months fixing. I will tell you now that it is not the end of the world. But I will also tell you that if they intend to fix it, there's nothing you can do to stop them.
The solution now, is to stop selling these avatars that take advantage of this bug. Warn the people that an upcoming viewer is going to break the avatar. And let them know that you will repair the avatar as quickly as you can. I've had thousands of customers wait on me to repair our broken avatars. And all of them waited very patiently for their updates. It's /not/ the end of the world. At least there /is/ an alternative coming out as quickly as they can make it. I actually agree with Jakkal. Mainly the reason I'm still fighting isn't to fix the issue, but to make LL aware of what they're doing, in not paying attention to the people that create their paychecks.
Anyway, I was going to finish up my 1.23 PennySnatcher Survival Kit today, but I can't thanks to the aforementioned 1 day ban. I noticed a few more sales went through before I could pull the products too. The only reason people complain this much about this issue is because of LL's history of 'Coming Soon' never come out.
I'm a programmer too, and I know exactly what they mean when they say a feature is 'Coming Soon'. The way I see it, most of the time they say that, it actually meant "I'm going to look into it soon, but I'm doing somethings else right now". So I'd suggest a linden to come up with a dated plan for the alpha to be released instead of have it hanging in the air with the unknown "Coming Soon". I still don't see the technical difficulty in implement the alpha feature. It should be just a flick of the switch in my opinion. Like removing some "IF/ELSE" somewhere, or add some configs to a command. Unless the feature need some obscure new code, it should have been done in a day. What Nargus is saying is pretty much exactly my point. "Coming Soon" has very little meaning. By fixing (breaking) this bug (feature) and promising to replace its usefulness with something that is "Coming Soon" is basically saying "Great job on all the creative ideas. We love them. But we're taking your tools for making them away and may some day give you enhanced tools for doing even more stuff, but not at this time and maybe not within any of our lifetimes."
"Coming Soon" translates to "Maybe Someday, Assume We Get A Round Tuit" "Coming Soon" translates to "Maybe Someday, Assume We Get A Round Tuit"
availible as a free copy item on my plot on South Heron I think i will pack one up and put it as a freebie in the Bad Wolf Shop (in Fishermans Cove) It's not a tool given or approved by the Lindens. It's a cheat code that someone found as an exploit. For all we know, it could do serious damage, but we're only looking at the tip of the iceberg. I can say that their handling of it needs help, but it's their system and ultimately their call. But I can definitely see why they'd want to get rid of this bug as soon as possible, since people are already throwing a fit about it.
And right now, they aren't saying "Maybe someday". They have actual plans and a planned release version of the viewer they'd listing as the one that will contain the alpha fix. Frankly, I just wish they'd let us put invisible skins on the avatar just to make it easier. I don't know why they have to make it more complex than it is. Basically the only advice I can give is be thankful you have some warning, and take advantage of that time in any way you can. "continuously re-implement and support these bugs to the point where they are considered critical features."
As you mentioned, this has been pretty much a practice at LL, so don't stop now. Implement this megaprim hack as a critical feature as many Avatars are broken without it. Sure, if alpha Avatars worked, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but you are fixing 'bugs' before providing proper alternatives. I hope the camel has a strong back because the straws are piling up. Hold it, everyone. Look back to what BigPapi said, and I quote:
"There is in fact a need to fix this. There's a bug in our visibility calculations that result in some objects that should be visible (in one particular case your avatar) not being visible. While the side-effect is useful for Tiny's, this is none-the-less a bug in the render that NEEDS to be fixed. We are not drawing something that we should be drawing, the exact definition of a bug. Just because the bug is beneficial to some use-cases doesn't make it any less harmful in others. " Now, if you're a Tiny that uses the megaprim hack, have someone try right-clicking yourself in Client 1.22. Are they clickable? Also, think of all the griefers who can hide by using the megaprim hack. It's fixed in RC1 – check the release notes: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release_Candidate/1.23 @Drake: The mega prim is not clickable. Visible prims are clicakble, as is your nametag. As for greifers, they can hide with alpha masking too. But neither method hides your map dot or your nametag, so it's a moot point.
