Jump to content

Bakes on Mesh Feedback Thread


Alexa Linden
You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 876 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Fionalein said:

I doubt so, because almost no one will produce alphas for all the already released stuff. So the cuts will stay in place or the creators would almost instantly loose a market.

Theresa Tennyson sighs.

People buy clothes without alphas for bodies they already own. Therefore, those people aren't in the market for a new avatar. Fashionistas buy new things constantly and old things get abandoned without a second thought. An avatar without an alpha cut system will rezz faster, work more reliably and probably be much cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years the older avatars become the equivalent of Lola Tangos.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think bodies with alpha cuts will remain. Their purpose is to allow the body to work better with mesh clothes worn over the body. Bakes-On will NOT solve the poke-through problems alpha cuts solve. So...

What is likely to disappear is the onion skin body parts and the complex texturing HUD's we have now.

An interesting aside is Bakes-On will bake onto a HUD...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Nalates Urriah said:

An interesting aside is Bakes-On will bake onto a HUD...

I don't tihnk so, reading Vir's posts again. The system will use a limited set of baked textures to as many body parts the system clothing allows, per avatar, per flagged mesh attachment. Baked textures on HUDs would eat up a slot that may be used elsewhere.

 

1 hour ago, Fionalein said:

I doubt so, because almost no one will produce alphas for all the already released stuff. So the cuts will stay in place or the creators would almost instantly loose a market.

The alpha masking is the only benefit i can see so far about this feature, newer mesh bodies may take advantage of this, including non human avatars. Alpha masks might become a new type of "applier" if the creators aren't too lazy to make a little effort for an update on their best selling items.

24 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

People buy clothes without alphas for bodies they already own. Therefore, those people aren't in the market for a new avatar. Fashionistas buy new things constantly and old things get abandoned without a second thought. An avatar without an alpha cut system will rezz faster, work more reliably and probably be much cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years the older avatars become the equivalent of Lola Tangos.

i agree with you entirely, an avatar with alpha masks is easier and slimmer to develop and maintain. It also avoids the gaps between body slices at high altitudes, limiting the issue to fewer and smaller areas.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, OptimoMaximo said:

I don't tihnk so, reading Vir's posts again. The system will use a limited set of baked textures to as many body parts the system clothing allows, per avatar, per flagged mesh attachment. Baked textures on HUDs would eat up a slot that may be used elsewhere.

It has already been tried. The one that tested it is talking in the video about their experiment. So, yeah it works.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

It has already been tried. The one that tested it is talking in the video about their experiment. So, yeah it works.

I didn't read Optimo saying it wouldn't, just that it may eat up a slot that may be used for another purpose.

*edit* i wanted to rephrase my post with an edit and it ended up deleting the text in the post above and saving it as a new post

Sorry Nalates, the previous phrasing sounded rude to me, re-reading afterwards

Edited by Alekso Minotaur
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Alekso Minotaur said:

Never said it wouldn't. I simply doubt it will end up being used, since it eats up a slot of baked textures that may be used for something else.

That may be true. 

Bakes on has 6 slots, listed earlier. So, one could use 'bake_hair' for a HUD. People are already considering using the skirt to have different textures on the arms. I have more truble figuring out how that may work than imagining how I might reduce HUD textures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Alekso Minotaur said:

I didn't read Optimo saying it wouldn't, just that it may eat up a slot that may be used for another purpose.

Exactly

6 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Bakes on has 6 slots, listed earlier. So, one could use 'bake_hair' for a HUD. People are already considering using the skirt to have different textures on the arms. I have more truble figuring out how that may work than imagining how I might reduce HUD textures.

For the same reason you list possible uses for left/right arm textures, you may also consider that some other extra-uses may come up, like hair makers as well as genitalia makers occupying the bake_hair slot. I'd remind you that, as far as i understood, the operation is done on a per avatar basis, on the flagged mesh. Basically you flag a mesh to be part of "hair" and the baking happens on those parts. Hair makers might not be happy to know that the mesh body's HUD has turned their hair into a bunch of buttons. And fixing the hair with the hair's HUD makes their body's control HUD a pile of hair. Not mentioning the case of genitalia makers, you get the idea... Just possibilities, not saying it will happen for sure. It is a good idea about reducing textures on HUDs

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I think bodies with alpha cuts will remain. Their purpose is to allow the body to work better with mesh clothes worn over the body. Bakes-On will NOT solve the poke-through problems alpha cuts solve. So...

