Black Dragon 64x - Update 3.1.6 "Selective Dragon"

Time for a new update and some stuff i'd like to go over.

This time it will include a non-AVX version again.


For this update i've completely overhauled the entire Poser window again, i split it off from the Animation Manipulator (both are now separate menu entries and windows) and made some major changes in how you navigate the Poser, you'll notice 2 distinct new things in it, a big long button on the right, this will open both the pose list as well as the animator, both needed to create basic animations as before, now however they will replace the main layout. There's also a new button that when pressed will open the pose list separately and extend the window to the right, allowing you to save, load and make changes to poses quickly without having to navigate between tabs constantly. This change was made for the upcoming official implementation and i thought it would be a good idea to clean it up a bit when i'm splitting it off. Feedback is welcome.

I fixed two small issues reported to me, such as "High Precision Normals" not immediately taking effect and the Sky "East Angle" spinner not working properly, while doing so i fixed several tiny other things in those files as well and increased the precision you can control the "East Angle" with.

The rest is mostly just internal cleanup and preparation to bring the Poser into official which brings me to the next topic:


The Poser is going to Linden Labs. I've had a first meeting yesterday, we talked a few things through, talked about some problems and how to possibly fix them as well as some rough plans how to build on this feature in the future. The bad news is, as it stands now it doesn't look good for server side synchronization. This is a major bummer as it was number one reason to make it official in the first place, on top LL is also very interested in a proper export feature which will in turn bring its own set of new issues regarding permissions and the ability to copy/steal poses (not that they are worth anything anyway when everyone can just create them at any time anywhere). My biggest problem with the missing synchronization and added exporter is that it will look like a money grab to people and i'll basically the one on the chopping block for this. Don't get me wrong, i got no problem putting my head on a chopping block if i think its worth it (such as turning all pose makers against me because their poses are now useless now that everyone can create them easily). I don't want my head on a chopping block though if its just for the sake of making me look bad and that's what i feel this is going to end up in. People will be happy to hear the poser coming to official, then they will be sad and disappointed that it does not fix it's on flaw, that it's completely local, and instead i offer an exporter that makes you pay 10L$ every time you want to show a pose to someone, regardless of whether you are ever going to use it again or not, not to mention that the original goal of the poser, fixing misaligned and unfitting poses would ultimately be destroyed with the exporter feature. Why is this? The exporter requires some changes to the poser that will limit its usage depending on certain conditions, one way LL suggested would be checking all running animations and whether you got permissions for them, what sounds nice is actually a very very tricky and most likely already failed attempt at limiting the poser, checking all running animations for permissions and then disabling the exporter means you'd never ever be able to export at all, completely eliminating the export from the get go and thus eliminating any way to show a pose. Then my own suggestion was to put you into T pose, so in order to "copy" a pose you'd have to make it from scratch, that way it would be truly yours, even if it was exactly the same pose, you made it, it's yours, the problem with this approach is that it destroys the posers intend of giving you the ability to easily and quickly fix unfitting poses, it would be a disaster, you'd need to create a whole new pose when you were just trying to fix your current pose real quick. Imagine sitting on a chair and your legs and hands clip a bit, in order to fix this you'd have to recreate the entire pose from scratch, this is less than sub-optimal, this is horrible design and goes against what the poser is supposed to do. Besides, the exporter on a user perspective is a huge cash grab, every time you want to show your friend your pose, you'd have to upload it, 10L$, every time you make small adjustments, 10L$, every time you go to a club or any other place, sit down and fix up your pose you'd obviously want everyone to see it, 10L$, quickly you'd be paying 10L$ for every step you make and the poser would quickly be disregarded as a quick cash grab with a big flaw, in this case AnyPose would win and you'd still be required to pay 1000's of L$ for this tool to make rough poses.

I don't like this. I don't like this at all.

I made the poser to fix up broken or unfitting poses on the fly, i made it quickly accessible and easy to work with so anyone can do it with some time and patience. It's only flaw is the inability for others to see it and without doing some hacky Viewer-to-Viewer networking there is no way for me to achieve this, i absolutely NEED server side synchronization to make this work properly, the exporter is NOT an option, neither a replacement nor a workaround. It's an optional feature to expand upon the poser and use it for permanent content creation and content sharing.

A big issue with poses created with the poser is that it allows fine tuning any pose so much that you can create poses that are perfectly fitted for your very own avatar and possibly a very specific scene and position or even another Avatar, this pose is completely unique to you and this very situation, uploading it would be completely meaningless, no one else can use it because it does not fit them and even with the poser they wouldn't be able to fix it because the poser wouldn't allow re-uploading the pose again unless you gave permissions and lets be honest, in the current situation, who gives mod permissions today? No one. This is a HUGE issue.

I will definitely keep pushing server side synchronization, i will talk with the Lindens again about this but even if we get it we most likely won't get it in the first iteration, it will be a major project that is going to be something i'll be working on over time, i'll be pushing more updates, improvements, fixes and such as i test them out in my Viewer and as time passes on and new requests and feedback both from Linden Labs and other users come in. I sure hope this is worth it.