After studying the bugfix compared to the bug. I have news! It will ACTUALLY take reimplementing (assuming you are rewriting all the code from scratch) the BUGFIX every time you update the render engine, not the bug. So the excuse for breaking content is a blatant falsehood. Invisimegaprims hide the entire avatar, and so simply providing a completely masked skin in the library would be enough to fix ALL avatars this "bugfix" breaks. Any content that relies on it now would be easily fixable with such a simple freebie asset. And by far, the people who need an completely hidden mesh for their avatar are smart enough to wear the masked skin once the alpha masking is implemented. But as alpha masking is not in place yet... The rash decision to intentionally and needlessly break content at this point is just, another example of how Linden Labs is turning a deaf ear to the people who have given them support over the years.
Are you really going to change the rendering engine to such an extreme that by the time alpha masking is released that the bug (proving the bugfix is removed) just won't work anymore? I seriously doubt it, and if it is that long, then stop promising us things that may never arrive because "it is too much work". I've already had the bug working just fine in the defered rending enabled clients, so thats obviously not going to break it. either undo you pointless bugfix, or release the alpha masking. One or the eother, it is highly irresponsible to fix a bug JUST "because it is a bug". If said bug is being used as a feature. About the only thing about the invisimegaprims, that users considered undesirable, is the falsely high Avatar Render Cost, which your patch does not change. Well known fact, a lot of the breakthrough features in many art programs and OS's started out as bugs. So don't be in a rush to fix a bug that isn't causing trouble. ESPECIALLY if people are using it. We all love SL, and a great many of us are friends with the lindens. But, corporate politics is the bane of all projects like this one. They take a great idea, and slowly start decaying it until the original idea is but a memory. The corruption has invaded LL, and is slowly eating away at it's heart. If left unchecked LL will become naught but an empty shell. I hope LL can change it's course before that occurs, for once the heart of LL is completely gone, SL will fall apart and the people will all flee the sinking ship. I use this mis-feature for cloaking the avatar and have done so for a long time now.
This hack makes your ARC value incorrectly high. I have found this mis-feature to be the cause of huge arguments between my customers and those people I refer to as "ARC Bullies", who bash, ban, and berrate people who's ARC value is high. Where I am going with this is that it's not a very good mis-feature to start with, as it is drawing attantion to customers by people who are intent of banning them over their ARC. I look forward to the ability to add a true transparent layer to avatars. Although i dont look forward to my shoes breaking as the old invisible prims are also disabled to make it possible. Darling. Every day I spend in Second Life, I do my best to lower my expectations about proper behaviour from Lindens. I mostly do that so I won't be disappointed in them again.
But then something like this happens. Way to go. A Linden blows up in a JIRA entry and starts shouting at people, and the person who gets punished for it is the one who replies to that unprofessional and dickish behaviour. I'm sorry, but after looking through the change log for this issue I have to say that both of the Lindens involved are out of line - and will be grossly out of line should they act on anyone telling them so.
While i will not alter the status of this JIRA entry, I will call for the Lindens involved to live up to their own ToS and CS, as wlel as their own guidelines for this Issue Tracker: This IS a valid issue and one that will affect content creators and consumers alike. @Darling - Your shoes won't stop working. We are not removing invisiprims. We are adding alpha masks and the ability to fully hide your avatar meshes in addition to currently existing invisiprims. The backend work to display alpha masks is already a part of 1.23 and we currently have a team implementing the functionality that will allow you to edit the new functionality.
i personally agree with the lindens on this one. the key statement is that:
4) In addition, we have stated that users should NOT make and sell avatars that rely on this bug as we intend to break it in the near future. i see this as a case where the public didn't listen and ignore the shiny gem stone that causes the cave of treasure to collapse. i say, be patient, and maybe help them along, instead of kicking and screaming. they DO make all this stuff for the good of the program. @Jeran42 Claxton: It doesn't count if the watchman's warning is whispered in the general direction of the village.
