Inconsistent upload fees and other strange things

[Jacki Silverfall]

Why does this happen? Today I uploaded a item to SL, the price being 22L for 1200 or so vertices. I thought it was to high so I canceled and tried again. This time the cost was 23L so I got curious and canceled to do it again, this time 24L. I though I'd better upload it before it really got to high. The thing is, I didn't touch anything or change settings. So why does the price keep changing on upload.

Another thing that happened I uploaded a mesh I made in AC3D that was to cost 22L. But I needed to do more work on it and decided to import it into blender as a obj file. After exporting collada I have made no changes to the vertices/faces count it uploaded at half the price 11L.

It just doesn't seem right. :/

Any thoughts or answers?

[Rival Destiny]

Not sure if this is the answer, but could it be that each time you upload, the cost based on complexity of the model may vary slightly?

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Uploading-a-mesh-model/ta-p/974185#Section_.7

quoted from link:  When you click Calculate weights & fee, Second Life calculates the download, physics and server weights of your model in order to determine its prim-equivalent cost and Linden dollar upload cost. The base Linden dollar cost to upload is L$10 plus L$10 for each texture applied to the model, and an additional cost based on the complexity of the model.

Also see:  http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Calculating-prim-equivalent-weight/ta-p/974163

[Drongle McMahon]

If you are using the auto-LOD generation, that is non-deterministic and can give slightly different complexity meshes on successive uploads. This could explain the variation. Furthermore, if you have not provided UV maps(s), the uploader appears to use uninitialised data to make nonsense UV maps which can have substantial effects on the data size and therefore on the upload fee.

[Jacki Silverfall]

Well, there were no uv maps and no textures on either item. I guess I'll never understand this aspect of 3D modeling. 

It's to complicated for just anyone like me. I need pictures.lol

It still doesn't explain the differences in the price. Not to me at least. Sorry.

Where is the auto-LOD?

how else are you supposed to use the uploader.

Sorry but my meds are kicking in.....wheeeeeeee

[Drongle McMahon]

When you do Build->Upload->Model, you get the dialog that has four lines labelled "high", "medium", "low" and "lowest". These are for the meshes that are shown for different levels of detail (LOD) as you move away from the object. The top one is the one you used to open the dialog. By default the others are filled in by the uploader with automatically generated meshes with fewer and fewer triangles. You can alter the target triangle counts, still using the auto generator, or you can enter youir own lower LOD meshes. If you are using the auto-generated ones, they can vary in triangle count even with the same high LOD file because of the way the generator works.

The other effect, with missing UV maps, is a bug. It can give higher than expected prim and upload cost. When you apply a texture, you can find different patterns for different uploads of the same thing. There is a jira describing this.

[DanielRavenNest Noe]

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Jacki Silverfall wrote:

Well, there were no uv maps and no textures on either item. I guess I'll never understand this aspect of 3D modeling. 

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In order for the viewer to know where to put textures on your objects, you have to tell it what part of which texture each triangle gets.  So each vertex (corner) of the triangle has an X, Y, and Z position to define the shape of the object, but it also needs a U and V position on a texture to say what part of the texture to use.  U is horizontal on the texture, and V is vertical on the texture, with values from 0 (left or bottom) to 1 (right or top).

Imagine a Christmas present that you want to wrap with a nice paper (a texture).  Start with a blank wrapping paper and fold it around the box, and mark where the corners and edges of the box are.  Now unwrap the paper and lay it flat.  Your outline of the corners and edges is the UV map.  Now color the wrapping paper with whatever you want to appear on the outside. Cut away any parts outside the outline, and fold it up again around the box.  The wrapping paper will fit perfectly, carrying your colored design along.

In 3D graphics, the unwrapping stage is actually called "unwrapping the UV map".  The outline of the corners and edges is the map.  Any part of a texture outside the outline is simply ignored by the graphics card.  The edges of the outline are called "seams", like in clothing.  A dress pattern is another kind of UV map.  It tells you which part of the fabric goes on what part of the body.  Since humans are complicated shapes, you need to cut the map into several sections so you can apply the map (pattern) to flat fabric, and then fold it up and sew it without too much distortion.  The same goes for 3D models.  When the shape is complicated, you need to use several sections in the UV map so it does not distort too much.  Then you arrance those sections on your map so as not to waste too much space.

How you do those steps exactly depends on which 3D program you are using, but hopefully this gives you the idea of what is going on.

[Nalates Urriah]

Gaia has a video tutorial that describes how to use UV Maps for Sculpties. See Sculpties II You'll learn enough to be able to make a simple UV Map and hopefully get around any problem. Gaia also has a series of Mesh Tutorials. Check the top menu at blog.Machinimatrix.org.

UV Maps are UV Maps whether for sculpty, mesh, or whatever. It is an older Blender but you'll get the idea.

Youtube has a million video tutorials for UV Maps. Learning how to work with UV Maps allows you to excellent control over the appearance of your objects.

SL models use material pretty much like anyother 3D world. You are limited 8 textures per object in SL.