Do you care about your render cost?

[Pixie Kobichenko]

 I try to stay around 50k unless I'm taking a picture.  When I go out and see folks with hundreds of thousands of complexity- well, I don't see them- they're automatically jellied for me, I have to wonder how tired their computer must be.   A friend had a wedding last year & said we'd have to have our graphics up on ultra to render her.  So she was aware of her complexity- she just didn't care.  The computer I had at the time wouldn't have rendered her even if I'd tried.  The one I borrow from my son could have handled it easily but I get nervous when I hear all the fans come on and start whirling so I just keep everything on low & even shut off the sky in advanced (unless I'm taking a picture) out of habit.  

[Chic Aeon]

I am usually under 50K also. I like simple things so that helps and typically choose items made by folks that pay attention to their tri counts. That being said, I have my jellydolls turned way up and most folks are solid colors to me anyway so I don't MIND if they want to dress at 200K.   

[Pussycat Catnap]

I obsess over my complexity score endlessly.

Until recently I 'played this game SL' on a 2013 Macbook - and so I had the complexity limit of people I could see set to 80k, and even then more than one person close to that and I could feel the lag.

Now on my new PC I can run this game on maxed out graphics at 60+ fps... but I still watch my complexity score endlessly because I don't want to be 'that person' that lags everyone else around me and comes back with "you don't pay for my account" that's been told to me by some people in places I hang out in before I upgraded my system.

Not everyone can afford an nVidia 2080 RTX GPU... so I try to be kind to those around me.

 

I know the score is a flawed metric, I know some makers know how to get a low score with something that is GPU-intense... I learned to mostly avoid buying from them back before my computer upgrade... but this score is the only metric we've got, so I try to make use of it.

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Nalates Urriah]

33 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I know the score is a flawed metric, I know some makers know how to get a low score with something that is GPU-intense... I learned to mostly avoid buying from them back before my computer upgrade... but this score is the only metric we've got, so I try to make use of it.

It is more out of date than flawed. But, today it doesn't really represent the render load being placed on the computer and that certainly is a flaw.

Five years ago the system was closer to representing the actual render load. Graphics cards, CPUs, memory available, storage speed, the network and more have changed. The ACI/ARC algorithm needs to change to reflect those changes. Plus avatar render cost wasn't that big a thing until mesh and onion-skin-mesh with loads of 1024px textures became a common part of nearly every avatar. Some means of putting pressure on users and designers to create better bodies, hair, and clothes is needed.

[FairreLilette]

20 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

create better bodies, hair, and clothes is needed.

As far as hair, wouldn't the fitmesh be better as it's not scripted with a resizer?  Though perhaps not, it could be scripted in other ways.  

I never use re-sizers in anything.  

People need to learn how to use the built-in SL tools.  You right click on the object you are wearing, choose EDIT and then with your cursor check either MOVE, ROTATE or STRETCH.  Stretch is what resizes objects.

SL should come with a learn the basic SL tools class when you join.  

Also, everything at the push of a button is causing far too many scripts.  Scripts never deleted for me.  My avatar complexity stayed the same even with deleted scripts.

Also, I have my Firestorm set at show maximum texture of 512 for two weeks...and it rezzes everything.

Does the show maximum texture of 512 in Firestorm even work?

Plus, if lots of us have to rez "jelly dolls"...where is the fun in that?  It's yucky!  I make avatars from time to time...I'd like to SEE the avatars.  I do as a Dinkie.  But, I love being a Dinkie.  We are adorkable!  

Edited October 20, 2019 by FairreLilette

[animats]

Part of the idea of Project Arctan is to get people to care more about their avatar render cost. How to make this work without breaking existing content is a regular subject of discussion at Creator User Group. Vir Linden is gathering more data. There's no consensus.

The viewer has the power to render an avatar at any level of detail, as an impostor, or as a jelly doll. How it should use that power is a big question.