@BigPapi Linden
YAY Shoes are safe, go ahead and alter anything you like... my shoes are safe! Seriously though, the RC viewer is not displaying any HUD texture that has alpha. OWCH! Darling (shoes are safe) Brody! Expressing my disgust at the Linden handling of this.
Oh come on people, since when has anything involving a megaprim been officially supported by LL?
If you use hacks you have to be prepaired to re-write, re-build, and re-deliver the upgrades to your customers. @Lindens It would be nice is there was a script controlled method to make an avatar invisible. That is the only functionality that will be removed by a switch to clothing based invisibility. Perhaps a special texture (like invisible prims) that will only effect the avatar and not the water behind it? Darling Brody votes for this proposal
The original shouting by the aptly-named BigPapi Linden doesn't bother me so much, that's definitely par for the course, and in fairness, he seems mainly driven here not by tekkie literalism and coder fastidiousness, which often hobbles progress at LL, but something different, which is fear of resident anger/campaigning/lawsuits when future stuff for sale today is later broken. All understood. But to ban the person objecting to him for a day is absolutely over the top. It's typical of other outrageous and inappropriately severe ban action and threats (such as I've been subjected to) on the JIRA. Lighten up Lindens. You have your own real internal JIRA where you really do stuff anyway. The P-JIRA is just a sop for us to have the illusion of democracy. So there's no need to oppress it further when it's such a limited expression of opinion in the first place. 1. The bug was identified as a bug/hack whatever
2. LL warned people NOT to build content around it because it would eventually get fixed. 3. People ignored it and built entire business's around it 4. LL finally gets to fixing the BUG/HACK/EXPLOIT 5. Hilarity ensues. The fact is, you were all TOLD NOT TO RELY ON THIS HACK/BUG/EXPLOIT. You were WARNED not to. You chose to IGNORE that warning from LL. They are under NO obligation to tell you WHY this needs to be fixed now, and unless your last name is Linden, you cannot possibly KNOW why anyway. You played the game and you got burnt. That what happens when you choose to ignore warnings and just proceed on your own merry way in false confidence that YOU are correct despite the warnings. BlueClaw Diesel Said:
"The fact is, you were all TOLD NOT TO RELY ON THIS HACK/BUG/EXPLOIT. You were WARNED not to." When? @Maya Remblai
Obviously you are either blind or just refuse to accept the fact that you ignored the warning LL gave when they said NOT to build content around this bug because it would eventually get FIXED, I have ZERO sympathy for you or anyone else that chose to ignore the warning from LL and KNOWINGLY BUILT AROUND BUGGED MECHANICS. There are several statements from various Lindens in this thread stating many warnings were given about this, its YOUR fault you chose to IGNORE these warnings and, as a result, did a dis-service to you and your customers. @BlueClaw Diesel
I never heard any warning from LL. 1. According to BigPapi the alpha masking code is already in the client, but that the ability to edit that functionality doesn't exist yet.
2. Undoing their 'bug fix' (aka a cheap hack) in the source, reveals that the invisimegaprims still work with the changed code. 3. The number of people who are upset about this breaking of content prematurely, and actually know what any of this means outnumber those who agree with the lindens and know what this means. 4. Coming soon, is pretty much what was posted on the alpha masking jira post 2 YEARS ago, so why should we expect it to arrive soon, just because you say it will. 5. EVERYONE wants to know WHY they have to be disabled, since a singular all invisible avatar mask, would fix 100% of avatars that would get broken if you were to wait until alpha masking was available to patch it. 6. Not a singular creator would mind the invisimegaprims breaking, if alpha masking was already available 7. If alpha masking truly was coming soon, i doubt you would really mind not fixing it till then, considering how easy it would be to fix EVERY single AV that relies on it. Thus we must assume, that it is NOT coming soon. 8. Not listening to the creators in secondlife is contrary to the long standing policies of linden labs. 9 The so called bugfix is a singular IF statement, that simply ignores megaprims in it's calculations. That's not a fix, that's a cheap workaround. it's not the same thing. 10. The client is supposed to be an opensource project, but the lindens no longer pay any mind to the will of the community. Which is highly contrary to the purpose of opensource software. Simply put, Lindens (newbs need not reply, just lindens) I will not reopen this issue. Not because it should stay closed. But because with the way the lindens are acting, i am pretty sure i'd get a ban for it. @BlueClaw Diesel
There were NO WARNING anywhere I can see other than this JIRA, which is already too late. The creator would have to already used it to care to look in the JIRA for the issue. To me, "WARNING" need to included a post in the blog where everyone can easily see. If they don't want the main blog clustered with developer warnings, then make another where developer can watch. And post all warnings there! I must also repeat kimmie Loveless's point (4), that said: "Coming soon, is pretty much what was posted on the alpha masking jira post 2 YEARS ago, so why should we expect it to arrive soon, just because you say it will." The word "COMING SOON" is no longer acceptable answer here, short of given specific date. So let me get this straight.....YOU failed to see the warning or listen to LL TELL you NOT to build content around a BUG and now that YOU disregarded said warning and are about to pay the price for your recklessness YOU are complaining?
