Dilbert Dilweg Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Creating a UV map for the mesh texture will allow you to take the UV map and add all kinds of images to the UV map.. flatten and Save the UV map as 1 image composed of several IMAGES. The UV map would be 1 single texture to download and render. Could even wrap 1 texture UVmap around a prim with 6 sides and still be 1 texture with 6 different colors or images on each side So Lets say I create a necklace with 30 beads. all 30 beads need a different texture. If I UV mapped the mesh necklace. I could ad all my materials and textures to one image and have 30 different textures on that 1 image and place it on the prim I maped and it will be 1 texture and all beads will be textured correctly .... Still only 1 texture to download and render even tho it has 30 avatars clipped onto it So if I have a wall and I want 30 avatars on each side of the wall. I could do this with 1 texture UVmap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowl Paine Posted April 20, 2012 Author Share Posted April 20, 2012 My thoughts on Mesh: Mesh is Officially supported by LL. I support their decision. We should only use Mesh if it will dramatically reduce Prim count of a final display, and or, if Mesh will produce a visually measurable Image superior to standard prims. I would like to continue to explore the Mesh / Non-mesh options. The Group will have a definitive answer for use of Mesh, on or before Wednesday, April 25, 2012. Group Meeting this Sunday, see Group Notices for more Information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Knowl Paine wrote: Thank you Gracie :smileyhappy: I will definitely have to visit the Installation in Coyote. ty Our Group will have a Meeting on Sunday. After the Group meeting, I will have a better summary of the Group's plan. I would enjoy meeting with you in SL to discuss and hear your opinions and insights about photo projects. If you have some free time, I would like to meet with you. I will send you an IM Inworld. Sincerely, Knowl Um, Knowl, that's the place where we met once, the 1000 avatars project, with all the panels of different avatars? and the couches in the middle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Which requires that the mesh is textured (baked) before upload? If that's the case and we have someone who can (and is willing) to do that, then that could be a very good solution to both the prim count and texture rezzing issues. I can go for that. It's a great way to solve a couple of what I see as major problems for this project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Perrie Juran wrote: Charolotte Caxton wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: Charolotte Caxton wrote: Really? Male sit poses? I specifically did not include any just for you, sigh. I suppose I still have a lot to learn. Thanks for the headquarters offer. Sounds much larger than the temporary meeting place and besides, my butterflies are getting tired of all the company, so thanks, sounds great and I see no reason why not to accept. Keli brings up a really good point about mesh, that others have touched upon before. One, it will dramatically cut down on prim cost, and two, from what I have seen, textures applied to mesh are much more crisp and refined in detail than textures applied to prims. However, I don't know if the textures have to be applied before upload to inworld or if you can just apply the same texture to a mesh object inworld and get the same results. So, for our display medium, I say put it on mesh. But what about those residents who can't see mesh? Seriously? If that is still relevant then they are missing out on a lot more of Second Life than just our project. I think even the old style Phoenix supports mesh now, so I don't really see it as being a problem. "So, for our display medium, I say put it on mesh." You run into a problem here if people are self submitting pictures. Though we haven't heard any current numbers to my knowledge the last official comments put 25% of Resis NOT USING mesh viewers. I am among them. Not by choice per se but because mesh gives my computer indigestion and the graphics don't look as good. How would it be a problem if users self submit? It would be us putting it on the mesh panels, not the users. 25% not using mesh? What viewers still don't support mesh? My bad, my misunderstanding on what the mesh was intended for. The repositories for many pre-mesh TPV's are still available. I have downloaded and saved the install files. Firestorm Beta is an example. So, the only viewers that don't support mesh are those viewers that are no longer supported? In essence, non mesh viewers are no longer downloadable viewers? Have you tried the viewers with the 1.23 interface that do support mesh? They might not drag your system down as much as the newer viewers do and still allow you to see mesh. In regards to mesh, if it does nothing to increase image quality or prim savings, then I see no reason to use it. If, however, it does increase image quality and saves on prim count, I can think of no reason not to use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dilbert Dilweg Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Peggy Paperdoll wrote: Which requires that the mesh is textured (baked) before upload? If that's the case and we have someone who can (and is willing) to do that, then