Saturday, August 31, 2019

The Problem with Mesh, Blender and Second Life


Enter "Second  Life" in to any search engine and the same question will eventually pop up.

"How do I make money in Second Life?"

Linden Labs promotes the platform as a way to "Earn Money: Start a business & earn real profits from the virtual world."

There is plenty of money to be made as an escort, real estate flipper, builder or fashionista. And sure, you can be a fashion designer, like the avatar pictured on the front page of the Second Life website.

But to the new user, it's a little misleading.

If you've already mastered Photoshop or Gimp, you can probably manipulate textures well enough to create clothing by purchasing blank mesh items from the Marketplace and applying your own. The same applies to fashion, accessories, furniture... just about anything.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's a business model that supports the mesh creator and allows more Second Life residents to express their creativity without having to learn complicated software.

But do you really want to sell the exact same dress (or couch) that everyone else is selling?

If you truly want to design your own mesh creations (and mesh is what sells) then you'll have to learn Blender.

I dabbled with Blender back in the day, when sculpties were just coming out. I got pretty good at it. Then I fell in love and lost my mind, following someone else around, looking cute and playing dumb. I left after that, and when I came back, mesh had happened and I really didn't have a clue what was going on.

Now, I could probably relearn the software. I've watched some videos and read more forum posts and blogs than I care to admit. I come from a technical background. I've spent a significant portion of my adulthood staring at blueprints and manipulating 3D models during my career in industrial sales.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know I could do it, but why would I want to? That's a significant time investment, spent off the grid, to learn something that I could only use outside of SL.

And that is the problem.

I feel like LL is shooting themselves in the foot. They advertise SL as a platform where you can make "real money" but the popularity of mesh has resulted in most residents spending all their time either off the grid trying to learn a new skill or logged on and not speaking to anyone because they're so caught up in running the business that LL promised them.

Is anyone having fun anymore? Second Life shouldn't be as stressful as the first.

Plus, there's the added problem of really bad mesh strewn around everywhere, effecting performance, due to an increasing number of residents who only care if they can sell what they've made, not if it is of good quality. There's one well known furniture designer who makes beautiful stuff, but it takes forever to rez beyond  a giant triangle.

For myself, I'm content buying enough $L each month to feed my house buying addiction, exploring the grid for blog fodder and hanging out on my front porch, seeing what the neighbors have been up to. There are already plenty of mesh creators out there who are leaps and bounds more talented than I will ever be and I'm happy to pay them for their skills.

Admittedly, I'd love to find a way to make some extra grid cash so I could justify paying additional land fees. There's a neighboring abandoned parcel I've had my eye on.

I guess I could invest in a headset and do the voice escort thing, but I'm afraid I'd crack up laughing. Also, all the moaning and unnnnnngggggg sounds might scare the dogs.

Anywho, that's what I think. What's your take? Let me know in the comments!

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