Land impact? Are meshes just hoax with no use?

[Masami Kuramoto]

---

Drongle McMahon wrote:

The OPs question was whether meshes are "just a hoax with no use".

---

No.

Can we please stop treating the OP like an idiot and reducing his criticism to a one-liner that he used in his thread title to attract our attention? Thank you very much.

As we can see in his initial, still unedited post, he did notice the land impact savings on small objects already. His criticism was just as limited in scope as your and my agreement. He even expected a moderate increase in land impact with the larger size but was flabbergasted by the final result. And frankly, who wouldn't be?

So what in the OP's findings is there not to agree with? Why do some people treat him like a newbie who needs to be taught the secrets of low-poly modeling? It's not that he doesn't know how to optimize. He's just wondering why it is necessary while sculpties get away with no optimization at all.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Sculpts don't get penelized because they're "grandfathered".  Just imagine the extreme uproar that would come to fruition if sculpt and prim builds were scored on their true impact like mesh is.  Many builds would be simply impossible to rez.  (>_<)

Well... They are impossible to rez, technicially.  The lag of an all-sculpt build can be astounding, to say the least. (=_=)

Now, mind you, these prim/sculpt builds still lag people to death while we blame LL for our own failings.  But, it all comes down to triangle counts and distance.  Mesh holds people accountable because it can.  Prims and sculpts will continue to waste real resources without penalty in order to maintain an aging subset of builder who will eventually fade to black soon enough. ()

To me, LI is not "Land Impact"... It's "Lag Impact".  For those who are choosing to continue to make laggy builds instead of learning the actual capabilities of the tool; expect a price to be paid. ()y

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

So basically what you're suggesting is that, because you can use sculpted prims and the legacy prim accounting system to cheat on land impact, LL should make it possible for us to do the same with mesh?

It's obvious that LL aren't going to break existing content (considering the animosity that the introduction of mesh already caused with some residents doing so would have been suicide).

Sorry, but it seems to me that blindly clinging to the one slim advantage which sculpted prims have over mesh and insisting that it means "mesh is broken" is both childish and misleading to those who are trying to learn how to make the most of the tools currently available to them.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Fluffy Sharkfin wrote:

If you'd rather take a look at it in person feel free, the build is currently located on

my homestead sim

.

---

I went to have a look.  The whole thing rezzed almost instantly.  Amazing and impressive showcase of effective mesh build!

---

 

Thanks Coby

I'm still experimenting and learning, from what I learned putting it all together I think I could probably lower the LI by around 20% while still adding more detail and reducing the geometry rendered per frame at the same time.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Masami Kuramoto wrote:

He even expected a moderate increase in land impact with the larger size

 but was flabbergasted by the final result. And frankly, who wouldn't be?

So what in the OP's findings is there not to agree with? Why do some people treat him like a newbie who needs to be taught the secrets of low-poly modeling? It's not that he doesn't know how to optimize. He's just wondering why it is necessary while sculpties get away with no optimization at all.

---

Read his first AND second post and it should become crystal clear he doesn't understand the way LoD works. That has got nothing to do with low poly modelling the highest LoD. It has got everything to do with optimisation.

"Upload setting was average with lowest phys."

This means he used auto-LoD, which is just bad, bad, bad for structures like the gazebo and for pretty much any model actually.

"worth only for simple mini objects like chair, bucket or anything small with detailed texture mapping"

"Simply you cant have any mesh but small, to stay below 15 - 20 land impact."

I think there are enough examples, even in this very thread to prove that's not the case at all.

"anyway so you say alpha railings as solutions... so why I use meshes, if I need make railings as alpha, that hut is all about 3d railings and dropped shadows duh...how can I get some realism with alpha ralings..."

Those railings are ment for the lower LoDs, this comment again makes me believe he doesn't understand the concept of LoD.

"meshes cant compete with sculpts until metric size of meshes will not affect LI"

Again, not the case at all as shown in many examples.

 

I am not saying he can't model, we're not treating him like a noob. We're simply trying to explain why the impact is so high and what he can do to fix it. Linden Lab isn't going to change the rules on landimpact for either meshes or sculpties, live with it. You simply do not need more triangles on screen than there are pixels for a certain object. And with the auto-LoD that's exactly what's happening.

[Yan Hoxley]

nice improvement, seems a bit things could be done for optimized upload but  anyway as I see your pillar thingy.. that could be made from 13 sculpts + 1 floor prim (maybe less if I could see wire model) with almost same model detail and it will not depend on size of it... 17 LI (dependable on size!) is too much comfort for this "pillar nothing"(according to level of complexity)

In general: Im not english born so my used phrases could be funny or misleading and so on as name of thread etc. so dont call me names lol Cant catch what words or phrases are weird for you all, call my high school eng teacher to beat her

[Masami Kuramoto]

---

Fluffy Sharkfin wrote:

So basically what you're suggesting is that, because you can use sculpted prims and the legacy prim accounting system to

cheat

on land impact, LL should make it possible for us to do the same with mesh?

---

No.

---

It's obvious that LL aren't going to break existing content (considering the animosity that the introduction of mesh already caused with some residents doing so would have been suicide).

---

There are ways to phase out the legacy prim accounting system without breaking existing content. The implementation details depend on how we define "existing".

For example, the new accounting system could be applied to every sculpted prim created after day X. Or copied after day X. Or transferred after day X. Or rezzed after day X. Existing sculpties (let's call them "legacy prims") would continue using the old accounting system until they get switched over to the new one. There should be a function to activate the new accounting for every sculpted prim in a linkset that you own (regardless of modification permissions).

Linden Lab could introduce a land impact bonus for private regions without legacy prims. To unlock the bonus, all legacy prims have to be removed from the region or switched over to the new accounting. After unlocking the bonus, legacy prims get switched over automatically when rezzed in that region.

And finally, psychological warfare: Linden Lab could introduce a viewer setting to toggle legacy prim rendering, turn it off by default, and hide the switch in the debug settings menu. Remember how people avoided mesh while there was a significant chance that it wouldn't be rendered properly? Let's use the same trick to make them avoid legacy prims.

The general idea is to provide an incentive to use mesh instead of sculpted prims, so that people stop producing even more unoptimized legacy content.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

---

Yan Hoxley wrote:

nice improvement, seems a bit things could be done for optimized upload

but  anyway as I see your pillar thingy.. that could be made from 13 sculpts + 1 floor prim (maybe less if I could see wire model) with almost same model detail and it will not depend on size of it... 17 LI (dependable on size!) is too much comfort for this "pillar nothing"(according to level of complexity)

In general: Im not english born so my used phrases could be funny or misleading and so on

as name of thread etc. so dont call me names lol

Cant catch what words or phrases are weird for you all, call my high school eng teacher to beat her

---

Hehe Yes Lots can be done. I was just approaching it all wrong when it came to the LOD's. I have since refined my methods and can acheive a lot more since that post. I am sure you can build the same thing with sculpts, But honestly I have never liked how sculpts are a bit distorted. Mesh does not do this . I did right by learning how to model low poly But now I see I can raise the bar a lot more on the modeling and make much more detail than i was originally doing.. I am totally sold on Mesh

The Pergola in the image had a little over 10,000 triangles They are rezzed @ secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Sandbox%20Goguen/78/40/21

Once I wrapped my head around the whole LOD mess it's like night and day

I can get that current build down to 14 LOD by uploading the parts and assemble them in world. But my main goal is not to have to do that.

I'm not here to call anyone names lol. I understand the language barier

[Min Barzane]

LOD? Land impact? you want to learn about it? Here it is.. Beq's blog

[Yan Hoxley]

well that blog not saying us more... as the lamp in example is small, sure it has low LI, my gazebo has also low LI (5) when is small...

[Drongle McMahon]

"The general idea is to provide an incentive to use mesh instead of sculpted prims"

Hehe. I think they already did a lot in that direction, by lowering the priority of sculpt map downloads so that we get fed up with looking at blobs instead of trees etc. Or maybe it's just because my connection isn't so fast?

[Jesseaitui Petion]

The OP's continual mention of "Mesh ok for small builds, bad for big builds" leads me to believe his problem is with his LOD upload numbers.

For stock LOD values:  A large build, such as a home structure, is going to have a large LI number when rezzed as a "life-sized" model; alternately, it will have a small LI when rezzed as a "mini" model.  This results from a failure to optimize the LOD numbers effeciently for SL performance.  This is exactly what you say you are experiencing.

Your gazebo is most likely set up to be seen clear across the other side of the sim, when it doesn't need to be, thus increasing "Land Impact" number. Once an avatar is so far from any given object, it should be set to "de-rez" in order to reduce client stress/LI.

To Fix: Optimize your LOD values.  Keep the HQ LOD value HQ, and change the rest.  Put the Low and Lowest LOD numbers at bare minimal.  You will see a huge change in LI when you increase the size of your structure from "mini" to "large."  Play around with the options until you find something that looks good to you when you begin to walk away, and meets your LI requirements.

[Phadrus Karu]

This was a previous test project completed during the mesh beta. It includes individual planks at the highest LOD while using facade flat textures for the lower LODs. The bridge is modular; being divided into four sections. It is just 10 prims but can be further optimized.

With some careful management and consideration for how Second Life implements mesh, many large objects can be made equivalent to their prim or sculpty counterparts with respect to land impact.

 

[Brayla Ravenhurst]

I think the key here is to consider mesh to be a tool in your building arsenal as opposed to a replacement for sculpties.  Experiment.    I have builds which incorporate mesh, sculpties and prims. 

Sculptie meshes have a lot of triangles, which will greatly increase the upload cost (and therefore LI).  Reduce the extra triangles (especialy the useless ones along a flat plane). Keep only the triangles which actually add detail.

What did you use for physics models? You can create your own physics models to be the fewest triangles.  Remember that simple physics shapes (if you don't need detailed physics, or if the item will be phantom anyway, you can use a cube!) can reduce land impact considerably.