Featured News

congrats Linden and many thanks for your hard work!

Congrats Bit Time LL!!!

---

Linden Lab wrote: 

Once there, mesh objects can be manipulated in pretty much the same ways you would manipulate a regular old prim.

---

So what does happen when you apply a cut path, or hollow?  How about twist, dimple, etc?

Whee - you can resize, and rotate.  Texturing is iffy at best, as they only have one side, I'll bet, like sculpties.  The only way to change their shape is to have a script apply a *NEW* mesh to it.

Can you make flexi meshes?

Oh, well - enjoy your mesh-flavored Kool-Aid.  I'll stick with what attracted me to SL - "It all starts with a box."

@TaraLi : You can have alot of sides to texture, And you get more flexibility on how to unwrap the UV to texture so you can be alot more detailed. Mesh will make for some very kool interesting new things, but the classic old Prim will always be at hand to help Mesh.

Here is a vid showing how Mesh allows you to make a proper Cave with just one object and texture. All the houses, the cobbled street and the Ancor on a chain are also mesh.

 And this is my 37 Prim airship

So someone will be able to import a mesh dodecahedron, which I can set the  texture each side independently on with llSetTexture(3,"Runic_3.png")?

And any comment on the other points made?

 I've been using The LL development viewer 3.0.2  for several days , yes I've crashed a few times . An after spending a whole day yesterday trying out the new standerd LL 3.0.0 viewer I didn't crash once ....

 

 An for the fanboi's out thier screaming ohhh she has a super computer etc ... News flash luddites ... The computer I've been using is an older Core2,  2.6ghz computer with 6 gigs ram using a single nvidia 260gtx  video card ... With Shadows off , ambiant Occulsion off, Depth of field off , and anti alising set to 4x. Graphics set to Ultra with a draw distance of 256 , my frame rates in a place with less then 30 av's , I average 35 - 41 fps consistantly ... If I jump to a high traffic sim of 50+ people my frames drop to the 18 - 25 fps range .... For me this is acceptable and not a big deal .

 

I've also used kirsten's S21(9) , her current build ... An I've had the same graphics settings on the same computer an I've gotten the same frame rates ..

 

 Failstorm which after six months is still mired in 2.5 and no mesh , runs like an utter dog . with same computer an same graphics settings I average 12 to 18 frames in a low traffic sim , in a busy sim I am lucky to have 10 fps in failstorm . Yea I could go self compile failstorm to 2.6 from it's current repo's . but it doesn't have mesh so again Fail .

 

 As a content creator that enjoys Mesh , an a resident that's been in SL for several years , THANK YOU LL for mesh ! This is LONG OVERDUE ! .

 

 If I use my main computer set up for games an other things ... the frame rates are off the charts . 16 gigs ram with two yes two , Nvidia 590gtx's in sli. The frame rates are rather monsterous that's with shadows , ambiant occulsion , and anti aliasing at 8x with a 900 draw distance on Ultra  . frames in a 30 av or less sim averages 49 to 58 fps ... in a high traffic sim of 50+ av's , the same settings the frame rates drasticlly drop to 21 - 28 fps . If I turn shadows off , ambiant off , an drop aa to 4x ... the frame rates double .

 

 The only reasons I would ever bother with using Failstorm :

 

1) for RLV use for forced tp's ( keep the kink stuff for the bondage fans thanks )

 

2) the phoenix build tools which helps tons with building ( but hardly game breaking ) 

 

that's it , everything else failstorm offers is garbage and redundant crap that less then 1% of the total user base would ever use ... No I do not require spell check ( news flash ! the Internet was built on bad spelling ! ) , or Skype like ability to rename other avatars to display differently in my client , Nor do I require some rubbish multi color'd name / group tag over my head , nor do I really need to know what bloody viewer everyone around me is using either . Nor do I require to know someone's " true " online status . Way to grieve someone ... An I certainly do not need pie menu's ( P.S. Drop down menu's of V2 are faster and quicker ) . With the Stardust skins from Hitomi , I can have a side bar less viewer , that's quite nice .

