The LOD

[AmyPinkLegend]

I bought an Item on SLM, But it's render distance is AWFUL, Like 2 Meters it becomes a blob. I'm not even exaggerating.

I found this setting to change it to high, And zooming out keeps the detail. But the second i close the Edit Menu it changes back, How can i save it?

Do i just not have Modify Permission? Cause i messaged the Seller / Owner years ago (And a few times since) I don't think he's active anymore... So that options out, Help!

[Blush Bravin]

I'm not sure, but my guess is that the change is being made locally. Like when you use local for textures. So as soon as you close it the image you see is how it really is visible to anyone around you. I don't think you can make any changes to the actual LODs except when the mesh is uploaded by the creator.

[Codex Alpha]

The LOD object for the object is much lower at lod_med, than it is at lod_low. ?

This will cause the object to go to a lower resolution almost immediately if you step back to take a picture, then when you move further, it is loading a HIGHER detail LOD at that stage.

[Carolyn Zapedzki]

What I have always found to work for issues like that is changing a debug setting. Go in debug settings and change render dynamic LOD from true to false.

[Mr Amore]

The setting in the Edit pane isn't permanent, it's to view the different LODs of an object. A useful tool.

In your graphics settings ( CTRL+P > Graphics ), you can adjust the Level of Detail for 'Objects and Sculpts'*

The LL viewer's default is 1.25

Firestorm installs at 2.0

Increasing the value will raise the render distance, but also impacts on performance.

Very few creators account for LODs. I keep mine set to 1.25  and only purchase items which are reasonably well made.

 

*If there's no option in your graphics preferences, you can adjust the RenderVolumeLODFactor in the debug settings.

[Paul Hexem]

That's how you can tell when something's made when it's cheating LOD.

If you have to change your viewer debug settings or turn up your graphics more to see it, it's not made well.

Don't do either of those- replace the item that's cheating LOD.

[Carolyn Zapedzki]

1 minute ago, Paul Hexem said:

That's how you can tell when something's made when it's cheating LOD.

If you have to change your viewer debug settings or turn up your graphics more to see it, it's not made well.

Don't do either of those- replace the item that's cheating LOD.

I don't like changing settings either but sometimes there's something that you want to see correctly, even if you just change them for a short time to say take a pic then worth doing.

[Codex Alpha]

9 minutes ago, Carolyn Zapedzki said:

I don't like changing settings either but sometimes there's something that you want to see correctly, even if you just change them for a short time to say take a pic then worth doing.

It would be better to contact the creator and advise them of this. In this case most likely a mistake of uploading, and in other cases like Hexem stated, it's a way of other creators will cheat - to save a lot of time and to keep their Land Impact low, at the expense of the enjoyment of the end user.

Reward good creators who optimize their assets and have good LODs, and discourage those who don't, especially those (in my experience) who dealt with the feedback with "Just change your LOD settings higher").. .uh no.

[Midnoot]

Yeah. For sure leave a bad review. So tired of this cheap method of pumping out trash quality items that requires 4.000 LOD setting to see them without them disappearing  

[Codex Alpha]

There are lots out there. LOTS. I found them when I was around studying people's stuff and realizing how many grifts are  out there, and that I seemingly have been working too hard to make efficient models - but there's no way for anyone to realize it anyway. Some of the TOP creators do this - but it doesn't stop them from making bank.

[AmyPinkLegend]

It would bug me to change my settings so it looks good to me but others still see it as it is now, It's a mesh head for an Avi so it's pretty noticeable.

Ideally i want to fix the Items settings, Not my Viewer

Edited May 13 by AmyPinkLegend

[Pixie Kobichenko]

10 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

That's how you can tell when something's made when it's cheating LOD.

If you have to change your viewer debug settings or turn up your graphics more to see it, it's not made well.

Don't do either of those- replace the item that's cheating LOD.

This was helpful.  I've asked in the past how to know if something is stressing my poor computer out- & really wasn't given much advice.  This seems to be a good starting point to go around my home and pick up pieces that don't rezz properly on 1.5, especially standing right next to them.  Thank you

[BilliJo Aldrin]

That's the nice thing about a prim, you can see it from as far away as you have your draw distance set (if its big enough). It doesn't distort over distance 😁

[Sid Nagy]

The LOD war has been lost long time ago.
Even if you personally only put out objects with great LOD , your neighbors won't. What others put up influences your world view too.

Jack up the LOD factor a bit (3-4). Done. Performance will most of the time not be noticeably slower.

Edited May 13 by Sid Nagy

[Rick Nightingale]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

Jack up the LOD factor a bit (3-4). Done. Performance will most of the time not be noticeably slower.

Yep. I've never noticed a significant performance impact from raising LOD factor to 4, unlike many other graphics settings we can make.

It is sad that there are still makers telling us to raise our LOD-F to 5-10 using debug. As recent as gifts from the Bellisseria event a month or so back. There is so much rubbish out there being sold by everyone from brand new accounts made obviously for the purpose of just selling rubbish quickly, to old-time and supposedly experienced 'creators'.

It's one of the main things that encouraged me to learn Blender and make my own.