LL is under NO obligation to cater to the "Im so important I can build content around a bug and get away with it" crowd for one second. You disregarded the warning, now you are getting burnt. Deal with it. SMART content creators, the ones who have a BRAIN, DIDNT BUILD THEIR CREATIONS AROUND A KNOWN BUG. You're kind of treading on thin ice BlueClaw, considering the popular content creators watching. Anyway, we keep telling you - LL didn't warn us. We're not psychic, we can't see warnings posted someplace we can't see.
PJIRA abuse can be AR'd. Just put the URL of the JIRA in the location and proceed accordingly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- copying a comment from a different PJira issue to here as it is quite relevant... (removed some text specific to other issue) I would also like to remind people of the Be Courteous guidelines in posting in Pjira. This is not a forum nor is it a blog. This is a tool used primarily by the engineers and developers. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PJIRA#Be_courteous Note: The Second Life Community Standards apply to all areas of Second Life, including the Second Life Public Issue Tracker. Any Resident who disregards these guidelines may be banned from future use of the issue tracker. Examples of specific behavior or actions which may result in removal from the Issue Tracker:
BlueClaw, if you're so sure we received adequate warning about this, then please post the URLs of the warnings. Bear in mind, JIRA comments and forum posts don't count, as no one is willing to spend half the day searching through these to see what they should or shouldn't do when creating things. It needs to be posted in a prominent place on LL's website, and needs to be repeated for those who missed the warning the first time.
Oh gee, the content creators who created content based on bugged mechanics are watching me, oh gee whatever shall i do?
Its not my job to post anything, LL stated you were warned, you failed to see it, end of discussion. I want to clarify some points regarding what proper procedure should be for builders who discover and / or start relying on a new bug.
First some background. Second Life and the SL viewer are extremely complicated pieces of software. The amount of freedom that we give residents with regards to building and content creation is very large. As a result of the many, many options available for building, the number of actual possible combinations of parameters is for all practical purposes infinity (in reality it is an extremely large almost unbound number gotten by multiplying the number of possible permutations for each parameter by each other). What this means is that even with a QA team 100 times the current size we would be unable to test all permutations. Thus, residents often find corner case bugs from random combinations of parameters and functionality (attachments, scripts, etc) that we have simply never tested before. This happens often and many of these bugs come and go. What sometimes happens next can be very problematic. If you are a content creator and have either discovered a new bug, please report it to us as quickly as possible to we can triage it and fix it if serious. Please do not assume that it's mere existence means that you should actively use it or even worse sell items that rely on it. The exceptions to this are few and far between (invisiprims, existing megaprims, etc) and they are the exception, not the rule. We particularly do not like attempts to quickly build as much content with a bug as possible to purposefully try to force the perpetual support of a bug as a new feature. Giving extremely public warnings about this every time a new bug is discovered is simply not possible and would also incorrectly reinforce that not having actively been told means that it is ok, which is not the case. That said, when this particular bug was brought to our attention we began messaging during office hours and in related jira's that it should not be relied on. When we realized that some content creators intended to continue selling items relying on it we were forced to make the bug critical and make it a top priority for fixing. We strive to minimize the amount of broken content at all times and were thus forced to fix the behavior as quickly as possible in order to do so. At no point was "continue to support it temporarily" ever an option. There is no "temporary support" in Second Life, doing so would actually mean having to support it indefinitely and it would not be possible to take it away even when alpha masks and full avatar invisibility are released (like invisiprims). As such, fixing the bug immediately became a necessity in order to minimize the impact on innocent residents who purchase content that relies on the bug. The only way that we can all minimize the effect of new bugs or their removal in the future is if they are reported to us promptly and they are never relied on when creating content. Otherwise please be aware that you do so at your own risk and with the knowledge that the bug can be fixed at any point in time. Public warnings is very possible, it's called the second life Blog, i didn't find out about this through Jira, i started using it, by someone i knew finding out themselves through experimentation. Many other people have done the same. If something moves up to critical do to people using it, put it on the blog. Because not everyone reads every article on Jira. In fact, i doubt even you read them all.
