Why beginners don't learn the basics first?

[Motoko Oanomochi]

4 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

First, a customer wouldn't even respond to feedback request as long as the product meets their expectations in a way or another, therefore putting both items in the same package wouldn't give you any preference data, as opposed to the other method where their wallet becomes the voting tool. 

Secondly, you show a lack of comprehension on the subject matter by saying "of course with the same materials". The low poly needs to have a material set of textures that include the highpoly extracted normal map and AO in the diffuse, and a normal map for an highpoly extracted from itself always is a flat normal map with no details, since their surface match 100%. So the materials can't be the same, inherently, whereas the highpoly can only take the base material texture tiled a few times, resukting in a high resolution texture, and the low poly needs to be 1 tile in each direction mandatory, resulting in a lower resolution. 

Please, please...learn what "context" means an see as many example of it as you possibly can before you come back posting BS of such proportions

Hello,

I saw how you answered to a Linden employee in Sansar forum, your way to answer is not something I am able to understand. And I don't share your point of view about customers. I prefer trust customers point of view, I prefer ask them what they need, and I prefer explain.

[Motoko Oanomochi]

4 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

What a lowly method to avoid answer, by editing an already answered comment after a while. Anyway, as i said already, i was asking for feedback to improve the guidelines for a tool that anyone could replicate since i was sharing the method and there was NO name reference to identify the product, therefore as opposed to what you did in the past to get your post deleted that you were complaining about time ago, that's no hidden advertisement and yours was. Face the fact that you can't recognize context and that this is the reason for your post being deleted and mine is still standing, as proved by this and the fact that your condonating practices that degrade user experience in the name of freedom is the same as griefing, with the little detail difference that a griefing device can be made on purpose or be the result of inconsiderate resource hogging. It still cause grief, regardless of the intentional or unintentional purpose. 

I can only answer if you don't make difference between beginners or low skill with griefing, it is a point of view I can't share. About your tool for maya, you know there are lot of mesh simplification tools. Good to know there is one more.

[OptimoMaximo]

11 minutes ago, Motoko Oanomochi said:

Hello,

I saw how you answered to a Linden employee in Sansar forum, your way to answer is not something I am able to understand. And I don't share your point of view about customers. I prefer trust customers point of view, I prefer ask them what they need, and I prefer explain.

It's not the only thing you're not able to understand, apparently. Context is key, and it looks like that's an alien concept to you

[OptimoMaximo]

15 minutes ago, Motoko Oanomochi said:

I can only answer if you don't make difference between beginners or low skill with griefing, it is a point of view I can't share. About your tool for maya, you know there are lot of mesh simplification tools. Good to know there is one more

Again, you lack context comprehension. Why beginners don't learn the basics first? That's the topic, and neglecting the basics we end up with the excuse you do by assigning tags that differentiate between "designers" and "professionals", with the implication that being designers makes them no expert and therefore excused and somehow exempt from basic practices, excuse and exemption that goes on for ever because they are designers. 

About my maya tool, AGAIN, you're missing the context of such tool. It does a lot of processes needed to output a rigged item, and rigged only, not static, reduced using the native rediction tool but with an SL compatible skin cluster AKA rig data that doesn't cause issues when trying to upload it with the associated custom models, avoiding the manual process, long, tedious, time consuming and prone to mistakes. It basically does much more than a simple reduction and binding to skeleton, it runs two quality assurance checks and fixes in order to achieve compatibility specifically for SL. 

The more you intervene, the more you show your lack of understanding in general, and even more your capability to comprehend context of someone's interventions. Give up, you're only making a fool out of yourself publicly. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by OptimoMaximo

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, smirkingdevil said:

As a player of only 2 weeks, I found the older SL community to be hit or miss when it comes to actually providing useful information.

Welcome to Second Life smirkingdevil!

(And I got the chance to give somebody their first like on the forums.)

 

2 hours ago, smirkingdevil said:

Does SL have a cute name for new SL players?  None that I have been called.

I'm afraid newbie is the only word we have. It's not cute but at least it's fairly neutral.

There's also noob but that's not a newcomer. A noob is somebody who still acts like a newcomer after many years in SL.

 

2 hours ago, smirkingdevil said:

Even when older SL players are sincerely trying to be helpful, they misjudge how overwhelming SL can be to us new players.

Yes, it's a well known problem. There are so many things SL'ers take for granted that others find very strange.

[Motoko Oanomochi]

55 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Again, you lack context comprehension. Why beginners don't learn the basics first? That's the topic, and neglecting the basics we end up with the excuse you do by assigning tags that differentiate between "designers" and "professionals", with the implication that being designers makes them no expert and therefore excused and somehow exempt from basic practices, excuse and exemption that goes on for ever because they are designers. 

About my maya tool, AGAIN, you're missing the context of such tool. It does a lot of processes needed to output a rigged item, and rigged only, not static, reduced using the native rediction tool but with an SL compatible skin cluster AKA rig data that doesn't cause issues when trying to upload it with the associated custom models, avoiding the manual process, long, tedious, time consuming and prone to mistakes. It basically does much more than a simple reduction and binding to skeleton, it runs two quality assurance checks and fixes in order to achieve compatibility specifically for SL. 

The more you intervene, the more you show your lack of understanding in general, and even more your capability to comprehend context of someone's interventions. Give up, you're only making a fool out of yourself publicly. 

Why beginners don't learn the basics first ?

First what ? they must learn before come on Second life ? or they can come on Second life to learn. I prefer the second. 

Other point is you push the idea there is only one good way to create on Second life, it is not true, there are many ways depends the users wish, customers wish too.

 

[OptimoMaximo]

54 minutes ago, Motoko Oanomochi said:

Why beginners don't learn the basics first ?

First what ? they must learn before come on Second life ? or they can come on Second life to learn. I prefer the second. 

Learn the basic of creation first, THEN start selling their stuff instead of immediately aiming at the quick buck, flooding the market wirh crap. So clear, but again your lack of understanding skills makes it hard, obviously

56 minutes ago, Motoko Oanomochi said:

Other point is you push the idea there is only one good way to create on Second life, it is not true, there are many ways depends the users wish, customers wish too

Whay YOU say is not true, because if someone wishes (creator or customer) a million polygons item because detailed geometry is better than reasonable poly with maps and all bells and whistles, THEY are WRONG and you too, no matter what. If the customer is interested in getting a FIAT Panda with an engine og 450 HP it doesn't make it a legitimate reason for producing such a flying coffin. For EVERYBODY'S safety. 

[Motoko Oanomochi]

28 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Learn the basic of creation first, THEN start selling their stuff instead of immediately aiming at the quick buck, flooding the market wirh crap. So clear, but again your lack of understanding skills makes it hard, obviously

Whay YOU say is not true, because if someone wishes (creator or customer) a million polygons item because detailed geometry is better than reasonable poly with maps and all bells and whistles, THEY are WRONG and you too, no matter what. If the customer is interested in getting a FIAT Panda with an engine og 450 HP it doesn't make it a legitimate reason for producing such a flying coffin. For EVERYBODY'S safety. 

You seem to think I am not agree with you on major points, I don't know why as I read almost peoples here agreed franckly about LoD improvement, and to bring helps for beginners.

I agree with you about learn then start selling, but it is often the case, I am optimistic as it is the case. Now what solution you purpose to avoid the "flooding the market wirh crap" ? Honestly, I can't see any good and fair solution, except trust to customers to make the right choice with time and patience.

I am yet optimistic about customers are reasonable and not ask Panda Abarth with 450hp oops, they almost did it with Fiat 500, but not yet with 450hp ok ( I joke, don't jump on this. I owned a lot of Italian cars. I am fan.))

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Originally the topic was about how a lot of people take the path of least resistance that will get them from "no prior 3D modeling" to "something I can sell". Ignoring every skill they should learn and considerations that do not lead to a better store picture.

I'd love to let the market decide, but the market is typically blind to the implications that bad content bring to SL, you could compare it to the ban on lead paint:

Lead accelerated the drying, made the paint more durable and fresh looking for longer, it also made it moisture resistant, you would be a fool to make lead-free paint in a market driven economy because you would be producing inferior paint. It took medical research and government enforcement for it to stop.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Cackle Amore]

23 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

To be fair we probably wouldn't be in this situation if there was no object detail slider.

At the very least, would be curious to see what'd happen if it was capped to 3.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Just now, Digit Gears said:

At the very least, would be curious to see what'd happen if it was capped to 3.

It would break years of sculpties I guess.

[Cube Republic]

I could speculate a lot of content creators end up creating by accident and don't follow a more traditional path into 3D modelling. Often if people wish to be 3D artists, they start out at school and go onto to do a degree. There's probably not a lot of those types of folk in SL because they're working in their chosen field.

I think my skill level is OK, but it took a lot of work to get there. It's so multidisciplinary, and of course I was blind to how rubbish my initial output was. I've had to learn everything from sculpting high detail meshes, retopology, UV mapping, texture baking, texture creation, LOD creation, etc. It's a lot of hard work, and second life isn't the most user friendly platform to create for. There's 10 zillion tutorials out there for game dev model creation to get people started. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

On 9/13/2019 at 5:49 AM, Cube Republic said:

I could speculate a lot of content creators end up creating by accident and don't follow a more traditional path into 3D modelling. Often if people wish to be 3D artists, they start out at school and go onto to do a degree. There's probably not a lot of those types of folk in SL because they're working in their chosen field.

I think my skill level is OK, but it took a lot of work to get there. It's so multidisciplinary, and of course I was blind to how rubbish my initial output was. I've had to learn everything from sculpting high detail meshes, retopology, UV mapping, texture baking, texture creation, LOD creation, etc. It's a lot of hard work, and second life isn't the most user friendly platform to create for. There's 10 zillion tutorials out there for game dev model creation to get people started. 

I see an awful lot of people who appear to have decided to START with Marvelous Designer. (I'm not going to mention that most of them probably don't have a license but that's beside the point)

Then they export their work to Blender (or any other modeling package really), and they end up completely swamped, because not only do they have to deal with an extremely complex export, but that mesh is gonna require a lot of cleanup, which requires some serious practice on blender, practice they could have acquired by STARTING in Blender with a much simpler project, and working their way up until they are somewhat comfortable with all the basic modeling skills.

Before doing anything fancy you need, first and foremost to be able to go in edit mode and build, expand, and fix raw geometry.

 

I know the feeling of hopping into some piece of software, expecting to avoid getting into that skill that I don't have, I've been there before.

I started 3D modeling because I couldn't drawn, and I thought that I could get around the issue that way.

To this day, I still can't draw

Edited September 16, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Cube Republic]

On 9/16/2019 at 5:19 PM, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I see an awful lot of people who appear to have decided to START with Marvelous Designer. (I'm not going to mention that most of them probably don't have a license but that's beside the point)

Then they export their work to Blender (or any other modeling package really), and they end up completely swamped, because not only do they have to deal with an extremely complex export, but that mesh is gonna require a lot of cleanup, which requires some serious practice on blender, practice they could have acquired by STARTING in Blender with a much simpler project, and working their way up until they are somewhat comfortable with all the basic modeling skills.

Before doing anything fancy you need, first and foremost to be able to go in edit mode and build, expand, and fix raw geometry.

 

I know the feeling of hopping into some piece of software, expecting to avoid getting into that skill that I don't have, I've been there before.

I started 3D modeling because I couldn't drawn, and I thought that I could get around the issue that way.

To this day, I still can't draw

Completely true, without a solid foundation in low poly and subdivision modeling you're going to be banging your head against a wall. These are the fundamental basics all other techniques follow on from. For example distorted meshes will make distorted UV maps, which will give distorted shading, likewise bad loopflow will mess with rigging. But it is very multi disciplined like I said in an earlier post, if you create everything from scratch, you'll be doing the work that would be delegated among several people in a game studio. 

[OptimoMaximo]

But but... SL is not a game, we should be free from limitations and besides, low poly sucks, by the time we get to learn everything that's needed we should be blender pros :sarcasm:

Edited September 18, 2019 by OptimoMaximo

[Kyrah Abattoir]

On 9/17/2019 at 10:24 PM, Cube Republic said:

if you create everything from scratch, you'll be doing the work that would be delegated among several people in a game studio.

Admitedly, but that's not necessarily unreasonable, as an SL creator nobody expects you to output the amount of content a 50 people team would be able to produce.

[OptimoMaximo]

On 10/22/2019 at 5:23 PM, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Admitedly, but that's not necessarily unreasonable, as an SL creator nobody expects you to output the amount of content a 50 people team would be able to produce.

Not really. See the pressure for events releases that lead to rushed (and very often objectionable) content. Plus the expectation for constant updates and group gifts. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

On 10/26/2019 at 10:20 AM, OptimoMaximo said:

Not really. See the pressure for events releases that lead to rushed (and very often objectionable) content. Plus the expectation for constant updates and group gifts. 

None of which you are required to do, or even do consistently.

[OptimoMaximo]

5 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

None of which you are required to do, or even do consistently

True, but for the quick buck it is what most try to do and their customers grew used to sort of expect that from every creator

[Penny Patton]

"Why don't SL content creators learn the basics first?" Because there's nothing for them to overcome by doing so. Few SL users ever make that connection between poorly made content and the multitude of issues SL users complain about on a daily basis. So they don't see the incentive in putting in any effort at being less wasteful with textures and polygons. They don't see the downside in ramping object detail up as high as it will go so only the highest LOD models are ever displayed. The fact that this hurts everyone's framerates is just too abstract for them to grasp.

There should be blocks in the way between a user deciding to make content, and actively selling that content to other SL users. Caps on avatar VRAM use and triangle counts. Having decently well made LOD models should not impede content creators with unreasonable LI costs, but gutting LOD should have some immediately recognizable negative effect that you can't get around by digging in the debug panel.

These blocks shouldn't be insurmountable. It doesn't take that much effort to go from creating content, to optimizing that content. People just need to be incentivized to actually do it and that's only going to happen if unoptimized content is rendered undesirable to the userbase at large. And that is going to take action on LL's part.

 Getting from here to there isn't as easy as flipping a switch, of course. I'm not suggesting LL drop in new limits willy-nilly. But it's definitely possible for LL to work out a long term plan to get us where we need to be. 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

Penny, on this forum and particularly on this thread you're preachin' at the choir, lass!

I'd love to see those roadblocks you mention in place. I make "things" not clothing or characters so I have a slightly easier time of it than those other creators but it's still a source of "a little bit of smug" when I can make a bunch of vertices go away and still have the thing look good all the way out to the camera limit with default settings. But that "bit of smug" is all I get for it. That I'm not lagging everybody out with that object is not a selling point in SL. Buyers don't care. If their new shiny sends their framerate through the floor they blame SL, not the hideous vertex vomit they just dumped on their graphics card, and those of everybody else in the sim. Since there's probably no way to make the buyer care, LL have to make the creator care by making peddling unoptimized stuff harder and less profitable.

[Penny Patton]

Maybe but I wanted to answer the OP's question on why so few SL content creators do care to learn the basics of content creation. Sure, we might understand that relationship between content and performance, but the average SL content creator, just like the average SL consumer, does not. And even if you tell them, a lot of them are unlikely to believe it. Believe me, I've seen it constantly here on the SL forums. I've even seen viewer developers argue against the need for content optimization.

 For that matter, LL is sitting on some tools that were submitted to them that would make it a lot easier to see and manage your own avatar's triangle count and VRAM use, as well as jelly dolling other avatars based on those same aspects (which is way more useful than using ARC to determine which avatars are the problem).

[Codex Alpha]

On 1/20/2019 at 1:57 AM, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Disclaimer! If you feel that I'm unfair or too harsh, I'm sorry, I don't want to come out as an arrogant jerk but that's unfortunately how I tend to come out.

I see this time and time again, people asking for help, and when I look at their model it seem to me they are shooting way above their skill level:

• Massive polygon count.
• Horrible UV packing.
• Coplanar faces everywhere
• Polygons facing the wrong way
• Loose vertices
• Loose edges
• Messed up blender UI.
• Etc...

Their .blend file tend to shows that they are lacking fundamental skills and practice on basic 3D model construction and on how polygons are arranged to form even the smplest shape.

I see people hopping on Marvelous designer, Mudbox or hell, even Zbrush doing all this intricate sculpting and draping (nothing wrong with that). And then when comes to time to actually tackle "modeling" (you know, manipulating polygons and vertices directly, by hand), they are either:

• Completely lost.
• Hit "unwrap" once and call it a day.
• Outright refuse to edit their model directly.

What's the deal there, I don't get it, the first thing I did when I started with blender was to head to https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/ and went through the "Blender Fundamentals" (the equivalent we had back then) no matter how dumb it made me feel.

Oddly enough, these people think it is fine to do this. Although not just limited to beginners, some 'experts' still do this too, because the product 'looks better' to them. In my dealings with these types of people, it literally boils down to their personality type or mental development - they can't defer gratification and don't want to do the work necessary.

It's a constant aggravating factor to me, as these people may be making store listings and getting sales - because their customers are oblivious to it, and meanwhile I'm working my ass off making other products that are optimized and with the smallest footprint possible for the quality. Its VERY hard to watch others get sales, community status and financial success that are effectively cheating the system to serve their own interests - now resulting in a laggy SL.

The more narcissistic types are impossible to approach. Try to help them by suggesting ways to make their products more efficient, or reporting that their 'LOD' (or lack of LODS) causes their 140,000 vertice object to blink out after 1m, and you'll just come back to an angry rant in your PM box.

Some who come to me for help don't want to listen to it, because it will mean it will take work.
Just ZBrush the avatar with 3 million vertices, remesh down to 40,000, with no care to topology or otherwise, slap a tiling texture for the skin and upload it.. Or the worst case I've recently seen.. using the materials from ZBrush, so each mesh part that was in it now has it's own texture.. then upload 30 materials up... At least SL has a limit of 8 materials per mesh, but then they just separate anyway... Ughhhh ignorance is bliss, why do I notice this crap... lol

[OptimoMaximo]

13 hours ago, entity0x said:

Some who come to me for help don't want to listen to it, because it will mean it will take work.

Welcome to the club of "the annoying useless optimization ignorants"...

13 hours ago, entity0x said:

Just ZBrush the avatar with 3 million vertices, remesh down to 40,000, with no care to topology or otherwise,

40k triangles (not vertices, i know) wouldn't be a big deal per se, if the current trend wouldn't claim slices and layers, which results in the impossibility to create proper lods. It's more about the accessories going on top of that, usually taking the same if not double or more triangles per piece than the whole body. It's the system as a whole that doesn't work, performance wise. There is also who claims that if some clothing needs parts of the body to be alpha ed out they don't buy it because that ruins realism 🤣 while it's possible to rig clothing with no poking through, that strongly depends on the shapes in use, both clothing AND user... Try to explain to them such things, and you're the ignorant moron noob at it. 🤷‍♂️

[Codex Alpha]

yep, was just throwing out a number.  I have a simple avatar in use that only has 4000k

On 11/24/2019 at 5:27 AM, Da5id Weatherwax said:

 I make "things" not clothing or characters so I have a slightly easier time of it than those other creators but it's still a source of "a little bit of smug" when I can make a bunch of vertices go away and still have the thing look good all the way out to the camera limit with default settings. But that "bit of smug" is all I get for it. That I'm not lagging everybody out with that object is not a selling point in SL. Buyers don't care. If their new shiny sends their framerate through the floor they blame SL, not the hideous vertex vomit they just dumped on their graphics card, and those of everybody else in the sim. Since there's probably no way to make the buyer care, LL have to make the creator care by making peddling unoptimized stuff harder and less profitable.

My favourite quote of this discussion because its true, haha.
I can be smug about the work I do to optimize in both SL and Sansar, trying to contribute to keep everything efficient and looking good, but being smug is all you will get for it.
Others who dont do this still get clout and sales - I get to be smug hahahaahah