How do most avatars and clothing look at "medium" LOD? Acceptable as background characters? Maybe the viewer should be dropping avatars to a lower LOD or to impostor mode sooner. This beats dropping the frame rate to single digits. One approach would be that avatars only go to "high" LOD when in hero mode; close to the viewer and occupying lots of screen space. There's nothing wrong with high-detail avatars provided that only one or two are in that mode at a time. What we don't have now for avatars are good intermediate stages between "insanely complex" and "jellydoll".

I'm very aware of this because I do standalone animesh characters. Those have a high LI cost and object-type LOD handling, so they have to be efficient or they blow the parcel's LI budget. They also have to look good at lower levels of detail, because they're often shown that way. I'd like to see the "medium" level for avis be around the complexity level of a good animesh character - 20,000 tris or so.

(You can look at things at a lower LOD by opening the Firestorm menu and setting the LOD setting to some very low value. It's instructive to set it to zero and see what's still visible.)

 

[FairreLilette]

9 hours ago, animats said:

Part of the idea of Project Arctan is to get people to care more about their avatar render cost. How to make this work without breaking existing content is a regular subject of discussion at Creator User Group. Vir Linden is gathering more data. There's no consensus.

The viewer has the power to render an avatar at any level of detail, as an impostor, or as a jelly doll. How it should use that power is a big question.

How do most avatars and clothing look at "medium" LOD? Acceptable as background characters? Maybe the viewer should be dropping avatars to a lower LOD or to impostor mode sooner. This beats dropping the frame rate to single digits. One approach would be that avatars only go to "high" LOD when in hero mode; close to the viewer and occupying lots of screen space. There's nothing wrong with high-detail avatars provided that only one or two are in that mode at a time. What we don't have now for avatars are good intermediate stages between "insanely complex" and "jellydoll".

I'm very aware of this because I do standalone animesh characters. Those have a high LI cost and object-type LOD handling, so they have to be efficient or they blow the parcel's LI budget. They also have to look good at lower levels of detail, because they're often shown that way. I'd like to see the "medium" level for avis be around the complexity level of a good animesh character - 20,000 tris or so.

(You can look at things at a lower LOD by opening the Firestorm menu and setting the LOD setting to some very low value. It's instructive to set it to zero and see what's still visible.)

 

I set my LOD at 2 often and the avi's look fine.  If you take off use basic shaders...they look terrible.  I don't know if this is helpful information to you or not.  

[Velk Kerang]

As a guy I am one of those I don't really look at that stuff to often. I actually don't think about it personally. I might actually pay more attention to script count if anything at all. I also have the attitude though that LL should design their game to be able to handle this to where it is a non-issue for residents. When I go out I don't really want to hear the first thing out someones mouth being about complexity and/or script counts. So usually if I do chances are I leave that sim and don't return. lol

Edited October 20, 2019 by Velk Kerang
Corrections.

[Syo Emerald]

23 hours ago, Velk Kerang said:

also have the attitude though that LL should design their game to be able to handle this to where it is a non-issue for residents.

What exactly are their options? You can't work around bad/inefficient content. The flaw is build into the very thing SL is: Giving its users the ability to build whatever they want. 

[cheesecurd]

I specifically moved to the SL body version of my avatar just to reduce complexity slightly, I usually hover around 35-40k 

[Conifer Dada]

My render cost is always pretty low so I hardly ever think about it in relation to myself (I don't go in for bento shoelaces or scripted lingerie!) but I do have some custom graphics settings that turn about 33% of people into jellydolls

Edited October 21, 2019 by Conifer Dada

[Nalates Urriah]

On 10/19/2019 at 8:53 PM, FairreLilette said:

As far as hair, wouldn't the fitmesh be better as it's not scripted with a resizer?  Though perhaps not, it could be scripted in other ways.  

I never use re-sizers in anything.  

Hair has to have a feature in the HUD to delete the scripts. Well... some of them do. Scripts in rigged hair are mostly used to change hair color. If hair is no-mod and doesn't have a button in the HUD then you are just out of luck. That is point of demos.

