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Firestorm 5.0.11 New Mesh Building Tools


Chic Aeon
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9 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

If you mean that they are never going to meet user expectations for the sort of high-end graphics that they see in video games, though, I do agree.

The shaders are a big limitation there. I don't think I exaggerate too much if I say they are the main factor why modern computer game graphics look the way they do.

But there's more it than that of course.

The "Playing on your strength" part for example. One of Second Life's old strengths was that anybody could build here. I've met many people who used to love building but gave up because of the pressure to perform. Some were actually more than good enough to deliver but it wasn't fun anymore.

Since for now we're defining quality as "the highest possible number of triangles and pixels in the high model", there's also the lag issues. I'm always sad when a friend says goodbye and tells me their computer can't handle SL anymore. It happens depressingly often. One of my friends even had his avatar comitting "suicide" (going into something he knew would crash his computer) while he was on IM with me. And of course, for everybody who says goodbye, there are many who just vanish without a word.

Then there is the retention. Try to see this from a newcomer's view: you may or may not have checked the official hardware requirements but in either case, you have no reason to believe that your perfectly ordinary home computer isn't up to the task. And nobody's told you about adjusting your LoD factor or anything like that. What kind of first impression do you get and do you think that is good for the retention rate?

Those are all parts of the price we have to pay for this race for "modern computer game graphics" the way it's usually approached by the dominating brands and makers.

But this is the cargo cult approach: emulating something by imitating the outwards appearance without understanding what goes on "under the hood". We can - and should - go deeper than that. We should look at which factors make people perceive one scene as "higher quality" or "more real" or "more immersive" than another. When we do that, it's very common to find that less is more: Make things simpler to make them seem more complex. That's the art (and that's one of the reasons there will never be art without craft.

 

9 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

For some, it's a matter of learning on the job.

Where are they going to learn? Who's gonna teach them?

There was a reason why I edited my post to add that picture.

Look at it.

Then, look in my eyes, put your hand on your heart and tell me: is that quality? is that what we should all strive for?

Linden Lab says it is and they are very, very clear about it. They even use the word "ultimate".

Do you understand how profound the signal effect of this is?

This is not a unique case, it's very typical of how Linden Lab has handled content creators throughout the entire history of Second Life.

Most of the realy skilled ones have given up. The few who are left are the only ones who really can be good examples and advisors for all the other builders in SL since experts from other platforms won't know about all the weird quirks of SL mesh. But none of them are Lindens and - since we're talking mesh, not prims or sculpts - none of them are Moles either. They don't owe Linden Lab a thing, they have no reason whatsoever to trust LL and most of them only keep a token presence in SL for old times' sake and are too busy elsewhere anyway. LL needs to reach out to that group if they really want the improvement they are talking about and that is going to be a tough sell.

Edited by ChinRey
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4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Since for now we're defining quality as "the highest possible number of triangles and pixels in the high model", there's also the lag issues.

I have changed my outlook over the recent years on this and I am beginning to believe that others are too. Now with the NEW TOOLS (remember the title of this thread ? LOL) consumers have to ability to make more informed choices. 

When mesh was fairly new I had a couple of super stars (I thought) that I admired. One worked in Maya (obvious) and the other in something else will more minimalistic  textures.  Both had pretty big names. Both ( I assume) sold a lot.  Once I turned my LODs down to 2 a couple of years ago that fandom disappeared. 

 

That high poly bench I posted on some thread lately with 19 textures is is one of the  GORGEOUS items that I threw out. Who wants something THAT laggy?  Not "I".

I could be following the masses on the OMG the textures are SO glorious bandwagon, but I have decided to PURPOSEFULLY keep my my textures less than "perfect" in the interest of download.  My aim these days is to give the ambiance desired that  can still be seen well by most folks (LOD 2 or lower - subtle baked textures - very few maps to add to download and sometime ugliness -- and of course 95% low low poly).  It is more about choices in DESIGN than in buttery Maya bakes.  "I" feel better making these types of things because it helps keep the grid healthy. 

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly --  I just didn't give folks enough credit, I appear to be getting a fanbase. This is late in the game for me since I don't have a group or do  Facebook (the verb) or Tweet  etc etc. That means, my customers pretty much like my stuff FOR my stuff -- and that makes me VERY happy.

I have cut down on my blogging too because recently I decided that I was only going to feature items that I really liked, would keep, and are reasonably made (poly and texture and physics wise). I don't know that I ALWAYS conform to my own dictated blogging  standards, but I try.  My current favorite designer -- who I don't know at all -- is the owner of Mesh India who with much nicer textures than mine *wink* seems to have the same middle of the road outlook that I have.  

For the most part creators are putting the pressure on themselves. Some are convinced they need to be in every event that they can be in even it that means losing money (yes, often for many folks -- happily not me).  I have decided to just be in the events that have proven well for me -- giving me plenty of time to make BETTER things and larger offerings than if I was trying to do eight or ten events month. It is each person's choice of course -- some like stress I guess. Just not me. 