And temporary support is not permanent support. Your claim that you would have to support it forever is further fuels the belief that the alpha masking is not coming out soon. It's not exactly like it's be difficult to undo the "bugfix" i could do it with a few inline comments. And there is no reason not to listen to the community on this, the client is an opensource project. It was made opensource for 2 reasons, so that the community could (A) assist in the bug fixes (B) help guide the development of secondlife. You would be causing the least grief, by waiting for the alpha masking, i would personally give a full perm fully alphamasked skin to anyone that wants one. But the alpha masking isn't anywhere to be seen. sure the code is in the client, partly, but alot of code is in the clients, that may never actually see public release. The longer a feature goes without reaching the public, the longer it is likely that it will never be released. You want us to stop? then give us a release date for the alpha masking, some time this year, and stick to it. Otherwise, your insistence that it needed fixed, shows nothing more than corporate policy BS, and no actual dedication to the customers. And yes, i do say customers, not users. A great many of us pay tier, and a few of us, even paid for our accounts creation. What i really find interesting, is the AV on your SL profile. Without alpha masking support, your AV would require either invisiprims, or invisimegaprims, and i do not see the alpha problems associated with invisiprims, suggesting, that your own velociraptor AV is now proken, and will remain broken until alpha masking is finished. When we ask, that invisimegaprims stays in until alpha masking is released, is not exactly pulling a tooth. It's simply, that we were using something, LL is making something better. And we want to continue using invisimegaprims till it's ready. When it's ready, we'll likely all have fully masked skins in a freebie box, right next to the AVs we sell that use the bug, as well as remove the invsimegaprims from the product. We will pretty much continue asking that invisimegaprims be reinstated until there is a definite when, for alpha masking, that is not somewhere in the realm of "coming soon" to never. When? next week? next month? august? You placed this bug as critical, because people used it. You should place alpha masking as critical as well, because you broke content and it would be used for fixing that broken content. I doubt you will reinstate invisimegaprims, and keep them until alphamasking is done, but it would be the right thing to do. Many people have left secondlife for opengrids, due to LL's bad policy making. Frankly, i agree with many of their reasons. But LL is not alone in the bad policy department. a university study shows that 50% of business policies are detrimental to the business. (I was going to cite the article, but can't seem to find it) BlueClaw, the reason I asked you to look for the warnings was so you could see that they weren't posted in a place where people couldn't fail to notice them.
And I'm not a content creator (though I am friends with some). I'm just someone who's sick of LL promising things and not following through, especially when those things have been promised a long time ago and will enhance the inworld experience. My suggestions at this point
1 Comment Lock this entry. This "Bug" Godwined about a half dozen comments ago 2 Put the alpha masking feature as a priority feature of say mid 1.24 series and assign at least one coder to this feature on a Finish or Fire basis 3 promote this feature and the related mesh upgrades to the Open Source folks (maybe have the FoF coder introduce him/herself) 4 as service to the community i will provide shop space for a set of "Standard Alpha'd Skins" when the feature comes out (shop is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fishermans%20Cove/179/182/51/ oh and as a side note i had to do a complete rebuild of my shop because i "dropped" a GigaPrim @BigPapi If you're not willing to make an effort to communicate with at least some of the community, you should leave well enough alone. I'm fairly active in the SL community as a whole and I never heard a breath about this issue from LL.