 

 take the above mentioned rlv , and build tools out of Failstorm an just what does it offer that I can't get from the offical viewer ? An Kirstens btw has an option in preferances in her current build to enable Pie menus ... So if I'm feeling that longing for 2006 again , I can use kirstens an switch on pie menus ...

 

"News flash luddites ... The computer I've been using is an older Core2,  2.6ghz computer with 6 gigs ram "

LOL

Come back when you run it on a P4, with 1 gig ram. Then you can say you ran it on an 'old' computer.

As an estate owner with 3DS Max experience, I'm ecstatic about Mesh - way to go LL!!!

Now - check out the newest technology that is going to make polygons obsolete and totally revolutionize video game graphics:



 

Another reason to log out of the grid! (to work on meshes in Blender.) Good strategy LL!

NOT.

When will in-world tools be innovated?

When will LL realize that making V1 viewers useless will lose customers rather than push them to V2 viewers (this is coming from a V2 user too)?

Mesh will either struggle to be a part of SL's fabric like sculpts (they are there but far outweighed by regular prim builds) because of the requirement of other software, or they will make half the grid look like junk to older viewer users and send those users elsewhere.

And by elsewhere I mean away from SL. Not to V2.

Mesh = a non-story at best until we can create it in-world. Bringing creation outside of SL is killing the community further than has been done already.

There's a rumor being spread inworld that we won't be able to login tomorrow unless we update to viewer 3. I hope (and assume) there is not truth to that.

Note: Viewer 1.23.5 remains an exception to the above policy, as there are no immediate plans to deprecate it.

Important: Second Life Viewer Support Policy Linden Lab's policy is to support the two newest Second Life Viewer versions, and the last released Second Life Beta Viewer; for example, SL Viewer versions 3.0.0 and 2.8.3, and the SL Beta Viewer, version 3.0.1.

Because we will only support the current version and one version back, 60 days after the release of a new official Viewer, the oldest official Viewer will be deprecated.

Note: Viewer 1.23.5 remains an exception to the above policy, as there are no immediate plans to deprecate it.

Note: Viewer 1.23.5 remains an exception to the above policy, as there are no immediate plans to deprecate it.

Note: Viewer 1.23.5 remains an exception to the above policy, as there are no immediate plans to deprecate it.

Viewer 3 is working great for me. No crashes. No lag. One minor bug, they are working on. These Viewer arguments remind me of  Apple vs PC, and they are about as sensable.

I am always glad to see improvements to SL. God for the mesh guys!

As a creator who has been in SL since its earliest days and used just about every viewer out there, I'm both ecstatic about and dreading mesh.

The excellent:
Mesh is an amazing medium.  It makes sculpties obsolete in -almost- every way and is much easier to work with, texture, etc. outside of Second Life.

The disappointing:
Mesh clothes (or at least the ones I've seen so far) blow chunks.  Alpha layers required to wear mesh clothes?  Okay.  The gaps it leaves when you don't have a 'normal' shape?  Not okay.

The horrific:
I see more praise than criticism lately over V2 and onward viewers on LL's site but I and every builder I know remain adamant that LL's latest viewers are the worst possible redesign LL could've given them.  They inhibit growth and creativity and promote following the pack.  SL used to be about creating and adding ideas and it's like all they want to do now is attract sheep to flock into already existant gates.  The problem is those sheep aren't going to keep things going.  People are cheap.  People want free.  How can business owners justify staying in SL when they're given no reason to?

These newly attracted folk aren't the ones you should be catering to, LL.  Hopefully you still have enough talented creators willing to stick it out until a decent viewer comes along to allow us to build these meshes.  Mesh alone isn't enough to make me want to use V2/3.

i wait for this long time .......and now its here !!!

@Adam - well, I suppose we could shoehorn mesh editor in with the Sound creation area.  Oh wait, there has NEVER been a sound creation area in the viewer.  Silly me.  We can stick it in the tab for the Texture editing area instead, then.  Wait a minute, there has never been a texture editor either.  Nor has there been a pose editor, or a BVH creator or an animation creator or a Heightfield File editor...

