The problem with Skinburn at Burn2 and a possible solution

So what’s wrong with Skinburn?? 

The problem and a solution.

While I know skinburn has a special place in the hearts and memories of many at Burn2, the technical reasons it was created for that no longer exist to a significant degree.

Those technical reasons were:

• Avatar complexity

• Avatar complexity used to not be limited by individual’s viewers, now it can. It’s Radical self-reliance to learn from others how to do that and a useful SL skill to know all year round.

• Also in the days of prim attachments they could get very complex fast. Mesh avatars can also but really as much. Regardless, the lag only happens when an avatar enters an area and their assets need to be loaded. Again limiting avatar complexity locally eliminates practically all of that. 

• Avatar script lag

• Avatar scripts are the significant thing everyone has that can impact the visuals of the burn.. Or can it? If the man was still burning in the same region people were watching from, yes their scripts would bog down the region and give less time for the man burn scripts. Thing is since we started having the audience watch the man from an adjoining region this has been eliminated. Scripts running in other regions typically do not affect scripts in adjoining regions.

• That leaves the only avatar script lag that of the staff working in the region. And if we can’t trust staff to be responsible and keep their scripts down to minimal levels even during the normal burns, well that’s a bigger issue that would need to be addressed.

• Lag from both particles and scripts of other builds

• This is the one thing that still can potentially exist.. Not so much now that the man is in a region by itself but in prior years that had other builds in the region that could affect the script performance. Also objects in visual range that emit particles DO bring down the overall max particles that can be displayed so for best visuals those should be prohibited during burn times as already the burn scripts produce a bunch of those.

All that said, there's no significant  reason to limit individuals' Radical self expression with their avatars aside from saying: “Don’t wear things that make particles!” and as pretty much any event encourages people to keep their script count on the lower end. 

The only reason these days to run skinburn with severely limited avatars is TRADITION.

Tradition can be a valid reason, it’s used a lot in our lives as reasons we have many holidays and celebrations. Key is to not be disingenuous and continue to cite obsolete technical reasons. We don’t say, for example: That we have a feast at Thanksgiving because it’s the last harvest and food will be scarce over winter. Just call it what it is and say: “We do it this way only because it’s Traditional!” and while not the best reason it is our reason.

But really is Skinburn a good tradition? This question has been asked of many other traditions so it should be asked here.

Overall in my view the practice of Skinburn has become more of forcing compliance than encouraging any of the 10 principles (which also arose out of burner tradition). To participate you HAVE to use a skin only system avatar, you have to be creative within what our tradition requires is not a good mentality. It’s saying that skinburn tradition is more important than the principles of Radical Inclusion,Radical self-expression and Participation. To keep doing this skinburn tradition not for any technical reason but for tradition itself also does ruin the Immediacy for myself and others with non-human avatars as we are forced to be something we are not to participate in strict adherence to the tradition alone in order to please the nostalgia of a select few.

Okay but what do we do now? Some like the skinburn. Am I saying we should just stop doing it?!

The answer is no, but how do we keep the tradition continuing in a healthy way that is inclusive for all to enjoy?

We can do it by removing most of the forced compliance and replacing it with fun non serious competition. 

The only limits we should have are:

• A ban on wearing anything that emits particles, as this does still take away from the particles that can be seen from the burn.

• Use an avatar script usage board as the barrier to entry. People above the yellow (3mb limit usually) should be asked to descript as it can still be good to use this event as using this as a tool for  awareness of script lag and impact to others can still be done positively and can help Civic responsibility by creating a conversation about responsable avatar script usage that would benefit all Burn2 events. 

• Having a reasonable avatar render cost limit as well that is around what a typical non overly accessorized avatar render count ( 100k or less? personally my avatars run under ARC 20k pretty much at all times with my primary being near 7k and it still has great detail but not as familiar with human mesh avatars ARC)

Also a PSA about how to set max complexity could be a useful thing as some don’t even know about that and what it does. 

Then lastly the friendly competition; we should encourage people to try and be self expressive at the lowest avatar render cost they feel comfortable with. If this means going the full tradition of base avatar with wild skins more power to you. If you just want to take off your clothes and accessories and wear some paint on your human or non human mesh avatar GREAT. If you have a favored non human avatar see if it can be reduced and still look cool. Just think of what the least you need for your own personal radical expression is! The theme is Minimal not constrained or Restricted!

Thus, in my opinion, with these changes Skinburn could both honor its past and become radically inclusive and expressive again as it should be. 

Thanks for reading.