So Linden Lab Wants Us All To Be Naked?

[Solar Legion]

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

 

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

 

 

I know some people are in the 'upgrade or f off' camp and consider anyone with a less than optimal setup not worth worrying about, but I don't think most people feel that way. Clearly if you're going to be somewhere with a whole bunch of people you want to reduce your ARC/weight. A person might have the zoomiest rig and Internet connection in the world so none of that matters, but ignoring the fact other people are not at the same hardware level is to say the least selfish.

---

Well spoken!  I vividly recall the "ARC Police" since I was taking a 10-week class at that time and the instructor was adamant about us (the students) attending class with an ARC in the green.  I found a skin with painted clothes on it that I used for that class.

Several years later down the road I take a class at a large school in SL called "Let's Lessen Lag" and discover that scripts are what really lag a parcel or sim's performance.  I rezzed the free script counter at home and began pulling scripts out of all my modifiable hair/shoes/jewelry/clothing, etc.  I am much more conscious of script usage now and try my best to keep my wearable scripts on the low side.

---

 

Yep, scripts actually do cause server-side lag, and I have one of those script scales, too. I enjoy stepping on it just about as much as I enjoy stepping on my scale in RL: it so seldom has good news. It may just be the fact I'm going to different venues but it seems to me I've seen more places lately, especially ones expecting crowds, where a script counter is right at the Landing Point. Sometimes with a suggestion, sometimes required. Nonetheless, reducing the amount of work everyone else's PC has to do to rez you is a good idea, so that part is important too.

---

LOL re: the comparison with stepping on a RL scale, which is why I don't own a scale RL.  :matte-motes-tongue:

One school where I take classes (and where I got the script counter) has one that shows the script count on each student in a class, or else it's a cumulative one...not sure.  I do know that the instructors check it prior to each class, or at least the classes I've taken they did.  I've never seen anyone called out, unless it was in IM; maybe the regulars there know to have a low script count to attend class.

I've seen script counters at the tp in point of some large stores as well but no requirement to under a certain limit.

---

It is not so much the number of scripts one has as the amount of memory they use and the time it takes to process them.

Personally, I hate those blasted counters - all of them. Most are highly inaccurate (they count scripts that are currently in a stasis/"paused" state into the memory usage) and some go so far as to list how many scripts one has that are coded in Mono (no, Mono is not the end all, be all. Some scripts do not have any performance boost from being Mono compiled). Others even sit there and set the "red zone" for memory usage as being above 8Mb.

Have these people ever bothered to actually look at the sorts of scripts that are out there? One of the more "popular" multi-tools used by certain groups of people, if worn with the main attachment AND HUD easily adds 8Mb just by itself.

And I use it for various functions it contains. I have yet to find a good, low memory attachment and HUD system that allows for point to point teleportation within a Sim using pre-defined points the user has added in and allows for the transort of up to eight other users at the same time.

[Czari Zenovka]

The class that I took that talked about scripts and lag was taught by a scripter/coder who sells scripts in SL so she appeared to know what she was talking about.  The class went into quite a bit of detail ie. it wasn't about number of scripts but the memory, etc.

When I started combing through my inventory to pull out unneccessary scripts, one pair of my favorite shoes (which were my favorite because they included a hud with a ton of textures, degrees of shiny, footprints or not, sound or not, etc.) - contained 64 individual scripts per *shoe*!!!!  I keep the original pair with scripts intact and the few times I wear these shoes now I first change the texture for the outfit and then pull out all the scripts - which is very tedious with 64.  Time for new shoe shopping....lol.

I was glad I took that class because I had fallen for the "It's all the prim skirts and hair that is causing lag" argument.

Also own a "Multi" tool and used to keep it attached all the time but since I mainly used it for avatar detection and that is built into the viewer now I only put it on when I want to use one of its functions - usually creating a sky platform.  Still love, love, love that item though and it's one of my top 10 "Must Haves" of SL.

 

[Fantasy Eternal]

   I did it. 54,804 for the default Female Goth avatar. The minute you start SL you're in the red.

[Fantasy Eternal]

   The Female Goth default avatar starts in the red at 54,804. 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I'm betting all the pretty avatars that LL uses on the web site and in ads are way in the red too.  So on one hand LL encourages high costs, but then turns around and gives tools without explaining its proper use to well that cause lag police wars.  Ironic.

When I buy something new the first thing I do is try it on and fit it.  Then I always delete resize scripts.  If I am going to a place with a crowd I make a copy of everything I wear and pull out any other scripts as well using a script I wrote for this purpose.  Then I detach all HUDS except my AO/Dance HUD.

In crowds when I start getting too much lag, I start derendering avatars I'm not interacting with until I reach a comfortable level.  After I leave I remove them from the black list. 

