Problem creating oblong sculpties

[Josh Susanto]

I'll have to get back to Chosen later.

>Two tetrahedrons won't build you a desk with anything but a triangular top.

Absolautely untrue. They can build a square or rectangular top, but the lower support structure will not be in the obvious places. They can also build 5-sided top with an indent, and some other shapes

>I'm starting to wonder if you understand what a tetrahedron is and what its possibilities and limits are.

I'm starting to wonder if you realize that they can be made in different sizes and with different angles.

>No room for your legs? Hang it from a wall, voila.

If I'm going to do that, it would still me more efficient to make 2 tetras almost flat, angled to produce a rectangular top, and hang that from the wall. 

>Yes you can do the same with a single tetrahedron, but that still gives you a triangular top.

Or I can push one point into the wall and get a trapezoidal top surface.

>Try to stop thinking in prims, but in 3D surfaces, I can't say this often enough.

I'll do that if you stop thinking of trapezoids as being locked into equilaterality, or as unable to produce any right or obtuse angles.

>For some reason you take the freedom to move around the vertices on a tetrahedron if that suits your needs, yet you say a box is a box. You can move vertices on a box around aswell. It would no longer be a geometrical cube, but it would be the same as far as your graphics card is concerned, or the SL rendercost calculation, well almost anyway.

Precisely. There's very little I can do to it that will make it cheaper to render than 2 tetrahedrons.

>Practical desk? I think I hear wings flapping.

It depends upon what you want for a desk, sure. If you want a more data-expensive desk, the sky's the limit. If you want one that's cheaper, I'm saying we can go further than has been gone, and do it easily.

>A bounding box matter because most SL objects are square or squarish. So on the xy projection of the bounding box (which can be anything between 0.01 and 64 meters) any unused space is often lost. Boxes use the entire area, tetrahedrons only half.

Maybe I should start a support group for people who compulsively make prims that don't fill up the bounding box. 

>A box will give you 100% desk area. How will one, two three or infinite tetrahedrons give you more than 100%?

2 will give the the total area, and for less data.

>Again, why can you move around verts on a tetrahedron and not on a box? You can make trapezium shaped desks with a box.

So the solid portion obstructing my feet will be even wider than if I used trapezoids? Why would I want that?

>Think again. combining two tetrahedrons into a four sided pyramid is the same as welding the top vertices of a box together.

I don't follow you at all. Why would I do that?

>Stop thinking in prims for crying out loud

Clearly, you have no idea what I'm thinking.

>use a triangle

I'll try that, too. But it will then tend to create the extra step of closing up objects that are supposed to look solid and remove any unwanted material that looks infinitely thin or one-sided.

>Yes there always has to be some element that can take pressure rather than tension. But you can keep this to a minimum. Take a spoked wheel apart and you'll have yourself a bunch of very wobbly elements.A microthin tetrahedron is effectively a plane. How are you going to fill something that has no volume? (Not to mention why)

I was speaking strictly as a plausible real-world analogy to what might be built with these kinds of components in SL.

I have 2 basic ideas abiout how to use pressure differential to create structural support with semirigid tertahedronal balloons. One is to use a rigid polymer film that defaults to a concave shape, and then join the faces in a vaccuum before subjecting it to normal atmospheric pressure. The other idea I like better is to make the faces concave to a point where they actually press against each other before joining them in a chamber filled with an oxygen-helium mixture just weak enough in oxygen to retard fires when released into a normal atmosphere that has fire in it. In the second idea, if the object is ruptured by some kind of explosive projectile (for example) it may tend to default to its concave shape, basically imploding while expelling the gas. An additional advantage to the helium mixture is that it effectively makes the total structure less heavy than if it displaced air with some other kind of material (OK, not hydrogen).

>Bucky Fuller, does that ring a bell?

Oh, I see the confusion here. Sorry. When domes were mentioned as being used in space or underwater, I didn't realize we might be understood as still talking about geodesic domes. I wouldn't see any reason to use them in space or underwater. The continued discussion of domes from there was probably a total waste of our time. The Fuller reference was strictly intended as a comparison to Wright. It really was nothing to do with tetrahedrons, which Fuller didn't use anyway. In fact, I think I mentioned I expected Fuller  should have preferred domes only because of his material limitations. I'm not at all interested in building Fuller-like domes in SL, even at ground level. There's no advanatge, and it's a tangent I should not have encouraged us to get onto. Using such domes to argue against cubes was construed as using them to do more than that, and I should never have allowed that door to be opened.

>I think people use domes in SL because they like the shape, nothing more, nothing less.

Pretty clearly. 

>Nothing compulsive about it. Anyway, those domes are made out of triangles anyway, as far as all your soft- and hardware are concerned.

