Mesh simply doesn't work

[Phil Deakins]

I'm watching two people in my store right now.

In Singularity, one of them, a girl, has her upper torso is tilted over at 90 deg, and also twisted at 90 deg. She has no feet and her hair is absolutely wrong. The male looks fine.

In the LL viewer, the male has nothing from his waist down to his feet. His feet are visible though, and the female looks fine.

Mesh in SL simply doesn't work properly.

 

[Phil Deakins]

I'm watching two people in my store right now.

In Singularity, one of them, a girl, has her upper torso is tilted over at 90 deg, and also twisted at 90 deg. She has no feet and her hair is absolutely wrong. The male looks fine.

In the LL viewer, the male has nothing from his waist down to his feet. His feet are visible though, and the female looks fine.

Mesh in SL simply doesn't work properly.

 

[Melita Magic]

Not crazy about mesh (as it is now) either.

[Theresa Tennyson]

So what you're saying is, WHILE YOU HAVE TWO VIEWERS RUNNING SIMULTANEOUSLY AT THE SAME TIME YOU ARE RUNNING A WEB BROWSER, ALL THE WHILE COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE FREAKING ATLANTIC OCEAN, "mesh doesn't work properly." What you're seeing are symptoms of mesh transfers timing out because of an overloaded connection. Which you have overloaded your OWN SELF.

[Qie Niangao]

If it were easy to get mesh transfers to time-out, that would indeed be "not working" for enough people to be a problem.

And, in fact, mesh geometry is much more bandwidth-intensive to download than are parametric prims -- a fact fairly well hidden in the Land Impact calculations. And that's saying nothing of the increased texture download demands arising from clumsy UV maps generated by newbie mesh creators.

On the other hand, there is something special about two viewers sharing a connection. It's been known to confuse animations between viewers, for example, so it could well do something evil to mesh downloading and caching, too.

[Marianne Little]

So, a few people can't see the mesh I wear.

I'm fine with that. :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

If it were easy to get mesh transfers to time-out, that would indeed be "not working" for enough people to be a problem.

And, in fact, mesh geometry is much more bandwidth-intensive to download than are parametric prims -- a fact fairly well hidden in the Land Impact calculations. And that's saying nothing of the increased texture download demands arising from clumsy UV maps generated by newbie mesh creators.

On the other hand, there is something special about two viewers sharing a connection. It's been known to confuse animations between viewers, for example, so it could well do something evil to mesh downloading and caching, too.

---

Viewers are designed to default to fetching 32 meshes simultaneously - therefore two viewers running simultaneously are trying to fetch 64, IF someone hasn't monkeyed with the debug settings to fetch still more (some people have turned it up to 500 or higher thanks to some bad advice that has been floating around.) The more meshes you try to download simultaneously the greater the chance any one of them will time out. Actually you'll get better loading with meshes with a slower connection if you REDUCE your simultaneous mesh fetching.

[GERI01]

Yeah, I have a tired old router, and SL loading is much smoother with both TextureFetchConcurrency and MeshMaxConcurrentRequests at 8. Textures and mesh compete for connections so it helps to tweak both.

[Ceka Cianci]

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Marianne Little wrote:

So, a few people can't see the mesh I wear.

I'm fine with that. :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

---

that's about where i am on it as well...

a lot of the mesh i wear isn't for others anyways..it's for me..

because a big part of it now is me making different looks and then photographing different scenes..

 

if i'm going out to have fun..i'm probably just gonna make it  to where it's smooth as possible for me anyways..

some shorts and a T-top or something casual..

 

[Hikari Yoshikawa]

Horses and other non human avatars have a big problem with this - http://www.bconsl.com/the-infamous-insufferable-chicken-horse/

[Christin73]

I am not a big fan of mesh. It seems to shave free mesh crew up alot. They  have free mesh costumes at a place i visit. They are nice costumes but they are all one piece including the shape. Its not easy switching back to reguler cloths from it. I have a saying "they are free for a reason".

