3D cards with DRM support (Re: [sldev] Re: "It's Just Not Possible")

Dale Mahalko dmahalko at gmail.com
Wed Jun 11 01:34:00 PDT 2008


Heh, sorry for these long rambling essays. This issue has been on my
mind for a very long time.


My main point is that a DRM-compatible asset storage method doesn't
need to be a detriment to the virtual world at all.

It could actually offer improvements over how the current system
functions, providing new ways to efficiently control and animate
objects without lots of server and network overhead like we normally
have to deal with now.

The tradeoff would be a slightly slower downloads before the packaged
object can appear in-world, but with faster function and usability
once downloaded since it permits massive, fast local caching. In
addition to compressing the textures and audio in a package, the prims
and other raw data in packages could be compressed before being sent
to the client, to further improve download speed.


These concepts of:
 - object packagaing and package compression
 - hiding of UUIDs and using relative references to objects in a package
 - stored package states, animation, and tweening

All could be implemented under the current system, but there wouldn't
be a thorough way to protect the assets held inside these packages
with the current lack of 3D DRM.

But at least the base functionality could be used and developed until
such time that 3D cards with DRM start to become available. When the
DRM switchover woud start to occur, users may not necessarily notice
much difference except that the asset packages are now not so easy to
hack and extract due to the phased-in asset encryption.

- Scalar Tardis / Dale Mahalko


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