Bakes on Mesh Feedback Thread

[OptimoMaximo]

11 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

It would be nice to have the ability to apply Normal Maps and Specular Maps to the LL Default System Avatar and have it work with Bakes On Mesh too but like I said you can still apply Normal Maps and Specular Maps to mesh that is using Bakes On Mesh system.

No you can't, as Vir said, since bake on mesh isn't aware of what materials are in the first place. You should have the normals and specular maps for each garment to layer in the bake and perform the merge yourself, which is impossible as you can't have all texture clothing possible to create all possible combinations.

11 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

We have already brought up to Vir at the meeting of adding more slots that have nothing to do with any part of the LL Default System Avatar.  Right now we have 6 slots. Baked_Head, Baked_Upper(For Upper Body, Baked_Lower(For Lower Body), Baked Hair, Baked Eyes and Baked Skirt.  We are hoping to get more slots for like Aux_1, Aux_2, Aux_3 and so on.  These Aux slots would be good for clothes, huds, shoes and other accessories.  Just how many more slots we need or be reasonable is something LL has to figure out.

The problem with this is that, currently, this addresses only rigged/avatar attached content.

12 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

Hang on, no materials? Well, that is a huge step backwards.

*skips this as useless*

Thanks for joining in....

4 hours ago, Klytyna said:

Speaking as the SL- Cromagnon who pointed out A YEAR AGO, when this was announced as the latest "kewl" idea from the Secret "middle of the night on the beta grid" meetings of some snobby little clique, that as suggested... with it's lack of materials support, etc., that this should be called "Bake-Fail on Mesh" I remember...

I find it amusing that ALL the problems I predicted with Bake-Fail on Mesh, A YEAR AGO, after considering it for less than 60 seconds, are either now revealed as indeed coming true, or even more amusingly, are now being raised by the people who disagreed with me last year.

I'm also amused that one of the early replies to this announcement was "Oh this will make mesh avis obsolete and bring back system avis again hooray", a CLASSIC SL-Neanderthal reaction.

We're told by the koolaid guzzlers that lack of materials isn't a handicap, as we will be able to apply the normals and speculars with appliers, despite the repeated claims that this is supposed to eliminate the need for appliers.

We have a LINDEN claiming that Bake-Fail on mesh will eliminate the need for full perm template mesh, because... We can just bake our 2006 system clothing onto it, no need to be able to modify it with custom made textures, strongly suggesting that at least one of the two Lindens posting so far in this thread isn't aware than most mesh clothing doesn't use SL System avatar uv layouts.

This whole project is the blind leading the blind. About the only thing this will achieve as announced, is people wearing old old system layers on mesh bodies.

The only onion skin layers it will possibly eliminate are, tattoo layers, and makeup layers, so a 25% saving in poly count on most brands, assuming that Bake-Fail editions of mesh bodies don't claw that poly saving back to improve weightmapping and rigging at critical areas.

We're told we won't need alpha cuts, but... most of the clothing that uses alphaq cuts doesn't come with alphas, so... we will still need alpha cuts, and bake-fail will only be for new bodies that wear completely different clothing...

How many people will WANT to upgrade to a Bake-Fail body 2019 edition at a cost of 3-10k L$ if it means throwing away most of their mesh clothes, and returning to World-O-Crap Discount Freebie Warehouse to stock up on 2006 system rags.

Dream on...

Remember... *I* listed most of the obvious failings of bake fail, and several different approaches to implementing it BEFORE you even realised your "kewl" idea might HAVE any problems or that anyone might not think the sun shone out of your backside for suggesting it. Technically, that put's me ahead of this...

A YEAR ahead, as I did that A YEAR AGO.

Sorry but your chain of logic is flawed... You had a badly thought out half-baked idea, you weren't the first, others had the same badly thought out half-baked idea, therefore by agreeing with your badly thought out half-baked idea, they must be intelligent...

This is a giant leap backwards in mesh avatar rendering technology... All that effort implementing materials and advanced lighting, and here we are rushing to resurrect all those dreadful items from 12 years ago, for people too sentimental and /or stubborn to set aside the old crap that looks crap. 

Hell why not remove advanced lighting and bento, and alpha layers and bring back invisiprims!

One Step Forwards! Two Steps Back! This way to the FUTURE!
 