 

Yes it will. Simply wear a conventional system alpha. If the mesh avatar is texured with that bake it will erase that part of the mesh exactly the way they work on system bodies. I've done it.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Yes it will. Simply wear a conventional system alpha. If the mesh avatar is texured with that bake it will erase that part of the mesh exactly the way they work on system bodies. I've done it.

You make a good point.

The poke-through I am concerned with is for attached mesh clothes. I suppose those clothes could come with alphas that would hide classic or mesh body parts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Vir Linden said:

Materials support for bakes on mesh has been discussed at the content creators meetings several times. The conclusion is that while this would be a handy feature, it would also turn bakes on mesh into a much larger project. The baking service would have to be modified to understand materials, and we would also have to add support for materials-related textures to the various types of wearables that the baking service works with. Including all that additional work would increase the development time for bakes on mesh substantially. So the plan is to first release bakes on mesh with support for bakes in their current form (diffuse textures only), and then consider materials support as a possible follow-on project. 

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

*skips this as useless*

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 3
  • Haha 2
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

With appliers, if you wanted, you could make a leather top have its own material, with normal maps and specular maps too. With the bake service, instead, you no longer even have the option. Moreover, the mesh bodies have relaxed UVs to avoid the classic avatar's sides and shoulders texture stretch, reason why the same skin has different appliers for different bodies, since some key features locations like the belly button or the nipples have been moved off the default place by such UV map relaxation. This will make system clothing from the past useless on avatars other than the classic, those for mesh avatars will need a rework for each body anyway. It saves time in making the scripted applier's configuration, that's for sure, but it's killing the purpose of their own materials implementation.

OptimoMaximo custom mesh avatars and mesh clothing can still have custom UVs and use the new Bakes On Mesh system.  The UV pattern of the default avatar is irrelevant.  As long as the textures that are to be applied are correct for the UV pattern of the custom mesh avatar or mesh clothing they will look the same as if they were applied with an applier or applied manually by editing the mesh in SL.  For mesh clothing you would want to use the LL default avatar skirt system clothes for mesh clothes.

Step 1. In SL in your inventory right mouse click and select create skirt.
Step 2. In your inventory right click on the new skirt and select wear or add.
Step 3. Right mouse click on your avatar and click "Edit Outfit".
Step 4. Add your texture to the skirt.
Step 5. Wear your mesh clothing and right mouse click on it and select edit.
Step 6. In the edit window click on the texture tab and with "Diffuse" selected click the window that opens up the texture file inventory window.
Step 7. Under the preview window is a new button named "Baked" click on it.  The window will change and instead of texture file you will see a drop down menu.  Select "Baked Skirt".
Step 8. Save and close the edit window.  The system skirt will disappear and your mesh clothing will go grey and then the texture that was on the system skirt will now be on your mesh clothing. (Note: Your mesh clothing does not have to be a skirt.  It can be anything on any part of the body. )

Now if you want to give your mesh clothing to someone you can give it to them NO MOD and also give them the System Skirt you made in your inventory which can also be NO MOD.  All they have to do is right mouse click on each and select Add or Wear.  If you make another System Skirt with a different texture you can given them that too and they can now wear it to change the texture on the mesh clothing.

Normal Maps and Specular  Maps  can still be used on mesh using Baked On Mesh system with appliers or manually.  Bakes On Maps does not break any existing content.  So if your favorite mesh body designer or clothing designer doesn't want to use Baked On Mesh and continue to use appliers and all the same methods they been using they still can.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

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

*skips this as useless*

Normal Maps and Specular  Maps  can still be used on mesh using Baked On Mesh system with appliers or manually.  Bakes On Mesh does not break any existing content.  Nor does it take away any functionality we already have.

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

You make a good point.

The poke-through I am concerned with is for attached mesh clothes. I suppose those clothes could come with alphas that would hide classic or mesh body parts.

