Rigged Mesh is Invisible on Upload

[Mmasei]

I've been having trouble for months now with uploading a rigged outfit. 

From what I can tell, the model seems properly rigged in Blender (3.3.1, made in blender 2.8ish). But upon uploading to Second Life (Firestorm), the model is completely invisible. 

Ticking off the "Weights" option makes the model appear, but that's not terribly helpful. 

I'm not at all sure what to fix here. The best lead I have is that years ago I uploaded a model with an older version of blender (I think 2.79?) and it worked. And uploading that model in a more modern version of blender doesn't let it upload. Vice versa, putting my current outfit in an older version of blender won't let it upload. 

And while I could theoretically re-make the entire outfit in an older version of blender, that would be incredibly painful, as well as not even guaranteed to work. 

Regardless, any help in getting this mesh to upload would be appreciated. 

[ChinRey]

Obvious first question: how many tris and vertices does the mesh have?

[Mmasei]

Probably too many. 

Readouts show 15,150 Verts, and 29,567 Tris. And thinking about it, that's probably a lot for this old game. 

My other issue is that I tried uploading just a piece of the mesh (the whole outfit is 11 parts), which is a far more conservative 803 Verts and 1,606 Tris, which doesn't work either.

I figure trimming down the triangle/vert count is probably just a good thing regardless. 

[ChinRey]

11 hours ago, Mmasei said:

Readouts show 15,150 Verts, and 29,567 Tris. And thinking about it, that's probably a lot for this old game.

It's not about the age of the engine actually. Very few, if any, modern game engines can handle the sheer number of fairly high poly mesh assets Second Life is expected to.

Still, even though 15 150/29 567 is high, it shouldn't be enough to cause a critical rendering failure like this so there must be some other explanation. I can't think of any though. Sorry.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@Mmasei When attempting to diagnose upload problems, rather than trying to troubleshoot a complex object which may potentially be suffering from multiple issues, I sometimes find it useful to try something simpler just to rule out a few possibilities.

For example you could try creating a new file and adding the avatar rig and a simple low poly cylinder, rig the cylinder to an arm or leg and then export and upload that file.  If it uploads okay with the rigging intact then you can rule out any issues with export settings, etc. and concentrate on working out what the issue is with your original model (and if it doesn't work then you know that at least one of your problems is related to your export settings/workflow).

[Mmasei]

@Fluffy Sharkfin I recalled testing it a while back, but I did it just now to make sure. 

Rigging simple objects still gives me no rendered mesh (unless I untick "Weights" again). This is just a basic cube I put on the m_wrist bone. 

I feel like it has to be something with my export settings? But I'm not really sure what would cause such critical failure in upload. 

Out of curiosity, if troubleshooting fails, is it okay if I upload the blend file for someone else to look at it? 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@MmaseiI'm afraid I can't really help you with specifics since I'm not a Blender user, but I'm sure there are plenty of others here who can.

I'd suggest searching these forums for terms like "problems uploading rigged mesh" and creating a check list of issues and related fixes then running through them to troubleshoot your current problem then, once you have the upload process working with the basic cube, you can move on to trying it with your finished model(s).

There are quite a few different issues you can run into when creating and uploading rigged mesh for SL, one which sometimes trips me up is the limit on the number of bones you can include when uploading, since the full bento rig contains more bones than the maximum number allowed so you can't simply select the entire rig and export it with the mesh, you have to remove the superfluous bones such as the hind legs, tail, wings, etc. before you can export and upload your mesh.

 

[Mmasei]

@Fluffy SharkfinThank you for helping where you can.

Working with the basic cube probably would be a bit easier, and making sure I can upload it. Thanks for the searching tip.

Funnily enough I did delete all the bones that weren't necessary to uploading the mesh. Lucky for me, the mesh is mostly an assortment objects that don't deform, so nothing is linked to too many vertices. I've learned a good bit during all the troubleshooting I've done so far, at least. 

Regardless, thanks for your help.