While I do what I can to eliminate as much lag causing things on my avi, I am not going to strip down too far so people can derender me if they please.  I paid a lot of good money to look this good :smileywink:

 

[Blaz Neuman]

"When I started combing through my inventory to pull out unneccessary scripts, one pair of my favorite shoes (which were my favorite because they included a hud with a ton of textures, degrees of shiny, footprints or not, sound or not, etc.) - contained 64 individual scripts per *shoe*!!!!"

 

Well... do inactive scripts count in the render cost of an avatar ? If you don't click on your shoes to change something, they're just there doing nothing. Am I right ?

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Blaz Neuman wrote:

"

When I started combing through my inventory to pull out unneccessary scripts, one pair of my favorite shoes (which were my favorite because they included a hud with a ton of textures, degrees of shiny, footprints or not, sound or not, etc.) - contained 64 individual scripts per *shoe*!!!!"

 

Well... do inactive scripts count in the render cost of an avatar ? If you don't click on your shoes to change something, they're just there doing nothing. Am I right ?

---

While I'm not by ANY means a scripting expert, all I can say is that after I took the class and understood more about scripts as they relate to lag, I put on these shoes and the memory count based on the script counter was extremely high.  As I took each script out I again clicked on the script counter and saw the count decrease...some scripts decreased the count more than others.  When I had all 64 (!!!!)  - still amazed at that many individual scripts in one shoe - scripts removed, I was back down to a low count.  So "somehow" they counted.

 

[Blaz Neuman]

wow, that's weird !!!!

 

It's like saying every software installed on a pc uses some ram even if you don't launch it... :matte-motes-oh-rly:

[Parhelion Palou]

---

Blaz Neuman wrote:

wow, that's weird !!!!

 

It's like saying every software installed on a pc uses some ram even if you don't launch it... :matte-motes-oh-rly:

---

The scripts in objects worn by an avatar have been launched. If they require a touch to do something, they have to have a handler running to watch for the touch. If they work via a chat command they have a listener running. A script in inventory isn't running -- same as an unlaunched program on a PC's disk.

You might be able to stop the scripts in objects you're wearing, but it would have to be done each time you put on the object (and every time you log in) -- it's much easier to delete the scripts from a copy of the original object and always wear the copy.

[solstyse]

---

Blaz Neuman wrote:

wow, that's weird !!!!

 

It's like saying every software installed on a pc uses some ram even if you don't launch it... :matte-motes-oh-rly:

---

Do you want to see something crazy? Open your operating system's task manager and click on the processes tab. Granted, it's not every program in your computer, but you'll be surprised at how many programs have background processes going on even though you didn't manually launch them.

[Syo Emerald]

I once visited a furry club I saw a promotion video from. I was there as a red leopard just wearing a normal outfit with a skirt and some jewelery and two layers of clothing. Even after I ripped every script from hair and clothes, the damn scriptcounter didn't stopped showing me with as what they labeld "too much".

I never visited that place again. A furry avatar needs scripts and attachments...Oh and I wonder, if a place has problems with lag...how helpfull is it to place such a board which probably doesn't run with magic only.

[Ceka Cianci]

what is the next darkest..no wait make that 3 levels darker than red?

 

i'm almost down to that one..

when you're hot you're hot {

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Syo Emerald wrote:

I once visited a furry club I saw a promotion video from. I was there as a red leopard just wearing a normal outfit with a skirt and some jewelery and two layers of clothing. Even after I ripped every script from hair and clothes, the damn scriptcounter didn't stopped showing me with as what they labeld "too much".

 

---

Did you use a "scrubber" script after taking the scripts out?  Apparently just removing the scripts without using the scrubber doesn't completely "wipe out" the script.  If you did use the scrubber script the jewelry was probably the culprit.  Some of my very favorite pieces of jewelry are no mod, thus I can't remove the scripts. 

I really, really try to keep my scripts low, especially when going to a place where there will be a lot of people but dangit!  Sometimes a girl just wants to look pretty.

ETA:  Duh...you are a furry ie. scripts for the avatar alone. 

/sorry about that - haven't had any caffeine yet. 

 

[Syo Emerald]

The really sad thing is (when it comes to furries and being naked) that most nude beaches are human-only. I'm not even sure if I can visit them as an elf....

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Syo Emerald wrote:

The really sad thing is (when it comes to furries and being naked) that most nude beaches are human-only. I'm not even sure if I can visit them as an elf....

---

Waidaminut!!!!!!!  Nude beaches ie. "clothing optional" won't allow furries or elves???

/face palms

[Dilbert Dilweg]

fur causes lag :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Penny Patton]

Full disclosure, I only read the first post and  skimmed the rest of the thread.

