Importing Mesh - HELP!

[Jenny Ashland]

I have been doing this for quite awhile and I thought I had it down. Recently I just became aware that people run around SL with their LOD setting on 1-2. I have always had mine on 4, so I never noticed it before. Please someone tell me what I am doing wrong, that makes the house crumple up when I cam?

I use an architectural program to design the houses, and then I use 3ds max/VRAY to make the textures, get rid of faces not seen and export the physics and house for SL. I also use 3ds to make things for the architectural program (Fences, Doors, lights) When using the architectural program for "real life" all I have to do is generate blue prints for contractors. SL gives me an opportunity to make houses, that are not bound by building codes and structural engineering, I love it!! So this whole 3d thing is very new to me and I am self taught. I have taken everything unnecessary for SL out of the houses (Insulation, Wiring, Framing, even the faces of prims that you do not see ect...) When importing the mesh I have tried so many options. So far only one has worked for me.

Example 1 is what it looks like before I add the physics.

Example 2  is how I add the physics. I just do analyze, when I use simplify it makes holes in the walls and blocks the doorways, so I skip this step.

Example 3  If I use high LOD, you can see it is way too much land impact.

Example 4  if I use the error threshold it is still way to high.

Example 5  If I just enter what it gives me for generate auto it is reasonable, but seems too high for such a small build.

Example 6 Is what I normally do. It works great, the house is low LI, you can walk everywhere. However there seems to be a disappearing and triangle effect on low LOD on thin prims (banisters, fences, window lites)

In world, I set the house to none, then to prims in features so that only the physics remain to "bump into"

Someone once told me about "billboarding" but I did not understand what they were talking about. Does anyone have any links for tutorials or any advice then can give me to make High LOD with Low land impact, I would greatly appreciate it! I have been trying to avoid "thin prims" on my builds because of this. I also noticed that the more details or curved prims I add to a build SL just won't take it. I do import the house all at once. I can do it in pieces but it is very time consuming, and really doesn't make much difference. For all I know, I could be doing the whole thing wrong. If anyone can help, or tell me what I am doing wrong, or explain "billboarding" to me in layman's terms. I would appreciate it!!

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The reason for the "crumpling" is your use of auto-generated LODs (level of detail -models). Lower LODs are used when objects are far away, so the viewer doesn't have to render unnecessary details. This helps with performance.

Auto-generated LODs aren't very good for inorganic objects. It doesn't know which details are important... like a wall... especially when it's trying to reduce 27'000 triangles to 1000.

For this reason, you would have to simplify your building by hand, and upload your own LODs. That way you'll always know what the building will look like from a distance.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

7 hours ago, Jenny Ashland said:

Someone once told me about "billboarding" but I did not understand what they were talking about. Does anyone have any links for tutorials or any advice then can give me to make High LOD with Low land impact,

Check out this past post for some links to manual LOD creation. Billboarding is covered in link #2.

The important thing to realize is that every mesh object you upload will have 4 LODs and 1 physics frame. It just will. Every single mesh has all 5 pieces of data, and if you don't make them, SL will make them for you. (Honestly, I'm surprised you've gotten physics to work right if you're making houses and not making your own custom wall/floor collision elements.)

Your LODs are collapsing because you're trying to make them very simple and because you're letting SL make them. SL is bad at making LODs. If you don't want them to be awful, making your own is the only other way to avoid enormous LI ratings.

[Jenny Ashland]

1 hour ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

I'm surprised you've gotten physics to work right if you're making houses and not making your own custom wall/floor collision elements

I do make my own physics. I take the walls and floors and export them separately to use for physics. I did not know I can make my own LODS as well. Thank you for the link.

[Chic Aeon]

We don't have any screenshots of your model but from your upload panes it looks like you are doing a LOT incorrectly.   Try making something small and SIMPLE and get that to work. It is also easier for most people to upload houses in parts rather than in all one piece -- so walls, roof, foundation etc.  

This video is OLD but still gets tons of views for Physics into SL so it may be of some help on the physics part of the equation.  There is no reason that your upload fees should be so high unless you are trying to upload the Palace of Versailles  .    

And on a personal note, if you build simply the uploader does a pretty good job with house LODs (not so much with complex items).  

But it is GOOD that you realized the LOD issue. The DEFAULT for LOD is 2 for Firestorm and 1.25 for most folks with the Linden viewer so it is likely that plenty of people are having issues seeing your items.  The majority of home builders (as far as I know) build for somewhere between LOD 1.5 and LOD 2.  So TESTING at that would be a good thing to do for sure.

 

Note the interface on this video is OLD, but the info in it is still relevant so just watch and of course it is Blender :D.  

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[Jenny Ashland]

The video was about physics. The physics I don't have a problem with, it is the LOD values. Let me try and explain this another way. I walked around SL with my LOD on 1. I looked at my houses. It is the further away you get. Up close everything thing looks fine. If you cam out far away, the house starts to break down, the lower the LOD the faster it breaks down. I have noticed other designers houses do the same thing. Some not as fast as mine. My goal is to not have it do that. Here is an example of what I am talking about:

 

This is an example of a simple house I did. This is cammed far away with the LOD set on 4.

 

Then I set my LOD to 1. Up close it looks fine:

 

Then I start to cam further away:

 

Now even further:

See how it breaks down when the LOD is set to 1. I built a simple house made of prims in SL with my LOD still set at 1:

Then I cammed far away, and it retains its shape as far as my draw distance will go:

I want the mesh houses on LOD 1 to do the same thing. 

[Jenny Ashland]

10 hours ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

The important thing to realize is that every mesh object you upload will have 4 LODs and 1 physics frame

I watched the videos about making your own LODs. I use 3ds not blender, blender was to complicated for me to figure out, and I have been using 3ds since the 90's lol. I have had to simplify things before to bring them into SL. It never dawned on me to do it for each LOD setting. I will try that on the next thing I build and see if it works.

[StarlanderGoods]

2 hours ago, Jenny Ashland said:

I watched the videos about making your own LODs. I use 3ds not blender, blender was to complicated for me to figure out, and I have been using 3ds since the 90's lol. I have had to simplify things before to bring them into SL. It never dawned on me to do it for each LOD setting. I will try that on the next thing I build and see if it works.

Break the building into parts to reduce Li, think of the physics cost not only in terms of detail, but in terms of volume, you dont want your model to consider all the empty space inside, Li that you save optimizing your physics are Li you can use to up the LOD

Also, if your build uses X ammount of faces (textures), be sure to keep the same number and order in all levels of detail, the uploader doesnt like it when you dont.

[Jenny Ashland]

I will try and do that. It does like it better when I bring it in separate. Plus I am going to make my own LODs as well. Working on next thing now :)

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 hours ago, Jenny Ashland said:

See how it breaks down when the LOD is set to 1. I built a simple house made of prims in SL with my LOD still set at 1:

Then I cammed far away, and it retains its shape as far as my draw distance will go:

I want the mesh houses on LOD 1 to do the same thing. 

Prims are a bit different, primarily in that their LI is always 1 regardless of how complex their topography is.

That said, this is what the highest LOD for a prim looks like:

And this is the lowest LOD:

The walls of your building probably don't look like either of these, considering window placement, roof, etc. LODs for complex models have to be more clever, as it's a trade-off between cost and accuracy.

For example, you can remove the sides/bottom of the building's floor, the inside walls, and close the holes in the roof, etc.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator