Q Said... "Given the excessive complexity of the preferences dialog already, we should take every opportunity to remove things from prefs, and there should be a VERY high bar for adding anything to prefs. It's all too easy for open projects to grow massive preferences systems and configuration files because the outcome of most feature debates is to compromise and add a preference.
In this case, especially given that it already lives in Advanced, I strongly recommend we not move it to Preferences." Q ----- I could not disagree more - which is kind of unusual for me, since I rarely have much dispute with the LL team. Prefs is not yet even approaching complex, whereas the advanced menus are nuts. Put it in prefs. I absolutely agree with those arguing for lip synch being on by default. For effective immersion lip synch and a range of other behaviours are valuable in game play, but for other purposes it is or will rapidly become a defining requirement for acceptance among those who are not technophiles, or necessarily experienced VW users - eg lecture based education, corporate meetings, mixed mode 2D-3D delivery, and even for the more technically competent users engaged in machina (where lip synching must other wise be done with extensive post processing). However, as with voice, there will be those that object to it because it removes some of the characteristic, imagination and imposed creativity of the current experience (while replacing it with new dimensions of the same). So when first introduced it should be able to be turned off easily in prefs, and as it achieves normality and users have adapted their game-play/world-view to the new dimension, the control can be moved to advanced. As with the colour TV example - raised elsewhere, I hate losing control entirely, so I would not want the off option to totally disappear, but I think stuffing things into advanced as they become rarely used is the right way to go. Given the technical advice elsewhere that lip-synch has no impact on bandwidth, performance or CPU load, I can't see any advantage in denying its introduction, but I do acknowledge the variety of game play argument, and accept the importance of allowing people to preserve their current experience - so allow it to be turned off in prefs initially and migrate it to advanced over time. I do not use voice much normally (but then most of my SL time is spent alone building and scripting), but in training sessions, business meetings, sim management, and promotional work in SL I always use it - and in those spaces it makes an incredible difference. The biggest single impact is in acclimatizing new users - particularly real world clients - to SL so they can attend training or a meeting. Voice - and the current sound based flappy mouth thing that passes for lip synch at the moment, gives them a something familiar around which to anchor in an otherwise alien experience. Regards Jonathan Bishop _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SLDev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
