Blurry Textures...Blurry on Two Different Sims

[FairreLilette]

Hello,

I am having this problem.

I've taken off huds, reduced draw distance, checked those alpha things, relogged, all things suggested in the thread below.  The thread below suggests it's "texture thrashing" but why on two sims in two different regions?

I'm not sure if I've having "texture thrashing" because I took the sweatshirts to another region completely and the texture is still blurry.

However, the textures were not blurry when I first made the sweatshirts.   But first it was one sweatshirt that was blurry, and then two sweatshirts were blurry and then all three were blurry...plus others blurry. 

If it's happening on several sims and in several regions, what is the problem with some of my textures?  

Do they have a virus?

Thanks for any further advice. 

edit to add:  Of note:  I made by textures 512 x 512.  

 

Edited November 30, 2019 by FairreLilette

[ChinRey]

It's most likely a corrupted cache file. It happens every now and then: the downloading is interrupted, the viewer doesn't register it and once an incomplete copy is stored in your cache, the viewer will keep using it rather than download a fresh copy.

This is one of the few occasions when it actually makes sense to clear your cache.

Edited November 30, 2019 by ChinRey

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

However, the textures were not blurry when I first made the sweatshirts.   But first it was one sweatshirt that was blurry, and then two sweatshirts were blurry and then all three were blurry...plus others blurry. 

If it's happening on several sims and in several regions, what is the problem with some of my textures?  

Do they have a virus?

 

If it happens on a large variety of items (not just your sweatshirts) then it is most likely texture thrashing. If it is just one or two specific textures that are blurry (and are blurry on more than one sim) then it is most likely a corrupt texture.  One test would be to see if a friend also sees the sweatshirt  a blurry.  If they do not, then you know that it is NOT your texture that has been corrupted (that can happen and then you do need to replace the texture). 

If it is JUST your problem then using the Refresh Texture choice in Firestorm might fix it at least temporarily.   Clearing your cache would be the next step.   If it is texture trashing (I had that just recently) then enlarging your texture cache  will likely get rid of the blurriness.   

 

Good luck.   Not a virus :D.  Happens often in Second Life. 

[DilliDallagio]

My own experimentation with texture thrashing in the viewers I used lead me to believe that I could up the texture memory the viewer needs and the thrashing went away. that is if the graphics card I had would allow it.

The iMac I used to use for SL had 512MB of video RAM and allowing for the systems own needs of it, left me with about 128MB available for viewer rendering use. It was a thrashapalooza. My current system has 8GB of video RAM and the viewers will auto-default to using 2~4GB of it for viewer rendering. Have not had a thrashing issue or even blurry textures at all.

(Well, except for when I could run an SL viewer and that had a maximum setting of 512MB for textures in its settings... then the thrashing returned.)

[FairreLilette]

Okay, I need to find some of these steps.  And, it doesn't happen on too many textures I have...it's just the sweatshirts.  

Where is the TEXTURE REFRESH?

I personally think these are corrupt textures because I tried one on a fresh model and it was still blurry...so I changed the textures ever so slightly in Photoshop and made fresh textures of each one and they seem to be working now.

I don't have the problem too much...it was just on two of my sweatshirt styles.   

I have my textures set at allow maximum of 512.  I don't know if I should up that or not because it seems to render most everything and I'm sure there must be 1024 textures it's rezzing.  Maybe not...I really don't know.  

Wish I had 8 @DilliDallagio...sounds great!

I will keep an eye on it...if it continues...I will clear my cache.  

Thanks bunches everyone!   It's stable for now with new textures I made for each one.  

 

Edited November 30, 2019 by FairreLilette

[animats]

I think there's a viewer bug where a texture gets loaded at low resolution, but the request for a load at high resolution takes a very long time to happen.

All the detail in the background loaded, yet the big sign right in front of the avatar is still blurry. I've seen it take as long as a minute for situations like this to clear up. The network traffic falls off to a very low level; it's not scarce network resources.

 

Which way was that store I came here for? Signs in the foreground seem to be badly handled by the viewer. (Firestorm 6.3.2 here)

These are all from first visits to a new area, where the texture would not be in cache. Cache is on a SSD, anyway, so loads from there are fast.

This is a very common problem. Go to some place with lots of pictures or vendors, and walk right up to one. Wait for it to load at full resolution. It usually takes a while. The viewer needs some work on this. It happens even when there's plenty of network capacity available.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, animats said:

I think there's a viewer bug where a texture gets loaded at low resolution, but the request for a load at high resolution takes a very long time to happen.

That can happen too.

It's usually fairly easy to see the difference between the various blurry picture issues though.

