Dynamic texture text on a single prim face?

[Highstaker]

I have noticed that some devices in SL (examples: some vendors, EnGarde and Can't Stop Leaderboards) display the name of a certain resident as a texture on a single face of a prim. It seems that it somehow dynamically creates a text on a texture and assigns to a face. Here is what I am sure it cannot use.

1) It is not Xyzzy or someting. It is not a multiface prim with 5-faces, it is one face. Plus, it can take much more than 10 letters on the singleprim.

2) It is not mesh, because these things appeared before mesh came to SL.

3) It is not Media. I have media disabled in preferences, so I cannot see browsers on sides of prims, but I can still see this text. Also it doesn't look like media, it loads like a texture (prim goes gray, then a blurry texture appears, then it becomes sharper).

I wonder if someone know how this phenomena is accomplised. Is it a dynamically created texture, or is it created externally and somehow uploaded automatically to SL? And how to accomplish it with scripts?

UPD1: Someone managed to rip these textures out of cache. So, these are definitely textures.

 

[GuyverxCobalt]

Well these were probably made by LSL scripting where the script says that this person wants this so they get the user's UUID from their profile and they place it on there and then they have their user name come up when the Scripts detect on who it is after they use it. 

 

When its on a single prim face they have a transparent prim thats not seen thats linked to the other things. So then when the scripts get the users name the texture for changes for whoever is using it with the UUID's of texture letters placed in the scripts.

[Rolig Loon]

Nope, that's not it.  You're thinking of posting an av's profile pic.  The script the OP is looking for displays text.  It's possible that it's a version of Nexii Malthus's XYText script, though.  Iv'e tried that one out myself and am quite impressed.

[Nexii Malthus]

Yeah, these are most likely a version of my script.

 

The mesh is 8 layered faces squished very thinly together. They are all elongated, so it does look like one face at first.

 

But actually it is designed that way so that it can move letters left and right dynamically, to allow for kerning, which is the special feature of my text renderer.

 

I have never seen any other non-media method for rendering dynamic text with kerning as far as I am aware. (I won't even give a bot-uploaded texture as an answer, that sounds like the most wasteful way of doing things)

 

---

 

On second look. After checking the pictures with closer scrutiny. I think a bot might actually be uploading those, ugh!

 

Lets see..

NexText 1024x1024 for font texture (+ a few more if you want to use italics/bold, etc) + some LI.

Versus.

Bot uploaded textures (those look high res, so 512 x 128), say +1000 av keys and your talking about +62.5MB of texture mem gone, +10,000L$ down the drain.

 

Quite a laggy way to save about "10 - 20 prims"

[Highstaker]

>>The mesh is 8 layered faces squished very thinly together. They are all elongated, so it does look like one face at first.

 

I am not sure if it is really mesh, because I saw those before mesh came to SL...

 

>>+10,000L$ down the drain.

I was thinking, Firestorm viewer has a Temp texture upload option, which is free. Maybe they somehow use it? Because I have no idea how it is possible.

 Also, I have noticed one thing with the vendor. When I click the vendor, it is keyed to me, when some time passes it is released. I click it again, and the text texture loads again with the same speed. I suppose that it creates new texture each time, regardless if the user has already visited that vendor or not.

Also, it seems to replicate even non-classic symbols, like in the example below. Fonts with this name and my name in example in the first post are different.

[Qie Niangao]

You say that somebody ripped the texture from cache; I gather it was the whole text image, which would rule out any form of character-at-a-time rendering.

As I understand it, the temp texture upload thing is local to the sim where the texture was uploaded; if that's correct, an uploading bot would have to visit the sim every time text had to be shown, which seems pretty unlikely. (Also I have some vague memory that this specific mechanism is slated to go away with Project Shining, but with some other similar feature as replacement... but I no longer remember how I got that impression.)

I'm stumped.

[EDIT: The solution. This must get expensive!]

[Highstaker]

>>[EDIT: The solution. This must get expensive!]

oh my GOD!!! this is expensive indeed.
 Including the fact that hundreds (maybe even thousands) of residents play EnGarde and Can't stop on a regular basis, this system costs them hundreds or real dollars.

 

Wow, I never thought the solution was so straightforward...

Thank you, Que, and everyone.

Looks like, if I need such system, I will have to move to OSgrid .

[Highstaker]

Also, that vendor has a bot avatar there. My friends say that this bot might generate textures and upload them as temporaries. I have no idea how it is done, so, I don't know if it can be true or not.

[Scooter Hollow]

It'd be dead simple on OSgrid, since OpenSim has functions that allow you to put drawing and text on textures dynamically.

[Highstaker]

Yeah, osDrawText , osSetDynamicTextureData , and all that stuff. Doesn't work for me at all times, but at my own sim it usually does 8)

[outtaspace]

another way to display names on a single prim (although i imagine very laggy) is by using temp rez prims..

here is an example of such.. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ZEROPRIM-DISPLAY-v2-400-Deluxe-Ed/2010702

[GuyverxCobalt]

Okay, i see what you mean.

 

I guess i wasn't thinking straight when making the post. x.x

[Highstaker]

>>another way to display names on a single prim (although i imagine very laggy) is by using temp rez prims..

 

I guess this can be utilized to display short texts, when the text is not supposed to be displayed for long. Like the name of the agent on the vendor he uses.

[Highstaker]

A little experimental update on that vendor with bot. Due to some unknows circumstances (probably the sim restart) the bot is not present currently at the vendor. I try to use the vendor, and the "dynamic" texture with my name won't appear whatsoever. Seems that it was the bot who uploaded textures in that case.

[Strawberry Lionheart]

You don't need media on to load a url as texture on a surface of a prim since v2.

 

Not many know of its existance but it can be done by script alone. What they might be doing is having an api gateway which creates name jpg on their server and direct display it on the prim. So you WILL need to have your own server for that :catwink:

[Highstaker]

How can an external image be loaded onto a prim without uploading? Is there some function I've missed?

[Rolig Loon]

No.  The contrast is between defining a parcel media texture and using MOAP.  Before Linden Lab introduced the V2 generation of viewers, our only mechanism for displaying dynamic media in world was to define a placeholder texture that could be placed on any prim surface in a parcel, making it a projection screen for a video or for web-based material. The big limitation was that all prims with that placeholder texture on them would show the same media content. You can still do that if you want.  See llParcelMediaCommandList.  MOAP made it possible to have as many different media-active faces in a parcel as you like.