I agree with everyone else, if you really are bringing alpha masking and the rest of 1.24 in the near future, give us some proof. LL doesn't have a good reputation for sticking to its promises, so you'll have to forgive us for being cautious. Hmmm seems there should be a modification made to the TOS of SL. They are lacking something that is in MMOs regarding this issue: The use of a bug or exploit is not supported and use of such code flaw can result in removal of account. If a bug is discovered it should be reported and not utilized. In the case of SL it should also include a notice that using a bug in created content is at the creators own risk and that LL can and will remove the bug should it be deemed neccesary for the stability of the product (SL and the grid). Having had that in the ToS before this started would have solved the whole "we warned you but you didn't listen" issue since that would be a blanket policy and they wouldn't be required to say anything about each specific bug. Beyond that it's just common sense that you can expect content to break if it's made with what has been labelled a bug, especially one involving something else that was already considered a hack and near-exploit. Invisiprims became a 'neccessary evil' because they didn't already have alpha masking and as stated they let it slide as a bug for so long that when they did try to fix it there was so much broken that they had to re-add the bug back in (and yes the rendering engine changed heavily with Windlight and the invisiprim bug wasn't included in it, they basically had to deliberately 'break' Windlight to make invisiprims work again).
Also has anyone tried to use some of the ancient scripts from the early days of SL under current viewers? Many of them don't work at all because they rely on LSL commands that are no longer around. No content is guaranteed to work forever and not all removed features/bugs are given new methods. It's just something one has to learn to deal with. I would like to point out that, even to this day, there is NO replacement for Invisiprim. Had there been said policy and the use of Invisiprims been banned since day one, there would have been NO tiny avatars, and certainly no bone-avatars as well as various robotic avatars that need to be rid of human parts.
Had there been no Invisiprims and said hacks, whole lines of avatars and business would have not been possible. Don't want people to use hacked code? Make it possible for them to do so with supported feature! Something as simple as hidden and replace avatar parts needed to be supported in virtual world with this complexity. @Grazel:
The bug in question, does not affect system stability, it effects linden ego. The bug is also client side, and the client is opensource. Meaning the community is supposed to have a say in what is a bug, and what is a feature, but the lindens seem to not understand that part of the opensource concept. As for old scripts that don't work, no command has actually been removed from LSL, only depreciated. Which means they are still there, but new commands with better functionality have been implemented that you should use instead. When switching from Havok1 to Havok4 physics, some scripts stopped working. Because in havok4 a lot of bugs were fixed in the script-physics bindings. Bugs that things like Swimmer relied on. Those scripts were fixable with a rewrite, and even performed better afterwards with less script lag. There is no replacement for the functionality this bug provides. The only possibly replacement, is a 2 year old promise, that shouldn't have taken even 6 months to implement. Thusly, we are reasonably doubtful, given LL's history that we will see this functionality soon. SL is not a game, it is a half opensourced 3d chat system with user created content as it's selling feature. Setting up the TOS like those of MMO's is not realistic, as SL is a completely different animal. The SL TOS is far more specific as to what is bannable, as some bugs are actually very useful, and this has been respected until now. Were the lindens to be providing us with the long promised alpha masking (been waiting 2 years now), not a single person here would have an issue with this bug fix. But they are not, and possibly it will be another 2 years before they ever do, if at all. SL has a long history of promising features and taking many many years, or not following through at all. As an example of thier promises not coming to fruition. Lets look at SL's physics. The recent Havok4 upgrade was great and all. But as i'm sure you know, we had been promised havok2 4 years prior to that as a "coming soon", and that never came about. There are few lindens that actually work, most of them spend most of the day chatting like most of the people in SL. I've spent days hanging with various linden code monkey's. The way they work so little, it almost seems as if they have an outdated coding policy. Such as "fix atleast one bug a week". In such a scenario, they would fix, one bug a week, with the easiest being priority and would resist such a bugfix being undone as it would mean they would have to fix one of the harder bug fix's in order to keep their paycheck. I am not saying that is how it is, i do not know their employee policies for any of the various linden types. I am simply saying that, that is one of the few possibilities i can think of that would explain their resistance to us using this bug until alpha masking is completed, if it ever is. With another possibility being, that the company has been stagnating, in such a case, corporate policies tend to change for the worse, and are followed despite a different path being more logical. From a non-micro avatar point of view.. I didn't know this bug existed until i got an item on Xstreet called "invisible avatar mesh " which did, literally, hide the mesh of the avatar, leaving only attachments. I come to find out this is some megaprim bug.
