Non-mesh vs mesh

[Chris Corvinus]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

You have

way

over simplified mesh vs. prim.  It is NOT easy building realistic

and

efficient items in prims or mesh.  If it was there would be no need for content creators since everyone would be making their own stuff and saving tons of money since SL started. 

In answer to your question though, I vote with a big NO!  There are too many people in SL that enjoy creating things using regular prims just for their own personal enjoyment and as a creative outlet.  They have neither the time, talent, money (for uploads) or the incentive to learn how to create mesh.  Mesh has to be created outside SL and that is a big drawback for a lot of people.  If they were going to spend a lot of time outside of SL doing that, for a lot of people who just come here to create what is the point of being in SL then?

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But what if simplified mesh creation replaced the prim building tool? I don't believe anything is impossible and I do believe the very core of Second Life, the building tool itself, needs to be upgraded...made simpler to use and using a mesh creation engine. I am not saying right now but way down the road. It is totally a possibility.

[Chris Corvinus]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

I like mesh and I wouldn't want to miss it. But to each their own and forcing people out of using prims is unnecessary.

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oi vey...no one is advocating forcing people to use mesh...

[Freya Mokusei]

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Chrismaky wrote:

Honestly, I have NEVER seen a piece of "crappy" mesh. Compared to prim-made objects? ANY mesh made thing would look 10x better.

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Sounds like Perrie called it right.

There's tonnes of really awful mesh stuff around, especially in fashion. Baggy pants, clothes that only fit the most pony-riding of all pout-faced pony-riders. Stuff that doesn't fit anyone, doesn't look good on anyone. Poor rigging, alpha layers that doesn't alpha all they need, creasing, twisting, a bajillion vertices just to model a bikini top. For a super-mesh-head to have not seen any of this by this point strikes me as unlikely. And how about ripped, unrigged and/or broken content from games, which has been enabled by mesh import? Hardly makes SL look better than it used to; pretending mesh only has pros and no cons is not workable.

If you think prim artists these days still use tricks from 2007, you're being either ignorant or dismissive. Everyone can use Materials, as one example. People are always getting better at their craft - a lot of what I do now, using prims, wasn't possible in 2007.

I learned mesh in the olden days, making models for Quake mods, then briefly working in the games and film industry. I still have bits of paper telling me I'm good at it, but I don't use tools like Blender or Maya anymore (professionally I used POVray, TruSpace, LightWave and 3DS Max - among others), and it doesn't interest me as a building medium in Second Life. Mesh is fine, but it's nothing special. It's not good at - or suited for - every possibility, and that's why we have other technologies (like sculpt! Particles! Prims!). Mesh is just one tool, in a toolbox of other equally-useful tools.

Single-mindedness kills nuance, and is the death of creativity.

[Tari Landar]

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Chrismaky wrote:

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Syo Emerald wrote:

I like mesh and I wouldn't want to miss it. But to each their own and forcing people out of using prims is unnecessary.

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oi vey...no one is advocating forcing people to use mesh...

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Do you have difficulty remembering your own words?(I'm being serious, not snarky) 

Because that is *precisely* what you are advocating, you ased if there should be a PUSH for 100% mesh, which would necessitate forcing everything to...mesh, 100% at that, which means yes, forcing every resident to an all mesh world.

I get why you like it, and although I'd like to make assumptions about you based on your words(like your age, experience and sl knowledge), I won't, because that would be rude of me. Suffice it to say, I'm one of those oldbies that has been in sl for over a decade now, and I enjoy BOTH mesh and prim based(including sculpties) and would absolutely *hate* to see either completely disappear because of some push, or, desire(s), of other residents.

All prims, regardless of how they are created, have made sl what it is, whether people believe they are now obsolete or "not their taste"(for lack of better terminology on my part), or enjoy them entirely. I honestly don't care what others' desires are, because.....your world, your imagination.

There are loads of things I think look crappy, and the type of prim(s) they are made of, is quite often, not even a factor in my opinion.

Mesh is hard to make, at least for me. In fact, I probably won'yt ever get it down well enough to make, upload and sell my own mesh creations, due to visual limitations I have. But, you see, I have over a decade's worth of experience with prims, a bit less than that with sculpties.....so, I get them, I understand them, I can work with them and my visual impairment doesn't get in the way nearly as often(I don't typically create my own sculpties, though I have some made before my visual impairment got even worse, in case you're wondering why I say sculpties aren't all that difficult, but mesh is...not that an explanation was/should be necessary).

