Land impact of mesh head

[Elinah Iredell]

Hi I was trying on the new genus mesh head and while it was pretty they have kind of an annoying set up at their new store where you click on the wall and the mesh head appears on your avatar in pieces sometimes it works sometimes not and if  you tp away it disappears so you cant take it to a skin store to try on skins with it. I have an older  genus head  demo from them and I noticed the land impact was more than twice what it was for catwa and laq . I want to figure out  the land impact  of the newest one, but the way it appears on my avatar there does not seem to be a way to find out that information . 

I was wondering what happens with high land impact mesh heads in daily second life use? Are  they slower to rez ? Does it make it harder to get into events that require you to have lower land impact? Why is there such a big different in the land impacts of some mesh heads over others? Thanks. 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Elinah Iredell

[Persephone Emerald]

If you're using the Firestorm viewer, you can select "Show Avatar Complexity" under the Advanced Menu. (Maybe from some other routes too). Then when you put on or take off objects, you can see immediately what the difference is in your rendering cost. This helps me decide what items to buy & which to delete from my inventory.

Yes, mesh takes longer to rez than simple prims, but usually takes less server load than big sculpts do. Active scripts also affect server load, so if you can make a script-free copy of mesh items to wear in laggy locations, that might be a good idea too. (Always either save a non-Edited version of stuff or pull the script out & put it back into the same folder as the item, so you can put it back in later.)

I've been to plenty of high-mesh sims in which the users want to appear beautiful, but all I see when I rez in is a bunch of body parts & clothing floating in the air. Similarly, if people are over about 180,000 for their avatar rendering cost, all I see of them is brightly colored jelly babies.

If you want to demo skins for these demo heads that you can't take out of the store, get demos for the skins & apply them at the mesh head store. If you can't demo skins on the demo heads, don't buy them.  Always demo mesh. If you can't and you're not getting it free or  practically free, don't get it.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Persephone Emerald
Edit to add

[Syo Emerald]

Land impact? For a head? I'm confused. 😶

[norajulian]

2 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

Land impact? For a head? I'm confused. 😶

OP is thinking ahead for an inevitable beheading. \o/

Seriously, though. Complexity is what you’re looking for. Genus heads never appear to me (although not because of complexity) even though I’m constantly on ultra (graphics, not beer). Just a pair of wee little eyeballs walking around in a jumper. They are certainly created strangely! Complexity CAN have an affect on you due to the load time, but mostly it affects everyone else. 

 

[Elinah Iredell]

3 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

Land impact? For a head? I'm confused. 😶

 I guess a better word used by Persephone is rendering cost. I think of it as land impact but maybe that is not accurate? 

[Elinah Iredell]

16 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I've been to plenty of high-mesh sims in which the users want to appear beautiful, but all I see when I rez in is a bunch of body parts & clothing floating in the air. Similarly, if people are over about 180,000 for their avatar rendering cost, all I see of them is brightly colored jelly babies.

 

That is what I was worried about. That the head would not rez and  would look bad everywhere I went if it has higher rendering cost ( is that the way to say it not land impact? ) . 

[Elinah Iredell]

28 minutes ago, norajulian said:

OP is thinking ahead for an inevitable beheading. \o/

Seriously, though. Complexity is what you’re looking for. Genus heads never appear to me (although not because of complexity) even though I’m constantly on ultra (graphics, not beer). Just a pair of wee little eyeballs walking around in a jumper. They are certainly created strangely! Complexity CAN have an affect on you due to the load time, but mostly it affects everyone else. 

 

Genus seems to be all the rage now. The nose is very pretty but not sure about it for myself have not decided. They do not yet have many options either. What really frustrates me about mesh heads is how all the appliers are separated by type ( catwa, laq, akeruka, lelutka, genus, logo, etc... ) I wish there was a universal applier so they all worked for everything. Much easier to shop that way.  I currently wear a laq head and it is very hard to find appliers for it. 

Edited December 29, 2018 by Elinah Iredell

[Callum Meriman]

4 minutes ago, Elinah Iredell said:

higher rendering cost 

Render cost, or complexity are both the common terms in use, they do seem to be interchangeable.

