Too Many 1024 Textures and the NEW (please hurry) Land Impact rules

[Penny Patton]

And don't get me wrong, people will always look to exploit whatever system is put in front of them. But that doesn't mean you should toss the baby with the bathwater and simply decide nothing will ever work.

[Penny Patton]

And you know what? Let's not throw around words like "arbitrary" and "subjective" so freely when discussing resource use, because dismissing any metric of resource use as being completely arbitrary or subjective shows a marked ignorance on the subject matter. There is a measurable goal of achieving higher framerates, less lag, and overall better performance. If you're working towards a specific goal working on specific guidelines based on knowledge of how realtime 3D rendering works, then it's not in any way arbitrary or subjective.

Prim limits were arbitrary as no two prims use resources the same way and so as a system it had a marginal impact on addressing the problem it was created to solve. Land Impact has it's issues, but that doesn't mean it too is arbitrary or subjective, just that LL overlooked some major issues due to their own inexperience. And, again, they are working to close the  exploits and address the shortcomings of the system. Will they do it properly this time? I don't know, but even if they screw it up again that still doesn't mean that the concept of resource caps is flawed, just that LL's approach and attitude towards it is flawed. That's an important distinction to make.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

You're still running in circles. The problem here is that Linden Lab made it so people could get lower LI costs by nerfing the lowest LOD levels and people exploited it. Don't take a mistake LL made and just assume it has to be that way. Because it doesn't, and as long as you make this incorrect assumption the very core of your reasoning, every conclusion you're going to come to is going to be flawed because of it.

Gaming the system is easier than optimizing a model or building something the best technical way, especially true when the majority of content in SL is not made triangle by triangle by the person uploading it.

I also disagree that allowing uploads to drop the lowest LOD was a mistake. Dropping the lowest LOD for items that should have a limited range of visibility is the very best option because SL spends a lot of time rendering content you can't directly see.

 

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

Ok, I think I was overlooking something last night. I believe, and anyone who knows better can feel free to correct me on this, that LL did something in recent months so that any object set to 100% opacity does not get rendered at all (until you highlight transparency, which is why 100% transparent objects now pop in with a delay when you do this). If this is correct, it would make sense that they do not add to your render weight as you would assume blended textures should.

It does because you can still click on it. It has to be rendered for the raycast to work.

[Coffee Pancake]

50 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

And you know what? Let's not throw around words like "arbitrary" and "subjective" so freely when discussing resource use, because dismissing any metric of resource use as being completely arbitrary or subjective shows a marked ignorance on the subject matter. There is a measurable goal of achieving higher framerates, less lag, and overall better performance. If you're working towards a specific goal working on specific guidelines based on knowledge of how realtime 3D rendering works, then it's not in any way arbitrary or subjective.

It is when SL use covers the entire spectrum of rendering hardware. We're not on a fixed target console platform. Li, poly counts, texture detail etc etc are entirely subjective.

50 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

Prim limits were arbitrary as no two prims use resources the same way and so as a system it had a marginal impact on addressing the problem it was created to solve. Land Impact has it's issues, but that doesn't mean it too is arbitrary or subjective, just that LL overlooked some major issues due to their own inexperience. And, again, they are working to close the  exploits and address the shortcomings of the system. Will they do it properly this time? I don't know, but even if they screw it up again that still doesn't mean that the concept of resource caps is flawed, just that LL's approach and attitude towards it is flawed. That's an important distinction to make.

Prim limits worked as on average, builds weren't made entirely from twisted tori. 

 

[Penny Patton]

45 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

It is when SL use covers the entire spectrum of rendering hardware. We're not on a fixed target console platform. Li, poly counts, texture detail etc etc are entirely subjective.

 You look at the average low, mid, high end range of hardware (statistics LL should be able to get) and set performance goals based on what your users have. It's a moving target, yes, so you account for that and every so often you can do things like increase LI allotment for land. But it's not arbitrary or subjective so stop dismissing it as such.

1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Gaming the system is easier than optimizing a model or building something the best technical way, especially true when the majority of content in SL is not made triangle by triangle by the person uploading it.

You're still running in circles. I've already said, repeatedly, that LL would need to try and reduce the ways people can exploit the system. It may not stop everything, but you can curb the worst problems. Just throwing your hands in the air saying "Well, someone might find an exploit so we might as well do nothing" isn't helpful and brings nothing to the discussion.

I would say again that LL can't rely solely on a hardwired system, that they also need to make attempts to educate their userbase. An official source saying "these kinds of things are bad and you should avoid them". A creation blog, better marketplace tools, "tips of the day" delivered on login and teleport screens can all be used towards that end.

1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said:

I also disagree that allowing uploads to drop the lowest LOD was a mistake. Dropping the lowest LOD for items that should have a limited range of visibility is the very best option because SL spends a lot of time rendering content you can't directly see.

