An Idea - LOD info in Marketplace Photos

[Chic Aeon]

If you make mesh and hang out in the MESH forums, you know that there has been a LOT of discussion about the new Firestorm LOD info that was added to the build menu and inspect panes in the newest FS release. 

As serendipity is often the mother of ideas -- I have been having issues with sky and water settings on LEA6. To "fix" (or part anyway as the water seems to be completely wrong in the FS viewer - who knows why) I redid the sky settings to get the best look for the largest amount of levels. That meant adding some street lights to the night city.  

AS I WAS PUTTING THOSE UP, I was looking again at the LOD info and wondered if it might be a good idea to put a screenshot of that info up on the marketplace listing. That wouldn't work for sets of things or complex linkset items, but it would certainly work for lots of decor and joined (one object) items which is mostly what I make anyway.  

I think I will do that. It takes very little extra time -- AND it would at least get some folks wondering about what that info means. The more consumers understand how the numbers affect what they see and their enjoyment of Second Life, the "healthier" SL will become (well, at least I am HOPING that would be the outcome).  

Pardon the howear ; dressed for a blog post :D. 

 

And for mesh making folks -- I found out by accident just now that ANALYZING your physics before upload can actually lower the land impact of an item even when kept at convex hull.  Who knew? And maybe this is part of the difference in the newer system OR I just never had occasion to test it before. This lamp at 3 meters size (the default) is 3.2 using analyzed physics and 3.4 using unalyzed. Same physics model used.   So if you keep the lamp at default size it can NOW be 3.2 plus meters tall and still be "3" land impact. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Chic Aeon

[Alyona Su]

A great idea.

For myself, even more important than LOD is Render Cost - THAT is what I'd like to see in all adverts, Market Place or vendors in world. Now when I say no demo=no sale I'm extra serious because when I look at demos, I'm not just looking at fit, I'm also seeing what it does to my RC number. As for LOD< That's just a matter of camming around.

[Chic Aeon]

4 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

A great idea.

For myself, even more important than LOD is Render Cost - THAT is what I'd like to see in all adverts, Market Place or vendors in world. Now when I say no demo=no sale I'm extra serious because when I look at demos, I'm not just looking at fit, I'm also seeing what it does to my RC number. As for LOD< That's just a matter of camming around.

Yes, the render info for clothes would certainly be good. Agreed. And for hair and jewelry.  

[arton Rotaru]

Well, actually those numbers alone doesn't mean much. LODs can look terrible even with quite a few polygons on them. As well as they can look very good with very low poly counts, i.E. Imposters.

Also, I don't use third party viewers, so that screenshot won't work for me anyway. I could indeed list the numbers of tris in each LOD, of every model in a linkset. But that would be kinda overwhelming, and as above, the numbers alone doesn't mean much.

What I try to do for a couple of years already, is to include a picture on the MP listings, that shows the LOD models themself. Like so:

[arton Rotaru]

18 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

And for mesh making folks -- I found out by accident just now that ANALYZING your physics before upload can actually lower the land impact of an item even when kept at convex hull.  Who knew? And maybe this is part of the difference in the newer system OR I just never had occasion to test it before. This lamp at 3 meters size (the default) is 3.2 using analyzed physics and 3.4 using unalyzed. Same physics model used.   So if you keep the lamp at default size it can NOW be 3.2 plus meters tall and still be "3" land impact.

Well yeah, that has always been the case. If you have narrow, or small triangles, triangle based physics can be pretty high quickly.

[Chic Aeon]

26 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Well yeah, that has always been the case. If you have narrow, or small triangles, triangle based physics can be pretty high quickly.

Just never noticed before :D.  I don't typically have this shape of quads :D.   So a tiny bit smarter. 

[arton Rotaru]

5 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Just never noticed before :D.  I don't typically have this shape of quads :D.   So a tiny bit smarter. 

Well I missed that you kept it as convex hull.  In that case I would say it could well be because of the nondeterministic behavior of the Importer, making something different each time you load that model.

[Love Zhaoying]

18 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Pardon the howear ; dressed for a blog post

Any ho would be proud to sell her wares under that purrrdy lamp!

[Chic Aeon]

22 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Well I missed that you kept it as convex hull.  In that case I would say it could well be because of the nondeterministic behavior of the Importer, making something different each time you load that model.

Ah OK. But I tested  a couple of times on the beta grid to check and then  uploaded on the main grid all  with the exact same numbers, so doesn't seem to be an "importer flight of fancy" thing LOL.   

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, arton Rotaru said:

Well, actually those numbers alone doesn't mean much. LODs can look terrible even with quite a few polygons on them. As well as they can look very good with very low poly counts, i.E. Imposters.

Also, I don't use third party viewers, so that screenshot won't work for me anyway. I could indeed list the numbers of tris in each LOD, of every model in a linkset. But that would be kinda overwhelming, and as above, the numbers alone doesn't mean much.

What I try to do for a couple of years already, is to include a picture on the MP listings, that shows the LOD models themself. Like so:

Agreed that numbers CAN be misleading -- we talked about on another thread.  But IN GENERAL they don't seem to be as the things with "zeroed out" lower LODs (and OMG all but the top one sometimes) DO tend to break up very badly. Agree though that it certainly isn't an etched in stone thing.   And yes, I saw your set on the beta grid and it is very cute!  

[mikka Luik]

If it turns up in the LL viewer or the tpv I use for general work then sure why not, I mean screenshots of menus and things I can do, its the actual pictures of items I am a bit pants at.

Although hopefully someone will have come up with a linkable explaner of it all as I have a hard time keeping up as it is.

[iamyourneighbour]

Great idea. But my bet is that less than 10% of the buyers will actually read it. 
Majority of the buyers already buy 1 star reviewed item then end up having to leave another 1 star because the seller left SL years ago.

It would be a good thing to have to settle disputes.

[JJ Hoobinoo]

I love the idea of information around the LOD ! I hate buying clothes that when I cam away I am naked or at a low quality.