Dae parsing issue - i don't understand the error

[DAT4BASE]

Hey guys, so i just created an earring that i'd like to import from blender to second life. I triangulated the mesh, made sure not to mirror anything because of the way that blender sometimes messes up with that, the works... but i still got the following error message in my firestorm.log file when i tried to upload it, along with the usual "error: dae parsing issue - see log for details.":

any advice? Thanks

[OptimoMaximo]

12 hours ago, DAT4BASE said:

Hey guys, so i just created an earring that i'd like to import from blender to second life. I triangulated the mesh, made sure not to mirror anything because of the way that blender sometimes messes up with that, the works... but i still got the following error message in my firestorm.log file when i tried to upload it, along with the usual "error: dae parsing issue - see log for details.":

any advice? Thanks

I's basically telling you that the collada .dae file was written incorrectly and an attribute can't be found. We need a bit more info on what you did from the beginning of your export procedure, starting from what 3d software down to the options you turned on/off in the exporter options. Screenshots are useful

[DAT4BASE]

Okay, so i was using blender. I exported using the default export settings for .dae files. I didn't edit any of the export settings because i don't know how I don't really know what to screenshot because there are literally no special options when exporting, but i'll attach a few screenshots anyway:

so yeah, i'm quite confused. Here's a screenshot of what second life says when i try to upload the mesh as a mesh model:

[Kyrah Abattoir]

I don't see you selecting an export preset there.

[DAT4BASE]

2 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I don't see you selecting an export preset there.

what do you mean an exporting preset? which screenshot aree you referring to?

[Kehl Razor]

- Make sure your mesh has UVs created

-Try exporting the dae in polys (not tris) and letting SL do the tri conversion (or exporting in tris if your using polys).  

 - If your mesh is really poly dense try reducing  some of the edge loops.  
 

-Make sure you have removed or deleted histories. 
 

 

[ChinRey]

15 minutes ago, Kehl Razor said:

 - If your mesh is really poly dense try reducing  some of the edge loops. 
 

A file 580 KB dae files implies a triangle count around 3,000-5000 which of course is extremely high for something as small as an earring. But size shouldn't matter to the uploader and a few thousand tris isn't that unusual for alrger objects so I doubt that can be the cause of the problems.

[DAT4BASE]

1 hour ago, Kehl Razor said:

- Make sure your mesh has UVs created

-Try exporting the dae in polys (not tris) and letting SL do the tri conversion (or exporting in tris if your using polys).  

 - If your mesh is really poly dense try reducing  some of the edge loops.  
 

-Make sure you have removed or deleted histories. 
 

 

thanks so much for the advice. I tried triangulating the earring before exporting, as well as not doing so, and neither work? or did you mean something else? sorry i'm still kind of a blender newbie ToT

Also, i'm not quite sure how to remove/delete histories? or what that even is? sorry, could you explain further?

[DAT4BASE]

59 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

A file 580 KB dae files implies a triangle count around 3,000-5000 which of course is extremely high for something as small as an earring. But size shouldn't matter to the uploader and a few thousand tris isn't that unusual for alrger objects so I doubt that can be the cause of the problems.

I tried scaling the earring down and it also didn't work, i still got the same dae parsing issue with the triangle/vertices set as "N/A" ToT

[DAT4BASE]

Let me just add, every time i export the earring from blender, it says it exported 8 objects, as there are different materials to the earring (metal parts and a patterned part). i created UVs and set up nodes and all that so that shouldn't be the information that's missing.

idk, maybe the extra info could be helpful?

[Kehl Razor]

To troubleshoot - if your mesh is made up of multiple parts you could separate the parts and export each part 1 at a time. If everything uploads but one of the parts then you can at least narrow down what Part is giving the error. 

[MaxMare]

Inverted face/s maybe? In max, resetting Xform before export would do the trick, I suppose Blender has some similar feature....also, uploader "doesn`t like" long thin triangles...oh and as Kehl said, don`t triangulate, let SL do that...

There is one silly trick someone told me way back, export your item as .obj, import back to Blender ,  export as collada and try SL again...

btw, I noticed you did not upload any of the lower LODs which will be a problem with unrigged (small) item like earrings, they are going to disappear as soon as you zoom out a little...Also you can have 8 faces and one single UV..Considering it`s a very small object, 8 separate UVs/textures might be a bit of an overkill...

[DAT4BASE]

26 minutes ago, MaxMare said:

Inverted face/s maybe? In max, resetting Xform before export would do the trick, I suppose Blender has some similar feature....also, uploader "doesn`t like" long thin triangles...oh and as Kehl said, don`t triangulate, let SL do that...

There is one silly trick someone told me way back, export your item as .obj, import back to Blender ,  export as collada and try SL again...

btw, I noticed you did not upload any of the lower LODs which will be a problem with unrigged (small) item like earrings, they are going to disappear as soon as you zoom out a little...Also you can have 8 faces and one single UV..Considering it`s a very small object, 8 separate UVs/textures might be a bit of an overkill...