Put yourself in line since this is a feature *I* asked for, way more than one year back. Making alphas for best selling products take minutes to Homo Sapiens, maybe Erectus like you need more time. The actual issue at hand is that alpha cuts just behave horrendously, with gaps between pieces (thing that *I* posted a solution to, in these forums, FYI) and it just makes near to no sense, since a alpha mask can cut off parts more precisely than a bunch of separated objects with 8 faces each. One draw call for the mesh and one for the mask, as opposed to one draw call per avatar slice plus the mask. But again, this would render as effectively proficient IF materials may be involved too, otherwise the onion layers for layered textures will remain with the million polygons they bring with them. Which relates to the only thing you got right since the time i read your posts: at current state of things, this feature is just reviving old crap that looks like crap. Oh wait, it's something *I* wrote in a post earlier than yours, and said it upon feature request time more than a year back.

@Cathy Foil The problem with this is that the initial request was for texture layering. You might recall me asking also for a secondary UV set for lightmapping, but no multiple UV sets so i folded over just layering textures. And i also expanded a bit on this, since my request was aimed at ALL mesh content as a base implementation in order to use it on static meshes too. Being free to tile materials on a mesh and have an untiled AO on top would save a lot in texture resources by tiling without dropping baked AOs. Same or similar would go for characters, where one might layer an animated texture on top of a skin. Instead of digging in the server stuff, they might have worked (fixing and improving) on the rendering side of things. Modern development makes extensive use of shaders for this reason, lighter weight and render effective. Before someone pops in saying "but SL has no shaders, it's got only a material system"... the material we use IS a shader, the ONLY ONE available. Maintaining and updating a shader is common practice in every software development, but it's just easier to recycle what's in place as is to deliver it on avatar attachments. With LL, the compromise toward the lesser is always the one that wins.

Edited April 6, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[Theresa Tennyson]

55 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

Where can we get info about the script commands that triggers the different skins slots? Or we just use the flags to read UUIDs? Because then they would be exposed so can't be this way.  Couldn't find anything on the wiki

The "flagged" sections of the avatar will be textured with textures having specific UUID's. When the viewer sees those UUID's, it will replace the texures with the wearer's avatar bake information which has always been sent to everyone's viewers. The UUID information of the actual skin textures, etc. won't be exposed. It was explained in the video of the meeting in this thread.

[Theresa Tennyson]

13 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Put yourself in line since this is a feature *I* asked for, way more than one year back. Making alphas for best selling products take minutes to Homo Sapiens, maybe Erectus like you need more time. The actual issue at hand is that alpha cuts just behave horrendously, with gaps between pieces (thing that *I* posted a solution to, in these forums, FYI) and it just makes near to no sense, since a alpha mask can cut off parts more precisely than a bunch of separated objects with 8 faces each. One draw call for the mesh and one for the mask, as opposed to one draw call per avatar slice. But again, this would render as effectively proficient IF materials may be involved too, otherwise the onion layers for layered textures will remain with the million polygons they bring with them. Which relates to the only thing you got right since the time i read your posts: at current state of things, this feature is just reviving old crap that looks like crap. Oh wait, it's something *I* wrote in a post earlier than yours, and said it upon feature request time more than a year back.

 

Honestly? I'm sure that this was requested by a trilobite back when importing mesh objects to Second Life was first being developed.

[OptimoMaximo]

1 hour ago, Mel Vanbeeck said:

Klytyna's analysis (while *****ly) is absolutely correct on this. This project will not really be finished until materials are supported.

Read more above in the thread and correct the aim. I was the starter of this material support issue. And it's not about attachment items only with clothing, my reasons are way broader. 

[OptimoMaximo]

15 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Honestly? I'm sure that this was requested by a trilobite back when importing mesh objects to Second Life was first being developed

Honestly, yes. Every time a new project had to be started, i was there with this feature request. I was at the mesh development meetings asking for this. As i already stated in other threads, i'm much older than this avatar shows in SL.

edit: i forgot that i was in SL also when sculpts were introduced. But at the time i didn't know i could make requests... that always fall in the void.

On a side note, everytime a new project starts and we make requests, i am there. But then i see the low-end compromise LL ALWAYS chooses and i don't go back to the next meetings, i admit my fault in this.

