Squashed Cylinder

[NietzscheWasRight]

I am trying to upload a simple mesh that's just a bent cylinder, but when I rezz it, it becomes stretched in one direction. It appears fine in the preview window. Does anyone know what's going on?

 

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, NietzscheWasRight said:

I am trying to upload a simple mesh that's just a bent cylinder, but when I rezz it, it becomes stretched in one direction. It appears fine in the preview window. Does anyone know what's going on?

 

If it is tiny (hard to tell from the screenshot) then it is because there is a minimum size and the mesh will change shape in order to meet the requirements of that minimum size. That would be the most obvious answer. 

 

PS -- whatever it is you have WAY too many vertices for SL. You need to start with a much simpler torus shape -- like 16 or 24 and use SMOOTH to make it appear "smooth". 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Chic Aeon

[NietzscheWasRight]

Yes, I wanted to make a really tiny padlock for some jewellery. I didn't know there is a minimum size for mesh. It turns out I can actually make a much smaller object of the same shape from an ordinary SL torus with path cut and hole size changed. Thanks.

[Chic Aeon]

5 minutes ago, NietzscheWasRight said:

Yes, I wanted to make a really tiny padlock for some jewellery. I didn't know there is a minimum size for mesh. It turns out I can actually make a much smaller object of the same shape from an ordinary SL torus with path cut and hole size changed. Thanks.

Typically you JOIN (like linking) all parts of your jewelry together before exporting so then you don't have those kinds of issues. And the mesh one will look MUCH better than the prim one and likely the whole necklace or whatever would be just one land impact (so less rendering costs). 

[NietzscheWasRight]

What do you mean by "use SMOOTH"?

[MaxMare]

Apply auto smooth or edge smooth (nomenclature depends on the software you are using) , this will resolve  the hard edge issue you seem to have, more visible in the preview window...btw with smooth applied you can get a cylindrical shape with as little as 4 vertical edges or if that part of the mesh is more so in focus then  I`d go with 8-16 max (you seem to have idk 30 vertical edges on that bent cylinder which is really really over the top)....

 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

the minimum size for any object in SL is 1x1x1cm

As on the subject of smoothing vs no smoothing. for small objects 4 sides can do the job just fine.

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

PS -- whatever it is you have WAY too many vertices for SL. You need to start with a much simpler torus shape -- like 16 or 24 and use SMOOTH to make it appear "smooth".

 

Even 16 may be a bit overkill. What really matters for something liek this, however, is how the LoD models are made since they are the ones that are actually seen. The High model will only be visible when your camera is about 10-20 cm away from the object so it hardly matters how complex it is or how it looks.

This is how I probably would have done it:

High model - curve resolution 12 around the cylinder(I might have gone for 8 or 16, not sure), 24 around the bend (bend resolution numbers are for a full circle):

 

Mid model, 4 around cylinder, 12 around bend (possibly 8 around bend but probably not):

 

Low model either 3 around cylinder, 8 around bend:

 

or possibly:

 

Lowest LoD, either the same as the second low option or a solution with the "inner faces" removed like:

or perhaps even better:

 

[NietzscheWasRight]

10 hours ago, MaxMare said:

Apply auto smooth or edge smooth (nomenclature depends on the software you are using) , this will resolve  the hard edge issue you seem to have, more visible in the preview window...btw with smooth applied you can get a cylindrical shape with as little as 4 vertical edges or if that part of the mesh is more so in focus then  I`d go with 8-16 max (you seem to have idk 30 vertical edges on that bent cylinder which is really really over the top)....

 

Oh I see; smooth it in blender. I thought we were talking about some magical thing in the SL upload panel. When you say auto smooth, do you mean with a modifier? The modifier will be applied when the model is exported, giving a high vertex count anyway?

Edited September 22, 2019 by NietzscheWasRight
Added more info

[NietzscheWasRight]

7 hours ago, ChinRey said:

 

Even 16 may be a bit overkill. What really matters for something liek this, however, is how the LoD models are made since they are the ones that are actually seen. The High model

 

 

SL automatically generates the LoD meshes anyway, doesn't it?

[NietzscheWasRight]

10 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

the minimum size for any object in SL is 1x1x1cm

 

Thanks; that is very good to know.

[ChinRey]

45 minutes ago, NietzscheWasRight said:

SL automatically generates the LoD meshes anyway, doesn't it?

Yes and no. The uploader does have a function to create LoD models automatically but it's rubbish so if you want anything resembling decent LoD, you need to make them yourself. In this case it's quite simple though since all you need to do is delete a few edge loops.

[ChinRey]

54 minutes ago, NietzscheWasRight said:

Thanks; that is very good to know.

As Chic said, you probably don't want to make the shackle as a separate mesh anyway but there is a fairly simple workaround for the 1 cm limit that would work here. Rotate the mesh 45 degrees around the z axis in Blender and then rotate it back after you've uploaded.

Edited September 22, 2019 by ChinRey

[Kyrah Abattoir]

On 9/22/2019 at 10:28 PM, NietzscheWasRight said:

SL automatically generates the LoD meshes anyway, doesn't it?

Yes it does, and they are almost always dreadful, they might aswel just remove that function.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

On 9/22/2019 at 9:21 PM, NietzscheWasRight said:

Oh I see; smooth it in blender. I thought we were talking about some magical thing in the SL upload panel. When you say auto smooth, do you mean with a modifier? The modifier will be applied when the model is exported, giving a high vertex count anyway?

Either the Smooth button in the Shading area of the Tools window in Object mode in Blender for overall, or the Smooth/Flat ones in the UV tab in Edit mode if you want to be more selective. This piece should be fine with the Object mode one.

[ChinRey]

17 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Yes it does, and they are almost always dreadful, they might aswel just remove that function.

They are actually talking about removing it when they launch ArcTan. It hasn't been decided yet.

Anyway, I thought my own reply here was so brillian (ummm... errr...) I decided to post a slightly extended version at my blog. So instead of getting lost in future layers of forum posts, it'll now get lost in an obscure blog nobody bothers to read instead.

 

On 9/22/2019 at 10:21 PM, NietzscheWasRight said:

Oh I see; smooth it in blender. I thought we were talking about some magical thing in the SL upload panel. When you say auto smooth, do you mean with a modifier?

I added an explanation of smooth normals to the blog post.

The uploader does actually have an automatic smooth normals function and although it's rather crude and primitve, it would work fine in this particular case. It's just that it's still easier and quicker to do it in Blender than to mess around with the upload settings.

Edited September 24, 2019 by ChinRey

[NietzscheWasRight]

11 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Either the Smooth button in the Shading area of the Tools window in Object mode in Blender for overall, or the Smooth/Flat ones in the UV tab in Edit mode if you want to be more selective. This piece should be fine with the Object mode one.

Ah, smoothing the normals and exporting them out with the model. Now I understand; thanks.

[NietzscheWasRight]

3 hours ago, ChinRey said:

They are actually talking about removing it when they launch ArcTan. It hasn't been decided yet.

Anyway, I thought my own reply here was so brillian (ummm... errr...) I decided to post a slightly extended version at my blog. So instead of getting lost in future layers of forum posts, it'll now get lost in an obscure blog nobody bothers to read instead.

 

I added an explanation of smooth normals to the blog post.

The uploader does actually have an automatic smooth normals function and although it's rather crude and primitve, it would work fine in this particular case. It's just that it's still easier and quicker to do it in Blender than to mess around with the upload settings.

Thanks; that was really useful info.