[Phil Deakins]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

So what you're saying is, WHILE YOU HAVE TWO VIEWERS RUNNING SIMULTANEOUSLY AT THE SAME TIME YOU ARE RUNNING A WEB BROWSER, ALL THE WHILE COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE FREAKING ATLANTIC OCEAN, "mesh doesn't work properly." What you're seeing are symptoms of mesh transfers timing out because of an overloaded connection. Which you have overloaded your OWN SELF.

---

Listen to Qie

You seem to be suggesting that I run one viewer and nothing else for mesh to work properly. If that's what's required, then mesh doesn't work properly - as I said

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

So what you're saying is, WHILE YOU HAVE TWO VIEWERS RUNNING SIMULTANEOUSLY AT THE SAME TIME YOU ARE RUNNING A WEB BROWSER, ALL THE WHILE COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE FREAKING ATLANTIC OCEAN, "mesh doesn't work properly." What you're seeing are symptoms of mesh transfers timing out because of an overloaded connection. Which you have overloaded your OWN SELF.

---

Listen to Qie

You seem to be suggesting that I run one viewer and nothing else for mesh to work properly. If that's what's required, then mesh doesn't work properly - as I said

---

Okay, think of it this way - MOST people only log in one account at a time. Therefore, the viewer is optimized to run one account as efficiently as possible and that means a lot of parallel connections. SO, if you have TWO accounts on, the number of parallel connections is doubled and if that was the most efficient way of doing things it would have been set up that way in the first place. So, if you want to run two connections at once YOU might have to make some adjustments. Try turning down the debug setting "MeshMaxConcurrentRequests" from 32 to 16 or 8 in both of your viewers.

" I can't do what I want to do as easily as I'd like" is not synonymous with "broken." I'm seeing a lot of that kind of thinking lately, especially with the server-side baking changes. Yes, some people are having problems due to a certain number of comparatively uncommon factors. Does this mean the whole system is broken? NO. There are some things that need to be fixed in some situations; some by the Lab and some by users. However, the comments of some people have me thinking, "Copernicus called - the [virtual] world doesn't revolve around you."

 

[Phil Deakins]

I didn't actually use the word "broken". I said that mesh doesn't work properly, and it doesn't.

Perhaps turning down MeshMaxConcurrentRequests will work, but it should work properly with the default, which I'm using. If it doesn't, then it doesn't work properly. Using more than one viewer simultaneously is quite normal. If I'm not mistaken, there's an option in Prefs to allow it. So SL should work properly if I use two simultaneously. I would expect problems if I used a lot of viewers simultaneously but not problems like this. I'd expect more in the way of local problems. To my way of thinking, two viewers should not overpower the system.

Incidentally, I'm not fussed about it. I just thought it was odd when I saw it. I don't need to do anything about it for myself.

[Qie Niangao]

In fact I agree with this. I just don't think that's likely to be Phil's problem, specifically. To me, he's never seemed the sort to crank up a superstitious debug setting, and even though he may be on the other side of the pond from the Linden data centers, it seems unlikely that a couple of simultaneous sessions with the default settings should push the timeout limits with any regularity -- although, yeah, I can see that it may indeed account for an occasional problem.

So, IMHO, if this is a regular occurrence, it's worth investigating. If, on the other hand, it happens only once, then it's no more broken than all the other random misbehaviors of SL's "catch as catch can" approach to streaming content. (And incidentally I'm not saying "catch as catch can" is the wrong approach for SL. This isn't mission-critical software and the Internet is a noisy place.)

[Czari Zenovka]

Now why am I not surprised?

<-----One of the lone "I don't like mesh" people from the get-go and before anyone jumps in and says "But have you tried it?" Yeessssssssssss - I had some mesh outfts from hunts and a few demos I acquired to check them out to say I had done.  The majority of them looked atrocious, some were as Phil describes and had my body half invisible (I read the enclosed info on how to apply the alpha layers with each set before someone mentions that too) and the best of the lot may have more "realistic creases" (which is subjective) but they look like mountain ridges and don't move with my body which I thought was the whole point of mesh.

