Am I really the only person that does not like mesh?

[Sephina Frostbite]

This isnt to you but to the OP. I love mesh. However I hate the fact that it doesnt fit to your size. I love the way I look and I hate having to make a new shape everytime I get a new outfit. Maybe more liquid mesh will come out. One can only hope.

[Qie Niangao]

 

Mesh seems to inspire a lot of magical thinking, some of it expressed in this thread. For example, Mesh almost always demands many, many times more download bandwidth than equivalent prims or baked clothing textures. Also, there's a vast discrepancy between what the Mesh Deformer can ever do and what folks seem to expect of it -- a recipe for mass disappointment.

Also, I'm convinced that most folks making Mesh--especially Mesh clothing--really have no idea what they're doing. With very few exceptions, the weight painting is just laughably wrong. No amount of Deformer magic pixie dust is going to fix that mess.

Mesh has been around long enough that I'm beginning to doubt most creators are ever going to get any good at it. Of course, ninety percent of Mesh is crap because ninety percent of everything is crap, and yet Mesh crap does seem crappier somehow.

[Ren Toxx]

I like whatever clothing that fits me fine, looks the most realistic, and suits my aesthetic liking. I couldn't care less if it's system layers, sculpts, mesh, particles or friggin' crusty cellophane. If it looks good, that works for me.

 

 

*rolls eyes at the tendency of some people to pick moons to howl at.

[Perrie Juran]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Mesh seems to inspire a lot of magical thinking, some of it expressed in this thread. For example, Mesh almost always demands many, many times more download bandwidth than equivalent prims or baked clothing textures. Also, there's a vast discrepancy between what the Mesh Deformer can ever do and what folks seem to expect of it -- a recipe for mass disappointment.

Also, I'm convinced that most folks making Mesh--especially Mesh clothing--really have no idea what they're doing. With very few exceptions, the weight painting is just laughably wrong. No amount of Deformer magic pixie dust is going to fix that mess.

Mesh has been around long enough that I'm beginning to doubt most creators are ever going to get any good at it. Of course, n

inety percent of Mesh is crap because 

ninety percent of everything is crap

, and yet Mesh crap does seem crappier somehow.

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Somewhere that I am not able to dig out, it was either in this Forum or on one of the "Mesh Masters" own blog is a tutorial where they link together like 70 prims, link them to a mesh object and wind up with a Land Impact of around 5.  And my little brain went, "have all they done here is find a way to fool the accounting system?"  All those Prims have to be somehow putting a load on the Servers and / or Viewers.  Or is that number, the measured impact, real?

But as far as Mesh goes, I have seen some beautiful things built with it that maybe would not have been possible with Prims.  I've also seen some beautiful clothes/outfits.  But overall the percentage of well made Mesh is no higher or lower  than the percentage of well made builds or clothes done with Prims.

I think you are very correct when you say that peoples expectations with Mesh are way out of line with reality.

[Windsie]

When mesh first came out I didn't really care for it because it was something new. It was change. I have a hard time with change, but since i'm like this I push myself headlong into that change to get over the aversion. The first mesh I tried was a petite avatar and enjoyed putting her look together so much that I started branching out with mesh clothing for my regular avatar.

It has taken me some searching to find mesh clothing that I do like that fit and look well, but they are out there. I tend to lean towards medieval type fashion most of the time so I've enjoyed finding even mesh furniture that are wonderfully detailed.

In the end I wear what I like be it mesh or system clothing. I don't really feel that mesh has been pushed on me at all. It was just a change I had an issue with just as I do anything new at first that takes me out of my comfort  zone. I force myself to embrace that change since that is the case with me.

 

Anyway, I'm done with my ramble. I'm not saying this is everyone's experience of course, but this has been my experience and feelings with mesh.

[Melita Magic]

I am not thrilled with mesh so far. But then I'm clinging to the old viewer until it falls out of my hands in dessicated shreds.

It was a bit sudden and all at once for most people. I think it was a bid to try to keep the attention of 20 something (age) gamers. But they aren't impressed with SL anyway for other reasons.

