Mesh flickering and weirdness in viewer

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

I frequently purchase mesh FP items  and have wondered, i have paid cheap and I have paid a lot of money but some mesh flicker across my screen, worse at a lower lod but even at 4 I get strange things happening, mostly big blurrs of color in pologramic (not sure if that is a word) blobs....

 Is this something I can fix or is it a matter of quality (it happens with 99L FP and 12,000L fp) But not all...

I've asked in some groups but I get laughed at or looked upon as if I were a three headed toad or just ignored..

 

not even sure if this is hte right place, so sorry mod if it isnt.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

Heya,

it generally is a matter of the quality of the mesh. 

If the creator who made it has not much clue of how to make 'good LODs' (level of detail) for his object , and possibly also just uses the SL algorythm figure the lower LODs instead of implementing self made ones, the outcome can be rather ugly to look at, once you step a few meters away from it. The latter also leads to the SL inbuilt algorythms to figure how the UVs have to be handled on the lower subdivisions and that mostly ends up with collapsed looking textures etc. (Depending on how good the inital ones have been) Especially when already the medium LODs are set to just calculated or not of a good selfmade quality.

Regarding the question if you can change this:

Only if you have the source DAE-files themselves. And not just the already uploaded mesh object.

But this would require you to model yourself and edit all the LOD levels and fix all issues on these models yourself.
(In that case i'd rather directly make them myself, then first paying money when i have to do the job anyways on my own ; ))

So yes, aslong as you 'buy' ready made products you unfortunately rely on the 'skills' and the quality of the mesh that these creators offer.

One possible way to 'avoid' such bad surprises is to look for inworld shops, some of them have examples of their meshes rezzed / or have a free version to rezz and see how it looks inworlds.

PS: make sure its not related to your settings - and set your viewers LOD in teh advanced menu to minimum 4 or 5. But from what i read you did that already.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

thank you for your wonderful answer. I thought perhaps paying more for them assured me of a better quality, but .. wrong.

I have noticed sometimes that even the demos of white do not show it until you texture it then its pretty bad.

 

thanks again, I really appreciate your assistance and answer.

 

[Rahkis Andel]

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Some-riggid-mesh-start-Flickering-and-Stretching/m-p/1773653/highlight/true#M18402

This question has come up before, most notably in the thread above (since I remember commenting in it). I don't know that it was ever "resolved" per-se, but one of the answers within may help you where it didn't help them.

Otherwise, I'd suggest typing in "flicker" in the search for this board. I saw a few other threads that sounded promising based on that search, but I didn't bother looking into them.

Good luck and come here first if you have any other questions about mesh. No one will look at you like you have 3 heads here.

Maybe just 2.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

You are welcome =) and as Rahkis said we won't look at you like an alien ^^

But Rhakis made a good input too. If the meshes keep flickering across your 'whole screen' then it also might be a graphic related issue and you might need to update your drivers. (If its an ATI  graphic card try also in  advance to disbale VBO Buffers - You can find this in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware (its a button) there is a point called enable VBO buffer , disable it. The vertigonal buffers often create weird spreadouts and spikes across the screen)

If it is just regular flickering an d optically collapsing then it stays with just being bad builds. (and yes unfortunately you don't see those issues much on the 'plain white' textured versions' because its hard to visually notice the texture collapsing and such issues when its all in one color)

[Nalates Urriah]

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. Get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need.  

There are drivers that have problems. So, knowing the version can give us a hint whether it is the mesh or your driver.

When checking mesh items in world use Ctrl-Shift-R to turn on wire frame view. This will let you see how well the mesh is made and if it has an outragious number of polygons.

[Chic Aeon]

Actually replying to the original post. Late for me and hit a wrong button

 

*******************

 

I have noted (not on clothes actually but furniture and houses) that sometimes the flicker (not all across the screen which does sound more like a graphics issue than a mesh issue to me) that happens in a small section of the mesh comes and goes. Presumably the flicker happens because there are overlapping areas  or places that don't have enough thickness for the viewer to calculate what is going on -- at least I see the flicker I am talking about in areas that could easily have this issue.

The flickr "I" see is not an LOD thing. It happens on close viewing as well as long distances. It also comes and goes with the day. I use the same settings and viewer all the time so that is most likely not an issue.

So I think there are several types of flickering issues that can happen. The one I see seems to be only PARTLY dependent on how the mesh is made, the other part may be server code, how well the sim is running etc.

 

[Chic Aeon]

SOOO ---

Here is a bit more info. Interesting if disturbing.

I uploaded a new model on the Aditi Grid this morning. Textured it completely, first with ambients and then with the texture-ambient pngs. It looked great. I went over every detail and all was well.

So time to upload to Agni.

I had FLICKR. Now how could that be? (rhetorical really). Same exact DAE file and same upload parameters. Same viewer. I thought maybe I had overlooked the problem so went back to ADITI and checked my original build still in inventory. Yep. Looked great.

Back to Agni I remade the flickering parts (edges that met but were not melded (I know I could do it another way but didn't). Flicker again even when there should clearly not be any as the edges are not well away from any logical "overlap" flicker zone (we see that on regular prims too of course).

I have had this happen before and the next day all was fine with the model on Agni -- the one that had been flickering. So I am going to hazard a guess that PART of the issue, must have to do with either the server code or how well the sim is running. I even rebooted my viewer a couple of times -- something I rarely do.

So just adding that info to the mix in case someone is looking up "mesh" and "flicker" in the future.

[Rahkis Andel]

You probably don't want persistently meeting edges/faces at all. While they might loom fine in some situations, there is no telling how they will be interperated. It could be made more chaotic by the differing latencies of sim hopping. Who knows? Its possible LL is testing new stacking order code. It could be that it really does perform better on aditi.

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

Agreed.

 

I DO have the answer (finally) however. Aside from different server codes on Aditi and Agni (pretty much a given) the ACTUAL problem is apparently my graphics driver which needs an update. Likely this is the answer to the original post also.

 

I had a couple of friends look at the problem mesh pre fixing and to them it looked fine. I made two more uploads before I could get the flicker to disappear in my viewer. For what I was making it was supposed to look like wood planks, so having super smooth extruded parts wouldn't have given the same look. But it seems like what I had done was fine except for ME in Agni. So will update my graphics driver soon and assume that fixes the issue. Good to know. Simple fix.

 LOL. Well presumably the driver is the issue but there isn't a newer driver -- I am "up to date". Oh well.

Another friend however can see the Flicker using the latest Firestorm. So possibly a combo of things. I can see it on both FS and LL viewer. I use FS when I can in Aditi but THERE it is fine. Maybe the new server codes -- when they roll out in Agni -- will solve the issue. Until then I don't seem to have many options.

I did check and it doesn't seem to be related to shadows. Might be another graphics setting. Will ask on the help board.