Now, i thought to myself "Wow, this would REALLY be useful for furries with full prim bodies, as well as robots, and mecha avatars. I'll give this to a few people i know" and now, it's been "fixed" or broken, whatever. is the next thing to be "fixed" going to be the bug that allows people to make the avatar mesh huge (warped) for macro furries? are you going to fix invisiprims? How about megaprims, we were told those were a bug, and may not be kept, but then after mono, we were told megaprims were made permanent. Personally, i think the alpha on avatar mesh sounds good, but what will be the extent? Lets say I'm wearing one of my catgirl (neko) avatars, will i be able to hide my human (avatar mesh) ears, so i don't look like i have four ears? at current there's no way to do this, invisiprims would just give me a hole in my head, and hair looks weird when i edit it to cover the ears . Now, before anyone jumps on me, i'm NOT saying to remove the huge avatar (macro) glitch, nor invisiprims, despite that they are scripted. Also, no, i don't want megaprims fixed either, sometimes they make building large structures MUCH easier @ Naomi: The bug that stretches out an avatar is called deforming, and there's a JIRA asking for full support of it: VWR-2374
Alpha masking hides polygons, which means putting a mask on your head would create a hole. That's just how 3D works. Hiding your ears without the hole would take a morph target to smooth out the polygons, which SL doesn't currently have. :/ @maya Well, guess that means still no hiding of ears. Maybe they could make the ear size slider take them down to NOTHING ?
and i'm voting for deformations. I've seen how it makes dragons and other avatars better (flapping wings (arms)) , so i'm all for it. either way, the transparent on avatar mesh will make things easier for people with artificial limbs (robotic, steampunk), and furries, since they won't have to mess with ugly invisiprims and water/alpha texture problems. So i'm still all for it. @ Naomi: Flapping wings are done through animating the arms, not deforming them. The deformation just allows you to make the arms longer, and therefore have bigger wings.
For what it's worth, the code added to 1.23 to break this is extremely simple. Just find this bit:
LLVector3 distance = (ext[1] - ext[0]); // Only add the prim to spatial extents calculations if it isn't a megaprim. Just comment out the if (distance.mV[0] < max_attachment_span && distance.mV[1] < max_attachment_span && distance.mV[2] < max_attachment_span) part and the extra brackets to match 1.22's code. I'd compile this myself, but I haven't used these compilers before and haven't yet gotten it to compile the unchanged code yet. Keep in mind that compiling 1.23 without this code will only change what you see. Any other resident using 1.23 RC (and later using the release viewer once it becomes the official release) will not see your avatar as invisible. So while doing so can be used for machinima or other local uses to fully hide your avatar, commenting out that code will not change what others see like invisiprims currently do or alpha masking will later. As such, keep in mind that other residents will wonder why your tiny has a normal human avatar growing from the top of their head.
Um, anybody able to compile code would know that anyway, and the same holds true for people like me who are using 1.22 until alpha masking comes out. That's why the original versions of my micros have a helpful PSA message written on the back of the avatar mesh's head.
Go fix Ofcourse we know, that's why we are passing out modded clients to friends. Since the lindens don't want to do the responsible thing, and let us keep the hiders until the alpha masking is released, if ever.