LOTS of triangles, yes. 

 

[Josh Susanto]

>Sure, as long as I can be superannoying, and point out that two tetraherdons could build you a desk with diamond-shaped top. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" border="0" alt=":smileyhappy:" title="Smiley Happy" />

Why would you do it like that?

>I'm of course in complete agreement with everything else you said, regarding Josh's present fascination with tetrahedrons.  The fact that he referred to a two-tetrahedron desk as "practical" does beg the question whether he understands what tetrahedrons actually are.  I certainly wouldn't want to sit at that desk.

1) Push it to square the top (or, better, yet, start with top parts that are right-angled to begin with)

2) Stretch it so that the square is a rectangle of preferred dimensions

3) Push the lower portion of at least one of the tetras so that it's perpendicular to the top on 2 axes

4) Sink the downward points into the floor. 

 I'm really beginning to wonder whether other people can even visualize without a modeling program or a lump of clay or something. 

[Josh Susanto]

>The thing you built is what I think Josh has in mind.

It's a less elegant version of one of 3 basic ideas I've had, yes.

>It's standing on two points though. You need at least three to keep it balanced. I know SL has no gravity or other force unless you assign them by script, but following that logic one can also make a hovering box.

"Stop thinking in prims!"

[leliel Mirihi]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

>"This seems to be the root of your misunderstanding... each triangle is considered to be independent."

The explanation is simpler than that, I see now.

1)

The mushroom didn't load out as a 128 .obj.

It loaded out at the resolution Cel Edman expects to be used for SL.

I just didn't realize that because I have always exported sculpts as .png, not as .obj.

2)

If there is a default export resolution assignment for meshes, no one cares to discuss that.

If there isn't one, then manybe we're really talking about "LOD". Are we?

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Default resolution of what? Talking in riddles and leaving important details out doesn't make your posts more profound. I think I understand now why this thread is 10 pages of hot air.

[Josh Susanto]

How many data points does Second Life normally want to apply to your mesh models?

[leliel Mirihi]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

How many data points does Second Life normally want to apply to your mesh models?

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Chosen already told you like 6 pages back. Really that kind of detail isn't very important, the limits are high enough that no reasonable object would ever hit them. I guess it's my turn to say it now, but stop thinking about scultpies.

[Drongle McMahon]

Here's another block for you (has to use plane topology).

[Chosen Few]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

Why would you do it like that?

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Why wouldn't I?  All you said was a desk made from two tetrahedrons.  That's what that is.

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

1) Push it to square the top (or, better, yet, start with top parts that are right-angled to begin with)

2) Stretch it so that the square is a rectangle of preferred dimensions

3) Push the lower portion of at least one of the tetras so that it's perpendicular to the top on 2 axes

4) Sink the downward points into the floor. 

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You really think I didn't think of that, Josh?  OF COURSE I DID!  I probably also thought of about a hundred other permutations you never even considered, since you're still stuck thinking in terms of solids instead in terms of surfaces.

You stated you believed a two-tetrahedron desk would be "practical".  That was your exact wording.  Well, to me, the ONLY practical design for a desk is one at which a human being could actually sit.  You really want to tell me someone could sit at this?

How is that design practical in any way? 

At least my design had a space open for those little things I like to call human legs.

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

I'm really beginning to wonder whether other people can even visualize without a modeling program or a lump of clay or something. 

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The problem here, Josh, is not with anyone else's inability to visualize, but with your own.  You're seemingly so wrapped up in imaginary data points, and totally inapplicable concepts, that you completely ignore the simple practical considerations of form and function.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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leliel Mirihi wrote:

Talking in riddles and leaving important details out doesn't make your posts more profound. I think I understand now why this thread is 10 pages of hot air.

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THANK YOU for this post, it was the little push I needed to stop answering Josh altogether.

We have a clear case of a person that has no understanding of 3D modelling whatsoever, or objects in 3D space even. A complete lack of understanding what mesh or UV mapping is, let alone how to use it. All these things wouldn't matter if one was willing to learn and try things out. But this is clearly not the case. I've wasted enough time on this.

I guess I failed my patience exam...

[Josh Susanto]

(And yet, no outrage. Hmm.)

>From whom?  Me?  You?  The general public? 

From anyone at all. I hadn't really expected som much to be read into the remark.

I just meant to point out the irony of people being concerned about mesh and sculpts being undercharged or overcharged when I never heard anybody say anything about regular prims being undercharged or overcharged for about 5 years.

>If it were up to me, I'd do away with the old rules right now, and deal only with the real numbers.  But fortunately for most of the SL poulation, it's not up to me.

