Mesh: do you really care?

[Perrie Juran]

---

Kascha Matova wrote:

---

valerie Inshan wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

I will care when they make flexi mesh peni.

---

LMAO! :smileyvery-happy: Then maybe I will care too. /me winks at my partner: but not too flexi though. :smileytongue:

---

ZOMG! You so crazy Val! LOL!

 :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

---

We are tired of being second rate citizens.  End The Emasculation Now!!!

[nikita Jefferson]

I agree 100%,for any skin to look it's best a face light is needed,but if one has atmosperic shaders checked then those with a facelight on look too bright and the quality of the skin drops to zero because it is over bright

I make it point to have big boards in my skin shop showing the difference with atmosphereic shaders checked and unchecked when one wears a facelight.,and instructions for new bees on how to chang that

I remember when i was new to secondlife and had a face light on,i looked good to me but this one girl kept saying i looked awful bright,i had'nt a clue why i looked bright to her,now i do.

As for mesh,personally i could care less

[Mayalily]

I think it's exciting and new, but was sad to hear in this thread it's going to take high end builders to do this as some posters said in this thread, that could drive up the costs way too high, as there would be less creators then. 

I've already stated I'm excited and nervous about it, as I think most likely I'll need a new computer build to run it (but I need one of those anyways soon), I'm just wondering if the current computer specs listed to run V2 will remain the same once mesh is fully here?  If I get a new computer build in six months, I hope it will be the correct one to run and work mesh properly.  Me, being not a builder and part of my name a complete coincidence to the Maya software (as I was looking for a name with May in it but all were taken of the other ones I tried), I know nothing of the technology of it. 

But if costs are driven too high because of less creators, that could just end up sending people to basic? 

[Vladi Hazelnut]

I care to a point since I build in sl and work with sculpties quite a bit. It will all depend on how they implement it. Think mesh as a super sculpty. You can get more detail and a smoother look with mesh. So for a vehicle builder mesh is a way to fix some of the minor problems we currently have with sculpts and may help in making the vehicles a bit more realistic looking.

I for one honeslty don't know how it all works, I have a basic idea but at this point I couldn't make one. I do know they have programs that will convert sculpts to mesh, so that is a plus. Once its up and running and everything is ironed out I may play with it.

[Ansariel Hiller]

---

Acheron Gloom wrote:

 

I'm also really looking forward to more v2 viewers, as I do believe v2 itself is a superior code base almost all around.

---

Only in your dreams! The UI intergration is an even bigger nightmare than in V1 and the really important, non-UI stuff can be ported to V1 as you can see with Singularity.

[York Jessop]

---

Hope Dreier wrote:

Actually   what concerns me is the Mesh has a variable Prim Equivalence value that is not intuitive, for example it was reported to me that a 25 prim build linked to a 2 PE Mesh suddenly became a 250 PE object.     There are also still unknowns or at least uncertainties about what happens when changes in PE suddenly over flow region/parcel prim count  limits.  All that having been said,  progress is our most important product.

---

I think that must have been an exception, in most regards prim counts are much lower, I agree with Imnotgoing Sideways, in that replacing current prim builds with mesh builds is a very wise thing to do and I personally hope many adopt that kind of idea as it really does benefit everyone (much less lag).

I actually did a test build because I too was very worried about what the comparison really was like, i took a friends house which was 168prims and created an almost exact duplicate as a mesh, it came out ironically at 68prims at which point I fully committed myself to mesh building.

It is true that its very difficult to get into, Blender is not an easy program to navigate and to add ontop of that all the other complexities of building mesh its a major put off for alot of people, I sincerly hope that we see alot more mesh tutorials coming out over the next few months.

Once you understand the basics, its actually fun to work with, instead of rezzing a cube in world, you just rez your cube in the 3D program, the freedom comes from all the tools you have, instead of just resizing and moving, you can resize, move, scale, extrude, split, drag or combine, and you can do this to the edges, the faces or the verts(the points where edges meet). You can also accurately texture and bake shadows, baking shadows is actually done automatically for you, you just tell it where you want your lights, ask it to bake and hey presto all those textures you made now have nice shadows on them. The freedom to create really is beyond anything we have seen before and to top it off, its cheaper (prims) and looks much much better.

I too was sceptical, I thought this was another ploy by LL to tax us more, to restrict us to the point that prim and scuplties would be superior but I was wrong, it is better in everyway.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I'd be looking forward to it, but I'm not using SL much anymore... so... toss-up for me.

[Perrie Juran]

[madman626 Fall]

I think this one been the best one post yet ,and she right it come down to cost I am talking the cost of uploading and that will jack up the cost of building ,, but I do think 2 a lot will stick with what we know and build with what we have been build with before mesh ,, so what if it save prims who care about prims if the new build going to cost a arm and a leg ? No thanks I deal with cutting back on prims best I can does that means livening a box sure but it be a nice box still,, I do have to add I happy about the m, prims if they get it all roll out ,, but know LL there be a bug here and there and for all we know LL might pull the plug on the mesh and m, prims all at once  if it become to much of mess to deal with.it just a waiting game right now and so many of us still using old viewers will not notice a different just wait and see what it come about it. All we can do.

[Canoro Philipp]

i do care about the progress of SL.

i care if Linden Lab makes improvement to make the world a better place, reduce lag and increase the possibilities for creators, that they dont get stuck in time and keep moving forward to be up to date to the latest technologies.

[Knowl Paine]

Uninformed, unaffected and or, part of the problem; theory of three.

 

I understand very little about mesh. Fortunately, the software has selection buttons which allows for creation without having to be involved in bits or bytes of mesh minutiae.

I have the program 3D Max.

I still don't believe that everything that can be done with regular prims has been done. I'm still having fun with regular prims.

Avatars have always been the most significant source for lag in my experiences.

 

[PeterCanessa Oh]

I'm excited about it.  It's the most significant improvement to hit SL in several years, although not everyone will be able to create meshes, its effect will depend on prim-eqivalent costs and it'll take a while before it creators find out how to combine it most effectively with SL's other creation-types (prims & sculpties).

Most disappointingly for me, I won't be able to import meshes as I have no payment info I could add to my account.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

York Jessop wrote:

The downside to meshes is that you need a version 2 viewer (um thats it)

 

---

That's one hell of a downside though. Once viewer 2 runs as performant and crash-free as Phoenix and comes with an alternative v1.2x style interface, I'll begin to care about mesh.

And a few months later, people might be able to wear mesh clothes without looking like boxbot for 70% of the SL populace. Right now, it's utterly pointless to care about mesh. You can't possibly use or sell it at this point. It might as well not have been implemented yet.

[Qie Niangao]

At this point, Viewer 2 is really only a downside to folks who are experienced with Viewer 1.  That's not to say that the Viewer 2 UI is any good -- it's complete crap.  It's just that folks have gotten so they can't even notice the many, many ways that Viewer 1 is also complete crap.  (Stability is another matter.  Especially since the Mesh merges, Viewer 2 has been extremely crashy, at least for me.  But stabiilty doesn't seem to have that much effect on people's viewer choice, as long as they can get it to run at all; people flocked to Phoenix but it never approached Viewer 1.23's low crash rate.)

Anyway, to the point of the thread: I care a whole lot less about Mesh than I expected.  They've been steadily removing bits that might interest me.  The last straw was the decision to double the server weight Prim Equivalence of only Mesh-included linksets for having a script anywhere inside.  As if they hadn't already made Mesh boring by removing most any reason to script it at all, they had to uniquely penalize it for having scripts anywhere near it.  Screw that.

Originally, the idea of Mesh in SL had potential, but everything since has taken it in directions that detract from its value to the Second Life platform.  Unless it gets pried loose from the game designer mindset, it will have only the trivial impact that scuplties had: slightly prettier stuff, made by fewer people spending less time in-world.

[York Jessop]

---

Ishtara Rothschild wrote:

---

York Jessop wrote:

The downside to meshes is that you need a version 2 viewer (um thats it)

 

---

That's one hell of a downside though. Once viewer 2 runs as performant and crash-free as Phoenix and comes with an alternative v1.2x style interface, I'll begin to care about mesh.

And a few months later, people might be able to wear mesh clothes without looking like boxbot for 70% of the SL populace. Right now, it's utterly pointless to care about mesh. You can't possibly use or sell it at this point. It might as well not have been implemented yet.

---

I understand Firestorm is pretty close to being mesh enabled, I think Kristens is already enabled. But in regards to V2, have you tried the latest build? I rarely crash if ever, seems to be good on performance too, but thats only what ive personally experienced

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

The last straw was the decision to double the server weight Prim Equivalence of

only

Mesh-included linksets for having a script anywhere inside.  As if they hadn't already made Mesh boring by removing most any reason to script it at all, they had to uniquely penalize it for having scripts anywhere near it.  Screw that.