But this has lead -- in many cases (not all assuredly) to some sloppy work and the "well it's only pixels anyway and I have so much to do so this will HAVE to be good enough for them" mentality which saddens me greatly. Some really talented designers are putting out some pretty sloppy work (badly baked textures, holes in the mesh etc.) So we each are finding our way and making our choices and hopefully they will be the correct ones. 

It will be VERY interesting to see what the NEW rules turn out to be in the coming months. 

 

 

 

Edited by Chic Aeon
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8 hours ago, MIstahMoose said:

1) LOD Butchery is widespread cuz hey this isnt a professional platform 
2) See #1
 And I never considered my opinion the best, I even agreed that LOD is the -best- way to do it, I just said that Hey LL Should provide tools otherwise this issue wont get fixed. But hurdur no I gotta be wrong to your glorious intelligence.

I've been following the discussion so far, Moose. All i get from your wish list is something that was explained over and over why Second Life can not afford that, but you keep insisting. Your two points don't make sense at all, if it's not a professional platform, then why you and all the other creators who pump the models so much act like if you were? LL doesn't provide a efficient tool? Professionals buy the tools they need, and MooTools Polygon Cruncher is excellent for that.

Maybe Optimo is a bit stubborn and harsh in making his point across, but he's right. I talked to him last night and it's a matter of math used to convert the mesh text file (.dae). The text file has no limitation for what concerns values and numbers, but the binary conversion is limited to a specific range. And he's right saying that Lindens have stated more than once that they wouldn't mess up with the mesh asset architecture.

So we all get your point of wishing something from the Lab, Optimo himself said he would like that too if he didn't know what impedes it. What i would wish more than a raise in vertex limits, though, is a more relevant weight for the lower lods. Low and lowest vertices count affect the final LI too much which, to me, doesn't make much sense.

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3 hours ago, Alekso Minotaur said:

I've been following the discussion so far, Moose. All i get from your wish list is something that was explained over and over why Second Life can not afford that, but you keep insisting. Your two points don't make sense at all, if it's not a professional platform, then why you and all the other creators who pump the models so much act like if you were? LL doesn't provide a efficient tool? Professionals buy the tools they need, and MooTools Polygon Cruncher is excellent for that.

Maybe Optimo is a bit stubborn and harsh in making his point across, but he's right. I talked to him last night and it's a matter of math used to convert the mesh text file (.dae). The text file has no limitation for what concerns values and numbers, but the binary conversion is limited to a specific range. And he's right saying that Lindens have stated more than once that they wouldn't mess up with the mesh asset architecture.

So we all get your point of wishing something from the Lab, Optimo himself said he would like that too if he didn't know what impedes it. What i would wish more than a raise in vertex limits, though, is a more relevant weight for the lower lods. Low and lowest vertices count affect the final LI too much which, to me, doesn't make much sense.

At some point with Optibro it became less about having an actual discussion and more about him being a condescending self righteous jerk.
Things from my wish list were never explained, He never even asked what I was referring to when I stated my original thoughts. I get it though, I do, I get why they want things to be more optimized.
SL Is -not- a professional platform. It just isn't. You don't have to go through a process to get your models approved. There is no requirement for professionalism, period. Yes people who make a living on here act professional with their business, but that doesn't qualify the whole platform as professional. The amount of people I know who make content exclusively for themselves is a higher number than the ones that are selling it everywhere. Just take a look at flickr, as well. Half those small stores in big photogroups are doing this for -fun- and you can't demand someone spend their free time doing something unfun like LODs, unless LL makes it a requirement or LL provides better tools to those people. Because in the end anyone who creates (Outside of the big bois) is usually doing it for fun. 

I never said he -was- wrong. I only ever stated how creators are thinking and why they're doing, and what I wished LL would do about it. I defended that point to have a discussion, but instead got treated like I knew nothing and made fun of, so I will probably never respect optibros professional opinion after that. 

I don't believe that theres anything that impedes it, other than LL themselves. I believe if LL had sunk all the money they took for sansar into actually developing proper tools and improving the engine for SL that we would already have it. I agree, That doesn't make sense and is also a huge part of the problem, especially with how sims are developed. Maybe rather than total land impact there is jsut an overall "Max Server Usage" So those with crazy complex designs can't have many things on their land and those with optimized ones can.
Because if Microsoft can manage to mess around with windows despite how terrifying the inside of that OS is, then I think LL can figure their engine out and maybe add some comments so they're not so lost when developing it.

 

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See that "featuretable.txt" in the folder where firestorm is installed ? 

If you delete this file then you can set the LOD as you want without it reverted at loggin,

you only get the warning message, clic 'ok' and that's all, no need to set LOD in debug anymore you can keep it at 8 if you want.