• With delayed loading the problem will sort itself out. It may take several minutes but not hours and it certainly won't persist through relogs.
• A corrupted cache file will only affect a single texture and remain through logouts. It too will sort itself out eventually but it usually takes days and even weeks.
• Texture trashing will not be specific to a single texture, it will cause different texture to go in and out of focus.

The conclusion: Second Life is a heaven for the true bug connosieur who really knows how to appreciate the subtle varieties in the way different digital critters behave.

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by ChinRey

[Penny Patton]

6 hours ago, animats said:

I think there's a viewer bug where a texture gets loaded at low resolution, but the request for a load at high resolution takes a very long time to happen.

Possible, but it's also important to remember that we tend to use too many large textures in SL. It pays to be picky about the content you build with, using content with a low memory footprint (ie: fewer and smaller textures), and when making your own content be smart about texture use. You want to get the best possible results with the fewest and smallest textures possible.

Since almost no one in SL does this, your viewer is quickly overwhelmed with texture fetch requests, and you run out of memory to keep them all rezzed.

[OptimoMaximo]

4 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

Since almost no one in SL does this, your viewer is quickly overwhelmed with texture fetch requests, and you run out of memory to keep them all rezzed.

Dare i say this is the field for the implementation of a proper mip mapping system. We have (poor) LoDs implementation but textures don't. It's probably time for that too. And without a debug setting to disable it. 

[FairreLilette]

On 11/30/2019 at 3:43 PM, animats said:

I think there's a viewer bug where a texture gets loaded at low resolution, but the request for a load at high resolution takes a very long time to happen.

All the detail in the background loaded, yet the big sign right in front of the avatar is still blurry. I've seen it take as long as a minute for situations like this to clear up. The network traffic falls off to a very low level; it's not scarce network resources.

 

Which way was that store I came here for? Signs in the foreground seem to be badly handled by the viewer. (Firestorm 6.3.2 here)

These are all from first visits to a new area, where the texture would not be in cache. Cache is on a SSD, anyway, so loads from there are fast.

This is a very common problem. Go to some place with lots of pictures or vendors, and walk right up to one. Wait for it to load at full resolution. It usually takes a while. The viewer needs some work on this. It happens even when there's plenty of network capacity available.

You know, this might sound weird but if you look at those two things that did not rez...both could have been made with layers or alphas - those signs and the shadows could be alpha too or set partially transparent.  I am having one helluva time with this alpha blending new feature.  It's horrendous!  This alpha blending thing (it's a fairly new feature) is now ruining my design completely as I want the top half of the top to be no alpha blending but the bottom half to be alpha blending for a semi sheer lace and it's going cookoo on me. When I teleport it switches the lower half of the top back to OFF OF ALPHA BLENDING.  But, if you look at the sweatshirts I made above...they contain an alpha overlay for the fairy picture and so did the other sweatshirt that was blurry have an alpha overlay but it did not need to be set on alpha blending.  But, I have noticed this blurriness since the alpha blending feature as I use alphas on a lot of my textures.  But, some don't need alpha blending but it thinks it does anyways and keeps setting it to alpha blending when it's only an alpha overlay made in Photoshop.  I hate this alpha blending thing!!!!!!!!!

Anyhow, this alpha blending thing is completely ruining my creation right now and I need to start a new thread about alpha blending.  But, I will state, it is a horrible feature!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm so angry it...it gives me nothing but problems that I want to another viewer without alpha blending.  

But, even if I get a viewer without alpha blending...if people buy my creation...they will have the problems I am having if they have alpha blending in their viewer.  

I am so furious and have been with this alpha blending feature for a while but this is ruining my creation I spent a lot of time as well as other creations too!

The first picture is how the top should look.  But when I teleport or change from pants to skirts, it turns the alpha blending off on the bottom lace sheer as shown in the 2nd photo.   And, sometimes the alpha blending turns itself ON when my texture contains an alpha I've used in Photoshop.  It is not, however, an alpha.  This feature is horrid...just horrid.  

And why the heck is a feature turning itself off and on?  Why doesn't it respond to the correct command?  It's changing things without authorization from me....the alpha blending thing.  It does it by itself..turns itself on and off.  

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[FairreLilette]

20 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

Possible, but it's also important to remember that we tend to use too many large textures in SL. It pays to be picky about the content you build with, using content with a low memory footprint (ie: fewer and smaller textures), and when making your own content be smart about texture use. You want to get the best possible results with the fewest and smallest textures possible.

Since almost no one in SL does this, your viewer is quickly overwhelmed with texture fetch requests, and you run out of memory to keep them all rezzed.