People need to learn how to use the built-in SL tools.  You right click on the object you are wearing, choose EDIT and then with your cursor check either MOVE, ROTATE or STRETCH.  Stretch is what resizes objects.

SL should come with a learn the basic SL tools class when you join.  

It does. When new people login they are taken to training areas. Basic prm editing, dressing and moving are taught. It becomes a matter of whether they paid attention or not.

Also, everything at the push of a button is causing far too many scripts.  Scripts never deleted for me.  My avatar complexity stayed the same even with deleted scripts.

Complexity is not part of the ACI/ARC calculation. Scripts do not add to the render cost in the viewer. Scripts run server side and add to server lag.

Also, I have my Firestorm set at show maximum texture of 512 for two weeks...and it rezzes everything.

I am not sure what you are expecting from this setting. Textures in SL a stored  in JPG2000 format. Every  image has a 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, etc. images in a single file. The setting in Graphics->Render->Restrict... limits the max size request to 512. In general the viewer will only request the size needed to fill the screen area the item is rendering at. Thus far away things will use smaller images. As you zoom in the and the object fills more of screen the viewer downloads the higher rez images.

So the feature is more about avoiding texture thrashing than enhancing performance. I wouldn't expect better performance from this setting. Also, because all images, even 1024 images, have a 512 image everything is going to render.

Does the show maximum texture of 512 in Firestorm even work? AFAIK, yes.

Plus, if lots of us have to rez "jelly dolls"...where is the fun in that?  It's yucky!  I make avatars from time to time...I'd like to SEE the avatars.  I do as a Dinkie.  But, I love being a Dinkie.  We are adorkable!  

Rendering high ACI avatars as jelly dolls is about performance. Those with older, slower computers can lower the setting and get a better FPS.

Dinkies are WAY cute,

 

[Orion Pastorelli]

On 9/10/2019 at 11:32 AM, janetosilio said:

 

Little anecdote: I’m starting to find male avatars are the worst offenders and don’t GAF, either. I was chatting with a nice guy one day. He was cool, so I added him as a friend. The next time I saw him his complexity was 300k. He was completely jellied. I casually mention I couldn’t see him, he was aware it was high, but said “you gotta set to no limits to see me baby.” More curious about what he was wearing I cranked it up and he was wearing some prim tron looking suit from like 2010. It looked nice, but 300k? He said he just liked it and they don’t make em like that anymore. So he likes wearing his old stuff.

This isn’t the first guy I talked to that felt that way or said something to that effect. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say most people are in the 100k-180k range and the people that are higher don’t know or care that it’s higher.

 

He was probably wearing Aeros genitals. Don't get me wrong, I love Aeros and have given them a lot of money over the years. However, when I first started becoming aware of complexity scores I noticed it was higher when I was nude. The culprit? My dick. I have several different models from Aeros, and they all universally add between 60k - 70k to my score. There newest bento genitals, do MUCH better. Its only like 10 K think.

But I also, took a look at some the hair I got from them, its also has a very high complexity score. So I think their mesh modeler just now starting to learn how to optimize their mesh.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Orion Pastorelli

[Sukubia Scarmon]

I do care about my renderweight - I'm usually around 60k, however, some of my outfits do have more - usually I wear those on an empty sandbox in which I assemble a background and take my photo, and on my parcel.
The only exception is the FG Anniversary party, because I participate in the themed contests there. Still, I try to keep it as low as possible, and actually do make a copy of those outfits and de-script them. I take off anything not absolutely needed, like AO (I'll just dance anyway) and teeth (no script in my head means I don't open my mouth, so wearing teeth nobodies gonna see anyway seems pointless). If possible, I swapp of exesive rendercostly items with more effecient ones, even though sometimes it means lettig go of the prettier one. ;_;
Exceptions to that would be gachas, of course - I really wish the stores where I have most gachas of would trade them for copy-no trans ones, but I never really got an answer to that r equest.

