Texture and door scripts (combined thread, sorry!)

[Annie Rubanis]

Hi, I have a couple of questions for you builders.  One is about texture size/resolution (not sure of the right term for this) and the other is about automatic door opening scripts.

 

1.  Does anyone know of high quality homes in SL that do NOT utilize 1024x1024 textures?  I need them lower because textures that high tank my fps to the point of making SL unplayable.  Mesh is loaded with textures this high so that's a huge problem.  I'm on a new Intel Mac with NVidia card that can handle just about anything else graphically challenging EXCEPT SL and the use of these textures.  It's crazy.

 

2. I have several automatic door opening scripts, any suggestions on the best and easiest to use?  It seems home builders in SL have an avoidance to them and it's difficult to find a house that has them. 

 

Thank you for any input!!

[Rolig Loon]

Your second question is one of those "How long is a piece of string?" questions.  The best door script is the one that is most appropriate for the sort of door you are building and the house you're putting it in. The easiest one to use is a matter of how well your own skill level is matched to the necessary complexity of the script.

• A door may be a mesh or a "standard" prim object. 
• It may have one prim or several, and it may be linked to the structure it's in or may be unlinked. 
• It may have one of several different "smooth movement" systems or may be a simple open/close door. 
• It may be timed to open (or close) automatically. 
• It may be activated by touch, collision, a sensor, or all three.  It might be hinged on the right or left (or the top, like a doggie door).
• It might be a single door or a double door, with both parts swinging at the same time (or not).
• It might be designed to always swing away from the person passing through it, or to flutter back and forth like a saloon door after someone passes through. 
• It may have a lock, and maybe a security password system.
• It might have a system of coded options to enter on a notecard, or might offer user options in a dialog menu. 
• Its script might operate all the doors in the house, or there might be a separate script in each door.
• It might slide instead of swinging, or might nictate, like a camera shutter. 
• It might not be a door at all, but a phantom wall section that just looks like a door.

At one time or another, I have scripted all of those variations and others.  The "best" one was the one I needed for the purpose at the time.  The "easiest" one to use was the one with the fewest extras, but that's often not the wisest choice. From what I have seen in SL houses over the years, it seems to me that many builders don't think about doors until they have built the rest of the structure, and then grab whatever is handy and familiar (or one of the ancient, truly klunky door scripts from some freebie bucket). I suggest thinking about doors from the start of the design process instead of as an afterthought. Decide what you want to do first, then find or write a script to do it.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Rolig Loon wrote:

Your second question is one of those "How long is a piece of string?" questions.

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And now there's an entire branch of theoretical physics devoted to questions like that.

[Annie Rubanis]

Thank you so much!  I'm not even skilled enough to be called a novice so your input is greatly appreciated.  In the past, I have gone the "make the doors phantom" and just walked through them, lol.  It's certainly not as realistic but, in a pinch, it works fine.

[Chic Aeon]

On doors: if you make your building mod folks can change out the door script to their favorite if they want. As  a consumer I personally like the door scripts that you touch to open - open smoothly - need to be touched to close again so you CAN leave the door open if you want.

On textures. Yes you can use smaller textures in your builds. You simply tile them to make the high qualily look you need. There are problems to this of course on big builds as they can have a checkerboard feel depending on how the texture was made. You can add materials to these tiling textures to get a nicer look but if your graphics card is not hefty you won't see those anyway.

If you are asking about ambient map textures that are used in mesh houses, most of those tend to be larger (1024). What you CAN do is make the building modular so that you can reuse the same large texture over and over -- hence fewer large textures.

There is a big gap between what low end computer users see and what high end computer users see. Since a good portion of the folks that BUY are the ones that have invested in the more expensive computers, designers often cater to those folks that can see it all. Some do a better job of bridging the gap than others. i doubt that will change.

 

Those with low end computers can always purchase older builds without all the bells and whistles. I still sell some very old products.

[Annie Rubanis]

Thank you for all the info!  The low fps is extremely frustration and I'm compensating for a bug in LL's code for Macs.  I'm using a brand new iMac and not a low end one but SL is still a mess for me.  They really need to get their s**t together  in LL and quit cobbling bad code upon bad code.  It's a disgrace already.