It also saves me a lot of money. Some of the things I think of buying, when I inspect them I walk away muttering and shaking my head. There are big sellers who frequent the big events that I avoid like the plague; I know their LODs are just terrible even if the stuff looks great stood next to it (and is usually textured better than I can do, annoyingly - I can make the mesh but my artwork is lacking).

 

Edited May 13 by Rick Nightingale

[AmeliaJ08]

Just crank LOD to 4, many of us have the hardware to handle it these days.

No, it's not ideal. Yes, it is a waste of electrons. Unfortunately it's what is necessary stop SL looking like a crunched up mess due to all the content with unusable LODs.

 

[Mr Amore]

7 hours ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

This was helpful.  I've asked in the past how to know if something is stressing my poor computer out- & really wasn't given much advice.  This seems to be a good starting point to go around my home and pick up pieces that don't rezz properly on 1.5, especially standing right next to them.  Thank you

Too keep SL from stressing out your device, you can (at least on Firestorm) limit your FPS to 30. It's enough for SL, will keep your PC cooler and use less power.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think many more people focus on "Draw Distance" than LOD.

[Rick Nightingale]

Far worse for stressing a computer than having the LOD factor turned up, is mesh that has silly-high triangle counts and massive texture use. There's far too much of that around too, especially the former. Stuff that was clearly just ripped from some 3D model site, ported through Blender to change the format without even bothering to optimise it for SL, and uploaded here.

I used to have an old-style telephone I bought, rezzed in my hallway, years ago before I knew any of this stuff. Whenever it came into view, my viewer would slow down very noticeably to the point it stuttered. That telephone had four parts, over 250,000 triangles in total (edit: in highest LOD only; the others barely existed) and something like sixteen, full resolution textures with materials, so around 144MB uncompressed texture just for that telephone. I remade the texturing and made it a single file (reduced from 16!) and could not tell the difference visually, but then I discovered triangle counts because it still caused fps drop when camming in on it. Nothing I could do about that so an expensive telephone got binned and I learned the lesson.

While one telephone like that, with modern hardware, might go unnoticed... imagine a room full of stuff made like that. One small side table I looked at but didn't buy recently had a similar triangle count. I made my own instead, and it was better with 1/50th of the count.

Edited May 13 by Rick Nightingale

[Thecla]

In terms of land impact when uploading a model, the medium, low, and lowest settings have the greatest impact on land impact as they are likely to be viewable by many more avatars than one close by. Or at least that is my theory. So creators will knock those down instead of playing with the high setting or ideally making simplified yet coherent models for the other settings.

And on the texture front, don't get me started. I have small piece of jewelry that use up to FIVE 1024 textures. They would be absolutely fine at 256 or maybe even 128.

On the other hand, there are some creators who are highly skilled and absolute wizards at efficient building, squeezing a huge amount of detail into a very small LI object that does not blob out at distance. Kudos to them.

[Pixie Kobichenko]

5 hours ago, Mr Amore said:

Too keep SL from stressing out your device, you can (at least on Firestorm) limit your FPS to 30. It's enough for SL, will keep your PC cooler and use less power.

Can you tell me on FS where to find that setting?

[Pixie Kobichenko]

5 hours ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Far worse for stressing a computer than having the LOD factor turned up, is mesh that has silly-high triangle counts and massive texture use. There's far too much of that around too, especially the former. Stuff that was clearly just ripped from some 3D model site, ported through Blender to change the format without even bothering to optimise it for SL, and uploaded here.

I used to have an old-style telephone I bought, rezzed in my hallway, years ago before I knew any of this stuff. Whenever it came into view, my viewer would slow down very noticeably to the point it stuttered. That telephone had four parts, over 250,000 triangles in total (edit: in highest LOD only; the others barely existed) and something like sixteen, full resolution textures with materials, so around 144MB uncompressed texture just for that telephone. I remade the texturing and made it a single file (reduced from 16!) and could not tell the difference visually, but then I discovered triangle counts because it still caused fps drop when camming in on it. Nothing I could do about that so an expensive telephone got binned and I learned the lesson.

While one telephone like that, with modern hardware, might go unnoticed... imagine a room full of stuff made like that. One small side table I looked at but didn't buy recently had a similar triangle count. I made my own instead, and it was better with 1/50th of the count.

How do we know, as consumers with zero understanding of how meshing works, what is a good amount of polygons, triangles and all that for an object?  It's really disheartening to buy a piece of empty flat land and try to turn it into a home - going from high 70s fps down to low 30s when I keep my graphics on lowest draw distance- only the first two shaders etc, to begin with. 

[AmeliaJ08]

28 minutes ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

How do we know, as consumers with zero understanding of how meshing works, what is a good amount of polygons, triangles and all that for an object?  It's really disheartening to buy a piece of empty flat land and try to turn it into a home - going from high 70s fps down to low 30s when I keep my graphics on lowest draw distance- only the first two shaders etc, to begin with. 

Yeah, a layman has really no way to know for sure. As a suggestion you could switch to wireframe mode (ctrl-shift-R) and look at things though, if you can see a very high number of triangles it might be worth inspecting an object closer and seeing if it really justifies it.