that could be a very good solution to both the prim count and texture rezzing issues. I can go for that. It's a great way to solve a couple of what I see as major problems for this project. Yes the texture would be baked either onto the mesh and uploaded . or you could even upload the single texture and apply it to the prim... either way is doable.. Having 1 map that can be distributed to everyone to put images on makes it pretty easy.. making the uv map wont be difficult since it is just flat sides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Then I'm for exploring this option. If I understand you correctly the total texture size is still limited to the 1024 x 1024 hard limit for the texture no matter if it's done off line or in-world. We may have to settle for less than the highest detail for the textures if that's the case ir we are trying to reduce the overall prim count for the parcel........but on the other sides it seems to be possible to have higher quality images on each mesh with fewer avatars per texture. Some are more concerned with image detail than computer and sim impact. I'm trying to find a happy medium. We could get the best possible image for ever avatar if we don't concern ourselves with the users computer's hardware limitations and we have unlimited land resources. That's one extreme. The other extreme is that we could put 50 avatars on a single texture and have very low detail.........that lessens the land impact and puts a lot less stress on the users' computers graphics capabilities. There has to be a compromise somewhere........we need to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 The most detail at the lowest cpu rendering cost. We don't want a gray blob of an exhibit and neither do we want a crayon drawn looking exhibit, so I agree, whatever will look best without being unrenderable by many will be the goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc Starsider Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Mesh is confusing, and I think it is really hard to explain in a clear way. I consider myself quite the beginner even after about a year learning it. Thus I might have some details slightly wrong, or explain them slightly wrong, but I'll try. Hopefully, I manage to answer your questions... Even if a polygon in SL is technically a triangle, I'll call them quads which is a polygon with 4 sides (which I probably didn't need to explain). Quads is mostly what is used in the 3d software. I might not get into uv mapping like Dilbert mentioned, but it is possible to use uv mapping to be more texture efficient. For instance to reuse textures on different parts of the model. A mesh model can have up to 8 texturable areas. In SL speak this is often referred to as up to 8 faces, which is confusing. I'll try to remember to say texturable areas which I think is a better term. Now, you can assign individual polygons in the mesh (which is, confusingly, also called faces ) to any one of the 8 texturable areas in the 3d software before import. The cube I sent around had 6 texturable areas - one for each side of the cube, for each face of the cube - but could have had less. You can apply one texture to each of these texturable areas. I explained it incorrectly before if you understood that you could apply two textures to each area. (The display of the textures on these areas are dependant on the previously mentioned UV mapping.) What I could have done in Blender is to create the mesh cube with more polygons. It would still be a 6 sided cube, but perhaps 4 of the sides would have been divided into 2 quads each, and I could have assigned 1 quad from each of the cubes sides to one texturable area and the other quad to a different texturable area. This way, you could assign one texture to one texturable area and another texture to the other area, with the result that two textures are assigned to each of the cubes sides (or faces). Oh, and textures can't be baked on to the mesh before upload. They have to be uploaded - (at the same time the model is uploaded or separate) - like any other texture. Now. Renderingwise, there is really no difference between a regular prim and a mesh object. Basically, they are all mesh objects as far as the graphics engine is concerned. All the polygons have to be rendered for both, and the textures have to be rendered regardless if it is an imported mesh or SL prim (LODs come into play here as well). Your example with a necklace with 10 1024x1024 textures would be just as heavy on the graphiics card if they were applied to a mesh object or to a prim. No difference. (If the necklace was made out of one mesh object, you could only apply 8 textures, but if it was made out of several mesh objects, you could use 10) The prim saving aspect of mesh is that you can make objects out of far less polygons compared to a similar object made with prims or sculpts. As the maker you can also decide how the LODs of the mesh is going to look. with prims and sculpts you have to take what you get when it comes to LODs. Using less polygons makes a mesh object contain less data - thus it is faster for the viewer to download, and it has less data for the rendering engine to deal with. Download of data is one of the aspects in the prim count equation. My example with a cube does not show much of the advantage. I hope I managed to explain this in a somewhat understandable way. If