Important Clarifications for Overall VaM2 Development Process

We have seen many community comments about how VaM2 is missing major features like accurate skin collision, clothing, hair, etc. that VaM1 already includes. We wanted to address those comments to set everyone's expectations a little better. We chose to develop VaM2 in a ground up manner, focusing on core system architecture and foundational features first. We feel it is important to build a solid base before adding higher level features like soft body collision, clothing, hair, animation, etc. All of those features are relatively easy compared to building a solid foundation that all of those features sit on top of. We know the system level features are quite boring in comparison to those higher level features, but by developing the foundation first and making sure it works well, we can ensure VaM2 doesn't end up having major performance issues, usability issues, or unnecessary restrictions on creators trying to make content, and ultimately provide end users with a great experience once we exit the Beta period. Even if the current release of VaM2 doesn't live up to your expectations for things like usability, the underlying system was created in a way that makes it much easier to change and improve those things over time. Creators themselves can even replace much of what is seen in the current release, something that was not possible in VaM1. Most things in VaM1 are fixed and hard-coded, and that made it difficult to extend or improve. VaM2 was instead created from the beginning with extensibility in mind. Making all the VaM2 systems that flexible was not easy and took a lot more time to develop than equivalent systems in VaM1. We think this additional effort was worth it. It will make creating content for VaM2 both easier and more powerful.

Plugins

The next upcoming beta release (Beta1.3) includes one of the most anticipated features: Plugins. Plugins will allow creators to do just about anything in VaM2. Having the foundation solid before releasing plugins was absolutely necessary to help prevent a messy ecosystem. And we wanted to get Plugins out as soon as possible because we know the community creators out there will make amazing things. This is why we have not worked on any of the higher level features previously mentioned first. The priority has been to enable creators as early as possible in the development of VaM2. These early betas are intended for creators wanting to get a jump on content creation. The release of Beta1.3 will largely mark the end of the foundational layer work for VaM2, and releases after that will be focused more on the features everyone is craving and ultimately bring VaM2 up to the capability level of VaM1.

Progress Update

Since the release of Beta1.2 last month (August), we have worked in several different areas.

Area 1: Worked on a Beta1.2.1 patch release, but ultimately decided against releasing it.

We originally intended to do a patch release for Beta1.2 to address bugs and usability issues, but this snowballed into a bigger effort based on feedback from both our internal team and the community. After a few weeks of work on that, we decided it made more sense to just roll all of those changes into Beta1.3 instead. The reason we made this decision is there was a possibility the bigger usability improvement work introduced new bugs, and we didn't want to have to make a 2nd patch release to address those. Each additional release takes time, and extra time is not a luxury we have! So all of these improvements (19 so far) and bug fixes (10 so far) will instead show up in Beta1.3. More detailed info here: https://trello.com/c/TwNMAK2z/104-ui-improvements and here: https://trello.com/c/7Olqw1bi/105-bug-fixes

Area 2: Training/Documentation/Tutorials

Unlike VaM1, we are trying hard to document and provide tutorials in as many areas as possible while we are developing. At the moment, VaM2 is heavily geared towards creators looking to make content for VaM2. This is intentional to help get the content creation process rolling. This will change over time as VaM2 is more fully developed and we focus more on end-user experience. These last few weeks, I spent some time training other members of the team on various aspects of VaM2. I want to make sure we can maximize the talents of all members of the team when they have time to contribute. VaM2 documentation can be found on our wiki on the Hub here: https://hub.virtamate.com/wiki/vam2/ Recently added was a UI style sheet tutorial which covers the new UI Styles system that was added in Beta1.2: https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/04-vam2-style-sheet-tutorial.79949/ The VaM2 wiki will be continuously updated over time.

Area 3: Beta1.3 Features

As previously mentioned, Plugins are by far the biggest and most important feature in the Beta1.3 release. Work has already begun on this major feature, and this is the #1 priority for the release. The other features listed on the Trello board will not take as much time to complete, but should be considered secondary to Plugins. There is a possibility we will cut some of these other features from the release in order to get the Beta1.3 release out sooner, but we are not currently anticipating having to do that. You can see what else is targeted for Beta1.3 release here:

https://trello.com/b/KByJdWtA/vam2-public-roadmap

Beta1.3 Release Date

As usual, we do not give out release date estimates because it is very hard to estimate much of this work and this often results in disappointment when we miss our estimates. Unlike previous releases, however, we are willing to cut targeted features from the release in order to make sure there is not a huge gap in time between releases.

As always, thank you for your tremendous support! VaM2 would not be possible without you! We are blessed to have such an amazing community.

Meshed and Team