Sync Issue, Highlights & Commentary

In an earlier post "A Little More on the Sync Issue" by VikkiLynn Caproni,  there were some questions about the discussion that were posed to me. I have pulled some highlights and added some commentary. I hope this will shed some more light on things.

Recap from http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Beta_Server_Office_Hours/Minutes/2013-08-01

It appears they have pointed it at the camera issue; this causes the animated avatar to appear to speed up when the person viewing has the camera looking on at a larger distance.

[2013/08/01 16:04]  Maestro Linden: for example, if avatars who are >20m away from the camera animate a bit faster

[2013/08/01 16:04]  Maestro Linden: there would be drift,

[2013/08/01 16:04]  Maestro Linden: but you'd see different results depending on where your camera is

[2013/08/01 16:04]  arton Rotaru: yep, that's the issue I see

But the issue they are not discussing in much detail is whether the scripts executing are animations in the same frame so they give the perspective of a sync animation between avatars. This is a core issue with scripters. But we see later in the conversation that a purposed fix may give the ability for scripters to manage this out of sync issue & out of frame issue.

What many people are not aware of is that the sync issue is the result of multiple issues that have built up over time. It cannot be pinned completely on one thing as many wish it could be. Since the problem has many faces the solution must globally encompass all of them.

Additionally someone mentioned a button could be added to the viewer that the person would have to click to resync animations. That is a poor option and really does not fix any of the underlying issues. I don't think many users will go to the sync button. It would just add another layer of complexity to an already complex viewer.

[2013/08/01 16:20]  Whirly Fizzle: Theres a fix & it works really well BUT it has a nasty side effect of making avatars mouths stay stuck open if they shout when you're faced away from them so we never released with it

[2013/08/01 16:20]  Maestro Linden: I suppose you would see the animations get out of sync after a while

[2013/08/01 16:20]  Lucia Nightfire: wasn't there some kind of shock thing for extreme gamers to simulate pain?

[2013/08/01 16:20]  Maestro Linden: due to this one

[2013/08/01 16:21]  Maestro Linden: well, this is a good lead

[2013/08/01 16:21]  Jenna Felton: perhaps the viewer should synchronize the animations automatically when they have the same UUID and running on different avatars

[2013/08/01 16:21]  Whirly Fizzle: So really, need to make sure everyone testing has imposters enabled but settings set to not make anyone in view an imposter avi

[2013/08/01 16:21]  Maestro Linden: perhaps, though in some cases that would be creepy

[2013/08/01 16:22]  Maestro Linden: for example if the 2 avatars are just walking along the sidewalk

[2013/08/01 16:22]  Jenna Felton: but probably better ide was to give animations some kind of channel number and the viewer sync the animations with the same channel number

[2013/08/01 16:22]  Maestro Linden: not together or anything..

[2013/08/01 16:22]  Maestro Linden: yeah, that could work

 Janna came up with a solution that could work well. They would need to give scripters the ability to manage the synced animation channel for the viewers. This is what all animation based scripters have been looking for. This will be an EPIC dose of candy, syncing all groups and couple based animations in SL. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that this will be the direction Lindens will go with this. Give the power to the scripters to control an animation channel for syncing viewers!  Dances will have some awesome performances as a result of this! Cross your fingers!!!

 

Rach