Shape LOD and texture LOD, is there a difference?

[Madeliefste Oh]

I'm using v3 viewer with the default LOD settings.

Picture one is what I see when I look within a distance from about 4 meters. When I look from a further distance (picture 2), the shape is ok, but the texture has gone. 

Did anybody come across this that the texture dissappears while the shape is still okay? Is there a difference in shape LOD and texture LOD?

Any idea how to prevend that the texture dissappears?

 

[Chic Aeon]

I haven't noticed that at all but I use Firestorm, highest settings including shadows that you can handle and LOD 4 (on the Firestorm Quick Preferenced now (TY!). 

My first thought would be that it might very well depend on your graphics settings. Most of the folks here I suspect run with very high ones or they wouldn't be able to run the programs they need to make mesh in the first place *wink*.

It should be noted however that my computer -- fairly stellar at the time of purchase -- is going on two years now so there are LOTS of folks in SL that can see the world better than I.  

There was a thread here a few weeks ago on this subject and why you might (and might not) want to use different textures on different LODs. So maybe someone can remember where that is. It didn't concern me much with what I do and how I work so I didn't bookmark it or anything.

 

Good luck!!!! Someone will no doubt know the answer.

[Madeliefste Oh]

My idea is that a lot of people use the default LOD settings, and I want to be able to see the meshes in a away my potential customers might see them. That is why I run it with default.

This mesh is made with 2 different shapes en uv maps, shape one is used for level 1,2 and 3. For level 4 I use a only some planes, that are uv mapped for the texture that is used for all levels.

Now the strange things is, when I look at it from a much further distance I can see the point where the planes shapes start to become active. At that point I see the texture again. So it seems that only in level 2 and 3 or maybe only in 3 the textures is not showing.

[Madeliefste Oh]

Picture might make it more clear then words

[Chic Aeon]

You know, its funny (to me only I am guessing) but I think you are doing the "right" thing testing that way. I almost put all that in my first note. When I was doing big time real time multimedia work a decade or so ago on the web, I was a huge proponent of remembering the folks on "dial up".

I guess, for me, I just want to enjoy my SL time. I have demos out of many things but even when I do, fols often purchase site unseen from the marketplace. So clapping for you wearing the white hat (honestly), but I just can't make myself go there after so many years or RL work. This girl really does just want to have fun.

I'll be interested to hear any answers. Sometimes, though there are questions that no one seems to know the answer to .

The only thing that I remember about the post of using different textures on your different LOD models was that it seemed to have as many downsides as the problems it was meant to solve.

I am not sure exactly what you make. I just remember a post you did with a kitchen. But do you test from FAR FAR AWAY? I do that a lot on the Aditi grid and find that for most things (honestly I can't remember one that it didn't work for) turning down LOD 4 and often 3 to as low as they can go STILL keeps the shape swimmingly. Now, I might be making things differently than you, but for me that is true.

That has little to do with the texture issue though.

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Chic Aeon wrote:

 

I am not sure exactly what you make. I just remember a post you did with a kitchen. But do you test from FAR FAR AWAY? I do that a lot on the Aditi grid and find that for most things (honestly I can't remember one that it didn't work for) turning down LOD 4 and often 3 to as low as they can go STILL keeps the shape swimmingly. Now, I might be making things differently than you, but for me that is true.

 

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It depends on several things, for example what size your objects have, and how many prims you want to use. I am often to ponder whether I choose for more detail or for less LI, and try to combine best of both. The lower your last LOD level can be, the lower the LI will be. I experiment a lot, what works for one model doesn't work for another. 

But I found out my problem... it was caused by my solve

I had put the plane right in front of the mesh, while it is suppoosed only to work on level 4, it did something to the texture. When I have done now is shift the plane a bit backwards so it fall into the model instant of in front of it.

The upper locks is the new mesh, there under the problematic ones to compare.

 

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

For example this bench... I could not get it both with low LI and LOD resistent at the part of the small bars. Or they started to behave like triangles, or the primcount was to high.

There I came with the solution with two textures, that was the best solve in this case I could find. The mesh has two faces, at lod 1, 2, and 3 the helping texture is hidden in the bars of the model. At Lod 4, the model is hidden, and the texture takes over.

Now I can have it scripted, sitable and all with LI of only two.

 

The very small pic in the upper corner is the long distance look.

[Toysoldier Thor]

Maybe its because of what I create with mesh that I can get away with it (static objects like sculptured art and animals and props that have little need for any physics).  As such, my LI has been able to stay quite low simply because I often set my lowest LOD to 3 vertices and then tell the mesh uploader to use the lowest LOD for physics.  So far I cannot recall uploading a mesh with its texture to be more than $21L have initial rez LI of generally 1 (sometimes up to 3).

Since I normally leave my highest and medium LOD resolution alone (as determined by the uploader) and cut the lower LOD by about 25% (if any at all if the mesh already has an LI of 1 before touching it), I can usually walk halfway across the sim before the mesh is simply too far and small to even care what shape it looks like when it finally hits the "lowest" LOD.

Yeah - it sounds simple but so far it seems to have worked very well for me with almost no additional construction effort on my part to perfect something that cant be seen anyway.  I have also never had one complaint about how my mesh sculpures perform based on this model.  This is in light of the fact that my Art Sculptures can be larger and are often in art galleries with high traffic / visitor visibility (and an audience that is often not afraid to be critical if they have to be).  Galleries are often large open spaces and the art gallery curators want to know that all their exhibited art / sculptures can be seen from across the room in the form they look like when up close.  As such, so far my methods are simple but work.

Maybe this method does not work for mesh objects that are more interactive and/or involves scripting or a more more precise physics.  Not sure.