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Elinah Iredell said:

 I guess a better word used by Persephone is rendering cost. I think of it as land impact but maybe that is not accurate?

Avatar Complexity or Display Weight or Complexity Index (many terms for that) is different from Land Impact.   Land Impact is the measurement used when an item is rezzed inworld, whereas the Complexity / Display Weight terms are used for the avatar and things worn/attached.

I have this cute little Snowgirl avatar that I've been wearing this winter.  The Land Impact, if I simply rez it, is 120.  However, the Complexity is 48,292 when worn.  You can actually rez an item and then in the Edit window when you click 'More info' you'll get a window showing both measurements.  Here is the Snowgirl avi and the associated Info window:

        

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

A few people here in the forums have mentioned the high Complexity of the new Genus heads.  Most of the time, I actually have my complexity range setting to around 50-75k so I see a lot of those people as just colored blobs.

[loverdag]

3 hours ago, Elinah Iredell said:

Genus seems to be all the rage now. The nose is very pretty but not sure about it for myself have not decided. They do not yet have many options either. What really frustrates me about mesh heads is how all the appliers are separated by type ( catwa, laq, akeruka, lelutka, genus, logo, etc... ) I wish there was a universal applier so they all worked for everything. Much easier to shop that way.  I currently wear a laq head and it is very hard to find appliers for it. 

I think more brands you mentioned actually use the "universal" omega appliers, not specific brand appliers. You can use omega skins with Catwa, Genus, Logo, Laq and more other brands. Problem is not about the applier compatibility, but about different UV maps the heads use. I'm not creator myself, so I got only shallow understanding, but as I got it, when the head needs specific UV map, skin created with other map won't fit perfectly, for the instance the nose or lips will look more or less misplaced.

BOM (bake on mesh) should be - hopefuly - released soon, then we will not care about appliers at all, because we will not use them anymore. It also should make the complexity of mesh heads lower, at least for heads which will be updated for BOM - big part of the complexity are so called "onion layers", transparent layers for appliers. Wihtout appliers we will use heads without them, so the complexity (even on same head) should be lowered. 

But the problem with UV maps will remains, at least if I understood it correcly. With BOM we will be able to use any skin with any head, but same as today, some parts of the skins can be misplaced. As long as I know Genus uses default SL UV maps, not some specific, so all skins made with those defaults UV maps (aka skins for system heads) should work with it.

Maybe if you can't decide about new head, if to buy or not, wait for BOM, wait for the changes and then you will see.

 

 

[Elinah Iredell]

On 12/29/2018 at 9:27 AM, norajulian said:

OP is thinking ahead for an inevitable beheading. \o/

Seriously, though. Complexity is what you’re looking for. Genus heads never appear to me (although not because of complexity) even though I’m constantly on ultra (graphics, not beer). Just a pair of wee little eyeballs walking around in a jumper. They are certainly created strangely! Complexity CAN have an affect on you due to the load time, but mostly it affects everyone else. 

 

I guess Genus heads do take longer to rez . And you never know how you appear to others. 

Edited January 2, 2019 by Elinah Iredell

[Elinah Iredell]

On 12/29/2018 at 12:05 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

Avatar Complexity or Display Weight or Complexity Index (many terms for that) is different from Land Impact.   Land Impact is the measurement used when an item is rezzed inworld, whereas the Complexity / Display Weight terms are used for the avatar and things worn/attached.

I have this cute little Snowgirl avatar that I've been wearing this winter.  The Land Impact, if I simply rez it, is 120.  However, the Complexity is 48,292 when worn.  You can actually rez an item and then in the Edit window when you click 'More info' you'll get a window showing both measurements.  Here is the Snowgirl avi and the associated Info window:

     Thank you for the info. Complexity and rendering costs are the same thing and both can negatively affect your game experience . I can't really tell the complexity of the Genus head because if the way they have set it up to appear and disappear while you are wearing it in the store. Interesting how the land impact and complexity numbers are so different. I assume there is a limit to the rendering costs of what you attach to yourself in world or can you just add anything no matter how high the numbers go? 

 

 

[Elinah Iredell]

On 12/29/2018 at 1:11 PM, loverdag said:

I think more brands you mentioned actually use the "universal" omega appliers, not specific brand appliers. You can use omega skins with Catwa, Genus, Logo, Laq and more other brands. Problem is not about the applier compatibility, but about different UV maps the heads use. I'm not creator myself, so I got only shallow understanding, but as I got it, when the head needs specific UV map, skin created with other map won't fit perfectly, for the instance the nose or lips will look more or less misplaced.

BOM (bake on mesh) should be - hopefuly - released soon, then we will not care about appliers at all, because we will not use them anymore. It also should make the complexity of mesh heads lower, at least for heads which will be updated for BOM - big part of the complexity are so called "onion layers", transparent layers for appliers. Wihtout appliers we will use heads without them, so the complexity (even on same head) should be lowered. 

But the problem with UV maps will remains, at least if I understood it correcly. With BOM we will be able to use any skin with any head, but same as today, some parts of the skins can be misplaced. As long as I know Genus uses default SL UV maps, not some specific, so all skins made with those defaults UV maps (aka skins for system heads) should work with it.

Maybe if you can't decide about new head, if to buy or not, wait for BOM, wait for the changes and then you will see.

 

Thank you for that info. I really hope they have baked on mesh soon. It will make things a lot easier. 

On 12/29/2018 at 12:07 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

A few people here in the forums have mentioned the high Complexity of the new Genus heads.  Most of the time, I actually have my complexity range setting to around 50-75k so I see a lot of those people as just colored blobs.

Interesting. I never noticed that setting. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

36 minutes ago, Elinah Iredell said:

I assume there is a limit to the rendering costs of what you attach to yourself in world or can you just add anything no matter how high the numbers go? 

I have found a few older outfits that have rendering costs in the millions and I've been able to wear them.  I think most people have their complexity slider such that they would render me as a colored blob, but I was still able to wear the outfits and take pictures.

As far as I know there is no limit imposed by the system on how high you can go.  That is why a griefer could overload your graphics card if you have that slider set to unlimited.

The complexity slider (drawing a blank on the exact name) is on the Graphics tab in Firestorm.  My guess is that it is in the same location (or maybe one of the graphics sub-tabs) in the SL viewer.

[Tarani Tempest]

On 12/29/2018 at 10:11 AM, loverdag said:

I think more brands you mentioned actually use the "universal" omega appliers, not specific brand appliers. You can use omega skins with Catwa, Genus, Logo, Laq and more other brands. Problem is not about the applier compatibility, but about different UV maps the heads use. I'm not creator myself, so I got only shallow understanding, but as I got it, when the head needs specific UV map, skin created with other map won't fit perfectly, for the instance the nose or lips will look more or less misplaced.

I am a creator of cosmetic appliers and your assessment is exactly right on.  This is what I hear all the time when asked why I only make appliers specific to the brands... " But they are all based on the SLUV".  OK, so "based on" being the most important two words of that statement.  Yes all the mesh heads are "based on" the SLUV, but all that means is this: All the of noses, eyes and lips will end up in around the same vicinity. That is it.  

All mesh heads then have very different mesh topology.  A lip texture I make for Catwa does NOT fit correctly on any other head.  Yes it will end up on the lip area, but it will look odd.   This means I have to work to fit a texture to each head that I want it to fit to.  Just making the whole shabang into an Omega applier and dusting off my hands does not do that.  It will still only fit perfect to the head it was originally intended for. Omega and BoM are not magic, they do not change the nature of any of the mesh heads.  They are just a delivery system.

There is no perfect way to have the perfect universal applier.  If we all only wore ONE mesh head...then yep, this conversation would be moot

 

[Lindal Kidd]

7 minutes ago, Tarani Tempest said:

There is no perfect way to have the perfect universal applier.  If we all only wore ONE mesh head...then yep, this conversation would be moot

Sigh....back in the day, we used to.

For that matter, I still do.  It's the rest of you mad-for-the-latest-fashion-craze yahoos that're harshing my vibe.

[Elinah Iredell]

On 1/2/2019 at 10:04 AM, Tarani Tempest said:

I am a creator of cosmetic appliers and your assessment is exactly right on.  This is what I hear all the time when asked why I only make appliers specific to the brands... " But they are all based on the SLUV".  OK, so "based on" being the most important two words of that statement.  Yes all the mesh heads are "based on" the SLUV, but all that means is this: All the of noses, eyes and lips will end up in around the same vicinity. That is it.  

All mesh heads then have very different mesh topology.  A lip texture I make for Catwa does NOT fit correctly on any other head.  Yes it will end up on the lip area, but it will look odd.   This means I have to work to fit a texture to each head that I want it to fit to.  Just making the whole shabang into an Omega applier and dusting off my hands does not do that.  It will still only fit perfect to the head it was originally intended for. Omega and BoM are not magic, they do not change the nature of any of the mesh heads.  They are just a delivery system.

There is no perfect way to have the perfect universal applier.  If we all only wore ONE mesh head...then yep, this conversation would be moot

 

Even after baked on mesh is here and everyone has it that  will still not solve the problem , and different appliers will still be needed for different mesh heads? 

[Elinah Iredell]

On 1/2/2019 at 10:12 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

Sigh....back in the day, we used to.

For that matter, I still do.  It's the rest of you mad-for-the-latest-fashion-craze yahoos that're harshing my vibe.

What finally sold me on the mesh heads was the nose. I just could not get the nose right on the default avatar at least not in certain lighting . Especially after bento came out and I could change the head to my liking, but before that it was harder to find one I liked .

Edited January 4, 2019 by Elinah Iredell

[Tarani Tempest]

57 minutes ago, Elinah Iredell said:

Even after baked on mesh is here and everyone has it that  will still not solve the problem , and different appliers will still be needed for different mesh heads? 

Bakes on Mesh will fit on any mesh head that is updated to take it.  You will not need different appliers for different mesh heads.  But that does not mean that any BoM layer will magically fit correctly on every head.  Any texture made to fit a specific head, will still fit best on that head.

Omega appliers and BoM are just basically texture delivery systems....they are both ways of applying a texture on to mesh.  Whether that texture fits and looks right on any mesh body part is an entirely different thing.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

17 minutes ago, Tarani Tempest said:

Bakes on Mesh will fit on any mesh head that is updated to take it.

No products will need to be updated as long as there is an applier for the BOM-specific UUIDs. After the BOM UUIDs are applied for the head, you can wear system layers and they will work as you would expect.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Gabriele Graves]

On 12/30/2018 at 7:11 AM, loverdag said:

BOM (bake on mesh) should be - hopefuly - released soon, then we will not care about appliers at all, because we will not use them anymore. It also should make the complexity of mesh heads lower, at least for heads which will be updated for BOM - big part of the complexity are so called "onion layers", transparent layers for appliers. Wihtout appliers we will use heads without them, so the complexity (even on same head) should be lowered. 

This is not realistic, even with the release of BoM, many people will be using the existing appliers they have bought for a long time to come and in the majority of cases applier vendors will not and probably cannot update all their existing appliers and provide free updates to BoM versions.  Now it kind of depends on how each mesh head/body creator handles the BoM transition but if they care at all about supporting the many people who have bought the many appliers for their head/body then those onion layers are likely to remain in some form - even if, for example, they ship a head with onion layers for backwards compatibility and a head without for BoM in the same box.

One major head vendor has already released a BoM compatible head and in my opinion has done the smart thing by allowing the user to turn BoM on/off, has retained the layers and has therefore been able to retain backwards compatibility with existing appliers.  The heads they produce are already very good with regards to complexity so the impact of retaining the layers isn't any kind of a problem.

Obviously new head/body creators may not have to support anything but BoM but for anyone with existing products it will cause a lot of problems if they don't support existing appliers and by extension the onion layers.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

48 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

One major head vendor has already released a BoM compatible head and in my opinion has done the smart thing by allowing the user to turn BoM on/off, has retained the layers and has therefore been able to retain backwards compatibility with existing appliers.

