✨ Feature Requests

  • Search existing ideas before submitting- Use support.secondlife.com for customer support issues- Keep posts on-topicThank you for your ideas!
Lighting Fixes and Implemention of Global Illumination
It is now more crucial than ever to address the default point lighting and spotlights in Second Life, given the introduction of PBR materials. The point lights will always pass through walls, regardless of the presence of reflection probes. This has been the case and has not been rectified to this day. The number of spot lights is restricted to two. Once that limit is reached, they cease to cast shadows or function correctly, they will behave as point lights and will also pass through walls. This impedes the ability of both creators and consumers to accurately illuminate a scene in a manner that is both consistent and visually appealing. Furthermore, I recommend that the lighting and render engine of Second Life undergo a comprehensive overhaul before the inclusion of features such as Displacement maps. This will ensure that the lighting in scenes is consistent and provides a more realistic experience than it currently does. Additionally, global illumination should be incorporated into the rendering process. This is similar to the default setting in the majority of contemporary games, which ensures that any object, from the most basic cube to the most extravagant home available on the marketplace, appears visually appealing. And it ultimately grants us creators more autonomy and eliminates the necessity of baking textures to replicate the global illumination effect, which we still have to do, if we want a realistic looking scene, even with PBR materials and reflection probes. And also is the reason why creators chose to advertise their objects using Renders, instead of Ingame screenshots, which is deceptive, and should be unnecessary. The following images illustrate the information I have provided. I created a simple scene that consisted solely of white walls and a white ceiling, with a blue floor and default PBR materials. However, the blue reflectivity of the surfaces is unappealing when a light is introduced. In contrast to the second image, which illustrates the same scene in Blender with global illumination and accurate rendering, the light is distributed more evenly and realistically, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the materials. This is the proper approach, as it eliminates the need to bake scenes. And as simple as this structure is, it looks visually appealing. I am concerned that the displacement maps will present the same issue, or even worse, in the current engine. This is not an appealing appearance. The first image with the rocks is what i am expecting. The latter image, which depicts the building, demonstrates the appropriate rendering of a displacement map. Before incorporating any additional features, such as displacement, parallax, HDRI, or any other feature, first, please enhance the lighting engine to ensure that any scene, regardless of its creation, is rendered in a visually appealing manner by default. This will give Second Life a more contemporary appearance and make it more user-friendly. I am confident that the playerbase would be extremely grateful. And likely people would return returning from competitors, such as VRchat. Which has a modern engine, being that it uses unity. In conclusion: Modern texture mapping methods necessitate a modern engine that is capable of rendering them accurately; otherwise, they are merely a form of deception that will not cause any significant changes.
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Re-evaluate land costs and more
As its known that most users in second life cannot afford land. Premium users, free users, new users, old users. It was told years ago the cost of land, sims, homesteads, would come down by being hosted on the Amazon Cloud Service. It can cost around three hundred US dollars per month to 'own' your own sim in second life. This is not a small cost whatsoever. Some other virtual platforms (Roblox specifically) operates almost like second life with it's land building but the difference is it's cost and customization. It's free and very customizable, although chunky. I feel like owning a private place for you to go to is wonderful, or even somewhere to open your own shop or more. I feel like making it more affordable would be even better to bring more income and users to SL, as well as new locations. A lot of places I used to go to have closed down due to the cost of running or even renting a sim. I feel that cutting the costs by either half or even 25% might be helpful in bringing in new locations with better affordability. (Math might not be correct or accurate.) (The price was times 25% so it'd be a reduction) Type: Full Region Parcel Size (m²) 65,536 Price: $349 (25% cut would make this $87.25) (New price 261.75) Maintenance Fee (monthly): $209 (25% cut would make this $52.25) (New price 156.75) Skill Gaming Region Parcel Size (m²) 65,536 Price: $600 (25% cut would make this $150) (New price $450) Maintenance Fee (monthly): $345 (25% cut would make this $86.25) (New price 258.75) Homestead Region Parcel Size (m²) 65,536 Price: $149 (25% cut would make this $37.25) (New price 111.75) Maintenance Fee (monthly): $109 (25% cut would make this $27.25) (New price 81.75) Please forgive me if the math's wrong. It isn't one of my best skills. But the point remains that things just aren't affordable. So if we do the percentages correctly, it can be more affordable to users and friendlier for wallets overall.
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Option to choose "save to" location for incoming inventory folders and bulk uploads
Inventory sorting is an annoying but universal chore for any resident who wants to stay organized. When thinking about how I avoid the same issues in other file management systems, one of the biggest boons to keeping on top of data organization is being able to choose the location an incoming item is saved to. Imagine that, when an unpacker HUD sent you a folder, instead of simply hitting "accept", you had a new menu that let you select which folder it unpacked to. Right now, all new folders simply go into "Inventory", but what if you could tell it to put that folder into "Objects->Home->Furniture and Decor->Chairs and Sofas"? Your item would immediately be sorted directly into the place it belongs so you could find it later. You could then have that folder appear in a "recent places" list for easy access the next time you needed to unpack a similar item. Maybe you could also pin favorite folders, for instance "Body Parts->Cosmetics" could be pinned if you know you buy a lot of makeup layers and unpack to that location often. This could also be used to help creators keep their items more organized when working on new projects, as the same menu could be used for bulk, material, and mesh uploads. Being able to see "recent folders" and select your project folder would help immensely with keeping product related files together. This should be an option that could be toggled, either in the "accept/decline" or upload menu, or in inventory settings. Some people won't want to be pestered each time they acquire something new, but I know it would certainly help me, and many others as a major quality of life improvement.
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