For mesh clothing on a custom mesh avatar using the Bakes On Mesh system you just wear an alpha created by the clothing designer just like you do when you wear mesh clothing on the LL Default System avatar to hide poke through.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Exactly

For the same reason you list possible uses for left/right arm textures, you may also consider that some other extra-uses may come up, like hair makers as well as genitalia makers occupying the bake_hair slot. I'd remind you that, as far as i understood, the operation is done on a per avatar basis, on the flagged mesh. Basically you flag a mesh to be part of "hair" and the baking happens on those parts. Hair makers might not be happy to know that the mesh body's HUD has turned their hair into a bunch of buttons. And fixing the hair with the hair's HUD makes their body's control HUD a pile of hair. Not mentioning the case of genitalia makers, you get the idea... Just possibilities, not saying it will happen for sure. It is a good idea about reducing textures on HUDs

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.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Fionalein said:

I doubt so, because almost no one will produce alphas for all the already released stuff. So the cuts will stay in place or the creators would almost instantly loose a market.

Existing custom mesh bodies that are cut up and use Huds to hide the different pieces of the mesh body can also use the Bakes on Mesh system at the same time.  If a piece of mesh clothing you buy has an alpha made for it great just wear it or use the Hud of the custom mesh body to hide the different parts of mesh body. 

Smart clothing designer will make alphas for their existing mesh clothes they are selling.  Making an alpha only take a few minutes probably less than 10.  So not a big deal for clothing designers to update their current line of mesh clothing they are selling.

For custom mesh body designers it probably take about 10 or 20 minutes to make their mesh bodies work with Baked On Mesh.  They don't even have to upload a new body just wear one of their bodies and edit it.  The mesh body will still work with their existing Hud as before.

I predict new bodies coming out will abandon cutting up their mesh into many pieces and many layers in favor of just using Baked On Mesh and customers will like it better since it is much easier to simply right mouse click on a folder containing the mesh clothing and alpha and select Add or Wear than mess around with a Hud. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/4/2018 at 3:13 PM, Theresa Tennyson said:

What an applier actually does is send the UUID of a texture to a body part so that any viewer looking at that body will download the texture that UUID represents and use it to texture that body part.

Avatar bakes are specialized textures that have existed in Second Life since its beta days but when push comes to shove they're textures sent to viewers like any other. Right now the viewer will only apply those textures to the default avatar. What Bakes-On-Mesh does is allow a worn object to be "marked" so that the baked texture will be applied to another worn object instead of the default avatar body. If the "mark" consists of a texture with a UUID like any other texture than it should be able to be sent by an applier just like any other UUID. It's similar to how invisiprims were created by using the UUID's of specialized internal system textures.

The only use I can see for a script to control the Bakes On Mesh would be to change which baked texture would be applied to an area or face of a rigged mesh.  For example say you bought a mesh shirt which using the Baked_Skirt texture but you want to shirt to use the Baked_Hair texture instead but the mesh shirt was No Mod.  A script to change which baked texture would come in handy.  We are hoping to get more than the 6 baked textures.  Hopefully we will get some auxiliary baked textures slots.  This way if one was being used for something else another one could use one of the auxiliary baked textures.  So a clothing designer might give you a system skirt with to wear but also give you an system Aux_1, Aux_2 and Aux_3 so chances are one of those would be free for you to us on your mesh shirt. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Klytyna said:

No... You have it completely ASS BACKWARDS...

Bakes on Mesh is an idea suggested by SL- Neanderthals last year, to allow people to wear all their fugly 2006 glitch pants and low quality skins on their new shiny 2018 mesh bodies...

Do TRY and keep up...



 

Speaking as the Neanderthal that give Oz and Vir the idea for Bakes On Mesh during a Project Bento meeting, when it was still under NDA, your understanding of what Bakes On Mesh is capable of and what it is for is very short sighted.  (Note: While I came up with the idea for Bakes On Mesh on my own I was not the first person in SL to have the idea for such a system.  Some pretty intelligent people had requested it years ago.)

Yes Bakes On Mesh will make it possible to wear old 2006 texture on their custom avatars.  Not all textures from 2006 are fugly.  The LL default system avatar is getting an upgrade so that its texture resolution will be up to 1024 by 1024.  So yeah skin and new system clothing with brand new beautiful 1024 by 1024 textures will be seen on it but that isn't what the main purpose of Bakes On Mesh is for.  Bakes On Mesh makes custom mesh avatars less laggy and easier to use and easier to create and maintain.

Bakes On Mesh also can be used on mesh clothing and hopefully soon Animesh as well.  Just right mouse click on a folder containing the mesh and system clothes and alphas and wear.

Custom avatars and other mesh can still use custom UVs with Baked On Mesh.  Bakes On Mesh does not limit any content creator.  They can use it or not.  They can us it in conjunction with their current system of Huds and Appliers.  Personally I think creators will rely less on Huds and Appliers since Baked On Mesh is superior to them and easier for customers to use and way less work for mesh content creators to setup.