@scree
I know, i meant BIG wings. I think i have a dragon avatar from Grendels that uses deformed arms for big dragon wings @ Naomi: Dragons from Grendel's don't use any deforming (put on the AO without any other prims to see this). The quadruped dragons from Seawolf use deforming across the whole avatar, not just the wings.
@BigPapi Linden
"As such, keep in mind that other residents will wonder why your tiny has a normal human avatar growing from the top of their head. " They will probably think it the result of a hedious teleport accedent. Like the old days when ya hair got stuck on ya bum. hehehe I'm looking forward to the new invisible layer of clothing. What was the name of that king who was given invisibel clothing and told only a fool cant see it, and walked naked down the street until a small child started laughing? can we name this new feature after that king? Darling BRody Wasn't a king, was an emperor. But i second, the naming, of the perhaps never to be seen alpha masking feature after that emperor.
Well a quick trip to wikipedia reveals, the emperor from the tale never had a name. But a later retelling, in the form of a kid's opera, called him King Pomádé. So lets get an all tranparent Pomade, to fix my AVs into the library pronto! Hmm... on a serious note, the client side support is supposed to be in already, sans UI changes. I would assume the server already supports it, as if i remember the bodypart objects are actually in plain text after all... So, hmm... I think i'm going to try to get a fully masked skin made before the feature is fully released... quickest way will probably be to upload a raw skin file, with the changes needed. Going to have to study the changed bodypart processing code, and mod a client. Dont really have time for this, but i want my dang AVs to work again. @Darling and BigPapi: Actually most of them will assume either a glitch, or their own viewer is having issues.
With the number of third party viewers, and various client side effects, it's impossible to be sure one's own avatar will look the same to anyone else. Ability to disable attached lights and particles, and visual mute, anyone? Also, Darling, the point of the invisible layer is it hides ALL of the avatar mesh that it's applied to. IE there's nothing there, not even a naked avatar.
@kimmie: I don't have the coding knowledge to do that, though I'd love to see it done. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. This 'hack' need to be added back in till the avatar masking is ready and available for use. This has broken many avatars and put many more projects on hold since 'normal' invisiprims cause too many problems. STOP REMOVEING WORKING STUFF WITHOUT HAVEING A REPLACEMENT READY!
Patch attached. Tested in the latest RC code.
EDIT: I'd recommend waiting until the next RC to use it though, as the currently available RC source is extremely buggy. The latest Public Nightly is much better, so once that goes to RC and its code is made available, that will make a better patch candidate. (I'm still using 1.22 for work because of that, even though I have patched 1.23) This is quoted from the release notes for the 1.23 version of the Second Life viewer.
"Important Note: This fix addresses a bug in SL visibility calculations which has allowed some objects that we require to be visible (e.g. avatars) to be rendered invisible. While the side-effect of this bug has been useful to some builders in creating tiny avatars, its potentially harmful application has necessitated that it be fixed. Any content created by the exploitation of this bug will be broken in 1.23. An alpha-masking feature is currently in development and will be made available in a future release. " One word. BULL! How is this 'potentially harmful'? Aside from Linden Labs looking bad cause the game's users are finding tricks they never thought of? Put it back how it was, with no bullcrap about 'potentially harmful application', or push that alpha-masking out ASAP! |
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New Feature
Resolved
Major
Switch from megaprim hiding to alpha mask should be simultaneous
Take a look at the screenshot I just uploaded (PennySnatcher). It's an animated micro, and its whole (prim) body is hidden by the avatar mesh. That means it's impossible to build without the megaprim hack (invisiprims would prevent selecting the visible prims). This isn't the only example of such a thing, just one I had a screenshot of already, and one of my more popular products. I reiterate, SIMULTANEOUS hack broken + mask enabled. It'll be easier on everyone that way. It's a lot easier than trying to update things to use invisiprims, and then having to update again when masks come out. Only needing to update around the megaprim bug means the update is easy too: "Delete this one object, and use this thing instead" is a lot easier than "Ok, y'all wait for a couple of weeks while I update the prim work to not have invisiprims on it."