Why so many of you blast SL for not having Photoshop built in but continue to take photos with your digital cameras that likewise doesn't have photoshop built in, completely amazes me.  You cannot make a movie without a video editor and you cannot create a 3D world without learning some 3D tools either.  That you can create some things with the basic tools the viewer gives you is great, I agree.  But other tools from companies who have forgotten more about 3D than LL will ever learn also exist, and some of them are even free.  There are lots and lots of tools already out for these well-documented standards.  Your refusal to make a texture because there is no texture editor in the viewer is like saying you refuse to drive your car because Ford didn't produce the gas in the tank, either.  Who cares where the gas comes from? 

If you don't wish to use PaintShopPro or Gimp or Audacity or Aniposer, that's your business -- nobody is saying you have to or you can't play in SL.  You can keep building with your wooden blocks all you like.  The rest of us who run more than one program on our computers at a time will be generating meshes that will totally revolutionize how SL looks, from realistic trees to ornate wall paneling to elaborate flying toasters. 

And besides, adding in all those editors would make everyone crying about the size of the download explode in indignation -- How about a nice 250Meg download every couple of nights?  That is, if LL could actually build a working mesh or sound editor in the first place.  Seeing how poorly they've done anything else the past 3 years, I wouldn't bet money on them delivering anything usuable.

Thank you! I'm extremely happy this is finally out of beta! As a creator of clothing & avatars this makes my Second Life a lot more enjoyable! Finally, seamless rigged clothing!

I'm happy as heck that Mesh is here. I love that we can build past 10 meters <3. BUT!......... the prim weight equivs......... those hurt. 

Sculpt with 1023 points(1984 tris) = 1 prim

Mesh  with 1023 points(1984 tris) = 5.6 prims ?

=o  well...... If that's the case I'd sooner use the sculpt and not use mesh at all =\    <-- is sad.

What was the real point? =(

---

 So what does happen when you apply a cut path, or hollow?  How about twist, dimple, etc?

Whee - you can resize, and rotate.  Texturing is iffy at best, as they only have one side, I'll bet, like sculpties.  The only way to change their shape is to have a script apply a *NEW* mesh to it.

Can you make flexi meshes?

Oh, well - enjoy your mesh-flavored Kool-Aid.  I'll stick with what attracted me to SL - "It all starts with a box."

---

Well, talk about harsh words. There is plenty of info you can read on this if you arnt lazy and simply look it up.

First, why would you want to apply a pathcut or hollow or any of that stuff? When someone makes a mesh, they can take into account what they want the mesh to look liike. In this way its just like a sculpty. Whether you actually can apply any of that I do not know and dont really care to; when I make something I am going to account for how its supposed to look anyway when I make it, then I dont have to edit it much in world.

Second, meshes allow up to 8 different textures on them, so I know you are speaking about something which you have no knowledge of when you say "iffy" and betting its like sculpties. Go learn about that which you are speaking of before proclaiming criticisms.

Third, stuff like mesh is used all over the place(technically, your AV's body is a mesh). This is simply LLs adaptation of it so we can use it in SL. It may have all started with a box back in the past, but it hardly has to nowadays. I dont know exactly what kind of thing for boxes you have, but what brought me to SL wasnt a box fetish, it was the ability to build things and adding mesh greatly expands this. They have tacked on enough prim count penalties to mesh so that you will still see regular ole prims and sculpties around, but any properly made meshes will still be far superior in appearance to anything made from prims or even sculpties.

Shockwave:

@Adam - well, I suppose we could shoehorn mesh editor in with the Sound creation area.  Oh wait, there has NEVER been a sound creation area in the viewer.  Silly me.  We can stick it in the tab for the Texture editing area instead, then.  Wait a minute, there has never been a texture editor either.  Nor has there been a pose editor, or a BVH creator or an animation creator or a Heightfield File editor...

Why so many of you blast SL for not having Photoshop built in but continue to take photos with your digital cameras that likewise doesn't have photoshop built in, completely amazes me.  You cannot make a movie without a video editor and you cannot create a 3D world without learning some 3D tools either.  That you can create some things with the basic tools the viewer gives you is great, I agree.  But other tools from companies who have forgotten more about 3D than LL will ever learn also exist, and some of them are even free.  There are lots and lots of tools already out for these well-documented standards.  Your refusal to make a texture because there is no texture editor in the viewer is like saying you refuse to drive your car because Ford didn't produce the gas in the tank, either.  Who cares where the gas comes from? 

