Trasee Darkwatch

Thanks. I went back and looked at the object names and discovered that my physics layers didn't always have the same name as the rest of the object. I thought I had checked that previously, but guess I didn't think of it. Your naming convention was useful in helping me to isolate that issue. Along the way, I discovered that the _LOD2... etc wasn't necessary, that the Blender defaults of .001 - .004 worked the same way. cube - High cube.001 - Medium cube.002 - Low cube.003 - Lowest cube.004 - Physics Thanks!

I've been making some houses and other structures that are made up of multiple objects in Blender. For example, each wall would be its own object. I make each individual LOD level including the appropriate physics level. All levels are aligned in the exact same location in the final collada files, since they all start at high, and get optimized from there. When uploading the combined object into SL (both with the latest Firestorm and LL viewer) it will occasionally not import one or more of the physics levels, so you cannot walk through the door, for example. When editing the object in the linkset, there is no option for prim, as if no physics layer was uploaded. This does not happen to all the objects in the linked mesh, but appears to be completely random. To add to this, if I import the single object separate from the combined object, I'm able to set the mesh object to prim and the physics level works just fine. It is more painstaking lining up the mesh objects individually in SL as opposed to a single upload that is linked automatically. What should I look for in Blender to make sure I properly export the various collada files so that SL imports it properly? Or is it something on the upload panel in the viewer that I need to check? As a note, I do click "Analyze" to get my physics layers to be recognized. As mentioned previously, it doesn't happen to all the objects in the mesh linkset. I just haven't found a pattern to it yet.

I added the bug to the Firestorm Jira ( http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-14963 ) and will be watching how things render in the new version of the official viewer. If I continue to see any issues in that viewer, I'll enter a bug in the SL Jira for that as well.

The official viewer prompted to install a new viewer when I opened it. I cleared the cache prior to installing it. Everything loaded very quickly, and I didn't see any mesh that didn't load. I turned off HTTP Pipelining, and I see the same results as Firestorm. I will check on FS in a bit, and will keep an eye on things in the SL viewer to see if mesh continues to work there. Second Life 3.7.21 (296734) Nov 10 2014 18:27:03 (Second Life Release) Release Notes You are at 25.6, 26.4, 21.9 in Gamboge located at sim9229.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.42.165:13019) SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gamboge/26/26/22 (global coordinates 175,130.0, 306,714.0, 21.9) Second Life Server 14.10.24.295913 Retrieving... CPU: AMD Phenom 9650 Quad-Core Processor (2310.66 MHz) Memory: 7167 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 660 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.18.0013.4465 OpenGL Version: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 344.65 libcurl Version: libcurl/7.38.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1h zlib/1.2.8 J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.0 Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.31 Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded) Voice Server Version: Not Connected Built with MSVC version 1600 Packets Lost: 0/11,380 (0.0%)

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N900V Android Version 4.4.2 Baseband Version: N900VVRUCNC4 Kernel Version: 3.4.0 dpi@SWDD5020 #1 Build Number: KOT49H.N900VVRUCNC4 Hardware Version: N900V.07 Security Software Version: MDF v1.0 Release 2 Network: Verizon Wireless Mobile Network Type: LTE

Thanks, I will check both Firestorm and the LL official viewer later today and add the appropriate JIRAs. I am running over Verizon's 4G LTE network (cellular). I'm one of the few that still have grandfathered unlimited data, which is good considering it is the only option I have for high speed internet where I live.

I've been having serious rendering issues with this since last Thursday, with intermittent problems in the few days prior. Texture and Mesh load EXTREMELY slow (if at all). Textures don't load properly, or the wrong texture is loading. Even saw instances of textures changing on an item when moving the camera. Not one of those random textures were correct for the object, either. Mesh stops loading completey. The physics/collision definition remains (can't walk through walls, even though you can't see them). Right-clicking (or any of the other "tricks") did nothing for the mesh objects that failed to load. I was using the latest version of Firestorm 64-bit on Windows 7 when the problem first appeared. Since that time, I have tried a number of different viewers and discovered that they fall into two categories. The first being broken: the issues are more pronounced, making the viewer unusable. The second being satisfactory: the issues are not as frequent, but still does exist. In the "satisfactory" viewers, mesh loading is still an issue. Broken Viewers (all latest versions): (<10% of mesh loads, terrible load times) Firestorm (32-bit and 64-bit) Catznip CoolVL Dolphin Viewer Satisfactory Viewers (all latest versions): (>90% of mesh loads, improved load times) Official Viewer Marine Kelley's RLV Viewer Black Dragon The mosty working viewers all have release dates on or after October 30. Below are links to two screen shots, one from Firestorm, the other from Black Dragon, to illustrate what I see in the broken vs. satisfactory viewers. Broken Working When comparing the two images, you will see a number of items that haven't rezzed in the broken picture. These are all mesh objects. What remains are prim or sculpts with an infrequent mesh object renderd. And note, even waiting for over an hour in the same spot does not cause the mesh to appear.

Yeah, at LOD 2, if you go beyond 128m, some of the houses do start coming apart. It is even more noticable on LOD 1 (as ChinRey pointed out to me). Two of the houses are currently under construction, using older walls that don't have as good of an LOD, and is mainy used to help me design my homes (and to export as part of the linkset). As I bring those into Blender, I'm going to start working on them using the tips presented here. My first task is making the doors stand up better on the LOD, as those tend to be the first to disappear, due to their smaller size.