[Catrie]

I host at a club, so I try to keep my complexity down pretty low, to try to prevent SL booting me.  I range anywhere from the 35k-75k range, normally.  It could jump up considerably higher, depending on the picture I'm trying to take at the time.  If I find a nice hair that is has a high complexity level, I try not to wear it every day or to shopping events, as I really don't need all that lag and neither do all those around me trying to shop, as well.  I'll save it for a photo shoot, where it's usually just me on a platform, and complexity doesn't matter. 

[shaniqua Sahara]

i'm far from an expert on render cost and such. but triangle count is not the only factor involved. the size of the triangle also plays an equal part in calculating render cost.

you can see that by how the larger you make a rezzed object, the greater the land impact. a ring made of 120,000 triangles can have a LI of 2 while a fireplace made of 60,000 triangles can have a LI of 30.

Edited October 26, 2019 by shaniqua Sahara

[GooseBad]

I try to keep it on the lower side when I'm out and about. If I'm puttering around my home by myself I might put on a cute outfit with higher complexity, just for funs.

I do wish users and creators cared more about these things. People watching is the best part of SL for me, I want to see people's cool avatars, not jellydolls! But the 300k+ rendering monstrosities can make it harder to enjoy being in crowded places. The rendering cost calculations may be imperfect, but you don't need to be an expert to know that you really shouldn't need 100k triangles to make a handbag. I see bodies and even individual parts and clothing pieces that have more polygons than  the average AAA game character, for no visible increase in quality. LL should try to incentivise better mesh practices, sure, but boy would it be nice to see more creators focus on optimizing their models even a little.

[Maitimo]

I just took a look at this again - my complexity when naked (without genitals) comes in at just over 18,000 including hair. I was very pleased to realise that my favourite hair (Alyssa by Magika), which I wear nearly all the time, is under 2k.

The stump I use on my arm was a culprit for a while, at around 6k. It's part of a linked, hud-controlled set which includes both arms in several different positions. Since I use only one of them, and it's mod, I just unlinked all the parts, stuck the Omega script in the one I use, and now that part is only 600. Doing this also means I can do away with the hud controller script that listens to the hud (which I also never used).  The V-Tech flat chest mod is just under 2k. No problem with that.

My favourite baggy jeans from Krankhouse are under 1k, but my favourite top, from the same store, is 10k, which is kind of annoying.  My favourite sneakers are 3,300, however I can save half that by detaching my feet, which would be alpha'd out anyway. I don't normally wear any jewelry or anything else, so the whole outfit comes in at 32k. 

Adding genitals has a big impact; my Aeros is 35k, but I have a much lighter set that weighs in at 3k (and costs only L$49). I still wear that one more often than the Aeros.

[Ajay McDowwll]

I work to stay under 50K when I'm out and about.  Like some others have said, I don't want to be "that" avatar.

It's a bit of a bummer, though... I have some amazing jewelry I'd love to wear, but it drives the value sky high.  So I stick with my wedding ring, and my Maitreya back necklace (if the outfit I'm wearing works with it), and leave it at that.

It's not like you can see my ears anyway

[Waiomao]

I'm usually 80K-120K. Biggest offenders are hair and eyes. Eyes surprised me, but it's really difficult to find even remotely realistic dark brown eyes. POC know what I'm talking about. I finally found some (thanks Used Abused) but they are monsters at 23,292 EACH. Just my eyes add 46,584 to my avatar! Like Catrie said above my count can vary a lot depending on what I'm wearing for photos, so I put stuff on then duck in and out of sims quickly.

[brodiac90]

I'm usually around 75-80k. My Tweenster body is 20k but the biggest offender is my hair at 40k. I do love barberyumyum hair though and being a gacha it is incredibly rare and I am yet to see anyone wearing it so it does make me somewhat unique in that sense.