That's fair enough and how LL should best approach the problem is definitely worth debate. (Not that I believe LL is carefully following these threads to figure out what to do.) 

1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said:

It does because you can still click on it. It has to be rendered for the raycast to work.

True. I do recall hearing that LL was trying to do something to reduce the rendering load of 100% transparent objects, then again there is so much misinformation on the forum it can be difficult to keep up on what's real, what's being reported incorrectly, and what's being pulled entirely from the rear end of someone's avatar.

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

Ok, I think I was overlooking something last night. I believe, and anyone who knows better can feel free to correct me on this, that LL did something in recent months so that any object set to 100% opacity does not get rendered at all (until you highlight transparency, which is why 100% transparent objects now pop in with a delay when you do this).

I don't know about that but the render weight formula has not been changed ... yet.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

I'd like to point out that low performance essentially dictates what people do in SL, it's not simply that ALL people want to chat or AFK all day, it's that there isn't much more that they can do without SL turning into a slideshow.

Especially if it's something that requires moving.

[Coffee Pancake]

This OTOH needs to stop before it even starts. 

1 vendor. 2 1024 textures.

[MODERATOR EDIT: IMAGE REMOVED]

Edited July 27, 2018 by Dakota Linden
Removed Image containing nudity

[Coffee Pancake]

Every single texture is a unique 1024.

 

[animats]

Second Life should have "export" permission, like OpenSim. That's another permissions checkbox, and means you can export the object into a file for use elsewhere. Creators who have trouble getting their models under control can allow export and let others really modify their model. That could create a third-party object optimization business. Old stuff that isn't selling well could be offered for export and modernization. If it's already copy-mod-transfer, export permission is only a small step.

Export permission.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

15 hours ago, animats said:

Second Life should have "export" permission, like OpenSim. That's another permissions checkbox, and means you can export the object into a file for use elsewhere. Creators who have trouble getting their models under control can allow export and let others really modify their model. That could create a third-party object optimization business. Old stuff that isn't selling well could be offered for export and modernization. If it's already copy-mod-transfer, export permission is only a small step.

Export permission.

As much as I'd like that you'd NEVER see this ticked excepted on really *****ty freebies.

17 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Every single texture is a unique 1024.

 

It's not like we don't have materials and real time shadows.

[animats]

2 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

As much as I'd like that you'd NEVER see this ticked excepted on really *****ty freebies.

It could be turned on automatically once the creator has abandoned an item by disappearing from SL for a year or so.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

16 minutes ago, animats said:

It could be turned on automatically once the creator has abandoned an item by disappearing from SL for a year or so.

Sometimes I don't know if you're being ironic or serious. Copyright extends past the life of its creator nowadays.

[animats]

11 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Sometimes I don't know if you're being ironic or serious. Copyright extends past the life of its creator nowadays.

Copyright, yes. The right to prevent your customers from modifying what you sold them, no.

[Coffee Pancake]

[Klytyna]

1 hour ago, animats said:

It could be turned on automatically once the creator has abandoned an item by disappearing from SL for a year or so.

So basically, you are demanding the right to copybot older items...

Note, there is a world of difference between "modify an item you bought" and "download it, edit it, and reupload it as your own work so you can sell it to others", which is exactly what you are asking for.

Legalised copybotting, legalised theft of Intellectual Property.

Just because the Copybot-Grids allow this doesn't make it a good idea, and indeed it's why many content creators AVOID thew Copybot-Grids.
 

[Ana Stubbs]

1 hour ago, Klytyna said:

So basically, you are demanding the right to copybot older items...

Note, there is a world of difference between "modify an item you bought" and "download it, edit it, and reupload it as your own work so you can sell it to others", which is exactly what you are asking for.

Legalised copybotting, legalised theft of Intellectual Property.

Just because the Copybot-Grids allow this doesn't make it a good idea, and indeed it's why many content creators AVOID thew Copybot-Grids.
 

I have some sympathy with him, I have some older prim items that have had flipped permissions bits, so that a no-copy yes-mod item is now trans only. The prims have also shifted out of place. I still occasionally search for the (long since left SL) creator's name in hope of tracking them down so I can ask permission to rip my own purchase so I can actually fix it and use it again. I really really liked it. It doesn't logically follow that he wants to sell it to others - I know creators are justifiably paranoid, but there are other reasons to want to break copyright.

That said, it's still the wrong thing to do.

[ellestones]

@Animats and @Ana Stubbs

is true it can be painful when a creator disappears from SL

i think the problem issue is that even when a person cancels an account, they can still come back at some future date and resurrect/reopen the account. LL has a provision for us to do this. Am not sure what the outcome might be if a person did reopen and found the permissions of their created stuff changed unilaterally by LL