there is any interest, I can try to create a couple of new examples showing some of what I said above. Just let me know. - Luc - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 My problem is that I'm not convinved that we are not setting a too high quality standard for the product. I believe we can put more than 10 avatars on each texture for the "hall of avatars" method. Let me experiment a little. I'm thinking of a pssibility of 20 per texture. But there certainly will be a quality hit. I'll see it and anyone with a higher end graphics card will see it.....but I wonder how would a low end computer see it? I have another computer that has the old Intel GMA 945 IGP (this computer has no onboard graphics at all). If I can find the old viewer 1.23 setup file I have saved somewhere I can install it and disable the discrete card on the other machine, connect the onboard graphics and see for myself. I don't think the difference is going to be significant myself........but I need to test it to say one way or the other. If we are going for the most residents being able to see our work then we need to find a way for that to happen..........setting too high of a quality standard, in my opinion, will limit who can enjoy the work we are trying to do. I'm going to PM Dres to see if he can get me the textures he used for his prototype with all the layers so we are looking at the same image to compare the quality fairly. It migh take a while for me to put this experiment together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 1.23? No onboard graphics support? How many people in 2012 still have access to that kind of technology, and if so, how many would choose to use that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 I think you answered me. So the textures applied to a mesh have the exact same impact as textures applied to a standard prim. If there are two textures on two sides (or faces) of a prim or two polygons of a mesh the texture load for the graphics card is the same. That's what I thought.....which means there might be a saving in prims but the texture load is going to be the same. Lots of grey meshes or prims for a low graphics machine. That's undesirable in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Charolotte Caxton wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: Charolotte Caxton wrote: So, the only viewers that don't support mesh are those viewers that are no longer supported? In essence, non mesh viewers are no longer downloadable viewers? Have you tried the viewers with the 1.23 interface that do support mesh? They might not drag your system down as much as the newer viewers do and still allow you to see mesh. In regards to mesh, if it does nothing to increase image quality or prim savings, then I see no reason to use it. If, however, it does increase image quality and saves on prim count, I can think of no reason not to use it. Didn't want to thread jack here but to answer your question they are still available to download but to be safe I saved the install files. And I have tried many viewers and other things trying to solve my problem. There are a number of JIRAs related to my particular problem so I am far from alone in this. </end threadjack> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 It's not a threadjack, it is relevant to the project. I don't want the project to be unviewable. However, I am curious as to where the downloads are available from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Read some of the tech questions in "Answers"..........you're in for a bit surprise. I know several people who use 1.23 or TPV's coded to that base. I also know many people who use onboard GMA IGP's, and those in chip graphics like the HD 2000 Intel graphics. Weak graphics for 3D environments........okay for web surfing and streaming media. Not everyone wants or needs a computer that is more than just low to mid range in the graphics department. They don't even think of what is happening for them to be able to see anything...if it works for most of their needs it's great. We have to find a way to include as many of those people as possible (can we include them all? Probably not). Setting our image quality too high for the majority of users is not a good idea. On that other computer of mine. I have it because it was given to me by a friend who went to the dark side and got a laptop. I built this computer for her a vew years ago and did not put a graphics card in it because she couldn't make up her mind what she wanted and we were going to upgrade later..........we never did since the onboard was good enough for her needs. I have it connected with a KVM switch and sort of just play around with it sometimes. I just got a new card for this computer (GTX 550 Ti) a couple weeks ago and took the old card that was in this computer and put in that inherited computer (a GTX 250 ). All have to do is go into the BIOS and disable the discrete card (the GTS 250) and connect the monitor cable to that port. Not a hard thing to do. The problem is finding that setup file for 1.23 that I saved a long time ago. The GMA will not run the V-3 that is installed on that computer now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Do you think that those persons that run on the bare minimum and can hardly see graphics would be the kind that would go to an avatar art exhibit? Or do they mostly just