Mesh counts one prim

[XxiMarshmalloWixX]

I have seen many mesh products like furnitures,hands,clothes that are very high detailed and with many triangles to shown up 1 prim and 1 land impact only, How this can be possible? Is there any tutorial or video shown how they do it? or someone can exmplane me how i can do it? I have ask the creators in a notecard on how they do it but they are not answering me... ok i know i disturb them but it is a big solution!

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

It's very simple. For mesh items you upload five models. One for each level of detail and one for the physics shape.

The highly detailed objects with a very low landimpact have a highly detailed model for the highest LoD and very simple (could be as little as a single triangle) for the others. On an item the size of furniture, the medium and low Lod probably have the biggest influence on the landimpact. Depending on the size, a detailed model could be uploaded for the medium LoD too.

The downside is the models will look horrible from a distance. This might not be noticable on indoor items which you never see from a distance, builders can and should exploit this situation to keep the load on systems down, side effect is a low LI. (You could view it the other way around too.)

[XxiMarshmalloWixX]

itried it but it was still up to 1 prim so is there any tutorial that shows from the beginning till the end how we can do it? to make a item, 1 prim only!

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

A tutorial won't do a lot of good, unless it exactly describes the object you want to build.

If setting all lower LoD models to "triangle limit" zero (or uploading a single triangle for the lower LoDs) doesn't set your LI to 1, either the model is too big, the model is too complex, or it's not the download weight causing the higher LI.

Did you check the three weights in edit mode? Download, physics and server?

btw, you say "1 prim only", do you really mean "1 prim only" or do you mean "a LI of 1"? There's a big difference.

[Rolig Loon]

See http://www.lokieliot.com/blog/?p=1193

[XxiMarshmalloWixX]

i have see many sofas, mesh hands, necklaces with many small parts on them and more that when i drop them says 1 objects selected - land impact 1

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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XxiMarshmalloWixX wrote:

i have see many sofas, mesh hands, necklaces with many small parts on them and more that when i drop them says 1 objects selected - land impact 1

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At this point it's a guessing game. Could you provide some more information? Preferrably a wireframe model of what you are trying to upload, your upload settings and the resulting weights.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

The downside is the models will look horrible from a distance. This might not be noticable on indoor items which you never see from a distance, builders can and should exploit this situation to keep the load on systems down, side effect is a low LI. (You could view it the other way around too.)

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Not necaissery, it depends how clever you use your trick box for managing your lowest LOD levels. This item for example looks really good from the longest distance. In this case my 'trick' for the lowest level is to use a single (double sided) face for the lowest LOD. At lowest LOD it show just a flat texture. (in SL the white in the lowest mesh is covered by alpha channel, so I have perfect bars, from a far distance nobody will be able to see the difference between 3d and flat.

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

I was just referring to the single triangle approach you see around SL. I didn't mean there was no right way of doing things

btw you could really save on geometry on the higher LoD, stop thinking in loops (above the bars). You could bring it down by 88 triangles pretty much without losing shape. Nice little bench though.

[Chic Aeon]

If you look at one of the objects that you are trying to  emulate in the EDIT menu and choose "more info" you will get a run down of the download costs. There are three parts and each has to be addressed to get the low land impact. The cost will be the highest of the three.

I wondered about this for a very long time but now it is second nature and most of my items -- even ones with subsurface modifiers comes in at .5 or 1

So EACH of those areas has to be addressed. Size is important and there are some larger items that will never be thrifty just because of their size (not all, just some). The physics can often be dealt with by using a plain cube as your physics model. Most of the time (in furniture anyway) the physics isn't too terribly important. If you need the physics to match the object closely like in a bed - you can make a very simple approximation of the build. There are lots of posts on that here in the archives.

 

The downloads are very important in getting that low land impact. It is absolutely true that you can make your own LODs for each level of the object and upload in that LOD area. I admit that I have STILL never done this and have great success with just playing with the auto numbers in the uploader. I make fairly simple items so that might be part of the deal *wink*. I figure if the uploader can make the item be .5 and I have great LOD holding at a distance -- there is really no reason for me to spend time making those custom LODs. Note that there are plenty of folks that will argue and they are "correct". I am just lazy.

 

So -- three parts that need to be addressed. EACH is important. Play around with your settings on Aditi and note the distance holding etc. Eventually you will get a feel for things. I was in great awe of some of the most popular mesh makers and rightly so. Slowly I figured it all out. You can too.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

In addition to all this, if you want to examine other people's work, there's another "trick".

In the develop menu, under "show info", check the "show render info". Then select the object you want to examine and zoom in. In the right lower corner of your screen you will see the number of triangles for the object (kTris, or 1000 triangles). Now zoom out to see how the number goes down when the object switches to simplified models. There are up to four levels (of detail), depending on the size of the object. This will give you a good indication of how the builder uploaded the model.

[Drongle McMahon]

Also... If you can't zoom out far enough, you can te,porarily lower RenderVolumeLODFactor in the Advanced->Show Debug Info dialog. Setting it to zero will show the lowest LOD. You may have to zoom in and out a bit for changed values to take effect. Don't forget to restore the original value when you've finished.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Or if the rendervolumeLoD isn't manually set over 2.0, use the object detail slider in preferences to avoid the debug settings. It might not go as low as 0.0 (not sure), but will definitely give you a workable LoD range/camera distance.

[Clarissa Arrowmint]

Forgive me if this sounds off hand it is not meant to be, I am just adding my experience.  But why go to all the trouble of uploading all those models etc or other complicated steps, when in reality all you have to do (and what I do) is model in a half decent programme that lets you decimate to your heart content without distortion?  It is what I do.  I get a model as low as I can in triangle count without losing quality and upload it with minor adjustments to the lod triangle counts.  Therefore larger models I can make 1 or two prims.  However, saying that, I do not deal in arbitrary creations like furniture but work more with organic shapes and works of art.  Just my two pennies worth.