Bakes On Mesh basically just make custom avatars as easy to use as the system avatars at the same time making them less laggy.  Just right mouse click and wear.  You can still use normal maps and specular maps.  Just things are going to be easier to use and less laggy.

Do TRY to keep up Klytyna...

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

Speaking as the Neanderthal that give Oz and Vir the idea for Bakes On Mesh during a Project Bento meeting, when it was still under NDA,

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.

5 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

Just things are going to be easier to use and less laggy.

Dream on...

5 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

Do TRY to keep up Klytyna...

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.

5 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

I was not the first person in SL to have the idea for such a system.  Some pretty intelligent people had requested it years 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!
 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Klytyna said:

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.

 

 

An end user should be able to upgrade any existing mesh avatar that uses appliers to use bakes on mesh in about 90 seconds, and that's only if they make the applier themselves instead of buying one, which probably will be free because they'll be so trivially easy to make.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Klytyna's analysis (while *****ly) is absolutely correct on this. This project will not really be finished until materials are supported. If it gets released without materials support, it will certainly get implemented and used by most (if not all), but there will still be a need for legacy onion skinned layers on any mesh body that intends to put clothing over skin, and they will still be in the mess of having to sort out alpha cuts since it won't be able to inherit the body alpha from the baked skin layer.

I will say that in the current generation of mesh bodies, materials are very important to the overall quality of avatars.

Yes, you can still put materials on mesh using scripts the same way it is done currently, but the problem of having just one specular map for your body which will be unaware of what parts of your skin are covered up by baked clothing means your specular and bump for your skin will always be showing through whatever clothing you apply, meaning that if you bake anything other than skin/makeup/tattoo it will just look ridiculous any time a specular highlight or normal texgture is visible.

I mentioned that it is possible to bake materials together so long as they are properly associated with diffuse textures in their clothing objects, and this could work, but the logic of it breaks down when you try to apply it to transparent clothing like nylons or latex or anything like that. For example, if you want to bake underwear onto your skin, the underwear object would have its diffuse, specular and normal maps in the clothing object. The baking service then uses the alpha channel from the underwear diffuse texture and then applies it as a mask to the specular and normal map textures before combining them with the underlying skin specular and normal maps. The resulting baked specular and normal maps will be pretty good, but obviously not correct in the case of clothing which has transparent features.

For this to work for transparent clothing, the clothing object would need a new texture explicitly containing a mask for the materials. Let's use completely transparent latex as an example. The normal map would need to be overwritten for all the skin, because the outer surface is no longer rough, but perfectly smooth in places covered by latex. Also, the specular of the latex should be dominant over all surfaces even though it is completely transparent in the diffuse map. I would say that this extra alpha map would be a vital part to a fully funtional materials baking service, but it could be an optional component which is only applied when present - so anyone making clothing with no transparent components could just omit the extra alpha map, and the baking service could use the diffuse texture's alpha instead as described above.

What I would strongly urge, is that if it is really too difficult to design the baking service to handle materials before public release, then fine, people can cope, and will release diffuse-only clothing. But do not let the issue of including materials in the bake service go on the back burner! The longer this feature sits without support for materials, the longer people will be building products which will become obsolete the moment materials are properly supported, so plan on continuing the project until it's done! Until that time, mesh body part makers are still going to need to include the onion skin layers for legacy support of the more fully-featured appliers based clothing.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just read about no materials support. I guess that expecting a feature to be fully implemented for once was too much from me. Basically this means that most bodies will keep using onion layers as well as huds. Welp, at least we can still use the alphas which was my main concern. It's something. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Theresa Tennyson holds her hands in front of her face and stares at her palms.

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. It worked somewhat with the default avatar because that avatar mesh was designed to look like it was wearing clothes - that's why the feet don't have toes, for instance. Modern mesh bodies are designed to be nekkid. People wouldn't want them any other way. This means that clothing directly on the skin just won't ever look like clothing with very few exceptions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You folks can ***** all you want. I'm just going to happily and somewhat impatiently await its arrival. The alternative for me is uploading 100,000 textures to take care of 10,000 possible IDs time five ranks times two sexes, or else spending an hour or so to set up each new member's textures and then creating an applier for the mesh-avatar-of-the-week (and buying all of the development kits to go with that).

Edited by Tonya Souther
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 876 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...