Flat out, I understand HOW to make mesh, but understanding the steps, doesn't mean I can actually DO it. Do you understand that? I mean, does that make sense. All the tutorials in the world can't necessarily help someone actually MAKE the product. Now, if I had another five or so years to work on it., I could probably do it. But, sadly, my visual impairment isn't going to give me that fiive years. So, I will stick with what I know, what I enjoy, and what takes the least amount of time away from my creation, until I no longer can(or no longer desire to, should that happen first). I've got maybe two good years left in me, and then I won't even be able to enjoy sl the same.

So, yep, I understand you love mesh. I understand you have little to no experience with sl, nor its past, and perhaps can't understand why people enjoy other types of creation and creation tools. I also understand why you prefer mesh over other prim types, largely due in part to not having the same kind of experience(s) other posters here have/had. What I don't get....is why you want to push your desires on others...It's, kind of...weird.

I like that we have choices as residents, I like that creators have choices, I like "old school" creation styles. I love seeing what people can do with the "au natural" primitives and building tools. But, then again, I'm a really odd duck  

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

No, Theresa, you are *still* not telling the truth about this obvious phenomenon that everyone knows about.

Do you log into Second Life much?

It is indeed IMPOSSIBLE to put mesh on mesh NEARLY ALL THE TIME.

It's not a rare occasion or a small percentage of time.

It's the main default with few exceptions.

You admit that it's the majority of times. That indeed means it is IMPOSSIBLE.

Your nit-picking and thinking there is some need for you to "intervene" here and "set me straight" about those *edge cases* where mesh does place is a typical forums caper but that doesn't validate it any more.

Only applying binary yes/no code conceptions to the phenomena of real life could you come up with a statement like this.

Real life -- the real experience within SL -- is that nearly always, mesh bounces.

---

Before I posted that, I went to a few of the several SL properties I own, which I log onto daily, and rezzed several mesh objects onto other mesh objects, both houses and furniture. None of the items failed to rezz. In a certain location in one skybox the items rezzed in unexpected locations in that skybox - that was the only problem I had. I didn't say it was a majority of times, I said it may be. From my experience, it isn't. Given that you're convinced that mesh won't rezz on mesh, how often do you try currently?

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Chrismaky wrote:

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

You have

way

over simplified mesh vs. prim.  It is NOT easy building realistic

and

efficient items in prims or mesh.  If it was there would be no need for content creators since everyone would be making their own stuff and saving tons of money since SL started. 

In answer to your question though, I vote with a big NO!  There are too many people in SL that enjoy creating things using regular prims just for their own personal enjoyment and as a creative outlet.  They have neither the time, talent, money (for uploads) or the incentive to learn how to create mesh.  Mesh has to be created outside SL and that is a big drawback for a lot of people.  If they were going to spend a lot of time outside of SL doing that, for a lot of people who just come here to create what is the point of being in SL then?

---

But what if simplified mesh creation replaced the prim building tool? I don't believe anything is impossible and I do believe the very core of Second Life, the building tool itself, needs to be upgraded...made simpler to use and using a mesh creation engine. I am not saying right now but way down the road. It is totally a possibility.

---

Theresa Tennyson puts on her very, very most innocent face.

What's the difference between a mesh object and a prim object in Second Life?

Oh, and I just saw this - "made simpler to use"? Weren't you arguing that the current building tool is too simple earlier?

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Chrismaky wrote:

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Christin73 wrote:

There are just some things that you just can't do with mesh. For instance, certain mesh can't be linked. and when it is linked it ups the prims considerably. Also one thing bout some mesh buildings is it won't let you rez inside the building. Some of the newer mesh buildings have gotten better about rezzing inside but still some out there that cant. I think a combonaiton of mesh and prims works out the best. Alot of my buildings are a combonaiton of the 2.

---

Mesh is still relatively new and yeah, there are a few annoying kinks. I'm not particularly fond of partial mesh but I have bought a few things when all other options were prim which is really unnacceptable to me. To me, most prim stuff looks way too old school. I mostly go by looks and prim count. And mesh wins both by far.

Mesh has been in SL longer than you have... Mesh does not win both by far, many mesh items are higher LI than their prim counter parts. And 5 to 10 times the cost.

As for the linking, I have found that prim cost varies. Sometimes it takes a lot of prim and sometimes it doesn't. Like fences and walls. I also know that some 100% mesh looks way better than others. Those are the ones I typically buy and iv'e never had a problem with high prim when linking. Also sometimes, with fences and walls for example, its better to use individuel parts than linking them all to keep prim count down but overall, still cheaper in prim cost than using prim stuff mostly.

