LoD models swapped inworld

[Chic Aeon]

7 hours ago, ChinRey said:

For comparasion, here is a pic with same settings but at a different location:

And I didn't blame YOUR trees sweetie. I blamed the ones that were planted in the 5fps second sims where I visited MANY times over MANY days -- again all by myself  and the only one on the sim --- and got consistent  can't move ratings (this was last year on my current computer).

And for the record I am THRILLED that you got those fps at my shop at ground level on mainland LOL.  

Also, and I am just asking this as I really don't know --- isn't "instancing" in play with the fps? So a forest of the same tree with the same textures will be much easier for the viewer to handle than a forest of different trees (or a bunch of different objects of any kind)?  That is certainly the way it worked at Cloud Party where we were only charged for the FIRST object we put out and all the others were "free" (not taken from our total limit of use).  

[OptimoMaximo]

42 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

isn't "instancing" in play with the fps?

Normally, yes. But SL doesn't have an actual object instancing system. You can notice this in most of fbx and collada exporters, there's an option for keeping instances, where Avastar's turns the instances in actual objects upon export. An instance, by definition, is a transform node carrying some other object's shape node. In Blender you can see the object/shape separation when you rename the item in the object tab, in its mesh data the name doesn't change. If you export using the default collada exporter, the name you write in the mesh data panel (the shape node) is the name your uploaded object will have (assuming that this detail wasn't changed over the time i last used Blender). This system needs a mesh referencing system to work, and as far as i know, each asset you rez from inventory gets a new unique UUID, making it virtually impossible to relate to any other object on land (i think). I guess it should work if we got the chance to do a "duplicate special" to recycle the same UUID.

Edited February 8, 2018 by OptimoMaximo
added word

[ChinRey]

29 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

And I didn't blame YOUR trees sweetie. I blamed the ones that were planted in the 5fps second sims where I visited MANY times over MANY days -- again all by myself  and the only one on the sim --- and got consistent  can't move ratings (this was last year on my current computer).

Yes, unfortunately that's a common problem. But my point was of course that plants don't have to be high lag. Or to out it another way it's not the plants themselves that create "plant lag", it's the makers.

 

30 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

And for the record I am THRILLED that you got those fps at my shop at ground level on mainland LOL.

Oh yes, 40 fps is not at all bad on my computer. If I had gone to one of the laggy funriture makers, I would have seen far worse. I once took a friend to Apple Fall's store. My friend was using SL GO at that time (for those who don't remember, it was a game streaming service using some seriously high powered servers to do the rendering). The lag there was high enough that even the SL GO server couldn't manage. Not only did the frame rate drop to a snail pace, it actually only managed to render half the objects. (Oh, and I do lvoe Apple Fall's builds myself. But I also love chocolate and I know I can't base my diet on it. It's great in small doses but be careful you don't take too much. )

 

37 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Also, and I am just asking this as I really don't know --- isn't "instancing" in play with the fps?

Yes and no. We don't have true asset instancing in Second Life but we can still save a lot by reusing both meshes and textures. If we didn't repeating textures would have been completely pointless for a start.

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

each asset you rez from inventory gets a new unique UUID,

Textures at least always have the same UUID (if full perm). I guess objects need different UUID’s because they are an “instance” (LOL!) with different properties, potentially.

[ChinRey]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

I guess objects need different UUID’s because they are an “instance” (LOL!) with different properties, potentially.

A mesh is made from two assets. The mesh asset is the mesh as it was uploaded. It doesn't actually have a UUID at all - LL came up with a better asset adressing system for them - but it is the same identifier for every instance of the mesh. The "object asset" (not sure if that's the right term) contains all the parameters that can be changed in-world and it has a different UUID for each and every instance.

Sculpts use roughly the same basic principle, the sculpt map being the equivalent of the mesh asset.

[OptimoMaximo]

19 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Textures at least always have the same UUID (if full perm). I guess objects need different UUID’s because they are an “instance” (LOL!) with different properties, potentially.

As you quoted me, i said "each asset you rez from inventory". Textures are rezzed on objects and reference one single image on server, so that is an example of instancing. What i was pointing out is an asset that goes to land from inventory. Those effectively are full copies of an original asset, not instances. An instance would have independent object properties with dependent (instanced) Shape node/Mesh Data. So a real instance would respond to vertices location changes on the original, but in object mode it may be positioned/rotated/scaled differently from the original. Also, like it happens in Unity or UnrealEngine or other game engines, updating the asset's mesh means automatic update of all assets that reference the original one. But this is a different type of instancing, where the asset is a compound of things, including a mesh object. So, basically, "they are an “instance” (LOL!) with different properties, potentially", as you said. But there is a very important missing link.

Edited February 8, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[Love Zhaoying]

Would be nice if all objects started from a single parent had a “base” UUID so you could update them all via 1 UUID that way (scripts, etc.)

