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CoLAWell as everyone knows we've got mesh on the grid now and people have been talking about the CoLA rebuild for quite some time. I originally got the CoLA replacement sim as an intention to rebuild the sim and replace it with a better prim build, but the news of mesh being in development came my way not too long after I bought the second class five sim so I was basically left with a choice, rebuild it in prims and replace it as fast as possible, or, swallow the cost of having the sim for experimenting on builds while waiting for mesh.

Well now mesh has arrived and after teaming up with Chaos Borkotron, after helping him with some copybot issues in CCS sims that the Lindens weren't helping him with, we're now on the cusp of the future of CoLA.

Some of you have seen what we're working on here but the last few weeks have been a process of getting the imagery right. This is, yet again the sewer network, but fully light mapped and rendered in SL.

Update 10/11/2011
Just adding a new image to the article this is a seperate section of the sewer build. Now lightmapped and ready for public view.

Update 10/17/2011

Effectively as you can see the overall environmental quality is going to go straight through the roof when it comes to detail on the future iteration of CoLA. Chaos and I both have very competent art skills and there are details he sees that I do not, and details that I see that he does not. Between us we've worked and reworked this piece to make it more like what you'd expect to find under ground in CoLA.

Notice the concrete damage and the cracked shifting of the tunnels. Look at the details of the lights and props and the sewer itself. Then boggle at it all when you realize that that area of the sim costs only 27 prims.

Far as performance is concerned I know a lot of people are worried about performance in mesh sims, simple facts are performance is affected by how many triangles per mesh are in use, and we've been extremely good about optimizing mesh elements down to the lowest amount of triangles without losing detail.

So after several reworks, we've finally hit the overall artistic vision of what we're trying to present. This aspect of the new CoLA will be part of every element from the underground all the way to the top of the highest buildings. And while we're doing what we can to try to get this done by Halloween, its entirely possible that this rebuild may take until the holidays to do right.

So no hard dates as yet, we're working as we go, trying to ensure that every piece and element of the new environment is visually sensible and logical and represents CoLA as it should be, in a modern game environment. Thank you for your patience while we work on this. I can't wait to have it done.
CoLAHey all, while I'm doing most of my SL business via email at the moment the reasoning for that is I'm currently in heavy mesh mode with Chaos.

Some of you all might not know Chaos as hes only floated in and out of CoLA over the years, but last year I helped Chaos out with some CCS sims that were copybotting his builds, and since then he and I have been pretty close and he agreed to do the CoLA rebuild under mesh with me since I had helped him out when even the Lindens weren't doing anything about his troubles.

Regardless of that the introduction of mesh means a lot of different things for Second Lifers the first of all being your Intel GMA 965 integrated graphics chip probably isn't going to cut it any more and if you've been coming to CoLA on a low end computer with a very compromised graphics situation, now, here in the next month or so, is the time to upgrade to something a little more efficient.

In most cases if you play from a desktop computer, adding a newer video card will do the job, anything around a Geforce 7600 GT or Radeon XT800 should be fine for the job and those are pretty cheap on so if you're looking for an easy way to ensure you can experience Second Life and CoLA once mesh becomes the standard that would be the cheapest route if you're not already above those specs.

Recommended Minimum Specs:
AMD or Intel Dual Core 2.0ghz
2GB of RAM
Nvidia 7600 GT or ATI Radeon XT800

Now I realize some people might actually have issues with upgrading and dealing with Mesh in general so at this time once we do the CoLA rebuild, Little China and a few sims around the core build will retain their prim designs, so if you can't come to CoLA proper due to hardware related constraints, you'll still be able to RP in the surrounding sims in the chain until you can create a situation that allows you to experience the mesh build.

Mesh is not incredibly high tech, but unfortunately Second Life has always been even lower tech than that so there are a good handful of people that use Second Life on very low end hardware. Please be assured we're not doing this to exclude anyone from CoLA based on their computer specs, but to give the community a better environment that truly reflects the world we've all created together more realistically.

We're in process on the real build, the test build was as stated, just a test build. I expect to have this all done and ready to go by Halloween of this year, which is, officially our five year anniversary as a community.

So as my anniversary present to you all, I will re-envision what CoLA is under mesh, retaining and improving some elements of the old that go as far back as the skybox in CoLA, and creating new and improved additions which will give us far more detail and far more "play area" in the new sim than we've ever had before.

Expect surprises. And expect to be impressed. Between Chaos and I, and the partnership of our 2D/3D skills, CoLA will turn up to be something like you'd expect to see in a mainstream video game...while using half the resources CoLA uses now, under a prim build where I'm texture faking half the details.

So, RP, have fun, and enjoy, and get prepared. Mesh is the future, and CoLA will be right there in it.





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