If you don't wish to use PaintShopPro or Gimp or Audacity or Aniposer, that's your business -- nobody is saying you have to or you can't play in SL.  You can keep building with your wooden blocks all you like.  The rest of us who run more than one program on our computers at a time will be generating meshes that will totally revolutionize how SL looks, from realistic trees to ornate wall paneling to elaborate flying toasters. 

And besides, adding in all those editors would make everyone crying about the size of the download explode in indignation -- How about a nice 250Meg download every couple of nights?  That is, if LL could actually build a working mesh or sound editor in the first place.  Seeing how poorly they've done anything else the past 3 years, I wouldn't bet money on them delivering anything usuable.

Shockwave:

@Adam - well, I suppose we could shoehorn mesh editor in with the Sound creation area.  Oh wait, there has NEVER been a sound creation area in the viewer.  Silly me.  We can stick it in the tab for the Texture editing area instead, then.  Wait a minute, there has never been a texture editor either.  Nor has there been a pose editor, or a BVH creator or an animation creator or a Heightfield File editor...

How about in the *build box*?  Where highlighting the mesh would reveal nodes you could select and drag around?  Something like what could have been done for sculpties, as well?

Sound editor - I'm not looking for Audacity, I'm looking for "Click to record" from the same mike I use for voice.  Then a little waveform display that allows me to drag a start point and end point to chop it to just what I want, and maybe a button to expand the dynamic range.

Texture Editor - We don't need Gimp/Photoshop - but a nice paintbrush-level app, with adjustable brush diameter, color, and maybe, if they're feeling really nice to us, a text tool that allows putting in a line and moving it around.

Pose/animation editor - wasn't that what the puppeteering project was going to do?  You'd use your mouse to move limbs around, click to record frames, etc...  Nothing fancy, nothing extensive, but enough to allow beginners to do their own thing.

Heightfield editor?  I thought that's what the terrain editting tools worked on.

 

Why so many of you blast SL for not having Photoshop built in but continue to take photos with your digital cameras that likewise doesn't have photoshop built in, completely amazes me.  You cannot make a movie without a video editor and you cannot create a 3D world without learning some 3D tools either.  That you can create some things with the basic tools the viewer gives you is great, I agree.  But other tools from companies who have forgotten more about 3D than LL will ever learn also exist, and some of them are even free.  There are lots and lots of tools already out for these well-documented standards.  Your refusal to make a texture because there is no texture editor in the viewer is like saying you refuse to drive your car because Ford didn't produce the gas in the tank, either.  Who cares where the gas comes from? 

If you don't wish to use PaintShopPro or Gimp or Audacity or Aniposer, that's your business -- nobody is saying you have to or you can't play in SL.  You can keep building with your wooden blocks all you like.  The rest of us who run more than one program on our computers at a time will be generating meshes that will totally revolutionize how SL looks, from realistic trees to ornate wall paneling to elaborate flying toasters. 

And besides, adding in all those editors would make everyone crying about the size of the download explode in indignation -- How about a nice 250Meg download every couple of nights?  That is, if LL could actually build a working mesh or sound editor in the first place.  Seeing how poorly they've done anything else the past 3 years, I wouldn't bet money on them delivering anything usuable.

If they can't add a basic paint program in a few dozen K, and a minimal sound cropper/editor in another few dozen K, something's seriously wrong with the state of programming these days.

---

So what does happen when you apply a cut path, or hollow?  How about twist, dimple, etc?

Whee - you can resize, and rotate.  Texturing is iffy at best, as they only have one side, I'll bet, like sculpties.  The only way to change their shape is to have a script apply a *NEW* mesh to it.

Can you make flexi meshes?

Oh, well - enjoy your mesh-flavored Kool-Aid.  I'll stick with what attracted me to SL - "It all starts with a box."

---

Well, talk about harsh words. There is plenty of info you can read on this if you arnt lazy and simply look it up.

