Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - February 2014 | Page 76

Finally, reaching what must be the deepest
tomb in this massive cave of discovery, he
pushes the cold stone door open. It scrapes
ominously along the cavern floor, grinding un l
-thumpf- it touches the wall behind, leaving an
opening for our adventurer to enter, and
discover.
And what to his wandering eye doth appear but
the shimmering delights of ... mesh!

Has mesh taken our focus from
ar s c expression to turning a fast
buck?
By Filipa Thespian
By the flickering glow of firelight, the gigan c
foo alls of prim-booted feet crunch in the dirt
lining the floor of the cave. So loud, so clunky,
un l finally our stalwart adventurer stumbles
over his huge prims resembling boots, into the
first of many chambers of treasure he is to
discover on his virtual archaeological
expedi on.
His eyes grow wide with wonder when he
makes the miraculous discovery that is to save
us all from the use of prims where prims just
don't work ... the sculpty.
But this adventurer is greedy, always wan ng
more, sleeker, more realis c. And s ll, he is
not sa sfied; his curiosity and need for more
keeps him traversing on. These sculpty boots
are amazingly realis c un l you see the
bubbles of prims when you zoom too far out
and so, he keeps searching for that perfect
replacement.

76 - Nu Vibez Magazine - February 2014

Mesh is truly amazing, it gives us such realis c
opportuni es and in building can save a lot of
prims. But it does limit the playing field when it
comes to our content creators. Being able to do
the 3D modeling it takes to create mesh is no
simple or cheap task.
To combat that, there are many who are buying
templates on sites like TurboSquid and others,
buying products there and bringing them into
Second Life as their own. Problem is, they've
created a situa on in intellectual property
rights, and in the process, helped to give
Second Life such a bad name that TurboSquid,
and other sites like them, now men on Second
Life by name followed by "any other virtual
world" as illegal pla orms into which to take
items purchased from their services or
designers.
Then there are the free mesh items that are
available on the Internet if you know where to
look. These pieces now liter the lis ngs in
Marketplace, in quadruplicate, by Avatars
claiming the work as theirs, all seeking to turn a
quick buck.
Many creators now-a-days, rely on purchasing
the templates available on Marketplace, not
knowing for sure if it was actually made by or