Making a finished Statue Smaller

[WESTCAT]

How can I make my statue more efficient.  i.e. weighing in at around 300+ currently;

Could someone please direct me to tutorials etc, for such items as reducing in blender, 

how to use perhaps other items like the SL upload tool, etc. 

[ChinRey]

There are lots of tips in this forum and even more in the mesh forum. But a few ones to start with:

• Get rid of all unnecessary triangles and vertices!
• Use smooth normals for all curved surfaces. Not only does that mean you can get nice rounded surfaces with fewer triangles, you can also often reduce the LI a bit even with the same polycount.
• Use the simplest possible physics model. For a statue you probably only need a cube for the physics.
• Make all LoD models yourself, do not under any circumstance trust the ones the uploader generates. Do test uploads to the beta grid, check how the statue looks at different distances and simplify the LoD models as mucha s possible without compromicing the looks. Make sure you use a sensible LOD factor (it's called "Objects" in the graphics prefs of the standard SL viewer) when you test. I always test with LoD factor 1.25 (Mid). Less experienced mesh makers may go for a bit higher but no higher than LoD factor 2 (High).
• See if you can split the statue into several meshes. Splitting will increase the server weight but usually reduce the download weight and that's almost certainly the one that causes the land ipact for an item like this.

[WESTCAT]

44 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

There are lots of tips in this forum and even more in the mesh forum. But a few ones to start with:

• Get rid of all unnecessary triangles and vertices!
• Use smooth normals for all curved surfaces. Not only does that mean you can get nice rounded surfaces with fewer triangles, you can also often reduce the LI a bit even with the same polycount.
• Use the simplest possible physics model. For a statue you probably only need a cube for the physics.
• Make all LoD models yourself, do not under any circumstance trust the ones the uploader generates. Do test uploads to the beta grid, check how the statue looks at different distances and simplify the LoD models as mucha s possible without compromicing the looks. Make sure you use a sensible LOD factor (it's called "Objects" in the graphics prefs of the standard SL viewer) when you test. I always test with LoD factor 1.25 (Mid). Less experienced mesh makers may go for a bit higher but no higher than LoD factor 2 (High).
• See if you can split the statue into several meshes. Splitting will increase the server weight but usually reduce the download weight and that's almost certainly the one that causes the land ipact for an item like this.

thank you.  and I can do all of the above for a Statue already made? 

Edited December 8, 2017 by WESTCAT

[WESTCAT]

Just now, WESTCAT said:

 

thank you.  and I can do all of the above for a Statue already made? 

[ChinRey]

23 minutes ago, WESTCAT said:

thank you.  and I can do all of the above for a Statue already made? 

Oh.

For a start, if it's a mesh you bought or found on the internet, it's almost certainly not legal to upload it to Second Life. According to the Terms of Service, when you upload a mesh, you give Linden Lab rather extensive rights to use the item and you can't do that unless you actually have those rights yourself of course. Some of the big 3D warehouses, like Turbosquid, specifically forbid you to upload models you've bought there to Second Life. Others leave it to each seller to decide but generally you are not allowed. (And yes, I know lots of people do it - even some of the big SL brands - but the fact that they are crooks doesn't give you an excuse to be one too.) So first, if you didn't make the mesh yourself, check very careful the license it was sold/given away under.

But even if it turns out to be legal, there is still a technical problem. Second Life mesh is rather unusual in many ways. We need to be far more careful with polycount and pixelcount than in most other mesh environments and SL's LoD and phsyics systems are very different from anything you see elsewhere. So a mesh made for a different environment will have to be edited quite a bit to work well in SL. If you don't know how to make a mesh yourself, you won't know how to adapt one for SL either and the only solution is to start learning.

Edited December 8, 2017 by ChinRey

[WESTCAT]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Oh.

For a start, if it's a mesh you bought or found on the internet, it's almost certainly not legal to upload it to Second Life. According to the Terms of Service, when you upload a mesh, you give Linden Lab rather extensive rights to use the item and you can't do that unless you actually have those rights yourself of course. Some of the big 3D warehouses, like Turbosquid, specifically forbid you to upload models you've bought there to Second Life. Others leave it to each seller to decide but generally you are not allowed. (And yes, I know lots of people do it - even some of the big SL brands - but the fact that they are crooks doesn't give you an excuse to be one too.) So first, if you didn't make the mesh yourself, check very careful the license it was sold/given away under.

But even if it turns out to be legal, there is still a technical problem. Second Life mesh is rather unusual in many ways. We need to be far more careful with polycount and pixelcount than in most other mesh environments and SL's LoD and phsyics systems are very different from anything you see elsewhere. So a mesh made for a different environment will have to be edited quite a bit to work well in SL. If you don't know how to make a mesh yourself, you won't know how to adapt one for SL either and the only solution is to start learning.

Right I just did find an SL figure specifically designed for SL..  Waiting for confirmation from Artist.  Yes way ahead of you on all points there. Ya I can definitely make mesh