First, why would you want to apply a pathcut or hollow or any of that stuff? When someone makes a mesh, they can take into account what they want the mesh to look liike. In this way its just like a sculpty. Whether you actually can apply any of that I do not know and dont really care to; when I make something I am going to account for how its supposed to look anyway when I make it, then I dont have to edit it much in world.

Did you know that you can make regular prims change their shape with scripts, and not have to bother uploading whole separate meshes for each possible change you might want to make to that prim's shape?  At least we can re-size meshes - that at least makes clothing possible.  Of course, if there's some inconvenient part sticking out, we can't resize just *THAT* part of the clothes, like we can when we buy mod-able clothing.

Oh, and you're not even supposed to change mesh shapes by applying a new mesh to them - you're supposed to create all the parts, and use alpha changes to make them visible or invisible.  Real big advantage there.

Second, meshes allow up to 8 different textures on them, so I know you are speaking about something which you have no knowledge of when you say "iffy" and betting its like sculpties. Go learn about that which you are speaking of before proclaiming criticisms.

I admitted to start with that I didn't know how many faces a mesh would have, as far as in-world counted, but - Oh, wow - 8 different textures.  So my d10, d12 or d20 is out of the question.  And I'd certainly have found that info from the SL Wiki page on meshes - it's in the link marked "Uploading Multi-face Meshes" - oh, wait, nobody ever put that link there, and the link for uploading meshes at *all* goes off-site.  And still no answer to flexi meshes - the best I can find says "no", but then again, apparently they can be "rigged" to work with the skeleton of the avatar mesh, which is fine for *clothes*, but misses the myriad other uses of flexi.

Third, stuff like mesh is used all over the place(technically, your AV's body is a mesh). This is simply LLs adaptation of it so we can use it in SL. It may have all started with a box back in the past, but it hardly has to nowadays. I dont know exactly what kind of thing for boxes you have, but what brought me to SL wasnt a box fetish, it was the ability to build things and adding mesh greatly expands this. They have tacked on enough prim count penalties to mesh so that you will still see regular ole prims and sculpties around, but any properly made meshes will still be far superior in appearance to anything made from prims or even sculpties.

What brought me to SL was being able to build things and see right THEN what I was building.  Not build something in one program, and then see it in another one.  I could do *THAT* with POVray, with much better rendering.  And I'm sorry that Philip Linden has been gone from SL so long that you don't even recognize the original slogan for SL.  One of his original ideas was that person X could have a build in-world, and others could make suggestions, and see the changes made as they happened.  That certainly won't be happening with meshes.

I don't want, or expect, the in-world editing tools to be the equal of the stand-alone programs.  Hell, the stand-alone programs aren't even the equals of each other.  Meshes remove the "Hummm...  What if I?" of SL.

And I already made myself beautiful new glasses. Yay!

This would be AWESOME news!  Except I can't log in with any viewers other than  V1 based ones and Firestorm.  I get a DNS failure error message and none of the posts in Answers are working for me.  I've got my fingers crossed that 3.0 will work (eventhough the BETA version did not), but I'm not holding my breath.  Can anyone help me with this issue?  I've got mesh products that I'm excited to start selling.

For the time being I really like the 64 meter prim limit, and will use the V3 to create one or two large prims at a time since the viewer will crash before I can build a 3rd prim.  Yes the viewer was not ready for prime time, and will be very frustrating to use, but we all know LL can't design or build functional viewers for it's own world. I will be fine with waiting for Phoenix/Firestorm to come out with a more professional option.

With regard to mesh, I like editing my content both in world and outside on my pc, but I really like some of the sculpty editing tools designed for use inside SL, and will definitely be giving my business to the person who develops the first decent mesh editor for use inside SL, especially if it will "shrink wrap" around my linked prim objects. Looking forward to seeing all the developments.

So this is cool

Did you know that you can make regular prims change their shape with scripts, and not have to bother uploading whole separate meshes for each possible change you might want to make to that prim's shape?  At least we can re-size meshes - that at least makes clothing possible.  Of course, if there's some inconvenient part sticking out, we can't resize just *THAT* part of the clothes, like we can when we buy mod-able clothing.

