It’s been a good while since I posted on here so I think it’s time for a little SITREP (situation report).
As you’re all aware it’s been a LONG time since Union Micro has seen any sort of activity and I’m hoping to slowly change that. Where have I been? Well, I basically took a long break from Second Life. I lost interest in it for a while but lately I’ve been feeling more and more like I want to script something.
First of all, I’m still considering (strongly considering) starting on a Gen 3 elevator. Gen 2 are great elevators but as Second Life has evolved lately they’re starting to show their age. The biggest problem is that (from what I hear) Gen 2 elevators do not like anything to do with mesh. I’m assuming it’s an issue with bounding boxes and the car’s physics engine really likes a neat and tidy travel path. So with that, I’m looking to redo the physics on Gen 3 to be better. This does leave Gen 2 in an awkward spot where they’re possibly somewhat broken with mesh, but I’m not sure as I don’t have the means of testing this (so please IM me in world with any insight). Unfortunately gutting the physics engine is not feasible on the current Gen 2 as it requires a large rewrite so that’s why this will be a Gen 3 project.
If you’re a current Gen 2 owner and just got your undies in a bunch at the thought of having to buy a new elevator, there will be introductory discounts for upgrades as usual. How much of a discount remains to be seen.
IN B4 “OMG UR MAKING ME BUY ANOTHER ELEVATOR?! WTF OMG?!” I get this complaint a lot so I’m going to nip it in the bud right here. I like to use Microsoft Windows as an example when I explain this. When (theoretically) you updated from Windows XP to Windows Vista or Windows 7, did you expect to get that upgrade for free? What about from Office 2007 to Office 2010? What about if you upgrade from OS X Snow Leopard to Lion? These are all considered separate products that require you to buy the new product or a discounted upgrade.
Basically, each generation of elevator is a new product. If I was still updating generation one elevators for free I would’ve went out of business a long time ago and you’d have nothing anymore.
I’d also like to do something other than elevators and I’ve had another skunkworks project on the back burner for a long, long time that I’m hoping to continue work on. I can’t say anything about it here but anyone who’s followed Union Micro for a long time may have an idea of what it is. This is one of those projects that I consider a massive undertaking and may never see the light of day unfortunately.
Anyway, that’s all for now! Don’t expect to see anything in the immediate future as I have a lot of work to do and not a single line of code has been written on any generation 3 elevators. Also, if you have any specific feature requests make sure to get them to me as soon as possible so they can be integrated from the start.