[sldev] Re: New Viewer Shell Proposal

[Dale Glass]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 04:57:01PM -0700, Lawson English wrote:
> Even (especially) those should present a SL-specific look-and-feel. 
> Immersian isn't just about building tools but about menus as well.
I don't but this immersion argument.

It's a poorly defined concept to start with, but to me, immersion in a
virtual world means "as world-like as possible"

This doesn't mean "just like reality", but it does means conforming to
the expectations of how things would work even if you ended up on an
alien planet.

Eg, you don't expect people to stay frozen in place, staring at some
point forwards. So part of achieving immersion is natural looking
gestures, head/eye movements, etc.

In SL two immersion breaking things are ruthing and the "attachments on
your ass" bug. It's very weird and often downright disturbing seeing
your appearance break down. A lesser problem is lag, which doesn't exist
in the real world.

The way I see it, the ideal situation would be achieving the point where
if you played SL with a VR helmet you could really have the sensation of
being there. 


Now, I don't think widgets have much to do with this at all. What
exactly is immersive about having an inventory floater? It's a
completely artificial construct, however you choose to draw it. 

IMO, if you want to be immersive you need to be minimalist -- make it
possible to use SL without all that stuff floating on top of the 3D
world. For one example of something that is lacking: There needs to be
a way of using llDialog boxes while in first person mode, as
currently I can walk around and click doors, but can't click the "open"
button on the dialog.

An alternate idea: A show on demand UI, available both in first and
third person modes. Something like the Windows taskbar in the
"auto hide" mode. It appears when you move the pointer to its position,
but stays hidden otherwise.
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