If you look at the photos again though Penny, those signs and the shadows...those could all be alpha things though...this alpha blending feature has been nothing but a nightmare since it was introduced.  If there is a bug, it's there...in that alpha blending thing. 

Plus, if you read my OP...I said I use 512 textures.  There was nothing over-whelming my computer.  My textures ARE 512 x 512. I edited that in from the beginning of my OP.  

I believe there is a bug in the alpha blending feature as all those examples shown by animats look like they could be victims of the alpha blending massacre that has been happening to my items too since it's inception.  It's a horrible feature.  I had been furnishing my clubs for awhile but back to building for a few weeks now and it's massacre my stuff.  It will set it to alpha blending ON by itself to when it doesn't need it either.   Plus it also shuts itself off without a command prompt.  

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[FairreLilette]

On 11/30/2019 at 3:43 PM, animats said:

 

This is a very common problem. Go to some place with lots of pictures or vendors, and walk right up to one. Wait for it to load at full resolution. It usually takes a while. The viewer needs some work on this. It happens even when there's plenty of network capacity available.

Yes, vendors too.  And what do vendor photos have in common with all the photos in this thread?  Vendor photos have text and are often layered with alphas in Photoshop.  By, alpha, I mean an alpha is placed over a texture in Photoshop to make one combined texture.  However, when I import textures that I used alphas on, it sets it to alpha blending.  It doesn't need alpha blending just because the texture was made with some alphas or text in it.  

Plus, seriously, this sounds like some kind of a script doing that.  And, scripts could be laggy.  However, this is a script that is horrendous!  It's botched up so much of my stuff I cannot even begin to tell you how much.  

And, I don't want a feature going on and off without authorization by me via a command prompt.  That just ain't right at all. 

p.s.  It sets itself to alpha blending with just text on the texture also.   

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Anyhow, this alpha blending thing is completely ruining my creation right now and I need to start a new thread about alpha blending.  But, I will state, it is a horrible feature!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm so angry it...it gives me nothing but problems that I want to another viewer without alpha blending. 

Alpha blending is not new, it's the way Second Life handled transparency right from the start. They didn't use the word for it before because it was the only option that existed. It's those other alpha modes that are new. Or maybe we should call them newish. They were parts of the new materials that were introduced in 2012 or 2013 along with normal and specular maps so they've been around for a while now.

I think the date explains a lot. This was towards the end of the six dark years when the LL developers were unable to do anything right. (I'm not sure exactly why but they did have some very fine developers and programmers even during those years so it must have been some sort of management problem. When good workers do a poor job it's always a management problem.)

 

6 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

And why the heck is a feature turning itself off and on?

Oh yes, it's back! LL has killed that bug at least twice but it keeps returning from its grave. Could be a good plot for a game or a horror movie: "The Rise of the Zombie Bugs".

[OptimoMaximo]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I think the date explains a lot. This was towards the end of the six dark years when the LL developers were unable to do anything right. (I'm not sure exactly why but they did have some very fine developers and programmers even during those years so it must have been some sort of management problem. When good workers do a poor job it's always a management problem.)

So what exactly changed from those Dark Years? Management names? Because the modus operandi hasn't.

[FairreLilette]

4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Alpha blending is not new, it's the way Second Life handled transparency right from the start. They didn't use the word for it before because it was the only option that existed. It's those other alpha modes that are new. Or maybe we should call them newish. They were parts of the new materials that were introduced in 2012 or 2013 along with normal and specular maps so they've been around for a while now.

I think the date explains a lot. This was towards the end of the six dark years when the LL developers were unable to do anything right. (I'm not sure exactly why but they did have some very fine developers and programmers even during those years so it must have been some sort of management problem. When good workers do a poor job it's always a management problem.)

 

Oh yes, it's back! LL has killed that bug at least twice but it keeps returning from its grave. Could be a good plot for a game or a horror movie: "The Rise of the Zombie Bugs".

I am not sure that alpha blending thing the way it is in my Firestorm viewer now was there from when I started SL...as I cannot remember.  I do remember though that I saw the materials window and the alpha blending thing...and thought ooooooo, a new feature!

Well, it has been nothing short of a nightmare trying to work with it.  I will shut it off, it turns itself back on again...and repeat 50 million times.  Just setting up my little store was horrendous.  The things I'd rez, it set to alpha blending and the object would go semi-transparent and I had to shut it off on every object.  

But still, why is this alpha blending thing turning itself on and off without a command prompt?  The shoes for my store that I rezzed were not alpha and yet upon rez, the alpha blending thing would turn on.