stay where they are and chat with friends? This is a visual project set in a virtual 3D environment, I am all for getting most people to see it, but I doubt that most people can't see a picture on a wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 About 5 minutes at the 1000 Avatar exhibit when you and I were there you had to leave because you were afraid you were gong to crash.....that is going to happen a lot of people if we are not careful. I had no problem at all and after the initial rezz of the images my FPS were almost 30......even when I turned around forcing my graphics to render a how new set of images. But my system is not the same as yours. We have to consider the lowest denominator. If that person can enjoy the project without too many problems and the quality is still good (not excellent, good) then I believe that should be our goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 I agree on the lowest denominator and trying to achieve a balance between quality and rendering, however, I find it difficult to believe that many persons that go to multi textured locations are running on antiquated setups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc Starsider Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 That is correct. A texture is the same regardless of the object it is applied to. Well made models with well made uv maps is saving on both prims and textures, but for our project where a certain size textues will be applied to cubes, I don't see where we will save. This primarily because of Dresdens find earlier in the thread where you can save prims even when using regular prims. - Luc - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 My thoughts on the subject are this. Mesh is here to stay. And as more and more people embrace and use mesh we will see more and more people either either quit SL (or not start to begin with) because of it or upgrade their computers and or graphics cards. There will be some people who will continue to limp along. With out getting into the technical details based on all my reading and attempted solutions, my specific problem, dropping from 40FPS with non mesh viewer down to 5FPS with mesh viewer is a coding issue related to open GL. And I am not alone with this problem. My other alternative is to buy a new graphics card but like many Resi's, I don't have that kind of disposable income hanging out. But because mesh is here to stay, and if it makes for the highest quality presentation, them my thought is go for quality. Because the percentage of those who are unable to see mesh is going to continue to drop. Whether there has been a significant change in the percentages since Rodvik's last comments on the subject I don't know. But this is the way I think the trend will continue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dilbert Dilweg Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Luc Starsider wrote: Oh, and textures can't be baked on to the mesh before upload. They have to be uploaded - (at the same time the model is uploaded or separate) - like any other texture. Hmmm I have been able to upload mesh with the texture already applied to the mesh without having to upload seperate texture. Or are you saying the texture is already included into the .dae and has to be uploaded there? Either way when I apply a texture to my collada file and upload it. it is all applied and already on the mesh. I call that baked lol ( My Lack of terminology definitions) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charolotte Caxton Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Have you tried disabling VBO in the Graphics Hardware settings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luc Starsider Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Yes, textures can be added the way you describe. But they are not really baked in to the mesh, I think. They are exported with the dae file, and in the uploader, I beieve you specify you want ot upload textures, which will find the texture and upload it alongside your model. When you rez the model, the texture will already have been applied. You end up with a texturefile in your inventory as well as the mesh object? At least this is how I understand it is supposed to work. I have never imported this way, so I'm not really sure how the uploading works. Perhaps I should try it out... - Luc - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowl Paine Posted April 20, 2012 Author Share Posted April 20, 2012 lol, thank you for that reminder Charolotte, My apologies to Gracie. I have been thinking about some questions I have for Gracie, I hope to be able to meet with her soon. I will continue to read and review comments here and update later after consulting with Charolotte and others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 Charolotte Caxton wrote: Have you tried disabling VBO in the Graphics Hardware settings? VBO, HTTP, Antialising, you name the setting, I've been through it. Clean install of four different driver versions for my GPU. Short of reformatting my entire computer I lost track of all the suggestions I have tried. But I do appreciate it. For the little bit of Mesh I do encounter it became an issue of not wanting to devote anymore time to the issue for now. I put many hours into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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