Mesh Viewing distance

[NealCrz]

I've noticed my mesh is not viewable beyond about 10-15 meters.  Is that due to the high display value?  If so how do I lower it  as other values are in line it seems. Showing this sign i made as an example of the load.

[Codex Alpha]

I would also like to know.

It seems 'high' and 'medium' setting on some items means you can only see them from < 10m. If you set even just an ugly 3-4 triangles to be seen from 'low' and 'lowest' (whatever that means), it just ends up costing you a higher LI when you upload it.

Some of these models I'm making I could make with less impact with in-game prims.

I don't understand this system at all.

A cube mesh at 3m size will cost you 8-10 Land Impact, but the same cube prim in game only 1.

It's getting really frustrating uploading models thinking they'll be okay at a LOD, and have them disappear in only 5-10m, kind of defeats the purpose.

For example, if I simply have a cube with a high detail texture applied, it looks like a crate full of records. AT ANY DISTANCE.
Do the same with a detailed mesh with handles and details, and BAM! disappears. I dont expect it to have high detail at a distance, but come on, the thing just disappears, where as a standard cube prim still can be seen

 

Even then, each model is inconsistent. A larger model will be less Li than a smaller one, and sometimes a smaller one with 1800 triangles willl cost more than my recent spider model which weighs in at only 330 or so.. but stilll requires 6 times the LI just because it is 3m size.

[Cerise Sorbet]

What did you use for the lower detail levels at upload? That distance is roughly when you would switch to a lower one. You can preview those in this panel at upload time. For something like lettering, you probably aren't going to get satisfactory results if you let the viewer generate them automatically.

 

[Drongle McMahon]

"A cube mesh at 3m size will cost you 8-10 Land Impact"

You must be doing something wrong. A mesh cube, complete with six independently texturable faces, and using the same cube at all four LODs is 1 LI whatever its size (download weight 0.1 even at 64x64x64, physics weight 0.1 or 0,4 if analysed, server weight 0.5). How many triangles/vertices does your cube have in the upload dialog? It should be 12/24. If uts any more, you probably have some uneccesary subdivision or something. What does the wireframe view look like? (Develop->Rendering->Wireframe).

[Drongle McMahon]

The LOD your camera sees is determined (mainly) by the ratio of the distance from the object to the "radius" ® of the object, multiplied by the setting of RenederVolumeLODFactor. In this context, "radius" means half the diagonal of the bounding box. (This is sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2)/2, where x, y and z are the object dimensions). If RenderVolumeLODFactor is 1, the distances of the switches are about r/0.24, r/0.06 and r/0.03 (there are other factors that change that a bit). The distances are mulyiplied by RenderVolumeLODFactor, which defaults to 2.0 at high graphics or 1.25 at any lower setting.

For a 1m cube, r=0.87m. So at high graphics, the distances are about 7m, 30m and 60m. At lower graphics settings, they are 4.5m, 18m and 36m. So if your object is small, you will see the effects of the LOD switch at quite smal distances (unless you use a higher RenderVolumeLODFactor). What the effect is depends on how the LOD meshes are made. If they use the single triangle trick to minimise LI, then they mau disappear entirely if viewed from certain angles. That is one reason why that trick is a bad idea unless the object is inside a building and will never be seen at medium LOD even by people with low graphics settings.

I don't know that any of that is relevant in your case, but put it out there in case it may be.

[LepreKhaun]

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NealCrz wrote:

I've noticed my mesh is not viewable beyond about 10-15 meters.  Is that due to the high display value?  If so how do I lower it  as other values are in line it seems. Showing this sign i made as an example of the load.

...

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To answer your question: this has nothing to do with the Display value. That number has very little importance for the content creator and can be generally ignored. The numbers that do matter are the Server, Physics and Download Weights.

 

Viewability of of your mesh has everything to do with the 4 Levels of Detail defined for your model. The highest LoD  is what you see when you are nearest, the lowest is what is displayed when you're furthest away. Each intermediate Level of Detail will prevail within a radius of proximity that is determined by the size of the mesh itself.

 

How these Levels of Detail are defined has a great deal to do with your Download Weight, one of the three factors that determine the final, effective Land Impact of the model. The highest of these factors (Server, Physics and Download) is rounded and sets the LI for the model.

 

Looking at the picture you supplied: The LI of your model, 2, is being set by its Physics Weight of 2.4, which is the highest of Server, Physics and Download and is rounded (your effective LI would've been 3 if Physics had been 2.6 in other words). But your Download Weight is considerably lower that this, a mere 0.9.

 

This is why your model is not showing up at any distance, your lower LoD's, which is what shows at a distance, are almost non-existent. By defining them better your Download Weight would increase but have no effect on your LI until it reached 2.5 or greater and became the dominate number.

[NealCrz]

100,40, and 4.  Thant helped a ton thanks!

[NealCrz]

wow, must b a math major!    thanks  re-reading that a few times.

[NealCrz]

thanks you between yours and Drongles explanation, I think I got it.  My setting of 100,40,4 of LODs,  the 4 was gtting m on a lower graphics setting iss what i think I read.  Thanks again.