I can stretch a prim to 64m without a huge rise in LI.. do that with a mesh and see how bad it gets.

---

 

[Deej Kasshiki]

Mesh just isn't the end-all, be-all that the OP thinks it is. Mesh has many significant limitations which others have noted. For me the showstopper is that using it requires expertise in multiple, complex out of game software packages. Using prims I can simply log into SL and slap down a handful of objects to make a useful piece of furniture, for example. No need for competence in Blender, Maya, Photoshop or 3DStudio Max, just playing around with simple geometric shapes. To me, this is the ethos of SL.

Call me old school or a dinosaur if you like but I still use and wear non-mesh items everyday. As long as they work for me I'll keep using them.

[BarcodeBrian]

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Chrismaky wrote:

Honestly, I have NEVER seen a piece of "crappy" mesh. Compared to prim-made objects? ANY mesh made thing would look 10x better.

---

False on all accounts, including what you've seen.

This only shows you don't know the difference between quality mesh and crappy mesh because the low quality mesh in SL  outnumbers the quality mesh. The differences are both looks (up close and farther away to where it should still look nice), and the strain on resources that the lower quality creates.

The LI alone is not the determining factor. It should mostly be lower than prims, but too low usually means it turns into triangle pieces or disappears way too soon. The opposite is also true; high LI often means it is heavy on vertices and made more complicated than it needs to be.

[Chris Corvinus]

Oh, youre talking about CLOTHES.

 

This whole time I have been talking about furniture, houses, home decor, trees, landscaping, etc.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Chrismaky wrote:

Oh, youre talking about CLOTHES.

 

This whole time I have been talking about furniture, houses, home decor, trees, landscaping, etc.

---

I'm sorry, did you imply that anywhere in any of your posts? No. Is mesh clothing not mesh in your eyes? Are there only non wearable mesh items in SL? There are plenty of crap mesh items in SL. Including clothing.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Chrismaky wrote:

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

You have

way

over simplified mesh vs. prim.  It is NOT easy building realistic

and

efficient items in prims or mesh.  If it was there would be no need for content creators since everyone would be making their own stuff and saving tons of money since SL started. 

In answer to your question though, I vote with a big NO!  There are too many people in SL that enjoy creating things using regular prims just for their own personal enjoyment and as a creative outlet.  They have neither the time, talent, money (for uploads) or the incentive to learn how to create mesh.  Mesh has to be created outside SL and that is a big drawback for a lot of people.  If they were going to spend a lot of time outside of SL doing that, for a lot of people who just come here to create what is the point of being in SL then?

---

But what if simplified mesh creation replaced the prim building tool? I don't believe anything is impossible and I do believe the very core of Second Life, the building tool itself, needs to be upgraded...made simpler to use and using a mesh creation engine. I am not saying right now but way down the road. It is totally a possibility.

---

OK, once more.  Prims ARE mesh.  Everything in SL is mesh.  However we say prims vs. mesh to distinguish between the inworld creating method and the outside of SL creation method.

I don't think anyone would argue that it would be wonderful if the inworld building system were improved.  But your original post is advocating doing away with anything created inworld and using only mesh created outside of SL.  That is what I was responding to.

[Chris Corvinus]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

---

Chrismaky wrote:

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

You have

way

over simplified mesh vs. prim.  It is NOT easy building realistic

and

efficient items in prims or mesh.  If it was there would be no need for content creators since everyone would be making their own stuff and saving tons of money since SL started. 

In answer to your question though, I vote with a big NO!  There are too many people in SL that enjoy creating things using regular prims just for their own personal enjoyment and as a creative outlet.  They have neither the time, talent, money (for uploads) or the incentive to learn how to create mesh.  Mesh has to be created outside SL and that is a big drawback for a lot of people.  If they were going to spend a lot of time outside of SL doing that, for a lot of people who just come here to create what is the point of being in SL then?

---

But what if simplified mesh creation replaced the prim building tool? I don't believe anything is impossible and I do believe the very core of Second Life, the building tool itself, needs to be upgraded...made simpler to use and using a mesh creation engine. I am not saying right now but way down the road. It is totally a possibility.

---

OK, once more.  Prims ARE mesh.  Everything in SL is mesh.  However we say prims vs. mesh to distinguish between the inworld creating method and the outside of SL creation method.