The problem here is not that these measurements are too restrictive before an avatar is "in the red zone".

 The problem is, and always has been, that LL did not provide reasonable restrictions on resource use, or the tools to manage resource use, from the very beginning. If they had, Second Life could easily run at a smooth framerate with little to no lag at the settings you currently use.

 

 Since they did not, content creators have been creating excessively resource intensive content for over a decade. By and large, most content creators don't even try to work efficiently.  People fill attachments with redundant scripts, splitting individual scripted features into separate scripts rather than combining them. They slap 512x512 or 1024x1024 texture maps on every individual face of an attachment where if they used a single 256x256 texture using offsets to wrap it around the entire object you wouldn't see a difference and it would be much less of a burden for your computer to render it.

 

 THAT is why you need to remove so much from your avatar to get your draw weight out of the red. THAT is why SL runs so poorly on most computers.

 Yes, Linden Lab is out of touch with reality, but so is most of the userbase when they get so entitled to their attachments using 30MB of script memory and more polygon and texture resources than an entire level from a modern AAA videogame, then complain about the lag and region crossing issues as if they were completely unrelated.

 

 And don't get me wrong, I understand we're not all professional CG artists and programmers able to build and script our own professional quality avatars. My own avatar is in the red in terms of Rendering Weight and will be until I redo all of my attachments as mesh. That's kinda my point, that it's on the content creators in SL to create great looking, efficiently made content. LL should have been guiding them towards that, but hasn't. Now, much later, they're giving us some of the tools to do so but because they waited so long all the average SL user sees are people yelling at them for wearing their favourite shoes or scripted attachments and have no idea why or what they can do about it.

 

THAT is Linden Lab's screw-up, not that the draw weights are too restrictive.

[161488303349]

what you say about creators is pretty important

+

more and more new people coming to SL dont make anything. not like in the early days. they just buy and wear

I actual dont really care anymore about who is wearing what. people can wear what they buy out the box. if it kills the sim then I dont blame the wearer anymore. the blame goes on the creator who made it the laggy way

I even stick up for people now who all blinged up to death and someone else start trash talk them in the chat. they dont even know most times. they just buy bc they liked it and is nothing wrong to do that I dont think

[Penny Patton]

That's a good attitude to have. We're all in SL to have fun and you're never going to help someone better understand how resource use in SL is an issue if all you do is trash talk them.

 

I find it's a lot more constructive to put the information out there and help people out if they want to know how to reduce their resource footprint.

[161488303349]

you do a good job to explain that

I read your blog post about proportions. the one with the blocks and the other one with the pic of the Male Action library guy and how you remade him to be proper proportion

my light when bing! when I read that. up til then I was pretty dumb about what you meant before that when you was chat about it. like i just thought you was try turn us all into midgets (:

but now i know what you meant now. so thats pretty good i think and  i learn stuff off you about that. when people ask me now i tell them read your blog. when people do then they are like me and go oh! yeah (:

+

i just put here the links for anyone else who not read it yet

http://pennycow.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/matter-of-proportion.html

http://pennycow.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/a-critical-look-at-second-life-part-1.html

 

 

[Syo Emerald]

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

---

Syo Emerald wrote:

The really sad thing is (when it comes to furries and being naked) that most nude beaches are human-only. I'm not even sure if I can visit them as an elf....

---

Waidaminut!!!!!!!  Nude beaches ie. "clothing optional" won't allow furries or elves???

/face palms

---

Nude beaches belong to a typical group of places which decorate their entrance with signs like "Human avatars only", but without any real obivous reason, like roleplaysims would have.

[Perrie Juran]

---

16 wrote:

what you say about creators is pretty important

+

more and more new people coming to SL dont make anything. not like in the early days. they just buy and wear

I actual dont really care anymore about who is wearing what. people can wear what they buy out the box. if it kills the sim then I dont blame the wearer anymore. the blame goes on the creator who made it the laggy way

I even stick up for people now who all blinged up to death and someone else start trash talk them in the chat. they dont even know most times. they just buy bc they liked it and is nothing wrong to do that I dont think

---

Well said.

One of the problems is the early choices LL made.

While I know some will disagree with this, when they set up the platform, overall they used the best technology at that time.  As a start up, some decisions may simply have come down to cost.  Open GL versus Direct X may be an example.

But some things they may not have seen the long term impact.  An example being the base or center-line for Avatar height.  Other things could have been stricter controls on texture uploads and other creative tools and practices.  But the downside to this would have been restrictive to growth.  The free hand people had encouraged people to experiment,  It encouraged people to create content.  It helped to make SL a welcome place to be.

So now we have the problem, how to initiate and implement current best practices.  To retool or reformat the Grid to this would be a major undertaking.  Some things some people talk about  could possibly require an entire new infrastructure and the problem would be how to do it with out destroying tons of content.

