Animesh and LI sky rocketing

[Tanis Wylder]

I am exploring Animesh, and frankly LOVE it! Its been far too long! However I am a little shocked that a mesh that has a land impact of 1 or 2, when the Animesh is enabled jumps to a MINIMUM of 23/24...

Is there a reason for this, and a way we can optimise the mesh'es to reduce the land impact?

The project I am working on, that I want to use Animesh with, needs the LI much lower.

Thanks! and sorry if this is in the wrong category...

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Tanis Wylder said:

I am exploring Animesh, and frankly LOVE it! Its been far too long! However I am a little shocked that a mesh that has a land impact of 1 or 2, when the Animesh is enabled jumps to a MINIMUM of 23/24...

Yes, there is a reason for this, animesh is much harder on the computers and network than static mesh. Land impact is an attempt to measure and control the load on the system, it's not just something LL came up with to be mean.

There was quite a lot of discussion among content creators how LI should be calculated for animesh. Some argued that it should be at a level as realistic as possible compared to other items, others argued that it should be set much lower. I belive what LL ended up with is a bit of a compromise. At first an animesh had a base LI around 50 and although that included some margin of error, I suspect the actual land impact of an animesh is closer to that than to the final 23-24. It's certainly somewhere in between.

 

1 hour ago, Tanis Wylder said:

Thanks! and sorry if this is in the wrong category...

If you ask me, I'd say you got that right. This is about the use of animesh, not the creation of it, so it has general interest and belongs in the general discussion, not in the creator subforums. The moderators may disagree and decide to move the thread. We'll see.

Edited February 18, 2019 by ChinRey

[Tanis Wylder]

Still a base of 23 LI is not feasible for what it was designed for and I think that is the problem. I have a 1 LI mesh, that without animations etc and having a rigging, I click the check box and it jumps to 23. there is no need for it in reality. just my opinon

[Wulfie Reanimator]

From the Animesh User Guide:

Quote

Currently being animesh adds an additional 15 to the land impact of an object. There is an additional land impact cost of 1.5 per 1,000 charged triangles in the model. All triangles in the highest LOD are charged, but only triangles exceeding a limit are charged in the coarser LODs; there is no LI penalty for LODs as long as each does not exceed half the complexity of the next highest level - for example, if the highest LOD has 10,000 triangles, you could make LODs with no penalty up to 5,000 triangles in the medium LOD, 2,500 in the low LOD, and 1,250 in the lowest LOD. LODs that exceed those limits will be counted against the LI only for any excess above those limits.

 

[Tanis Wylder]

That is ludicrous and there is no need for it. This extra LI is just a money grab sorry but it is. It is the viewer that does all the animations etc, and there is no need to charge the creators that for it.

it will NOT take off, while that is still in play - it needs to be removed and left as normal. adding in this case 22 LI for a mesh with a rigging, thats before any scripts and animations are added to it, is just not ok and I would love a LINDEN to actually explain WHY they are trying to do this.

[ChinRey]

21 minutes ago, Tanis Wylder said:

Still a base of 23 LI is not feasible for what it was designed for and I think that is the problem. I have a 1 LI mesh, that without animations etc and having a rigging, I click the check box and it jumps to 23. there is no need for it in reality. just my opinon

You could say the same about LI/prim limits in general - and also about the max avatars in a region limit. Let people fill up their land as much as they want!

 

14 minutes ago, Tanis Wylder said:

 I would love a LINDEN to actually explain WHY they are trying to do this.

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/418292-update-on-animesh-land-impact/?tab=comments#comment-1716658

Maybe also:

1. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/420864-animesh-updated-limits-and-cost-formulas/?tab=comments#comment-1738949
2. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/428428-slowdowns-in-graphics-performance/?tab=comments#comment-1801555
3. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/413191-project-animesh-feedback-thread/?page=6&tab=comments#comment-1691221
4. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/419776-time-table-for-animesh/?tab=comments#comment-1730014

Edit: Come to think of it, no. 2 on that list may partly explain a problem somebody posted about in BB chat a few days ago. @animats, you may want to take a look at this.

Edited February 18, 2019 by ChinRey

[Ethan Paslong]

26 minutes ago, Tanis Wylder said:

and there is no need to charge the creators that for it

what is charged to the creators?

[Tanis Wylder]

we are being charged for the land impact, which is the issue.

Say you build an animated creature that is supposed to pathfind around a parcel. well the LI without the animesh is say 3 or 4 LI. with it, between 23 and 30. that is really no reason for it and them claiming that it is. its a $ grab IMHO - because they sell more prims for the feature and make more $

[Blush Bravin]

As a consumer of animesh, (I'm a creator, but I don't go near anything having to do with animesh or animations) I don't have any issue with the LI being higher to accommodate the extra load on the servers for running animesh. In fact, it seems perfectly reasonable. As a consumer I have to budget my LI all the time. I decide if I want to use something based on it's LI. Some things are worth it and some aren't. So, your customers will decide if your product is worth spending the LI on it or not. LL should not cave to those like you wishing to abuse the process, IMO.

[Love Zhaoying]

IMHO, they should charge LI for Pathfinding.

[Tanis Wylder]

3 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I am not abusing the system in any way shape or form - I am asking for a legitimate reason - the server load will not change whether the file [that is the mesh] has animations switched on or off. it all comes down to rendering which is done on the viewer, not the server. The LI increase is unrealistic IMHO..