It would've been nice if LL offered a way to learn how to make mesh in world or put some tool for that into the viewer. Once again most people will fall far behind the professionals who are in SL and not have much chance to sell or create.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Conifer Dada wrote:

I suspect some mesh clothing items cause lag because of the huge number of polygons - I discovered this by accident when I went into 'wireframe' at a club and some mesh clothes looked almost the same in wireframe as in normal view!

 

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What polices this at present? Just having builders who make polygon nightmares pay more to upload them, or something else also present? If they're asked to pay more - they'll simply pass that fee onto their buyers "blaming" LLs without understanding why they were being charged.

[Madeline Blackbart]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Conifer Dada wrote:

I suspect some mesh clothing items cause lag because of the huge number of polygons - I discovered this by accident when I went into 'wireframe' at a club and some mesh clothes looked almost the same in wireframe as in normal view!

 

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What polices this at present? Just having builders who make polygon nightmares pay more to upload them, or something else also present? If they're asked to pay more - they'll simply pass that fee onto their buyers "blaming" LLs without understanding why they were being charged.

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What scares me is the occasional people I see who brag about this being a feature of there product like it's a good thing. makes me go whhaaa?

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Madeline Blackbart wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Conifer Dada wrote:

I suspect some mesh clothing items cause lag because of the huge number of polygons - I discovered this by accident when I went into 'wireframe' at a club and some mesh clothes looked almost the same in wireframe as in normal view!

 

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What polices this at present? Just having builders who make polygon nightmares pay more to upload them, or something else also present? If they're asked to pay more - they'll simply pass that fee onto their buyers "blaming" LLs without understanding why they were being charged.

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What scares me is the occasional people I see who brag about this being a feature of there product like it's a good thing. makes me go whhaaa?

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A major flaw in education on how mesh works sadly...

Having done 3D art about a decade ago, I remember spending hours after getting a scene just right carefully tracking down every polygon that wasn't going to be in camera view before hitting my render button and then...

Going to do something else for the next 16 to 72 hours while it rendered...

Programs like Vue de'Esprit came out with the bold claim of 'we can do all these amazing plants without killing you in polygons.'

The whole point in real time animation is to use as few polygons as possible - to shove them into the right spots for animation, and out of the static areas.

- That's another thing too... Ever put on a mesh skirt or blouse and notice the legs moving seem to rip the skirt, or the arms bending seeming to flatten the elbows? Bad polygon placement...

I don't know blender, but back in the day this was part of the advantage of a simple tool like Poser for the amatuer hobbyist: easy rigging and the ability to then spot where you goofed up and put 2 triangles where you needed 3, by simply putting the thing through a few basic animations or posing tests.

 

Mesh could simultaneously save and kill SL if this isn't gotten a hold of.

People think script lag is bad... they haven't seen anything. Polygon bloat lag - you can't do anything when that hits you or walks onto your land.

What would it take to upload a 1 million polygon dress into SL I wonder...

 

(At least back when I did 3D art, that was about the range where I'd start seeing render crash - that wonderful moments 14 hours into a render where the monitor would catch on fire or something, from overheating...

(Ok, that only happened once... but crashes, yeah... there was a definate point where polygons got too high. Its probably much higher today, but it still exists - and I wonder if it could even crash not just viewers, but one of SL's servers...)

 

I -LOVE- mesh, but that would be the point where we'd have too much of a good thing.

 

[PeterCanessa Oh]

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People think script lag is bad... 

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In defence of even bad programmers, at least scripts can only lag other scripts, apart from rez times on sim-entry and -exit.  [And, yes, I was reminded the other day of seeing someone wearing 36,000 scripts]

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Yep . Bad creators cause the bad feelings. . Not too long ago a resident posted in the Mesh forum asking why many of the faces of their dress are missing. I simply said the dress had 65,000k too many polys. She came back and said that It was not too many. She stated that everyone is using that many polys for their clothes. Claiming the top designers do. I pretty much laughed. Not only will this designer lose a lot of customers because they will crash all the time. But Sl may lose one as well because they can't log in anymore LOL.

Releasing mesh without a proper deformer system wasn't the best way to go, but having that many polys is way out of line for a small dress LOL .