Then there are things like proportions....not just Avatar but the environment itself.  I'm in agreement with Penny and others that accuracy would vastly improve the Grid and the User experience.  But unless there was a way that Linden Lab could simply flip a switch to bring the entire grid and all it's content into this, at best it is going to happen over a long stretch of time as people realize the benefits and create accordingly.

For myself right now I have chosen a middle of the road.  My current human shape is more accurate.  I've chosen a mid point between the accurate numbers and the average height as I see it.  So while I do not look like Mini-Me running around the grid, I still do get dwarfed by quite a few Avatars.  When I go to hug someone my face still winds up in their breasts a lot.  But at least it's not in their stomach.

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

The class that I took that talked about scripts and lag was taught by a scripter/coder who sells scripts in SL so she appeared to know what she was talking about.  The class went into quite a bit of detail ie. it wasn't about number of scripts but the memory, etc.

I was glad I took that class because I had fallen for the "It's all the prim skirts and hair that is causing lag" argument.

---

The reason the 'hair' argument comes up is because of scripted hair. Not just hair by itself.

In other words, the same argument you used to fall for is the one you are now on. Which is correct.

- The hair issue was that people would run around with a 256 prim hair, with each prim having its own script in it. And 64 * 256 means that hair would take up at least 16mbs...

- Again, not about number of scripts, but about total memory. Especially as these scripts were rarely, if not never, in a paused state. They were usually constantly running.

Now take that same person, and have them in a dress of 30 prims, each with a 64 script, for another 1.9mbs. And then some shoes with a color and size hud... for maybe another 3 to 8mbs... and its pretty horrid.

Now put that person in a club with 2 others like her...

And you've got sim shutdown.

Especially if the club is also adding in "splodders", contest boards, tip jars, dance poles, a welcome board, boards for people who are on or offline, notecard givers, a DJing / stream server, and a convoluted danceball system (rather than something simple like Intan...).

- All of which will still be less than a single one of those scripted avatars, though not exactly good club design anyway...

 

All of this talk of Arc etc, has me wondering how mesh outfits measure up on this new system. I know they are less resource hogging than sculpty, and less than some kinds of prims (like a torrus). But no idea how they'd measure on this new scale.

 

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I'm betting all the pretty avatars that LL uses on the web site and in ads are way in the red too.  So on one hand LL encourages high costs, but then turns around and gives tools without explaining its proper use to well that cause lag police wars.  Ironic.

---

I doubt that actually. Looking at what they're wearing, I suspect they're not as bad as folks on older items.

While Mesh is easier on the servers and clients than older stuff - scripts are scripts... but content providers in SL are a lot more script conscious than they used to be; so newer goods tend to be less lag-inducing. Especially when from more informed and connected builders. There are some major brands run by pure idiots... but they're more an exception than a rule.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

Syo Emerald wrote:

---

Czari Zenovka wrote:

---

Syo Emerald wrote:

The really sad thing is (when it comes to furries and being naked) that most nude beaches are human-only. I'm not even sure if I can visit them as an elf....

---

Waidaminut!!!!!!!  Nude beaches ie. "clothing optional" won't allow furries or elves???

/face palms

---

Nude beaches belong to a typical group of places which decorate their entrance with signs like "Human avatars only", but without any real obivous reason, like roleplaysims would have.

---

Yep. I find this very annoying. I've had my phases in SL where I've wanted to be a 'naturist' avatar. But as I wander between neko and furry... the furry nudist hangouts tend to not like having a hybrid around, and even less so a human (so forget bringing some friends), and the human places tend to only want humans around.

I've also tried going on human alts, and found that one or two will say hi, but most leave a buffer of space around a non-white avatar...

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

16 wrote:

you do a good job to explain that

I read your blog post about proportions. the one with the blocks and the other one with the pic of the Male Action library guy and how you remade him to be proper proportion

my light when bing! when I read that. up til then I was pretty dumb about what you meant before that when you was chat about it. like i just thought you was try turn us all into midgets (:

---

Well as long as you finally listen to one of us...

There's a persistent crowd out there that tries to claim the proportion argument is about some weird desire to make everyone be a child AV. Its championed by some people who are very far from any form of rational thinking. But it gets picked up and repeated by a lot more people who otherwise might be normal enough in thinking.

But the crux of it is really all about giving people access to less laggy and better looking avatars, more space, more prims, better UI control, and better graphics on less resources.

- So it gets mighty frustrating when people resist it so strongly.

 

Proportion, scale, camera settings, use of convex hull and mesh builds, tight script control, modest but carefully chosen windlight, and tweaking settings to get more out of less - its about all of these things combined.