Edited April 6, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[OptimoMaximo]

oh and i should also mention that from the moment i started reading this thread, i decided to NOT attend the bake on mesh meetings because of its current futility. I was there for bento at  the beginning, i won't participate anymore because trying to talk Lindens to reason and having them WORK on stuff instead of patching up existing features is breath lost in the wind.

Edited April 6, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[OptimoMaximo]

32 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

trilobite

oh actually missed that part. If it is serious memory of a small, squashed green monster, that was me (with another avatar name). I've never been human in SL, creatures and monsters rock  

Edited April 6, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[Tonya Souther]

Even with onion layers, this is still a win. Tattoos on the skin layer, a leotard on the underwear layer, and something else on a clothing layer over the top of that.

The biggest thing that has been missing from mesh bodies (aside from uniformity enough that clothing makers don't have to make 40 different versions, one for each mesh avatar, each one of which is just different enough to screw things up) is the ability to composite textures on the fly. Clothing creators don't have this problem, but those of us who actually own mesh bodies and want to use the piles of clothing we'd bought before they became a thing without having to buy it all over again and reorganize the world do.

Yes, materials support is important, but so is getting it right.

[Love Zhaoying]

50 minutes ago, Tonya Souther said:

Even with onion layers, this is still a win. Tattoos on the skin layer, a leotard on the underwear layer, and something else on a clothing layer over the top of that.

The biggest thing that has been missing from mesh bodies (aside from uniformity enough that clothing makers don't have to make 40 different versions, one for each mesh avatar, each one of which is just different enough to screw things up) is the ability to composite textures on the fly. Clothing creators don't have this problem, but those of us who actually own mesh bodies and want to use the piles of clothing we'd bought before they became a thing without having to buy it all over again and reorganize the world do.

Yes, materials support is important, but so is getting it right.

How is bakes-on-mesh supposed to know which layer you want? You only click on “a face” per the instructions.  There’s no way to select a “layer” of your mesh avatar to use this feature, is there?

[Tonya Souther]

16 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

How is bakes-on-mesh supposed to know which layer you want? You only click on “a face” per the instructions.  There’s no way to select a “layer” of your mesh avatar to use this feature, is there?

Yes. Each layer is a separate face or set of faces, and each face has its own texture.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Tonya Souther said:

Yes. Each layer is a separate face or set of faces, and each face has its own texture.

Then how to:

6 minutes ago, Tonya Souther said:

There’s no way to select a “layer” of your mesh avatar to use this feature, is there?

 

[Tonya Souther]

The avatar maker would need to add the ability to set the layer to use one of the bake slots. I would expect that would be a button on the avatar's controlling HUD.

[Kitsune Shan]

7 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The "flagged" sections of the avatar will be textured with textures having specific UUID's. When the viewer sees those UUID's, it will replace the texures with the wearer's avatar bake information which has always been sent to everyone's viewers. The UUID information of the actual skin textures, etc. won't be exposed. It was explained in the video of the meeting in this thread.

That doesn't solve my issue. I am asking how you setup the bake textures through script. Obviously it has to be a way through scripts if the meshes aren't mod otherwise it would totally break old content which uses appliers.

[Kitsune Shan]

BTW it's only me the one concerned about the huge amount of security flaws on this?
Wear a box as HUD, set it to whatever skin flag, screenshot your skin and upload again. As if werent easier enough to steal skins already you guys just made skins full perm lol...

[Theresa Tennyson]

44 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

That doesn't solve my issue. I am asking how you setup the bake textures through script. Obviously it has to be a way through scripts if the meshes aren't mod otherwise it would totally break old content which uses appliers.

A texture UUID is a texture UUID. I don't see any reason why a stock applier script couldn't be used to send those UUID's.

[Kitsune Shan]

16 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

A texture UUID is a texture UUID. I don't see any reason why a stock applier script couldn't be used to send those UUID's.

You first mention that these UUIDs wont be exposed then you say you can send an UUID through whatever applier.
You can set appliers easily through the UUIDs because they are indeed exposed. I guess skin makers will keep using regular appliers instead of bakes on mesh for obvious reasons.

[Theresa Tennyson]

10 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

You first mention that these UUIDs wont be exposed then you say you can send an UUID through whatever applier.
You can set appliers easily through the UUIDs because they are indeed exposed. I guess skin makers will keep using regular appliers instead of bakes on mesh for obvious reasons.