I made this skirt with 1560 faces and it is rigged like liquid mesh. There is no sense in using millions of polys for an object unless it is the size of a region LOL

BTW I am no expert for sure but modeling low poly should always be in the mind of the creator.I am sure the average player doesn't have a bad azz PC like I do and can not handle the high poly mesh

 

If Sl had a better physics system maybe things would be different...

[Drongle McMahon]

"What would it take to upload a 1 million polygon dress into SL I wonder..."

Impossible. :matte-motes-shocked:

The limit is supposed to be 65536 vertices, but a bug in the code allows up to 174752 triangles by starting new hidden materials when any reaches 21844 triangles (with multiple materials in the input, the limit will usually be lower). Any more triangles than that and they are simply omitted. In fact, you can run into strange material artefacts at more than 21844 triangles, and, for unattached items, the LI can increase dramatically because of interspersion of triangles with different secret materials (depends on triangle order on input). So there is a sensible practical limit of 21844 triangles per material that everyone should keep in mind. However, for most things, including clothing, getting anywhere near that limit is probably irresponsible.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Yes forgive my sarcastic over exaggeration LOL

[steph Arnott]

Mesh is perfectly ok in the right circumstances, also the mesh has to be processed correctly to remove the rubbish that was created until it only has the min of info. Personally I think mesh is excessively over used in places that the old prims did a good job.

[Venus Petrov]

Those who enjoy creating will continue to create -- mesh, prims, sculpties, whatever.  There is plenty of variety in SL -- look for it.  I love mesh. I do not love that I have had to tweak my shape for some clothing items.  However, I will continue to buy mesh because I like the way it looks.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Yes, I fully agree. There is always room for improvement and I hope they continue to do so with it. And yes I can not see wasting time on a mesh floor that is flat when 1 prim in world can do the job lol. I really havent been in a place that is overly done in mesh yet. I must get out sometime lol

I enjoy the hell out of mesh

[steph Arnott]

My own opinion is that a compromise all round is better, sculpties on things like bench seats looks good but totally useless, it stil the shape of the prim, so you walk into an invisible wall. Mesh clothing i no nothing about, but building i only use mesh for exampl a vaulted cieling.Every thing evolves, if Linden had a endless budget and we had petrabyte comps, still want more, lol

[Czari Zenovka]

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Deej Kasshiki wrote:

I'm not especially a fan of mesh either because it can't be modified. I've tried a couple of pieces and am pretty "meh" about it.

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This is my major issue with mesh.  I love being able to mod anything I buy, whether it be modding hair so it doesn't stick out when I wear hats, resizing waistbands on dresses to fit my curvier avatar (I don't like the "stick figure/little waif look - I want to look like a woman), to resizing entire houses.  Try that with a mesh house and the Li value suddenly skyrockets.

[steph Arnott]

Another thing that bothers me is that mesh is almost an elitist creation and i done mesh it not really for people wanting to enjoy SL it almost a full time career

[PeterCanessa Oh]

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steph Arnott wrote:

Another thing that bothers me is that mesh is almost an elitist creation ...

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Second that.  I can't upload mesh in SL because I haven't got PIOF.  Can't get PIOF because LL won't accept my debit card [last time I checked].  Can't won't get a credit card with all the expense that entails just so I can upload mesh.  NB: it's the only SL creation type that is restricted.

:-) And I just got the hang of one-prim room decorations with sculpties too!

ETA: This old one is still one of my favourites - a 1-prim bedroom set.  Pretty low LI :-)

[Jenny Siddeley]

Sculpties are just unoptimized and very restricted meshes though, my guess is this bedroom set was made the same way meshes are being made, and anyone who made it definitely has the skills to make awesome meshes.

Also, most people (especially merchants) can get a payment info on file, it hardly makes meshes "elitist" in my opinion...

[steph Arnott]

I feel that LL has done a copout  in not improving the ability to manipulate the prim editing features. Basically they gone down the route of go get a free or commercial software package, spend hours learning it, if you can and tough if you don't like it. If you don't believe me go get Blender and have a go at even doing a box with a texture and import it and as for Sketchup the amount off useless info left in the mesh is staggering. That what I mean by elitist in the fact that alot of mesh is done by proffesionals useing there trainning and proffetional skills and proffesional software, not people that come to spend time in SL and enjoy.

