Let's talk about LoD factor.

[Mr Amore]

On 12/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, Extrude Ragu said:

Is 1.25 fixed or is that tied to a graphics preset?

In my own sim, due to the nature of being an anime sim people tend to have gaming computers, and my policy has always been to try to support Medium to Ultra Presets, I usually test my models at LOD 2, Draw Distance 64 as a 'worst case' scenario. (Mid in Firestorm being LOD 2, Draw distance 128)

I believe the default is 1.25 regardless of the graphics settings. As @SarahKB7 Koskinen noted, it can be adjusted in the debug settings.

Even in Firestorm I keep it at 1.25, so I'm always aware of how my mesh transitions at a distance for those on lower settings.

[ChinRey]

On 12/22/2021 at 6:36 PM, Extrude Ragu said:

Is 1.25 fixed or is that tied to a graphics preset?

It depends on the graphics setting and it's also different between different viewers. It's a bit confusing since it's not called "LOD factor" but "Objects and Sculpts LOD" in the regular prefs.

 

On 12/22/2021 at 6:36 PM, Extrude Ragu said:

 I usually test my models at LOD 2, Draw Distance 64 as a 'worst case' scenario. (Mid in Firestorm being LOD 2, Draw distance 128)

My standards for outdoors objects are:

• With LoD factor 1: Only minor distortions at long distance and LoD switches barely noticeable
• With LoD factor 2: No noticeable distortions at any view distance and no noticeable LoD switches

For indoors objects I'm content if it works up 30 m view distance.

It's not actually difficult. Look at this two room bungalow for example:

It meets those criteria and the land impact is only 8.

Or how about this one:

The LoD is rock solid at any draw distance even with LoD factor set at 1. The land impact is 1. (It's also low on lag, using only six textures, one 4x4, one 512x256 and four 512x512s, giving it a render weight of only 2493.)

It takes a bit of work to learn this level of mesh optimisation of course. Any builders who regard themselves as professionals or semiprofessionals should be able to do it. If they can't, they don't deserve to be paid. It's a bit too much to ask from pure hobbyists though.

It's probably too much to ask from pure hobby builders of course but get it down to twice the LI with proper LoD. That's not really difficult, all you have to do is think.

[Tama Suki]

On 12/24/2021 at 5:45 PM, ChinRey said:

(It's also low on lag, using only six textures, one 4x4, one 512x256 and four 512x512s, giving it a render weight of only 2493.)

What means 4x4? 

On what kind of surface do you use the 512x512 format on?

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

What means 4x4?

4x4 pixels. It's the lowest resolution a texture could be uploaded as with the official viewer. I think some TPVs allows for 2x2 and even 1x1 too. I have two such ultralow resolution textures, one fully transparent for invisible parts (in this case the balancing tri for the door) and one plain white I use for all monocrhome surfaces.

 

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

On what kind of surface do you use the 512x512 format on?

I suppose you mean the 512x256?

This thread is about LoD but textures are of course an even bigger cause of lag than mesh and this house was also an exercise in texture efficiency, so:

• The 4x4 texture is, as I said used for the invisible balancing tri for the door.
• The 512x256 is the window texture. It's much taller than its wide (it's repeated three times horizontally on this house) so it doesn't need to be square. (The texture is from LL's Meadowbrooks content package btw.  LDPW used to have some excellent texture artists and there are quite a few true gems among all the FilterForge abuse in all the old content packages.)
• The interior wall texture (another Meadowbrooks one) is a tinted white 512x512. I reused it untinted for the ceiling and with good old fashioned shininess for the doorknob.
• The floor texture is actually the only commercial texture, one of Grandma Fiddlestick's marvelous parquets, reused for the door frame, the wooden pillar by the door and the door itself.
• The foundation has a standard 512x512 concrete texture, reused with a dark tint for the roof. Today I would have used a 256x256 here, my mistake.
• The exterior wall texture, well I couldn't find a way to reuse that one but it's a tiled 512x512.

One of the big mistakes so many builders today make, is to overuse baked texture - and as often as not using Blender's automatic bake fail rather than proper AO mapping. Don't get me wrong, baked textures do have their place in SL. But good tiled textures used intelligently offer so much more visual quality for the lag and if we really want a low lag SL, we need to use this for all it's worth.

Some detail pics from the 1 LI house:

[Tama Suki]

Thanks for the infos ChinRey, i'll keep it in note.