How do i upload lower lods? i've never uploaded separate lods. I didn't even know individually uploading them was a thing, i only do the one .dae file with whatever's inside

[DAT4BASE]

1 hour ago, Kehl Razor said:

To troubleshoot - if your mesh is made up of multiple parts you could separate the parts and export each part 1 at a time. If everything uploads but one of the parts then you can at least narrow down what Part is giving the error. 

Okay, i tried uploading each part individually. It seems to be the big triangle part of the earring that second life has an issue with, every other .dae file was okay uploading-wise. What can i do to make the triangle uploadable? it's kind of the "main attraction"... here's a screenshot of the earring:

And the back bit:

[Fanta UwU]

From my understanding when I usually get this error is USUALLY a high tris count. In the regular collada export it gets the parsing error, HOWEVER the avastar version of the collada export, I do not get this error. I do get a warning that a high tris count will MAYBE cause problems if its quite high up there in detailed objects. (Like Marvelous Designer clothing... They get quite a high count of tris and vectors)

So my understanding is that the triangle, somehow, has a high count of tris and vectors, causing the dae parsing error with the regular collada file. No matter the export settings (aka the defaults, like there is a rigged and unrigged default specifically made for SecondLife.)

Do you mind showing us what it looks like in edit mode?

If you have the avastar collada exporter, give that a try. It always (in my experience) writes the dae. file in an uploadable way to SL and haven't had an issue with it so far. But thats more of a 'bandaid' and not a 'fix'. 

Another thing you can try is scaling it down in blender. From the perspective of it, it looks quite massive in relative to the lines Blender has. Bigger than the body dev kits I got, maybe? It might upload quite big when rezzed or worn when it does upload into SL. So that could be another reason, being the triangle is the biggest part of all the objects.

How you can do this is pressing A (this selects all of your visible objects) then S (scaling) and you can scale it as small or as big as you want. Worth a shot in trying that?

[OptimoMaximo]

10 hours ago, DAT4BASE said:

what do you mean an exporting preset? which screenshot aree you referring to?

In blender 2.8 the  operator panel has been moved to the top right corner of the export window and is visible by pressing the little cog icon. In there you should be able to find the export presets Kyrah is talking about, you need to select the SL static preset,hopefukky ensuring a correct data ordering line avastar does (that exporter is maintained by the avastar devs) 

[DAT4BASE]

11 hours ago, Muiregwen said:

From my understanding when I usually get this error is USUALLY a high tris count. In the regular collada export it gets the parsing error, HOWEVER the avastar version of the collada export, I do not get this error. I do get a warning that a high tris count will MAYBE cause problems if its quite high up there in detailed objects. (Like Marvelous Designer clothing... They get quite a high count of tris and vectors)

So my understanding is that the triangle, somehow, has a high count of tris and vectors, causing the dae parsing error with the regular collada file. No matter the export settings (aka the defaults, like there is a rigged and unrigged default specifically made for SecondLife.)

Do you mind showing us what it looks like in edit mode?

If you have the avastar collada exporter, give that a try. It always (in my experience) writes the dae. file in an uploadable way to SL and haven't had an issue with it so far. But thats more of a 'bandaid' and not a 'fix'. 

Another thing you can try is scaling it down in blender. From the perspective of it, it looks quite massive in relative to the lines Blender has. Bigger than the body dev kits I got, maybe? It might upload quite big when rezzed or worn when it does upload into SL. So that could be another reason, being the triangle is the biggest part of all the objects.

How you can do this is pressing A (this selects all of your visible objects) then S (scaling) and you can scale it as small or as big as you want. Worth a shot in trying that?

thanks so much for this!

also here are the pictures of the triangle in edit mode. I had to split the front and back bits because of the seams, so there's two screenshots:

the front:

 

the back:

also, for some reason scaling the object down doesn't help either. the triangle bit is still preventing second life from uploading properly.

also, unfortunately i don't have avastar. Maybe i could try using that, but as you said, it's just a plaster and not a real fix...

Edited February 17, 2020 by DAT4BASE

[OptimoMaximo]

The hole doesn't have edges connecting it to other vertices, and the automatic triangulation is probably creating problematic geometry to resolve. Try reducing the number of edges within the hole and connect the outer vertices to other vertices on the triangle surface using the knife tool. Right now that's a massive ngon and it might be the culprit

[Da5id Weatherwax]

That's a HUGE amount of geometry for something like an earring, some - like the post and clip - that will never even be seen when it's worn. Anyone who would want to wear that must really love how they look as a jelly-doll

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 hours ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

That's a HUGE amount of geometry for something like an earring, some - like the post and clip - that will never even be seen when it's worn. Anyone who would want to wear that must really love how they look as a jelly-doll

This is important to point out.

Just the hole in the main triangle has 32 inner edges (2 triangles between each) and 64 verts, all of which will have to connect to one corner of the main piece thus creating more triangles. The problem is that the hole will be only a couple pixels big on the screen at most (99% of the time) but each triangle must be re-calculated every frame.

If the hole was 16 or even 8 edges, there wouldn't be a noticeable difference 99% of the time. I would also think that a more angular hole would fit stylistically with the piece.

Don't get me wrong; it looks good. It's just expensive to render.

Also, if I squint closely, the curved surfaces aren't set to smooth shading. Maybe that's one reason for so much topology.

