Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Miscellaneous Feature Ideas

Just brainstorming features (large and small) that would be both possible and desirable to add to the Second Life viewer client. Things which would require server changes don't fit here, only things which can be accomplished by changing the client only. I'm also focusing only on new features for this post; I might make another post of bugs that should be fixed.

  • Menu items for builder tools (e.g. Edit Linked Parts, Ruler Modes, Color/Texture Pickers).
  • Hide/show specific UI elements. (Tateru gets the credit for thinking up this one.)
  • Arbitrary number of clothing layers on all body sections.
  • Improved avatar mesh UV maps, so clothing and skins are easier to create and align.
  • Improved avatar mesh weighting, so joints don't bend in such an ugly way.
  • Modifiable menus (rearrange and set shortcuts on the fly).
  • UI color schemes.
  • Additional image file formats (e.g. PNG).
  • Client-side script API, allowing interpreted scripts to access client functions.
Here's how I would rank them:

The three least difficult to accomplish, in increasing difficulty:
  1. Menu items for builder tools.
  2. Hide/show UI elements.
  3. Improved avatar mesh weighting.
The three most beneficial, in decreasing benefit:
  1. Client-side script API.
  2. Arbitrary clothing layers.
  3. Modifiable menus.
The three best time investments (most gain for time spent), in decreasing return on investment:
  1. Client-side script API. (The gain is simply astounding.)
  2. Menu items for builder tools. (The gain is only moderate, but the effort is minimal.)
  3. Arbitrary clothing layers. (The gain is very great.)
If you care to comment on how you would rank the listed items differently, please do so. I'm not asking for new ideas for features, though; I think there are more appropriate (and worthwhile) channels to be heard.

2 comments:

Roenik Newell said...

Being into modeling in SL, and also enjoying making poses, I would have "Improved avatar mesh weighting" a little higher in the list. :)

Anonymous said...

As I would have the arbitrary clothing and overall improving the mesh for better and easier mapping. The fact that clothes to work the same way as attachments always frustrate me.