Multiple mesh planar walls with small gaps in between. For lowest LI possible, should I join the two walls' vertices (creating faces) or leave them as separate objects that are Ctrl + J'd in Blender?

[SonofaNoob]

I have a hollowed out mesh rectangle.  One end of the rectangle is the front where the door and window is.

The opposite end is the back wall where I want three planar walls, one behind the other, with a small gap in between each one.  The back most wall will be a concrete texture with a custom default mapping horizontal and vertical scale and no transparency.  The planar wall in front of that wall will have a stucco texture, using planar mapping, with a custom color, and a 55% transparency.  I'm sure that there are creators that know exactly how to combine these two walls into one texture, and I honestly don't know how to do that and it's a good thing to know.  But it isn't something that I want to accomplish with this particular project.  I want to keep them separate walls.  And the third wall is optional, but if I can squeeze it in and still keep my LI under a certain amount then that would be great.  I was thinking that the third wall could be used for a wall size picture.

The aforementioned hollowed out mesh rectangle did have a loop cut, wall sized television on the back wall with a border going around the television.  This entire mesh (with the TV), linked to a SL basic prim, still only used one LI total.  My plan now is to remove the television and replace it with the two or three mesh planar walls in the back.  And I want to use as little LI as possible so that maybe later I can still link something simple to the mesh rectangle for a combined total of 1 LI.

So my question is, for the two planar walls in the back with the gap in between (concrete and stucco), should they have faces attaching the two planar walls, or will it be okay to have one of the planar walls floating by itself and not attached?  Which method will use up the least amount of LI?  I really want to do this the mesh method and have them as one object, instead of using the hollowed out mesh box with a SL wall or a hollowed out mesh box with a separately uploaded mesh wall.

Thank you for your help.  SL rules!

[Beq Janus]

There is nothing in SL that requires you to attach those planes to each other. 

I am sure people will advise you of other/better ways to achieve  what you are after, but if all you want is three "layered" planes on the back wall then just go for it.

To keep your 1LI dream target alive (when linking to something else. Then the total LI of the linked items must be 1.49 or less (technically more than 1LI but in display terms it gets rounded down). 

The lowest possible LI for any single linked object is 0.5. So if you look at the full LI cost using the "more info" link on the build tools. That will tell you what budget remains.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Beq Janus
Added image showing the LI breakdown.

[ChinRey]

13 hours ago, SonofaNoob said:

The opposite end is the back wall where I want three planar walls, one behind the other, with a small gap in between each one.  The back most wall will be a concrete texture with a custom default mapping horizontal and vertical scale and no transparency.  The planar wall in front of that wall will have a stucco texture, using planar mapping, with a custom color, and a 55% transparency.  I'm sure that there are creators that know exactly how to combine these two walls into one texture, and I honestly don't know how to do that and it's a good thing to know.

I think we need a more detailed explanation of what you are trying to do to be able to help you, some pictures would be very useful. But:

• It's generally not a good idea to combine transparent and opoaque textures into a single one so don't worry about that.
• If made correctly a single-sided, unbroken and square wall surface only has two tris and four vertices. That's so minute it shouldn't affect neither the land impact nor the actual load.
• Do not use planar mapping for meshes. Not for prims either except for those rare occasions when you can't possibly avoid it. It's not actually going to do much harm for a flat, square surface but it won't do any good at all.
• Beq explained a little bit how LI works but she forgot one detail: Every single mesh, prim and sculpt has a basic "server wieght" of 0.5. That means to achieve 1 LI you can have no more than two parts in the linkset.
• If you want two or more flat surfaces in front of each other, make sure there's enough space between them to prevent texture flickering. 2 cm should be enough but you may have to do a little bit of trial and error to get it right.

[SonofaNoob]

@Beq Janus - Thank you. I guessed on the 1.49 LI rounded down stuff.  But I had no idea that LI was determined by the largest of the three weights.

 

@ChinRey - Hey!  Thank you for your response!  You shared some extremely useful and helpful information.  There were two things that I did not understand though.

• Why not use planar mapping on prims and meshes?  I absolutely love planner mapping.  I knew mesh textures are probably different from prim textures, but I didn't have a problem with that.  The planar mapping on the mesh (I used a stucco wall texture) looks identical to what it would have looked like on a prim.  Is planar mapping bad for sim lag or something?

Quote

"Every single mesh, prim and sculpt has a basic "server weight" of 0.5. That means to achieve 1 LI you can have no more than two parts in the linkset."

• If my mesh object has a floating planar wall that is just Ctrl + J'd together and not attached to any vertices, faces, or edges, does that count as "two parts in a linkset"?  Or is it still one part and not a linkset (until I link it to another mesh or prim in-world in SL)?

Edited March 4, 2022 by SonofaNoob

[arton Rotaru]

3 hours ago, SonofaNoob said:

If my mesh object has a floating planar wall that is just Ctrl + J'd together and not attached to any vertices, faces, or edges, does that count as "two parts in a linkset"?  Or is it still one part and not a linkset (until I link it to another mesh or prim in-world in SL)?

As long as it's a single object, it doesn't matter if it's water tight or not.