 

As a consumer of animesh, (I'm a creator, but I don't go near anything having to do with animesh or animations) I don't have any issue with the LI being higher to accommodate the extra load on the servers for running animesh. In fact, it seems perfectly reasonable. As a consumer I have to budget my LI all the time. I decide if I want to use something based on it's LI. Some things are worth it and some aren't. So, your customers will decide if your product is worth spending the LI on it or not. LL should not cave to those like you wishing to abuse the process, IMO.

 

[Blush Bravin]

Just now, Tanis Wylder said:

 

How about using quote properly and put your comment below my quoted content?

I still say what you are asking for if granted would be abusing the system. 

[Love Zhaoying]

40 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Maybe also:

1. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/420864-animesh-updated-limits-and-cost-formulas/?tab=comments#comment-1738949

Thanks, forgot I had read that. If someone reads those and still asks “why”..maybe they miss the obvious that it does indeed impact servers (see all the references to “streaming cost”).

[Ethan Paslong]

17 minutes ago, Tanis Wylder said:

we are being charged for the land impact, which is the issue.

where?.... or i am reading that line wrong or you take the word LI cost wrong ... it's added to the LI not to cost for the land.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Ethan Paslong said:

where?.... or i am reading that line wrong or you take the word LI cost wrong ... it's added to the LI not to cost for the land.

I think they mean “charged more cost of LI”. I speak “wrong usage”.

[Blush Bravin]

When you use the LI allotted to your land you are basically spending LI .. so I see what he means when he says he's charged for the LI. But that charge or fee is fair IMO.

[Ethan Paslong]

2 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

When you use the LI allotted to your land you are basically spending LI .. so I see what he means when he says he's charged for the LI. But that charge or fee is fair IMO.

yes, but it's still a bit strange way to say it imo.

And i think it's quite fair you trade a bit more LI for a higher use of sim resources.
If your neighbouris going to load your, for example, 512 sqm parcel with 20 animesh objects you'd be better off with a full 1024 textured club nextdoor.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Ethan Paslong

[Blush Bravin]

1 minute ago, Ethan Paslong said:

yes, but it's still a bit strange way to say it imo.

 

I totally get why he's saying it that way. I know when I buy land I look at it based on prims not on sqm. I figure I'm buying the right to use a certain number of prims. That's why I only own double prim land. So I totally get what he's saying in that regard.

[ChinRey]

19 hours ago, Tanis Wylder said:

I am not abusing the system in any way shape or form - I am asking for a legitimate reason - the server load will not change whether the file [that is the mesh] has animations switched on or off. it all comes down to rendering which is done on the viewer, not the server. The LI increase is unrealistic IMHO..

 

Animesh movement is done by the server, so the server has to recalculate the object's position several times a second and it also has to send the updated data to the client. It definietely adds both server and bandwidth load. How much, none of us here knows but we can be quite sure Vir Linden does.

Edit: Corrected the post according to Wulfie's comment.

Edited February 19, 2019 by ChinRey

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Ethan Paslong said:

And i think it's quite fair you trade a bit more LI for a higher use of sim resources.

Yes, I think OP thought animesh only impacts viewer, which is incorrect.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, ChinRey said:

Animesh animation is done by the server, so the server has to recalculate the object's position and even its shape several times a second and it also has to send the updated data to the client. It definietely adds both server and bandwidth load. How much, none of us here knows but we can be quite sure Vir Linden does.

Would be interesting to know if there’s going to be a “prevent animesh on my region” switch to help prevent lag.

[Theresa Tennyson]

52 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

IMHO, they should charge LI for Pathfinding.

They do -- 15 land impact per character if they're using the actual pathfinding system. The OP must be referring to some other sort of script.

[Theresa Tennyson]

56 minutes ago, Tanis Wylder said:

we are being charged for the land impact, which is the issue.

Say you build an animated creature that is supposed to pathfind around a parcel. well the LI without the animesh is say 3 or 4 LI. with it, between 23 and 30. that is really no reason for it and them claiming that it is. its a $ grab IMHO - because they sell more prims for the feature and make more $

3 or 4 land impact for a creature navigating around a parcel is absurdly low considering the resources it will need to do that. A chair with that land-impact would be pretty thrifty. What is the project you're planning on that apparently requires large numbers of individually animated objects at roughly 5000-6000 polygons apiece? 

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Animesh animation is done by the server, so the server has to recalculate the object's position and even its shape several times a second and it also has to send the updated data to the client. It definietely adds both server and bandwidth load. How much, none of us here knows but we can be quite sure Vir Linden does.

So... its practical application is limited to NPVs, then?

Way back when (before I lost interest) there was going to be a project that would replace lots of texture-flipping to show and hide different mesh geometry. I gather that Animesh isn't that project.

One virtue of texture-flipping is that it can be purely viewer-side once the server starts the animation... but even if it's too complex for texture animation, a script's resource demands should be much less than the recalculations this suggests -- and certainly incurs less land impact for interesting mesh geometries simpler than an avatar-like character.

I mean, I'm fine with leaving some fully-transparent mesh rezzed, waiting for its turn at visibility, but I thought we were hoping to reduce that.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Qie Niangao

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Animesh animation is done by the server, so the server has to recalculate the object's position and even its shape several times a second and it also has to send the updated data to the client. It definietely adds both server and bandwidth load. How much, none of us here knows but we can be quite sure Vir Linden does.

No. Animesh animations are handled the same as avatars. The server only communicates the state of the object (eg. "playing X animation"), and the viewer handles actual animation playback/rendering. A very easy way to check this is to press Ctrl-S (sync animations) on Firestorm. Animesh objects will be synced as well.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator