Is bad design ruining SL?

[angelikiinha]

I was checking bodies and heads, and reading reviews of brands like Genus and the new TMP. They are beautiful for sure, but some users are complaining about complexity (aka abnormal complexity).

Searching further, I ended up here https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/12/maitreya-belleza-and-slink-sl-skin-bad-optimization.html Long post made short, the author says the leading body makers did a **** job, so Belleza, Maitreya and Slink are products of bad design practices . A crowded sim with poorly optimized bodies (mounted by hair, clothes and jewelry equally bad optimized) and voilà: lag even with good machines.

"I find more and more reasons every time to absolutely hate them. Those three are the worst ones anyway -- Belleza being at the top, followed by Maitreya and then SLINK", says NiranV, developer of Black Dragon viewer. "Maitreya starts with 80,000-100,000 — only the base body. Belleza was something like 200,000+ last time I checked. Modern games use roughly 20-40k for an entire character. A few games use more, obviously, but 20-40k is standard today. So with 100-200k you can imagine how much more straining avatars are. And they are just bodies — [not counting] clothes, no hair, nothing."

But is this really "bad design" or a one way road? Can better bodies, MUCH better than Lara or Jake (enough to justify a new expense) be made reducing complexity?

And obviously, the idea of the author - "boycott" - seems ludicrous.

[animats]

Shoes. Shoes seem to have totally insane triangle counts. Like 30,000. Each shoe.

Animesh character. Bento.  29 LI without shoes.

I'm still trying to find shoes for my animesh characters, where LI really matters. 666 tris = 1 LI for animesh. A plain pair of sneakers would be fine. I can use system shoes if I can get the texture files. Mesh if I can get it with full perms. This character can wear most mesh clothing designed for standard avatars, but the LI will jump to somewhere between 90 and "sim full". That's no good.

Animesh don't do "wear" yet. That's coming, Vir Linden says, but it's a ways off. Meanwhile, we have to composite textures in Photoshop and upload, or link objects as prims to add mesh clothing. Animesh are not yet easily customized, which is why we're seeing identical clones repeated around SL. So there's no end user market for animesh clothing.

[Theresa Tennyson]

7 hours ago, angelikiinha said:

I was checking bodies and heads, and reading reviews of brands like Genus and the new TMP. They are beautiful for sure, but some users are complaining about complexity (aka abnormal complexity).

Searching further, I ended up here https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/12/maitreya-belleza-and-slink-sl-skin-bad-optimization.html Long post made short, the author says the leading body makers did a **** job, so Belleza, Maitreya and Slink are products of bad design practices . A crowded sim with poorly optimized bodies (mounted by hair, clothes and jewelry equally bad optimized) and voilà: lag even with good machines.

"I find more and more reasons every time to absolutely hate them. Those three are the worst ones anyway -- Belleza being at the top, followed by Maitreya and then SLINK", says NiranV, developer of Black Dragon viewer. "Maitreya starts with 80,000-100,000 — only the base body. Belleza was something like 200,000+ last time I checked. Modern games use roughly 20-40k for an entire character. A few games use more, obviously, but 20-40k is standard today. So with 100-200k you can imagine how much more straining avatars are. And they are just bodies — [not counting] clothes, no hair, nothing."

But is this really "bad design" or a one way road? Can better bodies, MUCH better than Lara or Jake (enough to justify a new expense) be made reducing complexity?

And obviously, the idea of the author - "boycott" - seems ludicrous.

Every popular human body on the market has literally 4 times the polygons it needs because they're all actually four separate avatars put together like matryoshka dolls to allow for tattoos and clothing layers. The fact that they're cut into sections to allow for alpha cuts doesn't help either.

[cheesecurd]

Note that as a baseline comparison, CS:GO players have 14-24k triangles for the entire character. (Depending on the variant of player model)

You can accomplish quite a lot of detail with low triangle complexity by relying on other things such as texture design to simulate physical detail.

The fact that there are avatars in SL with complexity measured in the millions of triangles is absolutely insane, its bloat to the highest degree. 

I play sometimes as a 2D Bob Ross with a complexity of 110 and I would still say that slowly animated 2D bob ross in "captured on VHS tape" quality is better detail than some avatars.

Back on topic, this applies to just about everything. Good modellers but terrible game designers making everything, a chair with a polygon count somewhere past 100k using 15mb of textures looks pretty good, but is it that much more impressive than a "lesser" char of under 1k polygons and under 128kb of textures?

Put two dozen of those chairs into a room and watch the framerate drop. Along with a dozen equally bloated tables, other furniture, an 8K resolution floor and then 10+ people with a triangle count of 1 million+

 

[cheesecurd]

And an even better example, Final Fantasy XV in 4K maxed on PC hits the max of 100-120k triangles per character and about 10mb worth of textures per character.

And looks ya know, god damn stunning, with an unmatched level of character detail being live rendered.