---

Just want to point out this is not true, a script adds 1PE per linked object in a linkset, they also said they are looking at other methods as the current 1PE per script is not ideal or accurate. In most cases server weight wont surpass the upload weight making scripts add nothing anyways.

There seems to be alot of mis-information out there.

[Ceka Cianci]

i would still wnt the 64x64x64 prims if they did away with mesh idea..

 

[Jo Yardley]

I wouldn't mind prims being even bigger

[Perrie Juran]

[Maelstrom Janus]

I couldnt give a stuff about meshes - while Im sure theyre all very well for the techs who can use the vastly complex techniques involved great... but for the rest of us who want to be building in world Lindens should be providing an ever improving and evolving INWORLD building system using tools and menus provided for lindens as part ofthe massive premium and tier fees we pay.... the one improvement that I saw coming out of this was 64 m prims has now been taken away from my region almost as soon as it became available...And I hate to contradict Charles Liden but I see this as a massive backward step and as far as this builder's concerned a massive inconvenience....

[WADE1 Jya]

I care a lot about mesh, and I am looking forward to using these more advanced tools & techniques to offer my customer even better products in Second Life.

When I first heard mesh was coming (about 2 years ago I think) I felt kind of the same as you do now I think. Once you research the entire situation more, you can see why Lindens chose this path. Allowing us all to just use pre-existing external pro-level software is the most convenient way to improve Second Life, for everyone involved.

3-D modeling software is available for free (ex. blender, meshwork, etc) and if you don't like the available freebie programs you can spend less than the cost of a new pair of shoes to get yourself a more comprehensible UI. Upwards in price from there, there are many other options on the market to explore. Free online tutorials are available for all softwares too so the knowledge is openly accessible too.

The software is not only for techs. Anyone who is passionate about it can learn, anybody who already learned how to edit prims inworld will be able to pick this up eventually I think. There's not really any sense in refusing to work with this more advances toolset (it isn't going to go away), I say pick up these new tools and start banging on things to see what you can come up with.

You might just be delighted at the results

[Qie Niangao]

---

York Jessop wrote:

Qie Niangao wrote:

The last straw was the decision to double the server weight Prim Equivalence of

only

Mesh-included linksets for having a script anywhere inside.  As if they hadn't already made Mesh boring by removing most any reason to script it at all, they had to uniquely penalize it for having scripts anywhere near it.  Screw that.

---

Just want to point out this is not true, a script adds 1PE per linked object in a linkset, they also said they are looking at other methods as the current 1PE per script is not ideal or accurate. In most cases server weight wont surpass the upload weight making scripts add nothing anyways.

There seems to be alot of mis-information out there.

---

Not unless they've changed it again, and very recently.  As specified in the wiki -- and as it behaved when I tested it on Mesh-enabled sims last week -- it's not adding "1 PE per linked object," but rather, 1/2 PE per linked prim, whether that prim is a Mesh or not, as long as any prim in the linkset is Mesh. And exactly as I said, that doubles the server weight of the Mesh-linked object. 

Perhaps more instructively, the assertion that server weight wouldn't surpass streaming weight is only true because of this stupid penalty for scripting anything Mesh-linked.  This makes Mesh nearly useless for a wide range of scripted applications for which streaming and physics weights are negligible.

And that gets at the very problem of having Mesh development being so "game designer centric."  They even said it right out front in the above-cited wiki article: "Allow more passive content than before."

Like I said: Screw that.

[York Jessop]

In a small limited number of scenarios, adding a script will be unworkable, this is usually due to creators making 100's of tiny mesh models to link together in some kind of attempt to reduce PE counts on very large builds. Instead of these creators trying to get around the rules and limitations they will be best to just build meshes in how they are suppose to be built. If you want a spaceship that spans an entire sim then its going to cost alot of PE for example, if you build it out of mini meshes and link it then dont expect it to render properly or be able to use scripts.

Ive been involved in the discussions about the naysayers of meshes for abit now and I hate to say this but there are people out there who are searching painfully for seemingly unrealistic scenarios where meshes will be useless and as a result have declared that meshes as a whole are doomed from that start.

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

---

Eric Castanea wrote:

Honestly, I don't. Wouldn't bother be a bit if it was never implemented.  /me shrugs

---

Do I care?

Yes. A lot. 

There is a fun classic game called Mrs Pacman. It is no lag, lots of fun and has very little graphical content.

I want more.