[Pamela Galli]

I do love mesh. But I am sad to say that my worst fears about the changing content landscape are being realized.

Over in the "Ripped Content" thread in SL Universe, someone posted a link to a Pinterest page that some anonymous person had created. On that page was posted professional looking ads of very nice furnishings content for sale in a new marketplace store. And paired with each marketplace picture was a picture of that exact same mesh, as adverstised on varous 3D model stores like Turbosquid and DesignConnect. The meshes were created by a variety of 3D artists. The SL merchant had simply bought them and imported them into SL -- where it is unlikely that the actual creators of the content will ever know.

Imagine instead of me spending a week modeling and texturing a chair, I just bought one for $20 on a 3D marketplace, and in violation of their clear EULAs and licensing, started selling it. Now there is a business model with a huge competitive edge!

Last week, I was was told by a participant in the Food Fair that another participant had been ejected because her merchandise -- food and appliances -- had been taken from a 3D mesh site, which did not permit resale.

Some of these 3D sites will specifically mention Second Life, forbidding anything to be imported for any reason. Apparently SL has quite a reputation for being a den of thieves. And so it is.

 

This is all new behaviors. There are no external sites selling hundreds of thousands of sculpts, or regular prim content. Those are exclusively SL content. Mesh is something else. 

It is hard to see how original content creators can compete, with those who can upload twenty chairs in the time it takes original content creators to create one. Because ultimately what we are selling is our time. Those who produce the most quality content in the least amount of time win.

 

[Phil Deakins]

I neither like nor dislike mesh. I haven't seen any real benefit in the look of mesh clothes. I have noticed that a lot of faces look like plastic dolls lately (unattractive), but that's probably nothing to do with mesh. Objects may benefit from having some mesh in them, but I don't know.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Czari Zenovka wrote:

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Jillian Skinstad wrote:

I really don't like the new mesh products and resent having it "pushed" at me if I want something.  So many of the excellent artists and designers have left or are leaving SL.  This could be because they cannot create or compete with the mesh products, or that LL is just not profitable anymore.

In an inverview the LL CEO gave (not sure where I saw the video, but believe it related to Gamers Magazine) he stated the average noob stays in SL

ONE MONTH!!  

Does this tell anybody anything?  I first came to SL about five years ago when at times there were 65,000+ logged on and people stayed inworld for years.  The average logon now might be 40,000 - I have no real way of knowing other than what I read.

The new viewer is not working (like I expected something different) and I am just so very disappointed seeing something I have enjoyed for so long being destroyed by what I see as corporate greed and lack of understanding of their target market.  Hopefully I am wrong about all of this, but after crashing every five minutes with the new viewer, not rezzing and walking around with half my body invisible trying to make some mesh outfit fit I still have to wonder if it was really worth it.

 

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I agree with you 100%.  IMO, it takes a lot more skill to make amazing items from prims than just purchasing a mesh model or sculptie map from someone else then texturing it and putting it up for sale.  There *are* some merchants who learned how to create their own mesh and are incorporating it into their builds but many are purchasing a mesh model of <whatever>, texturing it, and selling it.

I have disliked mesh from the outset and will not purchase any mesh items.

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Czari, please don't take this as a personal attack because it isn't meant to be but there's something I feel you should address. For quite a while you've been putting up posts that say two things at the same time:

A. "I can't see or use mesh because my computer won't run the necessary viewer."

B. "Mesh looks bad and is ioroblematic to use."

This raises the question:

Given the facts of "A", how can you be qualified to make statement "B"?

Your opinions of the look of mesh were necessarily secondhand and I assume largely from still images, and as far as the practicality of it said you based it on comments from other creators who were having problems of it. Forums are often areas to hash out problems - by the same logic you should say that you'll never purchase anything with a script in it because people certainly bring up problems with scripts in the creation forums.

You can say you like tomatoes; you can say you've tried tomatoes and you don't like them. But if you want to be considered qualified to give an opinion you can't just say, "Tomatoes are poisonous - it says so in this old book." [i used this example because for quite some time Europeans DID think tomatoes were poisonous.]