I've also been seeing some of these strange mesh combos in public WITH my new viewer.

I'm primarily referring to mesh clothing; mesh furnishings that I've seen do look nice.

Edit: Spelling and to say I'm sticking with sculptie attachments for my clothes.  OTOH, I was a bit sad that I was no longer going to see giant walking marbles and such anymore when I got my new PC.  As it turns out, I still have mesh humor in my SL.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

So what you're saying is, WHILE YOU HAVE TWO VIEWERS RUNNING SIMULTANEOUSLY AT THE SAME TIME YOU ARE RUNNING A WEB BROWSER, ALL THE WHILE COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE FREAKING ATLANTIC OCEAN, "mesh doesn't work properly." What you're seeing are symptoms of mesh transfers timing out because of an overloaded connection. Which you have overloaded your OWN SELF.

---

I'm seeing the same issue in the US running one version of Singularity with nothing in the background on a new PC.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

I find it amusing that almost every newbie posting in 'wanted' or 'inworld employment' wants mesh this, mesh that, etc.  I'm sure most, if not all, of them have no idea what the other options are, they've probably just heard "prims are old, sculpts are bad, mesh is best" and taken it as 'fact'.

[Vania Chaplin]

I do love mesh, the good ones. But I didn't gave up using prim clothings, many are superb and the flaws that occur with them are not unlike the same flaws that I see in manu mesh ones.

For the problem that ccurred with Phil, I never had the same, even when using 2 or even 3 accounts at a time. The things went slowly, as expected, but guven tme I ever could see all mesh and textures in all sessions, using default parameters.

But I am not one of those that say "use mesh, prims are past!". Just use what you like, no matter what others can say. Your SL is for your pleasure, not for others'.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

 

But I am not one of those that say "use mesh, prims are past!". Just use what you like, no matter what others can say. Your SL is for your pleasure, not for others'.

---

I vote this post for winner of the thread!

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I didn't actually use the word "broken". I said that mesh doesn't work properly, and it doesn't.

Perhaps turning down MeshMaxConcurrentRequests will work, but it should work properly with the default, which I'm using. If it doesn't, then it doesn't work properly. Using more than one viewer simultaneously is quite normal. If I'm not mistaken, there's an option in Prefs to allow it. So SL should work properly if I use two simultaneously. I would expect problems if I used a lot of viewers simultaneously but not problems like this. I'd expect more in the way of local problems. To my way of thinking, two viewers should not overpower the system.

Incidentally, I'm not fussed about it. I just thought it was odd when I saw it. I don't need to do anything about it for myself.

---

When you're driving a truck, you can probably carry twice it's listed capacity pretty easily. OCCASIONALLY. But if you consistently pull double its design load and it starts to break down, whose fault is that?

I'm baffled here - tell me why the DEFAULTS of a system designed for one account per computer at a time should be able to accommodate two simultaneous account logins without any modifications? That would mean the average person who is using only one account at a time would only get to use half the system's capacity because it was holding out spare capacity for a second account that most people don't use. With the way Second Life communications are set up there's no information sharing - two accounts place double the communications load on a connection that one does.

I'm reminded of another forum poster who frequently posts melodramatic complaints about the Second Life servers on the server forums - of course she seems to have problems few others are having, and the problems have all the hallmarks of a connection issue, but in her mind it has to be the servers' fault.

However, I should say that there's ONE other poster who shares her problems. Exactly the same problems, expressed exactly the same way, by someone in all the same groups. And if you happen to check these accounts' online status? They're often logged in at the SAME TIME.

[Melita Magic]

Reading Vania's post about good mesh (and the other posts about bad mesh) and how there is a difference, it strikes me that it might be a good idea if LL made a Mesh shopping or Mesh fashion sub forum. Not for creating mesh, but for people to post feedback about problems with using mesh, benefits of using mesh, how to find good mesh objects or fashions...things like that.

A guide in what to look for, how to wear it, improvement suggestions from the customer end, etc.

