Few issues for this mesh noob

[Tallion Vlodovic]

Attempting to upload my first mesh to SL that I created in Blender. I'm fairly new to this whole 3d modeling/texturing thing so it's been a fun, interesting and yes, sometime frustrating learning process. My first mesh is a porch roof extension for my LL home. I've run into a couple issues though I can't find a solid answer to or maybe I'm just bad at searching.

1. Is it necessary or better to do PBR textures or is a combined texture bake fine for a LL home addition? Obviously 3 textures costs me more to upload than a single and in my current project, I'd be looking at like 24 textures with PBR vs 8.

2. Bigger question. My project, in total, is showing as having about 950 triangles or a little over 2k vertices. Which, from the sounds of it, isn't really that bad. I've read about meshes with like 40k triangles. Note: this object is broken down into separate mesh objects within the same file (mostly for texturing purposes) like rails, columns, header, fascia, roof and then packaged into a collada file. My question is: when I have the various sections of my porch rails joined together in blender, I get the degenerate triangle error when uploading to SL. When I simply separate them and then try to upload, I get no error. Obviously, I could just separate it and run with it but I'd rather ask the question to see if anyone might know why its happening to better understand it for the future. I'll add too, I've gone through all the vertices and edges, one by one, to find any issues but came up empty handed and I can't zoom in on the preview any closer than shown in my photo.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Tallion Vlodovic said:

1. Is it necessary or better to do PBR textures or is a combined texture bake fine for a LL home addition? Obviously 3 textures costs me more to upload than a single and in my current project, I'd be looking at like 24 textures with PBR vs 8.

It's your house so do whatever you are happy with. PBR is great but not nearly as great as it is hyped up to be and you can do a lot with well made traditional textures.

2 hours ago, Tallion Vlodovic said:

2. Bigger question. My project, in total, is showing as having about 950 triangles or a little over 2k vertices. Which, from the sounds of it, isn't really that bad.

Yes, that's quite good for a build like this!

 

2 hours ago, Tallion Vlodovic said:

Note: this object is broken down into separate mesh objects within the same file (mostly for texturing purposes) like rails, columns, header, fascia, roof and then packaged into a collada file.

Oh no, don't do it that way, upload each object separately and assemble the build in-world. The reason is that you have duplicate meshes here. That increases the upload cost and also make the build slightly heavier to load and render.

• Upload just one copy of the tall pillar and duplicate it in-world.
• Upload just one copy of the long(ish) rail segment and duplicate it in-world.
• It's hard to tell from the picture how the short railings and pillars should be uploaded but it's probably best to do those pillars separately from the railing segments they are attached to too.
• The threshold seems to be just a simple cube. If that is the case, use a prim. Don't do mesh for mesh' sake. A single prim is always better than a mesh with the same shape.
• I can't tell from the picture whether the gables and roof should be done separately or as a single mesh but if the land impact for the whole build ends up higher than 6, you probably want to split them. If you split, it might be a good idea to upload the roof flat and angle it in-world. That way you can use a simple cube as the physics model. (Alternatively, you can use a prim for the roof if the front doesn't have to be perfectly vertical.)

 

2 hours ago, Tallion Vlodovic said:

My question is: when I have the various sections of my porch rails joined together in blender, I get the degenerate triangle error when uploading to SL. When I simply separate them and then try to upload, I get no error. Obviously, I could just separate it and run with it but I'd rather ask the question to see if anyone might know why its happening to better understand it for the future.

The reason for the difference is that what counts as "degenerate triangles" depend on their size relative to the mesh as a whole.

But you really need to simplify your physics models anyway. The physics models only have two purposes: to block avatars (and physical objects) from moving straight through objects and to create walkable surfaces. You do not need and do not want detailed physics for the railing, the pillars and the threshold, all you want is a cube for each. You don't even have to make physics models for them since the cube is one of the premade physics models built into Firestorm's uploader.

[Tallion Vlodovic]

17 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Oh no, don't do it that way, upload each object separately and assemble the build in-world. The reason is that you have duplicate meshes here. That increases the upload cost and also make the build slightly heavier to load and render.

• Upload just one copy of the tall pillar and duplicate it in-world.
• Upload just one copy of the long(ish) rail segment and duplicate it in-world.
• It's hard to tell from the picture how the short railings and pillars should be uploaded but it's probably best to do those pillars separately from the railing segments they are attached to too.
• The threshold seems to be just a simple cube. If that is the case, use a prim. Don't do mesh for mesh' sake. A single prim is always better than a mesh with the same shape.
• I can't tell from the picture whether the gables and roof should be done separately or as a single mesh but if the land impact for the whole build ends up higher than 6, you probably want to split them. If you split, it might be a good idea to upload the roof flat and angle it in-world. That way you can use a simple cube as the physics model. (Alternatively, you can use a prim for the roof if the front doesn't have to be perfectly vertical.)

I might need to find a tutorial or something on what or how colladas work. I’m of the impression they’re essentially just a collection of separate objects in Blender that would import as separate meshes in SL. Reason I was attempting to import as a whole is due to the textures on my blender design having AO shadowing. Again, trying to essentially mimic the design and texture of the SL home so the porch looks as though it’s part of the house rather than just an add on. So like each column has its own shadowing texture from the rails and roof intersecting with it. Same with the rails and roof textures. If I import everything separately, I’m concerned about lining up those shadows correctly.

Regarding that threshold, that’s really just there to align the porch properly with the house, after locating it in-world (by aligning it with an existing top step), and is intended to be deleted after.

Edited May 26 by Tallion Vlodovic

[Aquila Kytori]

Another option is to upload as a single mesh object ...

For SL a single mesh object can have up to 8 material faces, If I understand correctly your porch is using 8 materials so no problem with joining all the smaller objects into a single object. Just make sure that after joining the porch has only one UV map in the list of UV maps. (Before joining the names of the UV maps of each of the smaller objects should have the same name, for example UVmap).

 

The Physics model should be as simple as possible, If you follow the 3 basic rules mentioned in the screenshot below then the physics model will work as expected. ( As Chinrey noted in her post above, the reason your physics model was not accepted is because you were not complying with Rule number 3, many small triangles in your physics model. Only create surfaces in your physics model where you actually need collision surfaces).

 

There are two types of physics model Planes/Triangle type and Box/ Hull type.

Planes type uses planes/triangles to create the collision surfaces. The larger you can make these planes the better. Its rule 3 again . The larger the average plane size used in creating the physics model the lower will be the Physics Cost. This type of physics model should not be Analyzed  in Step 2: of the Physics tab when uploading. It is this type of physics model I am using for this explanation.

The Box type physics model is where you create the collision surfaces using simple non overlapping box shapes. This type of physics model should be Analyzed in the Step: 2  of the Physics tab in the mesh uploader.

 

Finally, when rezzed it is necessary to change the Physics Shape Type from the default Convex Hull to Prim

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27 by Aquila Kytori