Matthew Traum is an engineer with a blog called Design News. He writes in this article that he's spent some time covering SL and its potential for benefiting engineers, who will be able to tinker with complex systems without having to actually build those systems in RL, thus saving time and money.While he's correct about that, a commenter on the site also reminds us that it's a complete pain to have to recreate existing CAD models using SL's closed prim creation system. Not being a content creator myself, and having only limited experience with the building tools, I can't speak to how quickly the average user can get up to speed in creating a model of any complexity. However, as Spin Martin has been talking about a lot recently, the other burgeoning virtual worlds, including whatever it is Google's up to, feature the killer app of being able to import 3D models from other programs, like the 3D Warehouse.
I don't know if it's possible at this point to add this functionality to SL, but it certainly seems like something LL should be concerned about. In a platform that touts user creation, it seems foolish to limit the creativity of its users to a proprietary set of tools. Open us up, LL!
1. I'll probably be shot down in flames for suggesting this, but how about...
Make more complex build tools, including import options, available to premium paying members only!
The existing build-tools should always be available to everyone but more advanced options could be a great incentive to become a premium member, especially for content producers. These could include import options, personal local backups (of items you make inworld), unlimited IM's (to keep in touch with customers), more group slots, more group options (like better employer/employee options) etc etc.
Trying to run even a small hobby-business in SL is continually hampered and limited by stupid limitations placed in the system by LL. They need to remove these limitations - at least for those of us willing to make a (small) regular financial commitment to SL.
Posted at 9:09AM on Oct 18th 2007 by Hal