Well, what should be done about this because it has made building horrid....simply horrid.  There is no other way to put it.  

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, OptimoMaximo said:

So what exactly changed from those Dark Years? Management names? Because the modus operandi hasn't.

Oh, I think it has although it didn't happen over night and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Look at some of the big projects from 2008-2013 such as sculpts, system vegetation, Second Life Enterprise, the Marketplace, mesh, New materials, Project Interesting and SSB. Most of these ideas were actually very good in themselves but they were all rushed through with poor task analyzis, hardly any consequence analyzis and no QC worth mentioning. And they were all isolated projects, not part of anything resembling an overall strategy and as often as not conflicting with existing SL functionalities and each other. During that time period JIRAs also piled up, they were not able to process bug reports efficiently, and communication with the customers dropped to rock bottom.

I'm not saying everything has been all well since Ebbe and Oz took over, there's still a lot of room for improvement. But until very recently at least they have been slowly but surely improving and they never make the kind of blunders that used to be business as usual. The only recent project I can think of that even resembles what was going on back then are fitted mesh and the MOP update. But neither was nearly as bad and as far as I can see, the big mistakes in their implementations were all caused by the developers trusting old code fromt he six dark years.

---

I can give you one example of the difference. Some of you may remember that there used to be a bug that caused meshes with three or four faces to swap to lower LoD earlier than they were supposed to, for some meshes much, much earlier (I'm talking about meshes that were suppsoed to be rendered at high actually being render at lowest here). In 2013 I filed a JIRA about it, not knowing that Drongle had already tried the same several times. The Linden who was assigned the case did not understand what I was talking about. He could look at the picture I posted with two meshes side by side, both identical in all ways execpt one was affected by the bug and rendered at lwoest LoD, the otehr wasn't and rendered at high LoD. He still didn't get the point. So nothing was done about it of course.

In 2016 I filed a new JIRA about it. This time it was assigned to Grumpity. She replied almost immediately, agreed that ye s, this was a bg and explained how the mistake happened. The next tiem the viewer was updated, the problem was gone.

[ChinRey]

9 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

But still, why is this alpha blending thing turning itself on and off without a command prompt?

Dodgy programming. But I happen to know who was in charge of that particular project and from what else I have seen of his work, I'm convinced he would never have allowed it to happen unless he was so seriously squeezed for time and resources he couldn't do any quality control at all. I believe a good old rule from the Wild West applies here: Don't shoot the pianist, he's doing his best.

 

16 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

The shoes for my store that I rezzed were not alpha and yet upon rez, the alpha blending thing would turn on.

Oh, that's a completely different issue and it has nothing to do with the Second Life software, it's Photoshop.

These days Photoshop (and Gimp too) will automatically add an alpha channel even to images that aren't supposed to have any transparency at all. Usally that isn't a problem, the fiel size increases a little bit but that's all. However, once you try to use such an image in Second Life or other virtual realities, the viewer will treat it as a transparent texture even if every single picture is fully opaque. That can cause a lot of problems. The solution is to strip the alpha channel before you upload. Don't ask me how it's done in Photoshop, I don't use that program myself. I'm sure there are others who can help you  though.

[FairreLilette]

14 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Dodgy programming. But I happen to know who was in charge of that particular project and from what else I have seen of his work, I'm convinced he would never have allowed it to happen unless he was so seriously squeezed for time and resources he couldn't do any quality control at all. I believe a good old rule from the Wild West applies here: Don't shoot the pianist, he's doing his best.

 

Oh, that's a completely different issue and it has nothing to do with the Second Life software, it's Photoshop.

These days Photoshop (and Gimp too) will automatically add an alpha channel even to images that aren't supposed to have any transparency at all. Usally that isn't a problem, the fiel size increases a little bit but that's all. However, once you try to use such an image in Second Life or other virtual realities, the viewer will treat it as a transparent texture even if every single picture is fully opaque. That can cause a lot of problems. The solution is to strip the alpha channel before you upload. Don't ask me how it's done in Photoshop, I don't use that program myself. I'm sure there are others who can help you  though.

Okay thanks for all the info very much!

 

As for me, first things first.  I am going to update my viewer to BOM.  I haven't done it because I have been very busy furnishing a new club.  I only have been back to building a short while.

Next, I had a work around with shoes...I turned alpha blending to off manually after rez.  

How to remove the alpha channel from Photoshop.  I didn't know it was doing that although it did occur to me there is something going in Photoshop that is not compatible with the current viewer I have...as this is not my first viewer.  And then I got to thinking about it setting it to alpha blending with just text...perhaps then it needs text as an overlay in Photoshop?   Iow, I mean to use the overlay command in Photoshop to make it one texture - text and it's background...but that does seem needless really.  