In Blender, go to object mode, select any curved parts, and type "shade smooth" into the command search. It's going to work wonders. You can then go into the Object Data Properties tab and check "auto smooth" to have sharp edges where needed.

The left one has 504 triangles, the right has 156. Can you tell the difference?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[DAT4BASE]

Hey guys, thanks so much for all your advice. I now understand about better seam marking and less edge loops!! After remeshing the triangle, it's now uploadable, but for some reason there's a big ole stretch mark-hole type situation down the centre of the triangle, which is strange seeing as i specifically used the knife to cut down there and added a seam. Also, it'll cost me 35L to upload??? nothing has ever cost me more than 15L to upload, which is making me concerned?

Also, and this is possibly my biggest issue - it isn't applying the textures correctly in the preview. This is what it's supposed to look like:

and this is what it looks like in the uploader:

here's a view from the side: are the models supposed to be slightly transparent in the preview window, or did i do something wrong?

thanks again everyone for your continued help!

UPDATE: when i select "triangulate" in the export options, it gets rid of the seam, but the preview is still kind of transparent and the scaling of the textures is still way off.

Edited February 17, 2020 by DAT4BASE

[Wulfie Reanimator]

26 minutes ago, DAT4BASE said:

Also, it'll cost me 35L to upload??? nothing has ever cost me more than 15L to upload, which is making me concerned?

The knowledge base says:

Quote

When you click Calculate weights & fee, Second Life calculates the download, physics and server weights of your model in order to determine its land impact and Linden dollar upload cost. The base Linden dollar cost to upload is L$10 plus L$10 for each texture applied to the model, and an additional cost based on the complexity of the model.

I'm guessing from your screenshot that your physics model is very complex. What is the "physics weight" of the model? What about the "download weight?"

You should definitely make an explicit physics shape for the earring to lower the cost. I made this mockup (3400 triangles):

Even after using the hardest simplify settings, the physics cost is still 23.5 (that's a LOT)! Depending how I "simplified" the physics shape, the upload cost went as high as 51 L$, so it's never a guaranteed method. You should always make your own, especially when physics don't matter.

So instead I just created a new cube in Blender and sized it roughly the same size as the model itself. Then I exported the cube (no seams or UV maps or anything) and used it as the physics shape. Whoa, 0.3 physics weight!

Edited February 17, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Fanta UwU]

1 hour ago, DAT4BASE said:

"Also, it'll cost me 35L to upload??? nothing has ever cost me more than 15L to upload, which is making me concerned?"

 

If there are three separate pieces that are not 'joined' into one mesh, it will be 35L for the 'instances'. Meaning any other meshes in one upload which costs 10L each. It looks like three separate meshes, which equals to the 30 or so linden.

[DAT4BASE]

12 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The knowledge base says:

I'm guessing from your screenshot that your physics model is very complex. What is the "physics weight" of the model? What about the "download weight?"

You should definitely make an explicit physics shape for the earring to lower the cost. I made this mockup (3400 triangles):

Even after using the hardest simplify settings, the physics cost is still 23.5 (that's a LOT)! Depending how I "simplified" the physics shape, the upload cost went as high as 51 L$, so it's never a guaranteed method. You should always make your own, especially when physics don't matter.

So instead I just created a new cube in Blender and sized it roughly the same size as the model itself. Then I exported the cube (no seams or UV maps or anything) and used it as the physics shape. Whoa, 0.3 physics weight!

Ahhh so i should create a bounding box myself and use it as the physics, gotcha.

Well, i've just done it and it's brought down the price significantly (i have 36 Lindens left over from something and previously i didn't have enough L to upload it; now it's 32L.

But i still have the texture issue. Is there some specific way i can get it to go from looking like this (left image in second life upload previewer) to this (how it looks in blender)?

also, here are the other settings i've made. i'm not sure if they're optimal for the object, so i just figured i'd put them here so someone could maybe explain to me in layman's terms what i'm *supposed* to be doing, but am not:

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, DAT4BASE said:

Ahhh so i should create a bounding box myself and use it as the physics, gotcha.

Well, i've just done it and it's brought down the price significantly (i have 36 Lindens left over from something and previously i didn't have enough L to upload it; now it's 32L.

But i still have the texture issue. Is there some specific way i can get it to go from looking like this (left image in second life upload previewer) to this (how it looks in blender)?

It doesn't seem like you exported the bounding box correctly. It's not showing up in the importer preview and your physics weight is still over 19.

In Blender, while you're exporting the .dae, there's a little gear icon on the top-right corner. Click on that and pick the "SL static" preset. That will change a couple things, mainly the global orientation, apply modifiers, and enables "selection only" for exporting. I have a feeling you've exported multiple meshes at the same time and using them for physics.

Is the earring a single mesh? If it's multiple parts, you won't get under 30 L$ for the upload cost and including proper physics gets slightly more complicated.

I don't have any clue why the texture looks like that in the importer. Have you tried uploading the mesh on the preview grid, Aditi? You start with about 50'000 L$ there and a Linden will give you more if you run out. Your inventory will mirror the one you have on the main grid.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator