ARCTan -- 2020? What do you want to see?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

7 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Yes, half a million triangles for not all that big decor items  --- while not becoming the norm yet, the trend is increasing. I cringe and move on. 

I will say it is absolutely a norm already. I see more stores doing it terribly than I see them do it even decently.

[Chic Aeon]

44 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I will say it is absolutely a norm already. I see more stores doing it terribly than I see them do it even decently.

Happy I have a lot of friends that actually DO understand why they DON'T want to make  half a million for a cutting board and fruit decor item LOL.  But I do agree it is increasing and now a quarter of a million triangles doesn't seem "that bad" in comparison when obviously IT IS LOL.   I don't really have great hopes for ARCTAN but I will be pleased with anything going in the right direction.   There are, however a lot of creators that I never even bother to view thier offerings because I know how horribly complex it is and I LIKE my framerates close to a hundred.

 

 

[Lucia Nightfire]

We need a no-mod tax/penalty for content with excessive triangles or texture memory if the excess exists partially among a multi-link object.

Had it been mod, the end-user could have potentially made the content more efficient by modding textures or delinking unnecessary/excessive components.

Since it is no-mod and cannot be fixed, it will cost 10 - 25% more land impact / complexity.

I'm sure the majority of the public will LOVE this idea. 😉

[Rob Huntsman]

I would like to see SL run at 50-60 FPS average. In addition with land being cheaper. Those would probably be my only two wishes.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/31/2019 at 5:46 PM, Chic Aeon said:

According to current sources ARCTan, a project to update rendering cost, land impact, and related things like mesh upload costs, is in progress once again after some hiatus time.  I am posting this in general as it concerns everyone -- not just creators, but purchasers and even folks that never buy a thing but wander amidst the pretty regions. 

 

There were plenty of problems when mesh was new. Many of those have been solved or a reasonable work-around found.  But much like office furniture is often  made for 6 foot 5 men, the uploader defaults were designed to work well for simple medium sized buildings.   Nothing wrong with that -- except of course there are many other mesh items being made besides those middle sized rectangular abodes.  There are smart ways to work with SL mesh and not so smart ways, but there is no real incentive --- aside from having our SL world run smoother -- for creators to make the more "industry standard" choices -- or even get close.  

 

I went shopping today. I WANTED to buy some things.  I found some lovely decor items.   But?   

 

But a medium sized vase with simple flowers checked out at 92,000 triangles.  It could have looked as good at 24,000 triangle -- likely less. We won't even talk about the number of 1024 textures on that small item (sigh).  STILL, it was only 1 land impact.   So in many people's eyes a bargain. 

 

I TPed home even though I WOULD have purchased it had it been able to boast a lower poly count. 

 

 Two other decor items had the same high triangle and texture issues. Again, TP to home. 

 

If I take myself back to my few years at Inworldz, I can assure folks there is a more sane way to measure land impact.  Inworldz threw out our current  "small item" bonus that pretty much overlooks the complexity of an item if it is small. They made a different system even though the uploader looked the same. Many items that would be 1 LI in SL (these were my things so low tri count to start with) became 2 li there. BUT, large items weren't penalized as they are in SL.   It was based more on the triangle count than our current Linden uploader.   

 

More is not better so far as mesh goes.  A 125,000 triangle ashtray that was made to be a replacement for a photograph is not appropriate for our platform. And still we have a preponderance (it seems to be increasing) of heavy mesh  -- mesh that slows down computers, that of both the item's owner and any nearby residents. There needs to be SOME sort of incentive to stop making such heavy mesh.  Basing a big part of ARCTan on triangles (or vertices) count would be a good start.  

.   

I am hoping that ARCTan does indeed shake up the world a bit. We've been going down a bumpy road for a long while now. Time to make the road a little smoother. 

Could you remind me how to see those vertices things again?

The other day I went to visit this drop-dead gorgeous landscaped island which was fabulously decorated, with all kinds of little knick-knacks and plants and so on. And some avatars who, like you, were in the know about vertices, were complaining to me that this thing or that thing had a zillion squares -- which is why there was lag or gray squares or whatever. Lag is relative, of course, and since I live in a state of poor vision, I don't mind it much. This island sadly has sunk into the sea now, possibly due to its over-vertice-ment. I vowed to try to police this on my own sims, as I try to do with time-eating scripts now, once you tell me how to do it.

[Erwin Solo]

9 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Oh, sweet summer child...

I have dozens and dozens of examples of stores who have no idea.

 

Those aren't houses and the like, which get the size tax. 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, Erwin Solo said:

Those aren't houses and the like, which get the size tax. 

Ah, sure, I figured "and the like" qualified anything that would be permanently rezzed rather than attached. Here's one of the first results I got on MP for a skybox:

Now, while this creator has a pretty good grasp on triangle control, something else is very amiss...

And if I look around the store some more, it shows that even they fall into the same trap.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Erwin Solo]

Perhaps we agree that the size-premium on Li isn't working out very well.  It's encouraging people to use simple mesh converters to convert old sculpties at high resolutions for tiny objects.

[Chic Aeon]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Could you remind me how to see those vertices things again?

The other day I went to visit this drop-dead gorgeous landscaped island which was fabulously decorated, with all kinds of little knick-knacks and plants and so on. And some avatars who, like you, were in the know about vertices, were complaining to me that this thing or that thing had a zillion squares -- which is why there was lag or gray squares or whatever. Lag is relative, of course, and since I live in a state of poor vision, I don't mind it much. This island sadly has sunk into the sea now, possibly due to its over-vertice-ment. I vowed to try to police this on my own sims, as I try to do with time-eating scripts now, once you tell me how to do it.

 Right Click and Inspect Objects.

 

 

 

I am not sure if you can see them in the Linden viewer, but here is an article on how to see in Firestorm (and perhaps other third party viewers who have added the code). 

 

https://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-new-firestorm-building-and-shopping.html

Edited September 27, 2019 by Chic Aeon

[Erwin Solo]

You can also see in the Edit floater in the Objects tab.