However, with my top above....I don't have any current work around.  It wants me to either make the whole thing alpha blending or none....yet when I have it split...it keeps turning the alpha blending off on the bottom of the top by itself.  

I am going to try to make the bottom half first with alpha blending and the top of the top second without alpha blending and try that after I download a new viewer.  That's all I can think of right now.  

But, I did want to say...I use a lot of alphas and layers in my textures and it's been a horrendous experience getting them to work in SL...and I am not "new" to building.  Why it started doing this...I have no idea because it wasn't always like this with SL.

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Next, I had a work around with shoes...I turned alpha blending to off manually after rez.

Yes, that works too but it's not ideal. The alpha channel still adds 33% to the file size, wasting bandwidth and possibly VRAM and, as you've already said, there's always a chance it'll switch back to alpha blending at some point sicne that is still the default.

Edited December 2, 2019 by ChinRey

[FairreLilette]

1 minute ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, that works too but it's not ideal. The alpha channel still adds 25% to the file size, wasting bandwidth and possibly VRAM and, as you've already said, there's always a chance it'll switch back to alpha blending at some point sicne that is still the default.

Wow...okay...I didn't know that.  I'm been using the items as a vendor themselves for my store.  You click on the item and either receive a copy or the contents....and mostly each item is 1 prim/1 LI so I thought 'why not'?....it looks cute.  

My alts can rez my store sim fine though...no rez issues whatsoever and fast load...probably because my textures are 512 x 512.  

Okay, thanks again for that info.  Aye aye aye.  It's a lot of work making items and dealing with this alpha blending things too, and I have to do ten tops over now.  I better do first things first and try the newest viewer.  

[OptimoMaximo]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Don't shoot the pianist, he's doing his best.

Indeed, the problem is the management... So again, what's changed? More zealous pianists and less meddling management perhaps? 

[ChinRey]

Just now, OptimoMaximo said:

Indeed, the problem is the management... So again, what's changed? More zealous pianists and less meddling management perhaps? 

Maybe the management was too busy with Sansar to pay attention?

That's a bit more than a joke. Remember, I did say "until very recently". Now, what else happened very recently and how will it affect SL? Time will show.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

My alts can rez my store sim fine though...no rez issues whatsoever and fast load...probably because my textures are 512 x 512. 

Unless you use different viewers for different alts, they'll also have all the textures in your store cached. That helps a lot.

Keeping texture resolution down certainly helps and yes, that is more important for memory usage than alphas. Adding an alpha channel will add 33% to the file size (not 25% as I originally said in the previous post, sorry). Increasing the resolution from 512x512 to 1024x1024 will add 300%. Both those numbers are big enough to matter but it's easy to see which of them matters the most.

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

Unless you use different viewers for different alts, they'll also have all the textures in your store cached. That helps a lot.

Keeping texture resolution down certainly helps and yes, that is more important for memory usage than alphas. Adding an alpha channel will add 33% to the file size (not 25% as I originally said in the previous post, sorry). Increasing the resolution from 512x512 to 1024x1024 will add 300%. Both those numbers are big enough to matter but it's easy to see which of them matters the most.

Oh, no my alts are on the same viewer....so I thought it might be something like that.

I need a correction too.  It does not let the lower half of the top stay on alpha blending if the top part is also on alpha blending.  It just keeps shutting the real alpha part (the lace ruffle on the bottom) to OFF upon teleport or change from pants to skirt.  

In essence what this alpha blending thing is doing in my latest viewer IS turning the alpha blending on for items that are not alpha, and turning the alpha blending off for items that are a real alpha.   This is what I've been dealing with...but not on every item or I would have died from stress probably or given up.  Is there any way to secure this alpha blending deal with a command?...but it would need a command for each part and I don't think that is possible.  

I will be changing viewers later this afternoon.  I can't do it right now.  

Edited December 2, 2019 by FairreLilette

[FairreLilette]

I completed the installation and am now on the BOM viewer.  However, it is still turning the alpha part of my top (the lace part on the bottom) to off upon teleport or changing the pants to a skirt.  Where or how the texture for the lace on the bottom is being generated into a white part makes no sense because it's a real alpha there.  There are no white parts there on the texture as those have been alpha-ed out.   

I am not sure what to do.  Am I supposed to file a JIRA?  I've tried every work-around I could think of.  Nothing is working to keep the real alpha part (the lace at the bottom) on alpha blending...it keeps turning to off by itself.  

Edited December 3, 2019 by FairreLilette