One of the real big impact items is avatar hair, 100-300k triangles is not uncommon for more modern styles and the level of detail does often make hair look great but get enough people wearing that type of hair together and you'll see the performance impact. It will be felt more by people with weaker hardware too. There's no LODs for rigged wearable mesh either, it's always displaying at the highest detail since rigged LODs have always been broken as far as I know...

For static mesh like furniture, decorations etc though take a look in wireframe first and then a closer look in object properties for items that catch your eye as having a lot of triangles and see if you feel it is justified.

 

[Rowan Amore]

32 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

One of the real big impact items is avatar hair, 100-300k triangles is not uncommon for more modern styles and the level of detail does often make hair look great

Did you see the hair I posted in the Peeve thread?  Granted, the one included 10 styles but that's just an unnecessary amount...

On 5/11/2024 at 10:59 AM, Rowan Amore said:

Another cute hair I'd love to wear but just no...

Without hair and fully dressed...

With hair demo...

Oh and just for comparison, a very similar hair demo...

 

 

 

[Rick Nightingale]

2 hours ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

How do we know, as consumers...

That's a good question, and unfortunately the majority of people will probably never even know there is a question to answer because it simply isn't common knowledge. Many makers and sellers certainly don't want people to hear it and LL doesn't care nearly as much as it should; as long as stuff sells and they get their cut of it.

First, at least if using Firestorm, anything that is rezzed can be right-clicked and edited (occasionally not, like if it is locked). You can't actually edit it unless it's yours usually, so don't worry, you can't break it doing this... but you can see some information in the Object tab of the edit window. Even if it's no-mod. You can also select (in the edit window) Edit Linked, to examine each linked part if it's a linkset.

First, you can see the number of triangles that each LOD has. There are four LODs and they get swapped in/out at different distances depending on the size of it (bounding box size - an imaginary box that just fits the object in). Those swap distances can be seen on that tab too, lower down the window. It shows you where the swap occurs in the LL viewer and Firestorm, at their defaults, and where it happens for you at your current LOD factor.

Edit to add here: LOD = Level Of Detail; mesh models in SL have four models which are displayed at different distances. That's because there's no point showing a fine detail model when you are half way across a sim and can barely make out the object at all. The creator makes all the models... or can have the mesh uploader in the viewer auto-make them from the High LOD. That's a rubbish way to do it, but a lot of makers do.

Also usefully, you can choose to see a particular LOD model there; pull down the menu under the LOD and Triangles numbers (it says "Default" usually, as above). That's a really useful trick to quickly see how well made a model is. If viewing, say, the Low model, and it is something where you would still reasonably expect to see it at its LOD swap distance (from the swap distances shown below it) but it collapses to a mess, or a lump, or vanishes altogether... you know it's poorly made.

As to how many triangles... well there's a very wide range, depending what it is, but getting into many tens of thousands for a single LOD model (or even total for all four) is a lot. It might be justified, but only if it's quite detailed and you want that detail. Hair at 100,000+ is ridiculously over the top (Edit: I was getting 100,000 confused with that number in complexity, but I still think it's a lot for tris), but yes there is plenty like that, especially older hair. A few thousand is more like it. In general, several thousand is a reasonable number (as a maximum - a lot of stuff should be much lower) for the High LOD for almost anything in SL.

As an example, the table I mentioned earlier, that I made, is what I would consider quite high. It's 15,000 triangles in the High LOD (the one you see right next to it) but it is very detailed; scrolled legs, carved stem, etc. Medium LOD is 3700, and at the swap distance (6m at Firestorms default LOD factor 2) you cannot see the change or difference. Low LOD is 49, Lowest is 8 triangles. At the lowest, at the distance that swaps in, it just loses the perfect table look but only just and really it's intended to by used in a room, not viewed across a football field, so you would never see that LOD in normal use. Even so, it's close enough not to be jarring if you do.

Like I said, I consider that quite a high triangle count; I made it how I wanted though and it's still only 1LI without having it vanish from half way across a room, like an awful lot of stuff in SL does. I have an ornate display cabinet that is a third of that count, and I think is a more reasonable count. Most of what I make to sell will be fewer triangles than that, and you'll still never see the change at any reasonable distance.

I made a large, stone gazebo with steps, many round, detailed columns, a domed glass roof with lattice woodwork framing... and that is under 2500 triangles for all LODs added up, and still you'll never see it change LOD even from fully across a region.

A trick to make the lowest LOD still look good but reduce LI to a minimum is to use an Imposter. That is a plane, with a picture of the item on it. I occasionally do that where appropriate and I know some other designers use it to great effect. When the distance is so far you can't see 3D detail but should still be able to see it, a picture can work well.

 

That was a lot of typing, lol. I might mention textures later when my fingers and your eyes recover from this.

 

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

As a suggestion you could switch to wireframe mode (ctrl-shift-R) and look at things

Yes - if the wireframe view of something looks almost as 'solid' as the real view, there are likely far too many triangles.

Edited May 13 by Rick Nightingale