Yea, know all that, been around a while. At best it wouldnt work and at worst it would crash or something. You do realize that alot of people make no mod clothing and hair anyway right? Hence the bain that is the resizer script.

Oh, and you're not even supposed to change mesh shapes by applying a new mesh to them - you're supposed to create all the parts, and use alpha changes to make them visible or invisible.  Real big advantage there

I will assume this is sarcasm and just say that you should obviously get something thats right for the task to begin with rather then juryrigging something.

I admitted to start with that I didn't know how many faces a mesh would have, as far as in-world counted, but - Oh, wow - 8 different textures.  So my d10, d12 or d20 is out of the question.  And I'd certainly have found that info from the SL Wiki page on meshes - it's in the link marked "Uploading Multi-face Meshes" - oh, wait, nobody ever put that link there, and the link for uploading meshes at *all* goes off-site.  And still no answer to flexi meshes - the best I can find says "no", but then again, apparently they can be "rigged" to work with the skeleton of the avatar mesh, which is fine for *clothes*, but misses the myriad other uses of flexi.

I will just say that I could make a d100 work without 100 different textures, why cant you?

What brought me to SL was being able to build things and see right THEN what I was building.  Not build something in one program, and then see it in another one.  I could do *THAT* with POVray, with much better rendering.  And I'm sorry that Philip Linden has been gone from SL so long that you don't even recognize the original slogan for SL.  One of his original ideas was that person X could have a build in-world, and others could make suggestions, and see the changes made as they happened.  That certainly won't be happening with meshes.

I don't want, or expect, the in-world editing tools to be the equal of the stand-alone programs.  Hell, the stand-alone programs aren't even the equals of each other.  Meshes remove the "Hummm...  What if I?" of SL.

You are kidding right? What do you think happens when a person makes a 3d model, they wear a blindfold or something? You do realize that prims arnt going away right, what you said is still true, people can still build stuff with regular prims. Nothing is being taken away here, anyone can still come and make stuff out of prims.

SL is gaining something very important and all you can do is say this somehow stops basic creativeness? I have a feeling I could say a glass is half full and you would say half empty. Well no matter, you dont have to use mesh if you dont want, so have fun with that.

Ya know what, I am going to note your name down and as part of learning to get a mesh into SL, I am going to send you a full perms d20 mesh with texture and all, just for the heck of it. hahaha It wont be tommorow, but I garuntee you will receive something named d20.(not sure if I should wait for firestorm or get the LL viewer yet)

@Icon

The equivalent mesh model might be 5.6 times higher in prim use than the sculpt you mentioned, but most sculpts, at least the non blob shaped ones have a TON of unused, tucked away vertices... AND faces. So the equivalent shape (not model) will be better than 5.6 times higher. You might not get the same shape for 1 used prim, but then again it should be a lot easier to build and texture. Not to mention the fact you can apply the texture to it any way you like, or apply multiple textures (as a builder). On top of that the control over LOD and physical shape make the meshes much nicer to work with than a sculpted prim (also for the end user). No more need for dumb, difficult to link "walkprims"  (which ofcourse add to the primuse).

Now I am sure in some cases the sculpted prim has the overhand. Well in those cases, use them, LL didn't stop supporting those. The only downside I see is a very personal one, I liked the challenge of folding, wrapping and molding a sculpt into a nice shape, that challenge is gone now.

__

No viewer issues here, as a matter of fact I was pleasantly surprised by the V3.0 viewer. I tried the 2.0 when it came out and didn't like it. I've been using phoenix since and have to say V3.0 doubles my fps, up to a point where I can turn on shadows...on my near empty building platform...with 5 fps. (hehe)

Anyway, a big improvement over phoenix, I guess I'll get used to the unneccesary changes they made (V1 -> V2).

__

One thing about the Philip Linden reference, stating people can build together and discuss the progress while doing so. Most people build alone, either outside of SL or inworld. I'm sure some people will miss this with building meshes, but I will take a more efficient and better looking build over a stack of boxes anytime. When working on large projects you can always use some dummy prims to see how things will look. That works pretty well, see it as a model or drawing before an actual building is constructed. Adding a mesh workspace to SL could help, but it would never be as good as the stand alone programs around.