I don't think anyone would argue that it would be wonderful if the inworld building system were improved.  But your original post is advocating doing away with anything created inworld and using only mesh created outside of SL.  That is what I was responding to.

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Nooooo, lol. My original post didn't come across as well worded as I wanted it to be. I will never say do away with the ability to create your own stuff because I love that concept. But my first response to you was what I was trying to say.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Chrismaky wrote:

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Nooooo, lol. My original post didn't come across as well worded as I wanted it to be. I will never say do away with the ability to create your own stuff because I love that concept. But my first response to you was what I was trying to say.

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Oh, really? Perhaps you should re-state your position, then. Your OP was quite strident, and later you doubled down in a post telling us we needed to learn new things and expand our knowledge. To that I say, learning new things is wonderful and I've enjoyed doing that all my life. I've learned many new things in my time in Second Life. About art, music, literature, even history (my favorite subject). But I don't NEED to. I've developed many fondnesses and friendships over the years here, for both people and places. I can be perfectly happy among them if I never learn another thing, to be honest. Here's what you said:

"It is 2016 and SL is still loaded with a lot of terrible looking high prim non-mesh items, especially in its marketplace. Now I am a bit biased because I'm a hardcore mesh addict and I like to have my items, objects, clothes and myself look nice. But a lot of people it seems still prefer (and alot of designers continue to make) non-mesh stuff. Why? Mesh is more realistic, better looking, resizeable, and is much lower in prim/land cost. 

Do you think there should be a push to make SL 100% mesh?"

Amusingly enough, though you later denied even thinking about clothes, it's listed third of four in your little list, there. So yeah, you WERE including clothing. You should consider going all the way back and withdrawing most of what you said in your OP, leaving the perfectly legitimate statements that (in your opinion) mesh objects are far more attractive than prim objects, and asking the question you asked at the end.

If you had done so, my response would have been that I disagreed with your sweeping statement, although there's little doubt that done right mesh is capable of some really lovely stuff. I wear very little mesh clothing because it doesn't fit my shape well. Female tops only come close my bust size in XS, but they're so small everywhere else I have to alpha my entire upper body to wear. Male tops actually fit pretty well, and I have a few nice men's sweaters in mesh, but the selections are limited. Don't bother telling me the proper avatar dimensions for all the mesh sizes are defined (to a point)—I don't WANT to alter my shape. It means something to me. It looks like this on purpose.

So I would vote 'no'.

[Perrie Juran]

Just tossing this in for fun.

If you want to get more prims out on your land than your allowed just find yourself a MESH SPONGE.

[ChinRey]

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Chrismaky wrote:

I totally understand that SL is a user generated content community. I get that. But a lot of you need to understand that creating mesh is FREE and easily learned. It's not a hard thing to grasp.

---

If that is true, why is it that ninety-nine percent of the mesh you see in Second Life is garbage?

Prokofy mentioned two common serious problems with mesh, surfaces you can't rez on and land impact spinning out of cotnrol when items are linked. He could also have mentioned items (especially cars actually) that break down into a mess of triangles even at moderate vieweing distances, houses with walls you can alk through and doorways you can't and floors you sink into or float way above etc., etc., etc. All those problems are not caused by mesh itself and are easily avoided by competent mesh makers. They are caused by people trying to make mesh without understanding the basic principles.

[Paul Hexem]

One thing to consider...

A mesh wall or floor or other similar flat surface has zero benefit over a prim one. Use materials on that prim, and it looks just as good as any mesh surface, and is far more "SL friendly" (see rezzing, walking, physics, land impact, etc) than mesh.

Even though I'm building almost entierly with mesh these days, almost all of my products still incorporate a prim or two somewhere. Particularly buildings with prim foundations. I don't think we'll ever want to get rid of them completely.

[Aethelwine]

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ChinRey wrote:

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Chrismaky wrote:

I totally understand that SL is a user generated content community. I get that. But a lot of you need to understand that creating mesh is FREE and easily learned. It's not a hard thing to grasp.

---

If that is true, why is it that ninety-nine percent of the mesh you see in Second Life is garbage?

Prokofy mentioned two common serious problems with mesh, surfaces you can't rez on and land impact spinning out of cotnrol when items are linked. He could also have mentioned items (especially cars actually) that break down into a mess of triangles even at moderate vieweing distances, houses with walls you can alk through and doorways you can't and floors you sink into or float way above etc., etc., etc. All those problems are not caused by mesh itself and are easily avoided by competent mesh makers. They are caused by people trying to make mesh without understanding the basic principles.