You can also change the default value in the settings xml file, so when you hit "default" button in the debug menu the LOD is immediately set to 8 or 7 as you like,

you still get the warning message btw, but only once at loggin.

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20 minutes ago, JanosX said:

See that "featuretable.txt" in the folder where firestorm is installed ? 

If you delete this file then you can set the LOD as you want without it reverted at loggin,

you only get the warning message, clic 'ok' and that's all, no need to set LOD in debug anymore you can keep it at 8 if you want.

You can also change the default value in the settings xml file, so when you hit "default" button in the debug menu the LOD is immediately set to 8 or 7 as you like,

you still get the warning message btw, but only once at loggin.

I am happy you are happy with your LOD setting, but I think you missed the whole point of this thread.  Just sayin'

:SwingingFriends:

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I got the point, but I don't care,

I use high view distance, giant meshes from X and Y creators, I build large things and make screenshots and videos and I don't like then they look like crap as soon I unzoom to watch a whole sim or a 1/4 of sim, so my render LOD is set to 7.5 all the time and that's all, I don't care about "next" meshes build in 6 months with good LOD, I can fix it right now in my viewer without affecting anyone else so I keep it that way and i'll keep it that way.

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13 hours ago, JanosX said:

See that "featuretable.txt" in the folder where firestorm is installed ? 

If you delete this file then you can set the LOD as you want without it reverted at loggin,

you only get the warning message, clic 'ok' and that's all, no need to set LOD in debug anymore you can keep it at 8 if you want.

You can also change the default value in the settings xml file, so when you hit "default" button in the debug menu the LOD is immediately set to 8 or 7 as you like,

you still get the warning message btw, but only once at loggin.

Not for much longer.... :ph34r:

That's been fixed for the next Firestorm release.

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On 3/16/2018 at 3:51 AM, JanosX said:

I got the point, but I don't care,

Too bad! The rest of the community does xD Being a good modeler doesn't necessarily mean being good also at content creation, which includes modeling and texturing as first stages, then it also needs the knowledge to make something work on a specific platform for how the platform requires such content to be. The "free LoD factor" behavior you and your sock puppet alt C(rap)S(h*te)Virtual are so much defending, is going to drive people off SL because the rendering requirements go through the roof for stuff that would need way less computing power. Be less ignorant = problem solved

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On 16.3.2018 at 3:51 AM, JanosX said:

I use high view distance, giant meshes from X and Y creators, I build large things and make screenshots and videos

I can't see any point in increasing the LoD factor when you're dealing with "giant meshes" - it shouldn't make any difference for them.

But apart from that, if I understand @Grumpity Linden correctly, the RenderVolumeLoDFactor was originally meant as a way to temporarily override the LoD system for photo sessions when render time isn't a problem. I think that makes perfect sense. And of course, a custom set that you make for a video shot and nobody else is ever going to see, isn't going to cause anybody any problems.

It's very different when we are talking about a dynamic multi-user environment though and that's what SL usually is about.

Edited by ChinRey
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On 3/8/2018 at 5:32 PM, ChinRey said:

Since for now we're defining quality as "the highest possible number of triangles and pixels in the high model", there's also the lag issues. I'm always sad when a friend says goodbye and tells me their computer can't handle SL anymore. It happens depressingly often.

...

Make things simpler to make them seem more complex. That's the art (and that's one of the reasons there will never be art without craft.

That's well said.

I keep seeing objects which have far too much high level of detail, and far too little low level. A good test is "if you have to go into mouselook to see the detail, you overdid it." I was in an in-world store today that was selling various household items. Each item had its own little alcove in the store.They had a bathroom shower with chromed plumbing, and it was beautiful up close. You could zoom in in mouselook and see the detail on the flanges on the pipe fittings. But from outside the alcove, it was one triangle. You couldn't tell it was a shower. As someone pointed out previously, there's no land impact penalty for reducing the low LOD model below 12 triangles (a cube). Somebody didn't get the memo.

Key takeaway point: there are how-to pages on the web telling people to use Blender's decimate function to take low-LOD models down to less than 12 triangles. Find those documents and fix them. Decimate is for taking 10000 polys to 1000, not 10 to 1. An automatic imposter generator somewhere in the pipeline would be a big help.
The real problem, of course, is that SL is a technology that makes the World Wide Web look simple, maintained by under 200 people. Maintained for an audience of maybe 30,000 - 50,000. And this is the biggest virtual world.

 

 

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Just wanted to add to this thread that at least one creator with "disappearing mesh" is now uploading more sanely and items can be seen at a much longer distance. Land impact of the new appears to be consistent with land impact of the old.  

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On 18.3.2018 at 4:52 PM, Chic Aeon said:

Just wanted to add to this thread that at least one creator with "disappearing mesh" is now uploading more sanely and items can be seen at a much longer distance. Land impact of the new appears to be consistent with land impact of the old.  

Time to raise the stakes a bit then. :D

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