??? One of the main goals for BoM was to reduce the need for onion layers, and you're calling it smart to have a toggleable BoM with the layers unchanged? What you said earlier was the actually smart thing -- having two versions of the head, or just layers separately.

48 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

The heads they produce are already very good with regards to complexity so the impact of retaining the layers isn't any kind of a problem. 

Low complexity is infamously easy to obtain, have you checked the LODs on the individual parts of the head? (Rez the head on the ground for easy selection. Also could you name the brand or send it to me privately? If they're genuinely good, I'll be glad to throw money at them.)

I totally agree on appliers staying for a long time after BoM, though.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Chic Aeon]

On 12/28/2018 at 1:33 PM, Elinah Iredell said:

I was wondering what happens with high land impact mesh heads in daily second life use? Are  they slower to rez ? Does it make it harder to get into events that require you to have lower land impact? Why is there such a big different in the land impacts of some mesh heads over others? Thanks. 

It is very simple -- whether a worn item or a rezzed item. More dense mesh (more triangles) take longer to rez. Larger (and more) textures take longer to rez.   

There was a well-known (long time) hair maker who was making "very primmy" (huge land impact with giant avatar complexity) hairs. That creator happily figured it out, sold off her primmy versions on a big sale and now makes very nice reasonably cost hairs. Many gold stars there for paying attention and making a change. Unfortunately not all creators care about the efficiency of their products. 

 

The difference in the heads is that some have WAAAAAAY too many triangles in the mesh -- not needed at all and definitely detrimental to virtual life and viewing. For those with a hefty top of the line (ish) computer things are OK, but certainly not for those with midrange systems. 

I have deleted all the heavy mesh wearables that I find in my inventory no matter how pretty they are.  Just not going there. 

 

I have never been to "the store" before but curiosity got me there.  My first impression was that it was very much like the old TMP store. There was no demo head out like at most stores. All very odd and confusing with a lot of text to read to "maybe" figure out what you need to do.  I saw one gal trying on the head and her avatar rendering cost was pretty high even though her clothes seemed quite simple (still you can't tell from that).  

BUT happily there was a screenshot of the head in a 3D program on one of the computers (placed artfully :D). And that pretty much tells the story. 

There are a LOT of triangles here -- a lot. And if you look at the EAR and UNDER THE EYE (OMG!)  

Personally I would never buy anything this dense -- or anything this difficult to demo.

 

AND as a comment to someone else's comment on Omega appliers  -- the are NOT all the same and depending on brand will not necessarily put the skin or makeup on the body they are designed for. Even on the Omega site it tells you that. Some brands have three different appliers for the one head or body and that makes things even more difficult. So yes, you always need to try the skin on the head (assuming you CAN in this case with the odd demo system).  No demo ability -- no purchase; agreed. 

In comparison here is what my Letlutka head looks like. NOTE THAT YOU SEE TRIANGLES HERE AND NOT QUADS (squares) so for comparison you would need to imagine the head ABOVE to be divide one again -- each square into two triangles).

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[Gabriele Graves]

18 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

??? One of the main goals for BoM was to reduce the need for onion layers, and you're calling it smart to have a toggleable BoM with the layers unchanged? What you said earlier was the actually smart thing -- having two versions of the head, or just layers separately.

Whilst it has certainly been touted as a benefit, I believe that there only a couple of specific cases where this is realistic to achievable fully in the short term.  For brand new products with no compatibility concerns could certainly mean no layers.  I personally believe though that this benefit has been much overplayed.

There are reasons why having two versions of the head/body could be undesirable to some creators such as maintaining two versions throughout upgrades would be more of a burden than one integrated head.  Adding extra layers separately will run into issues with attachment point sharing issues also.

Sure a head/body that has layers will always have more complexity than the same thing without but with all concerns on the table, if your complexity is good then having layers is a good compromise if compatibility is preserved, in my opinion.  You still get the other main benefits of BoM.

18 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Also could you name the brand or send it to me privately? If they're genuinely good, I'll be glad to throw money at them.)

Sure, I'll DM you as I don't think the rules allow naming products here.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Gabriele Graves
Changed paragraph flow