Theresa Tennyson sighs...

The UUID that will be used will be the same for every bakes-on-mesh instance using that part of the avatar bake. The viewer will then replace that texture with what is basically the exact same avatar bake that has been around since Jesus was a teenager 2003 (although the resolution will be increased.) The bake is transitory and doesn't have the same UUID as the textures making up the components of it - someone else using the bakes on mesh UUID will get an entirely different visible texture based on the system skin/etc. that they are wearing. The UUID of the skin files will not be exposed. The UUID of the system bakes will be useless as teats on a boar hog if you want to make an applier that will always apply a specific texture that you don't own.

Yes, if you use a HUD you can get a screenshot of a skin texture that you own. Personally I don't think HUD's should be allowed to use bakes-on-mesh. However, the general consensus seemed to be that it's so simple to get the same information through other means that it's not a huge problem.

 

[Kitsune Shan]

36 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson sighs...

The UUID that will be used will be the same for every bakes-on-mesh instance using that part of the avatar bake. The viewer will then replace that texture with what is basically the exact same avatar bake that has been around since Jesus was a teenager 2003 (although the resolution will be increased.) The bake is transitory and doesn't have the same UUID as the textures making up the components of it - someone else using the bakes on mesh UUID will get an entirely different visible texture based on the system skin/etc. that they are wearing. The UUID of the skin files will not be exposed. The UUID of the system bakes will be useless as teats on a boar hog if you want to make an applier that will always apply a specific texture that you don't own.

Yes, if you use a HUD you can get a screenshot of a skin texture that you own. Personally I don't think HUD's should be allowed to use bakes-on-mesh. However, the general consensus seemed to be that it's so simple to get the same information through other means that it's not a huge problem.

 

That's what I have been saying lol. 

My first question was regarding how to set scripts to use bake mesh you just gave me a wrong answer which it's OK if you didn't know the real answer. You just should have said that there are specific UUIDs to use for each body part. Easy, right? Instead you mentioned about UUIDs not being exposed which were easy to assume you were talking about system UUIDs. 

Then my other comment regarding security still there and as I mentioned never been so easy to steal a skin before. If you think that things didn't change much then ask to skin makers who used to do skins for kemono body. Since the body it's mod, it was pretty easy to get the script into a prim for later screenshot. Most of them just stopped making skins for such body. 

And going back to my second comment asking for help about scripts, I had figure out before you replied, I just never would guess that it would be so easy to get these UUIDs. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

24 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

That's what I have been saying lol. 

My first question was regarding how to set scripts to use bake mesh you just gave me a wrong answer which it's OK if you didn't know the real answer. You just should have said that there are specific UUIDs to use for each body part. Easy, right? Instead you mentioned about UUIDs not being exposed which were easy to assume you were talking about system UUIDs. 

 

So easy that it's exactly what I did. Specifically:

The "flagged" sections of the avatar will be textured with textures having specific UUID's. When the viewer sees those UUID's, it will replace the texures with the wearer's avatar bake information which has always been sent to everyone's viewers. The UUID information of the actual skin textures, etc. won't be exposed. It was explained in the video of the meeting in this thread.

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Love Zhaoying]

Ok so...this only works with mod mesh clothing and mod mesh avatars?

Assume "tattoos" would be applied to "Avatar" attachments (because they will be shown on top of the skin).

I don't see how to select a texture in the edit menu / select face for a Belleza Jake mesh avatar.

Also tried some mesh jeans, and neither with the body or with the jeans do I see how to get the new radio button to come up.

Picture is so maybe you can give me a clue. This is what I see when I attempt with purchased mesh jeans.

I read both explanations of steps several times before posting this - (Tonya Souther's and Alexa Linden's).

In case you missed it, in the first response to this thread I said I wanted to use "system tattoos" (or clothing-underwear for my old tattoos, I have both) with my mesh avatar.

(I looked at Whirly's Jira link and there were none yet.)

Yes, I am using the project version: "Second Life Project BakesOnMesh 5.1.3.513936 (64bit)".

[Whirly Fizzle]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok so...this only works with mod mesh clothing and mod mesh avatars?

It works with any attachment that is mod - prim as well.