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Isn't it prims (and sculpties) not mesh that spins land impact out of control through linking? Mesh land impact increases massively when resized, but not when linked.

As an example (although not exactly the same), I made a prim floor out of a cylinder and put a transparent texture on it... with alpha blending, it messed up peoples hair, so I switched it to alpha masking.... and the prim gets counted under mesh rules and the land impact shot up to over 200. I used a script to make the prim into mesh, with the same physics and it went back down to 1 land impact. So prims can be good reducing land impact when linked to mesh, but they can also be incredibly bad.

I don't think anyone has mentioned flexi prims yet which can't be done in mesh.

Sculpties (great with mega prims for surrounds), mesh and prim all have their place in building they each have roles they are best for.

[Phil Deakins]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

There's no need to be contrarian for contrariness' sake.

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Why not? It's served you well for years.

[Phil Deakins]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

You admit that it's the majority of times. That indeed means it is IMPOSSIBLE.

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I just can't resist...

You need to get back to school and learn english, or at least get a dictionary and look up the word' impossible', because it simply doesn't mean 'the majority if times'.

When something can happen only once in a million years or more, it is not impossible for it to happen.

I hope that's helped you to understand.

[Phil Deakins]

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Chrismaky wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Chrismaky wrote:

I totally understand that SL is a user generated content community. I get that. But a lot of you need to understand that creating mesh is FREE and easily learned. It's not a hard thing to grasp. I'm not saying to force mesh on everyone by replacing primmy stuff.

What I am saying is more people should start downloading Blender and other free mesh creation tools, and LEARN. 

Clicking build and putting down a box is like for little kids when we had Blocks. Its too easy. Too simple. We need to keep expanding our minds and learning new things.

---

That's not what you are saying at all. You are saying:-

"

Do you think there should be a push to make SL 100% mesh?

" (See your opening post)

But it's good to see that you are now backtracking as a result of the replies to your post

 

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Um no? I'm not backtracking at all. I fully stand behind everything ive said. When I asked that question, I was not meaning LL. I was reffering to the

community

. Because, you know, SL is a user generated content community so it would make sense to push mesh WITHIN the community itself.

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Sorry, but you backtracked. What you were saying was said in your first post, and I quoted it. Then you changed it in a later post, which I also quoted. It's all here in this post. I wasn't the only one who pointed it out

 

ETA:

I HAVE IT! I have the perfect solution for you. YOU push yourself towards 100% mesh. YOU buy only mesh stuff, and delete everything that isn't 100% mesh from your inventory. Then the world will be perfect for you, and it will have added bonus that everyone else gets to choose what they want to do regarding prims and mesh. Perfection 

Of course you'd need to build up a collection of LMs to places that are 100% mesh, but you can do it. I know you can.

 

[Freya Mokusei]

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Chrismaky wrote:

Oh, youre talking about CLOTHES.

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I'm talking about mesh. Nice try, but I'm afraid "100% mesh" (as you've been reminded, these are your words) will definitely include mesh clothes. If you want to play apologist, you're going to have to do it by defending mesh as a whole, not just the small bits that work and look good for you.

Most Second Life users don't own land, so are unlikely to have much furniture, trees, landscaping - and these are likely to be the minority of assets when compared against attachments. Clothes and fashion crossover with People (the forum you're in) significantly more than rezzables.

To review your earlier answer, have you ever seen any poorly made (your words were 'crappy') mesh clothes? Or, are you willing to accept that maybe - just maybe - you're beginning to see the folly of your position?

[Phil Deakins]

Well, you just have to accept it. Nobody has agreed with you so your suggestion is rejected

Along the way you backtracked from your original post, claiming that you meant something different to what you wrote, AND you claimed that you were only talking about mesh that isn't clothes, even though you specifically included clothes in your first post. You don't really know what you want, do you?

[Lexia Moonstone]

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Chrismaky wrote:

It is 2016 and SL is still loaded with a lot of terrible looking high prim non-mesh items, especially in its marketplace. Now I am a bit biased because I'm a hardcore mesh addict and I like to have my items, objects, clothes and myself look nice. But a lot of people it seems still prefer (and alot of designers continue to make) non-mesh stuff.

Why?

Mesh is more realistic, better looking, resizeable, and is much lower in prim/land cost. 

Do you think there should be a push to make SL 100% mesh?