One complaint I hear often about mesh fashion is that the clothes are made for certain standard body shapes. I don't really know what those are, other than bodies very hippy or very busty don't seem to be included with standard mesh clothing packs.

In a forum like that one, if enough creators read about a certain point or 'complaint' perhaps things would change. 

[Pussycat Catnap]

I've just about boxed up all my pre-mesh clothes, and replaced almost all of my pre-mesh furnishings.

Today I went through and replaced most of my picture frames with mesh ones - saved a few prims as many of them are less than 1 LI.

I rarely see these problems some have. Then again I don't use a third party V1-style viewer, I use the official viewer.

Newbies are out there asking for mesh this and mesh that because if it works for you, it pretty much does look better almost all of the time. Actualy 3-dimensional clothing is generally going to look better than body paint flat clothes unless it was made poorly. People like me who have been buying mesh from day one have learned where the good quality stuff is, and we love it.

As for home decorations - on lower LI, and even lower lag, you can get much finer detail. Again, almost always an improvement - and experience with it will quickly show you where its not an improvement.

 

Some 'usually good' tips:

ALWAYS buy the demo first. If there is no demo, refuse to buy.

If it rezzes on the land ONLY buy Mod - this is vital, as if Mod you can improve its performance by the simple trick of resizing it a little smaller (I have a script that reduces everything by a chosen percentage that I type into chat, for me, that value is usually 83% of original size).

If unsure how clothes will perform, rez the demo in a sandbox and see its land impact - the higher, the more laggy it will be.

View SL in wireframe mode - if that mesh item seems to have an unusually detailed wireframe, it might be laggy.

Some builders can't rig very well, learn which templates they made, and don'r buy clothes that used those templates... your joints will bend funny. BY CONTRAST some of the templates are made by people who are amazingly good... learn them. This isn't so hard - after buying a few demos you'll know...

- Over time, it just takes learning a new set of shopping wisdom.

 

Sure you don't have to use mesh, you don't have to use prims or sculpty either...

 

 

[Dillon Levenque]

Seconded. There's no question mesh allows much more realistic looking objects than we were used to. There's also no question that mesh clothing in its current status requires us to delete large portions of our avatars (via alphas) and does not allow us to fit garments to our shapes in the manner we'd come to know prior to the introduction of mesh.

I wear the shape I have on purpose. It means something to me. I won't bend it for clothes. I realize that's not true for everyone (it's probably not true for the majority of residents and I completely understand that), but it's true for me and I know it's also true for a number of other people. Idiotic as it might seem, my avatar's physical characteristics matter to me. Making a new shape to fit mesh clothing just won't do.

Just to make it clear:  my only arguement is with mesh CLOTHING.

[Pussycat Catnap]

These are the shape dials mesh gets in the way of:

Women:
Body Fat
Torso Muscle
Breast Size (and bouyancy / cleavage - but RL clothes also mess with these 3).
Love Handles
Belly Size
Leg Muscle
Butt Size
Saddle Bags

Men:
Body Fat
Belly Size
Torso Muscle
Love Handles
Leg Muscle
Butt Size
Saddle Bags
Package
Pectorals

See:

http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/mesh-clothes-dont-care-if-youre-tall-or-short-thick-or-thin-they-care-about-stretch/

 

Everything else, if you alter it, it will change the mesh as well as you, or it is facial / hands / feet and not normally an issue with clothing (we're either used to covering it, like feet, or its rarely covered, like the face).

There is a LOT of room left in the list upon which individual variation occurs. Enough so in fact that I am able to have a curvy proportionate 5'6" tall avatar on a 'standard size, XS', which in the 'XS shape' included in the "standard sizes kit" is over 6'5" and pencil thin like some kind of alien stick figure freak. My shape and that shape are not recognizable as having anything in common, and yet wear the same mesh clothes size.

 

The actual numbers used for Standard Sizes:

http://bloggingsecondlife.wordpress.com/the-stores-creators-lists/mesh-stores-using-standard-sizing/

I see some people talk about 'XL' on women - hint: doesn't exist. If you see that, its not part of this program.