Each LOD must have the same number of faces as the highest LOD

[York Jessop]

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Gaia Clary wrote:

So: I was wrong, the physics file does not need any material settings at all. good ;-)

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Good to know

[Drongle McMahon]

"....then what benefit would i have from doing that ?"

None. It would be better if it was recognised as an error.

I was just being pedantic ... you can specify different textures, but you can not have them used in SL....so yes and no.

[Rusalka Writer]

I experienced the problem when I used the lowest LOD as the physics shape. Maybe that's the confusing little bug.

[Inea Wemyss]

It's so confusing when words that are being used in SL have a different meaning in the "3D world". It would be so much easier if the terminology would be the same in SL and in the 3D applications, even though they do vary sometimes. Beginners to 3D have to learn the new terminology anyway and it could be easier for them to understand 3D modelling software.

[Gaia Clary]

I think that the concepts used by Second Life regarding the "texture faces" (that's how i call them now) is close to  what is named "material" In 3D tools. But materials have a lot more features than just texture definitions. However rumours tell that we may get Materials sometime in the future and then we could name them "materials" too in Second Life. Doing that right now would be also missleading.

I still think that currently the name "texture faces" would be a good and easy going alternative.

[guY Ralior]

I think your missing what she is saying, as I am sure you know, as you step outside of SL specific tutorials and information there is a common thread of knowledge that is exchangeable weather you are talking about Maya, 3DS Max, Z Brush, or even Blender to some extent. If you go on the Area or CG talk people can answer questions and exchange knowledge cause of the standard of vocabulary associated to 3D modeling. If someone who is a regular at the Area came here to start learning mesh in SL they would be constantly learning what is being talked about and what that means specific to SL.

I think a good way to help this situation is, taking this case for example, instead of calling it a texture face, call it what it is a material assignment, and in SL that is what defines the texture boarders.

IMHO this would make people start to understand that you can learn way more about modeling once you step out of SL specific tutorials and learn how to apply 3D Modeling in general to the way SL works. This way creating assets for games would be what you are doing, and adjusting them to SL specifications, not just making mesh for SL. Also the learning curve to a platform like Unity, or even other games similar to SL would be much easier than now for someone who has only had experience with SL.

[DanielRavenNest Noe]

Second Life does have "Materials", just very simple ones.  We have control of diffuse color and opacity, and limited control of specular sharpness and bump mapping.

I think the most correct description is that we can use up to 8 UV mapped textures with 8 material settings.  Each UV map can include an arbitrary subset of the triangles in the model arranged in an arbitrary way, but each LOD level needs to have the same number of maps, and at least one triangle on each map.  Only the mapping is part of the model upload, which diffuse texture is applied, and the other materials settings, are selectable while online.

 

[Gaia Clary]

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guY Ralior wrote:

I think a good way to help this situation is, taking this case for example, instead of calling it a texture face, call it what it is a material assignment, and in SL that is what defines the texture boarders.

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Well, this is what i believe are the most important properties of materials and how they are supported in SL. Note that this is more a guess than a knowledge.Please feel free to correct me and tell me how it realy is if this is wrong (or missing something):

 

Material Property	Supported in SL	comment
Diffuse Color	yes
Specular color	-
Specular intensity	(yes)	Shininess
Translucency	-
Ambient occlusion	yes	Viewer setting
Light emitting	(yes?)	Glow
Transparency	yes
Mirror reflectivity	-
Subsurface scattering	-
receive shadows	yes	Viewer setting
cast shadows	yes	Viewer setting
Alpha	(yes)	baked alpha in textures
normal map	-
bump maps	minimal support	Bumpiness
Displacement maps	-
specularity maps	-
...	-
	-

So we sort of have half baked materials in SL by now. And maybe we realy COULD already name them "materials" in SL. I am not sure at all about all that...

But actually the name "surface texture" has a history. The naming was already discussed a few weeks before in another thread. I proposed to name them "surfaces" which indeed is backgrounded by this page:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_mesh 

But we got a feedback from LL that the name "face" has already been put into so many places in the code, in LSL, in the documentations, everywhere, that it will become impossible to change it. Hence the idea to "tag" them:

 

• model face -> what 3D modellers name "face"
• texture face -> what 3D modellers name (poor mans) "material"

 

[guY Ralior]

But we got a feedback from LL that the name "face" has already been put into so many places in the code, in LSL, in the documentations, everywhere, that it will becpome impossible to change it. Hence the idea to "tag" them:

 

• model face -> what 3D modellers name "face"
• texture face -> what 3D modellers name (poor mans) "material"

 

Well that really makes it hard doesn't it? So then "texture face" is coming about from the fact that LL has already put that into the code? But I guess what LL calls them and what we refer to them as builders and such doesn't have to be the same, although as you get deeper into it that could change and become more confusing.

[Gaia Clary]

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guY Ralior wrote:

But I guess what LL calls them and what we refer to them as builders and such doesn't have to be the same, although as you get deeper into it that could change and become more confusing.

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That is exactly the problem. We can decide to name it as we like. At the end it needs to be matched to what we see in Second Life. Just look at the function library of LSL... There we already find the "face" exposed ...

But as i wrote before, there is a chance to see "materials" on the feature list of Second Life at some time in the future. Then maybe all "face" related topics will be reworded to "material" related topics and maybe the LSL functions will become material related too ;-)

[Drongle McMahon]

"I think the most correct description is that we can use up to 8 UV mapped textures with 8 material settings....."

Equating "material-faces" with UV maps doesn't quite work because you can upload models with no UV maps and they still have faces with separate material attributes. Their "texture-faces"  can then be coloured, made fullbright, transparent, etc., but not textured. Thus the "material-face" concept is independent of UV mapping.