[Chic Aeon]

44 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

 

Yes and no. We don't have true asset instancing in Second Life but we can still save a lot by reusing both meshes and textures. If we didn't repeating textures would have been completely pointless for a start.

Yes and why it is good in big full sim builds to reuse things.  I have seen it help.  Hence while I was GOING to make two new versions of the medium store  for the small stores of  Fantasy Faire, I found that I could just resize the medium store (all one object and very organic so textures aren't an issue) and rearrange to get the same effect that I was after. Most of the time (so far) the build is around 107 fps which I am very happy with (my benchmark of course). I have one big building to make (waiting on that) and some "outside decor". But it should be very easy to move around in for folks as well as mysteriously calm and "hauntingly beautiful" (well "I" like it LOL). So we'll see. 

 

There is one outdoor tree and decor maker whose sim always brings me to a halt (for many years). While her items are lovely I would never buy any for that reason. Some folks must have MUCH better computers than mine LOL. 

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Would be nice if all objects started from a single parent had a “base” UUID so you could update them all via 1 UUID that way (scripts, etc.)

I did some tests not long ago as I was wondering how my store logo texture (MANY YEARS OLD) had disappeared -- not just from MY inventory, but from my alts and also from the inventory of a venue owner who I had just a couple of days beforesent it to (THAT was a confusing sentence but I am tired, sorry).  Copying the TEXTURE kept the UUID. Yes, I just tested that again and it is so.

BUT there is also a way for The Lab to find all copies of an object -- since they can delete them all with a DMCA (or at least delete a LOT of them, I have no idea if ALL occurrences disappear during a takedown). 

RIGHT NOW I can't copy the UUID from any item in my inventory, even something mine. So not sure what is going on there. 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

RIGHT NOW I can't copy the UUID from any item in my inventory, even something mine. So not sure what is going on there. 

 

[arton Rotaru]

15 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

The choice for Alpha masking/blending has a huge hand in lag, it's significant. The calculations in placing one alpha over another are incredibly expensive, I saw someone explain why in one of Penny's discussions about mod/nomod and changing everything to alpha-masking, now i can't recall who  Along the lines of a blended alpha needing four multiplications while a masked only needed one - or so.

4 is what Nyx Linden has assigned as a multiplier for alpha blending in the Rendering Weight table. The problem with alpha blending is the so called overdraw and the increasing Pixel Fillrate it produces. The Renderer has to look through the transparent surfaces to figure out the color behind it to draw the pixel correctly. The more overlapping surfaces there are, the worse it gets. The higher the screen resolution, the higher the pixel fillrate will get. So for SL, it can be of great help to lower the screen res to 1366x768 rather than running it at 1920 x 1080.

[ChinRey]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Would be nice if all objects started from a single parent had a “base” UUID so you could update them all via 1 UUID that way (scripts, etc.)

But they do! Thanks to Lucia Nightfire.

She discovered that the creation date is precise enough to work as an alternative unique identifier and it's one that is kept through all copying. It's fewer bytes than the UUID too.

I posted an example script in the lsl library a while ago:

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by ChinRey

[Beq Janus]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Would be nice if all objects started from a single parent had a “base” UUID so you could update them all via 1 UUID that way (scripts, etc.)

But they do! Thanks to Lucia Nightfire.

Indeed, they do have IDs , both the underlying mesh id and the "practically as good as unique" creation time but sadly that does not allow you to update them which I think was what Love wants.

It would be awesome to be able to say "replace all objects using the underlying mesh with this new one". I toyed with the functionality a bit in the reverse of that. I want to be able to compose a mesh so I can replace the Medium/Low LOD or more commonly apply a physics shape. I can probably do it in the viewer. I would pull the existing asset, apply the new LOD and reupload, but you'd be getting a new mesh asset (and a new upload fee). It is one of the "wouldn't this be awesome" building blocks to restoring more inworld building capability. 

/me sighs at the length of her TODO/Wish list.

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Beq Janus said:

Indeed, they do have IDs , both the underlying mesh id and the "practically as good as unique" creation time but sadly that does not allow you to update them which I think was what Love wants.

It would be awesome to be able to say "replace all objects using the underlying mesh with this new one". I toyed with the functionality a bit in the reverse of that. I want to be able to compose a mesh so I can replace the Medium/Low LOD or more commonly apply a physics shape. I can probably do it in the viewer. I would pull the existing asset, apply the new LOD and reupload, but you'd be getting a new mesh asset (and a new upload fee). It is one of the "wouldn't this be awesome" building blocks to restoring more inworld building capability. 

/me sighs at the length of her TODO/Wish list.

 

 

I’m more into scripts so was more focused on replacing the current script update mechanism.

[OptimoMaximo]

17 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Yes and why it is good in big full sim builds to reuse things. 