 

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I don't see how to select a texture in the edit menu / select face for a Belleza Jake mesh avatar.

Looks like that body/Jeans are no mod so you can't use bakes on mesh.
Test BOM by attaching a default cube, edit it -> Texture tab.
Click the texture thumbnail & choose the "Bake" radio button.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

41 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok so...this only works with mod mesh clothing and mod mesh avatars?

Based on what I've read on here* so far, your body or clothing item at least has to be enabled to receive baked textures, during its stage of creation. Nothing you can manually add yourself.
I think you bought Belleza's Jake as mesh body, right? As long as it won't see any update for baked textures, you won't be able to use your tattoo on it, based on my understanding.

 

*"on here" might be a factor ... no idea where to find consumer orientated tutorials yet. Reading like two or three lines of the in-depth creator / techie talk and I'm thinking, "... yeah, what...?".

 

11 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Am I the only one who knows what real-life clothing actually looks like? It doesn't look like body paint, which is all clothing baked into the skin texture can look like, materials or no materials.

In #°!^* real life, I can happily wear most shirts of my choice under another garment of my choice on top of it. It's no secret that you cannot simply do that with any kind of mesh clothing items, unless they were modelled to match intentionally or you're having a very, very, very lucky day.

All I want is reusing old system clothes (perhaps tattoos or eyes) to combine with other meshy bits. The small ton of basic clothing from Fri.Day or a blouse or skinny pants by Last Call, which still shows a texture quality that puts your average mesh clothing textures to shame.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Lillith Hapmouche
stage OF creation, not or

[Kitsune Shan]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok so...this only works with mod mesh clothing and mod mesh avatars?

Exactly, mod avatars. You could use with mesh clothing (not layer one) but I don't see a good reason to do so. Keep in mind that to use tattoos, you also need to use the skin. You can't use a skin applier and then a system layer tattoo. 

From tomorrow (probably) you will be able to find a completely free HUD at Cute or Die store that will let you enable bakes on mesh on maitreya, Catwa and all other omega compatible bodies. We will try to also to update later so you can change other bodies than maitreya without using omega but so far we only got maitreya and Catwa without omega. It will be a good opportunity for all you to test freely without limits. You will be able to go back to your non bake mesh skins just applying any other common applier or saved skin on HUD. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Kitsune Shan said:

Exactly, mod avatars. You could use with mesh clothing (not layer one) but I don't see a good reason to do so. Keep in mind that to use tattoos, you also need to use the skin. You can't use a skin applier and then a system layer tattoo. 

From tomorrow (probably) you will be able to find a completely free HUD at Cute or Die store that will let you enable bakes on mesh on maitreya, Catwa and all other omega compatible bodies. We will try to also to update later so you can change other bodies than maitreya without using omega but so far we only got maitreya and Catwa without omega. It will be a good opportunity for all you to test freely without limits. You will be able to go back to your non bake mesh skins just applying any other common applier or saved skin on HUD. 

Sounds good but..both my male and female alt are Belleza. It is confusing how this would be helpful. Even with Omega, I would still want to use my current skin, and try as I might, I can’t see your statement as hopeful.

[Klytyna]

2 hours ago, Kitsune Shan said:

From tomorrow (probably) you will be able to find a completely free HUD at Cute or Die store that will let you enable bakes on mesh on maitreya, Catwa and all other omega compatible bodies

I stopped using the SL Inferiority Viewer more than 6 years ago, I certainly won't waste my time using the bake-fail on mesh project version.

And without the project viewer, bake-fail on mesh won't use the fancy bake-fails based on your system layers, it will use a default fallback texture... So most people will see your bake-fail test avi looking like... Crap

Just an FYI for you...

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Picture is so maybe you can give me a clue. This is what I see when I attempt with purchased mesh jeans.

I read both explanations of steps several times before posting this - (Tonya Souther's and Alexa Linden's).

Yeah first you need mod-enabled items, both the jeans and your mesh body are NO-MOD, then you need to use edit linked or 'select face to actually select a textured face of a 'prim' (either prim or mesh componant) in the item.

Perhaps you should learn to edit with materials etc., first before playing with badly conceived badly implemented experimental features like bake-fail.

Also... Next time you want a technical explanation, try asking somebody technical...