Pamela Galli wrote: I took a look at your houses -- nice job . :-) So are you building inworld, then exporting as mesh to Blender? Thank you. Yes, I'm working inworld first and exporting the various linksets as a collada, which I then bring into Blender. I created a script that basically runs decimate, removes dupicates, and removes the texture faces for each prim that I run it on. The script isn't perfect, and it doesn't work on all prims, so I still have to do a lot of manual cleanup to get the vertice and triangle count down, but it does save a lot of time. Your home is very nice too. That is a good drop in the LI count.

The homes that are there currently will remain as I work on the new homes, trying to finish off the village. As I go forward in my building process, I'm going to start designing based on a 1 LOD and splitting inside from outside. The default draw distance for both Medium and High appears to be 128m, so as long as everything stays in place at that distance, it shouldn't be an issue. If it lasts to 256m (Ultra) then that's a bonus. Funny thing about the 10LI house is that was my first real attempt. I had some earlier attempts in another house (no longer in world) that was where I did a good chunk of learning. There are some things in the design, though, that I don't like. It isn't an issue with how it looks, or the LI, it just made it harder for me to put the parts together and line them up accordingy.

Yeah, I know LI is very subjective, due to size and design. That's why I said 30LI is my target LI for larger homes, knowing that some might be higher. I have a very small, one-room, home that fits on a 512m plot that is only 10LI, and a large, two story, home that fits on a 1024m plot that is 40LI. I'm not really looking for hard-and-fast numbers, but trying to make them as low as possible still keeping the higher quality. I really apppreciate everyone's feedback here. It has given me actual things I can do to improve upon my existing designs as well as continuing the work on my village. Anyone is welcome to come to see the village as well. Obviousy, it is still under construction, but several homes have been completed. All buildings are mesh, unless it still has the default plywood texture (meaning it is being built). It is just over 1/2 a sim and maybe 1/3 of the way complete. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Glaurung/122/50/32

Jenni Darkwatch wrote: Personally, I use one of the methods described by Drongle: I split inside and outside into separate meshes. The outside I keep as a rule smaller than 30m in any dimension, but I make the effort to build all LODs for it. Inside I go nuts with details but only build the high and maybe medium detail. Within rooms I do the same thing, often building the rooms separately. Btw, 30LI for a home isn't bad at all. Our beach fort I think has something like that, and it has no insides As far as LI switching distance... if it at all matters you can always go ahead and create a distance impostor. Just one surface with the image of the outside wall instead of the actual geometry. Considering that I rarely have DD higher than 128m, anything disappearing at that distance is really not an issue for me I prefer to have shadows and everything rather than see a mile out and have corresponding long load times/bandwidth use. For reference, my LOD is set to 2 and plenty of things turn crappy at much, much lower distances. Sculpts tend to turn ugly quickly. Some mesh also does, depending on creator. 30LI would be my target average LI for some of the larger homes. I've been accepting the ones that got up to 40, due to the way they were being designed, although using the inside/outside mesh idea, I can probably lower that even more. The one that became 63, though, was a litte steeper than I had desired for the house. Most likely, I won't be exceeding 30m (or possibly 32m) in most cases. I don't think I'll be designing many homes for parcels larger than 32x32. That is mainly because the village I'm building doesn't have any parcels larger than that. Who knows what I'll do after I finish the village, but keeping with that maximum sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the comment about the DD as well. I was wondering about that myself. Since I switched my LOD to 2 (previously was at 4) I have noticed how badly a lot of mesh items deteriorated at much shorter distances. Kind of made me cringe with some of them. It is why I thought "vanishing" after 128m might have been ok as well. Question about the imposter, though. The way I'm currenty designing my homes are to use separate texture faces. I do plan on selling them later, and want them to have modify permissions, so the walls can be "repainted." Is something ike this possible with an imposter? I noticed that you have to have all texture faces in every LOD, so, how would you account for that?

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Are your items on the MP at all? I cant seem to find you listed there. I am very interested in a low LI mesh home... No, I'm not on the MP yet. Since I just started doing this about a month ago, I have been more focused on the building and learning as opposed to the selling. That will be the ultimate goal of this endeavour, though. Feel free to contact me inworld if you'd like to see the homes. I'm generally online between 6pm and 10pm SLT during the week, and do get offline messages in email.

ChinRey wrote: I recommend you build for LOD setting 1. Usually there isn't that much LI to save by sacrificing LOD anyway - not compared by all the other less destructive and more effective methods. Seems to me you've figured out the most basic rule already: keep the details you need for each and every model, nothing more and nothing less. Next step should be to balance the weights. You do that mainly by splitting a build into separate meshes. As a general rule, splitting a large mesh into several smaller ones will recuce download LI and increase server LI. After that ... oh there are so many tricks we can use. Maybe learn one at a time. I have been splitting things into multiple meshes. Each wall is its own mesh, for example. I certainly have seen the benefit of that. I generally don't split down a single wall, except in the case of a second story. This has generay allowed me to avoid using the Low LOD unless it is a small wall. Designing for an LOD of 1 could change that, though. Learning those tricks is exactly why I started this thread.

The default LOD is 1.125? Wow. I thought the defaut install was LOD 2. That's why I thought to design against that. I'll need to reanalyze my models under that LOD, to see where things start vanishing. I saw a couple videos that described changing the auto LOD to 0, which is where that idea came from. Never thought to create a minimal one, due to the texture faces being required. I can certainly see the advantage to doing that, though. I have been joining the objects together as well, to get the additional reduction to the vertices. Dividing the walls into inside and outside is one thing I've done for texture faces (allowing the texture to be different on either side), never thought of dividing it into two separate models, though. I imagine that might make lining them up a little more difficult, especially since one side would be transparent. I'm starting work on a new house, so I'm certainly going to try that approach as well. As for the link you sent. I think I'll need to read that over a few times. I get the concept at the high level. Just need to read it over a bit more to get more understanding.