VS 1m+ triangles on a more detailed SL avatar.

And there is no denying that an SL avatar is not even close to the level of aesthetic detail.

[VenKellie]

good thing im a primmy meerkat but if i do ever go back to being humon ill rock out the classic body now. thnx for the link. ill let my friends know and share the url with them.

[Maitimo]

On 8/23/2019 at 4:55 AM, angelikiinha said:

 "Maitreya starts with 80,000-100,000 — only the base body. 

This is completely wrong. I have the Maitreya body and I am usually under 50k total, including mesh head, hair, clothes and shoes. The body alone is something like 7k, plus a couple of k for the separate hands and feet, though I can't check it exactly as I am on mobile right now.

[loverdag]

21 minutes ago, Matty Luminos said:

This is completely wrong. I have the Maitreya body and I am usually under 50k total, including mesh head, hair, clothes and shoes. The body alone is something like 7k, plus a couple of k for the separate hands and feet, though I can't check it exactly as I am on mobile right now.

You need to make clear first which viewer you talk of.

OP said she was quoting Niran and his Black Dragon viewer has different counting complexity compare other viewers. So thats not "completely wrong" - thats just not same number as complexity shown in Firestorm.

Not being creator myself Im also not sure if the numer you get in Firestorm as your complexity is the real number of polygons the mesh has. So I would be really careful to say thats "completely wrong". Its wrong if you talk about complexity in Firestorm, then yes, sure - but is that how many polygons the mesh bodies really have?

[Maitimo]

Ah ok. I havent seen Black Dragon so I don't know if the numbers are different.

[NiranV Dean]

You both got it wrong.

80k-100k refers to the polygon count, not the complexity. Complexity is calculated from polygon count as well as other things. Polygon count (or triangle count) is the raw amount of triangles on any given object. Triangles are made up of 3 vertices.

Edited August 24, 2019 by NiranV Dean

[loverdag]

2 hours ago, loverdag said:

- but is that how many polygons the mesh bodies really have?

Yes, thats what I meant by that. 

Wasnt sure what complexity in viewer is and how it is (or is not) related to number of polygons of the mesh.

[angelikiinha]

Worst part is: creators doesn't seem to give a damn about it... After all, they are selling like those nice and heavy bodies like hot cakes...

[OptimoMaximo]

Years ago, when materials were just introduced, i made a piece of clothing, I'll call it Y. Made it in the software everybody use for that, then i remodeled it to have a nice topology and better rigging. I used all the techniques that are used in game development at the time, and used the normal map and the ambient occlusion to bake the texture, so that the high poly detail would come out baked into te texture even if the actual geometry only had the primary, big forms of that piece of clothing. Also added materials in SL Standard game studio type of routine.

Customer X bought Y-clothing DEMO. One hour later, customer X bought the full version. Five minutes later customer X IMs me (i'm not quoting, but that's the gist of it):

• X: hey, i want a refund, your piece of clothing Y is garbage, it's only painted on. Painted on textures suck.
• me: hi! look, i modeled it in highpoly and remade the mesh lower poly for best performance, and the textures are baked from the high poly details. This way things perform best. Besides, you also took the free demo item and now you want a refund?
• X: from the demo i couldn't see it
• me: it's the same item, with the same texture, just one single writing "Demo" stamped on it, in a way that doesn't hinder inspection.
• X: i realized later those wrinkles were only painted on, it's trash quality
• me: well i used the same methods i use in studio for game assets, it's common practice
• X: game studio? you can't be a professional, who is good for real does the wrinkles and folds in the models, not painted on. You're a beginner at most, a noob in 3D. Last chance to give me the money back, or i'll make sure nobody will ever buy anything else from you ever again
• etc etc.

So, aside from the fraudolent behavior of this guy, that's the common (mis)conception in SL about 3D content: everything has to be geometry detailed to the most, texture is a plus in the best case, if not seen as uninportant because the mesh has the required detail. So with such a vast userbase bearing this mindset, would creators really care about performance? "if i don't do this way, i won't sell. It's a matter of public image" is what a well known mesh heads creator, who i won't name here but i will gladly tell privately to anyone curious about, replied to me once.

[NiranV Dean]

On 8/27/2019 at 3:04 PM, OptimoMaximo said:

Years ago, when materials were just introduced, i made a piece of clothing, I'll call it Y. Made it in the software everybody use for that, then i remodeled it to have a nice topology and better rigging. I used all the techniques that are used in game development at the time, and used the normal map and the ambient occlusion to bake the texture, so that the high poly detail would come out baked into te texture even if the actual geometry only had the primary, big forms of that piece of clothing. Also added materials in SL Standard game studio type of routine.

Customer X bought Y-clothing DEMO. One hour later, customer X bought the full version. Five minutes later customer X IMs me (i'm not quoting, but that's the gist of it):

• X: hey, i want a refund, your piece of clothing Y is garbage, it's only painted on. Painted on textures suck.
• me: hi! look, i modeled it in highpoly and remade the mesh lower poly for best performance, and the textures are baked from the high poly details. This way things perform best. Besides, you also took the free demo item and now you want a refund?
• X: from the demo i couldn't see it
• me: it's the same item, with the same texture, just one single writing "Demo" stamped on it, in a way that doesn't hinder inspection.
• X: i realized later those wrinkles were only painted on, it's trash quality
• me: well i used the same methods i use in studio for game assets, it's common practice
• X: game studio? you can't be a professional, who is good for real does the wrinkles and folds in the models, not painted on. You're a beginner at most, a noob in 3D. Last chance to give me the money back, or i'll make sure nobody will ever buy anything else from you ever again
• etc etc.

So, aside from the fraudolent behavior of this guy, that's the common (mis)conception in SL about 3D content: everything has to be geometry detailed to the most, texture is a plus in the best case, if not seen as uninportant because the mesh has the required detail. So with such a vast userbase bearing this mindset, would creators really care about performance? "if i don't do this way, i won't sell. It's a matter of public image" is what a well known mesh heads creator, who i won't name here but i will gladly tell privately to anyone curious about, replied to me once.

That's quite nice of you listening to him that far.

I think i would have burned down his house, poisened his water, abducted his children and destroyed his fields midway through.

[animats]

On 8/27/2019 at 6:04 AM, OptimoMaximo said:

Years ago, when materials were just introduced, i made a piece of clothing, I'll call it Y. Made it in the software everybody use for that, then i remodeled it to have a nice topology and better rigging. I used all the techniques that are used in game development at the time, and used the normal map and the ambient occlusion to bake the texture, so that the high poly detail would come out baked into te texture even if the actual geometry only had the primary, big forms of that piece of clothing. Also added materials in SL Standard game studio type of routine.

Customer X bought Y-clothing DEMO. One hour later, customer X bought the full version. Five minutes later customer X IMs me (i'm not quoting, but that's the gist of it):

• X: hey, i want a refund, your piece of clothing Y is garbage, it's only painted on. Painted on textures suck.
• me: hi! look, i modeled it in highpoly and remade the mesh lower poly for best performance, and the textures are baked from the high poly details. This way things perform best. Besides, you also took the free demo item and now you want a refund?
• X: from the demo i couldn't see it
• me: it's the same item, with the same texture, just one single writing "Demo" stamped on it, in a way that doesn't hinder inspection.
• X: i realized later those wrinkles were only painted on, it's trash quality
• me: well i used the same methods i use in studio for game assets, it's common practice
• X: game studio? you can't be a professional, who is good for real does the wrinkles and folds in the models, not painted on. You're a beginner at most, a noob in 3D. Last chance to give me the money back, or I'll make sure nobody will ever buy anything else from you ever again
• etc etc.

So, aside from the fraudulent behavior of this guy, that's the common (mis)conception in SL about 3D content: everything has to be geometry detailed to the most, texture is a plus in the best case, if not seen as unimportant because the mesh has the required detail. So with such a vast userbase bearing this mindset, would creators really care about performance? "if i don't do this way, i won't sell. It's a matter of public image" is what a well known mesh heads creator, who i won't name here but i will gladly tell privately to anyone curious about, replied to me once.

OK, so some customers really want super high detail. That's the market at the high end. Charge them more. But the viewer only needs to deliver that at very close range. Like when the object is filling half the screen. Further away than that, you can drop to the baked low poly version.

In SL, permanent baking means no user color or texture changes. So:

• Good LODs at low poly count.
• Has fine detail when inspected closely
• Mod.

Pick two.

Now, can that be beaten with Bakes on Mesh? If not, just sell a really expensive fatpack with lots of color and texture options.

[NiranV Dean]

1 hour ago, animats said:

OK, so some customers really want super high detail. That's the market at the high end. Charge them more. But the viewer only needs to deliver that at very close range. Like when the object is filling half the screen. Further away than that, you can drop to the baked low poly version.

In SL, permanent baking means no user color or texture changes. So:

• Good LODs at low poly count.
• Has fine detail when inspected closely
• Mod.

Pick two.

Now, can that be beaten with Bakes on Mesh? If not, just sell a really expensive fatpack with lots of color and texture options.

OK, so some people really want to complain about SL's self-inflicted bad performance.

 

Fixed it for ya, no thanks necessary!

Edited August 31, 2019 by NiranV Dean

[OptimoMaximo]

3 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

That's quite nice of you listening to him that far.

I think i would have burned down his house, poisened his water, abducted his children and destroyed his fields midway through.

 

14 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

OK, so some people really want to complain about SL's self-inflicted bad performance.

 

Fixed it for ya, no thanks necessary!

You made my day, a good laughter is always welcome, especially when it's so spot on and true! 🤣 I couldn't do better