[sldev] Google Summer of Code 2008 update

[Dave Parks]

That's sort of where this rendering architecture is heading.  Long term, 
yes, we want some way to let users specify their own materials (with 
shader code), but in an uncontrolled environment like Second Life, 
that's not a simple task.  Besides the problem of protecting against 
malicious/poorly written shader code, you've got issues of scene 
complexity, overdraw, limited number of light sources, etc.

In the mean time, you're going to see us push more shaders into the 
viewer that are custom fitted and hand written until we know exactly 
what context a shader driven material system will live in in our 
community, what techniques scale well with user created content, how to 
preserve the overall look of a material across a wide variety of 
hardware, etc.  When that's done, it will be time to take a good look at 
how to enable residents to create their own custom shaders that fit into 
that framework.

Callum Lerwick wrote:
> Ever seen the surface editors in something like Lightwave or Maya? Guess
> what SL is missing... :) Not to mention they support shader plugins. I
> still think the future lies in supporting user-supplied GLSL shaders...
>
> (This is the cue for the sldev peanut gallery to shout me down and
> explain how I'm an idiot for even suggesting such a thing.)
>   
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