---

Bad mesh is much worse then bad prim work or sculpt maps

here's an example of an arrow for a bow:

bad mesh:

4 LI

4.1 down load

2.2 physics

1.8 server

2416 display (3 textures size 1024 x 1024)

good mesh:

0.5 LI

0.1 down load

0.2 physics

0.5 server

453 display (1 textures size 1024 x 512) same texture used for bow, arrow and quiver

I got a beautiful mesh tree i love but the physics 7.5 that's crazy for an object I'm going to set to phantom any ways, and it's got a display cost of 17,714 may be good looking but it's not better.

I recently bought a very nice mesh temple but its to big for the space left in my sim so it's mod and has some nice pices parts but even though the are copy mod they are hard or imposable to work with, dint come with uv maps so I can't change the textures, things id like to take apart are all one mesh.

Then there's mesh hair with build in facelights that are no mod lol .

Mesh shadow maps, i have a mod mesh bed i'd love to remove the pillows from but the shadows are baked on to the bed, and no uv map so cant remove the shadows my self.  and why a shadow needs to be 1024x1024 is beyond me

no flexi mesh, can't cut, hollow, slice it for scripting.

can't texture most mesh with out a uv map.

I get compliments on my sim every day and I use lots of prims and I've managed to stuff so much into my sm that most people are surprised to find out its just a homestead.  And much less laggy then similar  mesh only full sims.

Good mesh looks great so dosen't good prim work I choose to keep building with prims most the time because I enjoy it.

mesh is just an other tool,  A computer is a very powerful tool but we still make hammers, and we still make RL houses with 2x4s aka  boxes / prims

Twice in the last month I've got an IM from some one looking  to see if I'd sell the some of my mesh full perm, which is kind of funny because it was just good prim work. 

as for SL being 100% mesh LL will never do some thing that removes 13 years of prims building content,  that's one reason there doing a new platform and not just a massive update to SL.

The great thing about SL is if you don't like something your free to TP away and  build it your self.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

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ChinRey wrote:

---

Chrismaky wrote:

I totally understand that SL is a user generated content community. I get that. But a lot of you need to understand that creating mesh is FREE and easily learned. It's not a hard thing to grasp.

---

If that is true, why is it that ninety-nine percent of the mesh you see in Second Life is garbage?

Prokofy mentioned two common serious problems with mesh, surfaces you can't rez on and land impact spinning out of cotnrol when items are linked. He could also have mentioned items (especially cars actually) that break down into a mess of triangles even at moderate vieweing distances, houses with walls you can alk through and doorways you can't and floors you sink into or float way above etc., etc., etc. All those problems are not caused by mesh itself and are easily avoided by competent mesh makers. They are caused by people trying to make mesh without understanding the basic principles.

---

I'm going to borrow this post to riff off of because, well mostly because making quality mesh for SL is so straightforward and easy to learn I'm taking today off from it.:matte-motes-mad:

After two years of struggle, I've gotten to the point where I feel relatively comfortable with Blender and can make decent looking objects. So now I'm pushing hard to chase after the Holy Grail of 1 LI pieces that don't break down with distance. And that means coming up with a second object, comprised of somewhere around 28 tris (prim workers can imagine this in terms of two tris per cube face), which holds the important dimensions from every viewable angle and retains various key elements so they can work together in SL. Plus two more objects for middle distances and lower graphics settings. There are ways to simplify that process. They don't always work.

If it's a building or furniture, we also have to make a custom physics shape. This shape is what keeps your av where it's supposed to be. LI can skyrocket if the physics shape isn't done well. On the box bed I'm currently making, there are two side pieces someone might conceivably want to sit on or rez something on without needing to adjust the position. I haven't found a physics shape which keeps them raised AND the LI to 1. Which do I compromise on? How much time do I spend trying to do both? This project is geometrically simple, so it's obvious the LI matters more and it's not hard to figure out most of what the majority of people will probably want most of the time. Other things? Not so straightforward. And it is very very easy to get caught up in working entirely in cam view and forget to do things like use the item before uploading.

All of those different details,

decisions about what to compromise

, and ways of thinking are needed to make good mesh for SL. And that's not even getting into the joys of laying out one or more UVs, which then need to be textured efficiently. Or what happens when an early decision turns out to be wrong and you have to figure out how to fix it after days of painstaking detailed work that you'd really rather not have to do all over again. Which is why I'm taking today off. Grumble.

When it comes down to it, climbing the mountain of a learning curve that is Blender feels like the easy part.

Why on earth should everyone who wants to build go through that if prims work for them? 100% mesh? No way. I love some of that old school creativity and geometrical brilliance.