Reusing things is not like instancing mesh objects, Chic. While a texture perfectly falls within the definition and definitely saves up on texture resources, on the other hand we have mesh assets that load as a unique object. Either you whip the item out of your inventory, rez from object or shift-drag to duplicate, if you experience a bit of network lag you can definitely see that the new/copied object reloads again, totally unaware of the mesh it came from was already in the viewer cache. A true instance does count in the polygon budget for a scene BUT it doesn't count against the number of draw calls per frame (being drawn once, its transform node does the rest for all the copies), thing that doesn't happen in SL, since mesh items do counts against LI (say, the "polygon budget") AND against drawcalls, being all those vertices detected by the viewer tools and counted.

Your statement is not incorrect, at all. It's imprecise. In my opinion, at the current state of things in SL, reusing the same assets in full sim big builds is good to keep design and style consistency and performance, accurately choosing the items and textures for your design. True instancing would allow a boat load more assets in a scene than a simulator would ever be capable to contain in the current sim area.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, OptimoMaximo said:

True instancing would allow a boat load more assets in a scene than a simulator would ever be capable to contain in the current sim area.

(Snide remark alert!)

Object instancing is one of the many fairly recent resource saving features that are essential for a new, up-to-date 3D environment but very hard to retrofit onto old software like Second Life. Adding those features is of course one of the main reasons why LL started working on a brand new virtual world application which... doesn't actually have object instancing either.

Edited February 9, 2018 by ChinRey

[OptimoMaximo]

22 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Object instancing is one of the many fairly recent resource saving features that are essential for a new, up-to-date 3D environment but very hard to retrofit onto old software like Second Life

Instancing was available in old game engines like Chrome (not the browser) and BlueMars (based on CryEngine2 if i recall right). It's not a new thing and it's been used, more or less successfully, in the past in many games that featured similar characteristics to SL. Now the asset management and storage should undergo a big overhaul that should begin with implementing an inworld, user defined object hierarchy structure other than a skeleton, in the first place. So yes, since the devs we're talking about is LL plus the many other aspects/features needed to just lay down something similar to an asset management system, in SL this is most likely to not happen...or at least if it does happen, in twisted LL style flavor (like the "material editor" they announced a while ago for Sansar... which is NOT an editor, just more upload options)

[OptimoMaximo]

2 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

(like the "material editor" they announced a while ago for Sansar... which is NOT an editor, just more upload options)

Quoting myself here ecause this topic has just reminded me about this. As a creator, i will not enter Sansar until an actual EDITOR for materials come out, as well as keyframed object animation (not scripted) and its relative Takes management to say the very least. Just the fact that they started opening the "Beta Creator Preview" without an actual Terrain system in place leads me to feel their features' definitions like trying to make a fool out of me/us. At current state Sansar isn't worth being classified pre-Alpha release.

Sorry for this vent, i really needed it as i pulled the thing up myself, i made myself start thinking again to one of the most irritating things i've seen so far.

[ChinRey]

15 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

...or at least if it does happen, in twisted LL style flavor

It won't happen then because I don't think the SL developers do that flavor anymore. There have been some glitches, Quick Graphics is one example. The MoP update too of course, but that was an emergency repair so it had to be a rush job. But for the most part, the SL developers are now working slowly, carefully and methodologically. Too slow, yes, but that old code they have to force into submission must be a nightmare of a foe.

From what I've seen, in Sansar it's business as usual though.

Edited February 9, 2018 by ChinRey

[OptimoMaximo]

17 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

It won't happen then because I don't think the SL developers do that flavor anymore.

Yep, indeed:

36 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

So yes, since the devs we're talking about is LL plus the many other aspects/features needed to just lay down something similar to an asset management system, in SL this is most likely to not happen

 

21 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

but that old code they have to force into submission must be a nightmare of a foe.

I agree.

23 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

From what I've seen, in Sansar it's business as usual though.

Well if i can work with PBR assets i rather prefer keep publishing models on the UnrealEngine marketplace for considerably higher prices and WAY less time wasted fitting the asset to the platform than Sansar can offer at current state. They can do the usual business as much as they like, for what i'm concerned.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Quoting myself here ecause this topic has just reminded me about this. As a creator, i will not enter Sansar until an actual EDITOR for materials come out, as well as keyframed object animation (not scripted) and its relative Takes management to say the very least. Just the fact that they started opening the "Beta Creator Preview" without an actual Terrain system in place leads me to feel their features' definitions like trying to make a fool out of me/us. At current state Sansar isn't worth being classified pre-Alpha release.

Sorry for this vent, i really needed it as i pulled the thing up myself, i made myself start thinking again to one of the most irritating things i've seen so far.

Well said! Even if a derail!

[OptimoMaximo]

Hello @Motoko Oanomochi . Very interesting intervention, thanks for showing us how a pseudo-Unity shader looks in Sansar. Seen and worked on that sub-industrial standard shader long enough already, thanks. Personally, i couldn't care less.

Edited February 11, 2018 by OptimoMaximo