I would join you in that if there were some ample period of transition provided.

>But hey, I'm just a fatcat American, right?  What do I know?

I expect you're right about this (the earlier, uncopied part, not about being just a fatcat). The 3-button mouse has to be out there somewhere, because people in this country do 3D modeling for sure. But a lot of things here are really weird for no reason. There is no such thing as a crock pot, for instance. Not anywhere. 

>In any case, I do hope you won't have much trouble obtaining what is a $5 item here.  If you do, let me know, and I'll send you one.  You can reimburse me with an equivalent value in $L, if that's easiest for you.

I appreciate that, thanks. I'll try to find one on my own first, though. Whatever you would have to pay for shipping would be more than the cost of this city's most least corrupt computer parts retailer getting someone to swipe one off a ship in Panama.

>nearly impossible do 3D modeling with a track pad in the first place, 

I did notice that, too.

Your suggestions on the keyboard are good, but I do usually have my right hand on the mouse and my left arm coming over the left side of the keyboard almost perpendicularly. My setup is anti-ergonomic, but it doesn't matter because I don't get to sit for more than a couple of minutes normally without someone giving me a reason to satnd up. If you've had joint problems, I'm not a doctor, but I can suggest at least considering bromelain supplements. It's anecdotal, but I know a percussionist in Vancouver who was suddenly able to stop wearing wrist braces for tendonitis after many years when he started taking the stuff. He said "what is it from"? I said "pineapples". He said "I hate pineapples, but I guess that makes sense."

>Maya requires a three-button mouse (unless you want to remap the controls, which you CAN do).

If I can afford Maya, I can afford the mouse. But that's good to know, thanks.

>As for the Wacom tablet, Maya has support built in for making use of its pressure sensitivity, as do most high end graphics programs.  I don't know that Autodesk actively recommends it outright for Maya, but the included support certainly serves to imply it's a good idea to have one.  They do actively recommend it for Mudbox.

Also good to know. 

>No, it's my way of saying that "resolution" in the way that you're thinking of it doesn't even apply.  There's an entirely different set of principles in play.

Beyond some amount of resolution; I suppose that resolution, as a principle would not matter, yes.

>For years, I warned people about exactly this situation.  Whenever anyone would ask about how to learn to use 3D modeling software in order to make sculpties, I always said, "Learning to make sculpties won't help you to make arbitrary 3D models, but learning to make arbitrary 3D models WILL help you to make sculpties.  Don't put the cart before the horse."

This makes good sense as an explanation. I knew when I first started making sculpts that that was not how other stuff was made in SL, and definitely not on other platforms. I just did it because it was there to do, and because it was really pretty easy.

>People who took that advice are now in a position to make whatever they want. 

Yes. I see that I could be making more than rocks and logs, for sure. I've just made those the core of my business because sculpts like to be a rock or a log.

>Interesting bit of trivia for you:  It actually takes more chemical reactions in the brain to forget than to learn.  This is why first impressions are so powerful, why preconceptions are so hard to dispel, and why habits are so hard to break.

It seems like this would have to be true. Or, on the total balance, we would tend to know essentially nothing. 

>What's IS crucially important is the fact that soft normals are far less costly than triangles.  Soft normals on small number of edges can replace a great many polygons, when the goal is to create the appearance of a smoothly curving surface. 

I should think that anything that can would allow polygons to be removed from a curved surface without losing the curve would be crucially important, yes. This should be an easy point to understand, in principle.

>For example, one of the cylinders below has just 10 sides (just like the avatar's legs and arms), while the other one has 24, like an SL cylinder.  With the hard edges of the tops out of frame, and only the softened edges of the sides in view, can you tell which is which? 

There's some difference in the color gradients near the centers, at least on my monitor, but that's much less conspicuous than the difference in tooth patterns on the left edge of each image. I'm not going to pretend I could possibly have any reason to think either of these things must matter, just for the sake of being difficult. The examples effectively look the same to me.

>SL doesn't support it yet, but it will.

I hope so. That would seem to be a major advantage to whatever medium was allowed to support it; especially if it could be applied to particles. 

>In the mean time, SL does have the ability to utilize hard and soft edge normals, which can be quite powerful in itself.

Understood. Soft edges in SL tend to cost a lot in terms of data. But I've never felt bad about using them because so many hard-edged effects seem to be designed in ways that basically throw away extra data of which my own sculpts at least make some use. I see that meshes should already allow one to do better on both points.

>What it does make a difference to is the render process.  If my understanding of how full bright works is correct, full bright will speed up the rendering, since shading calculations don't need to be done.

Not having conducted any hard scientific inquiry on the subject, that has been my own impression as well. That is; the image has to be processed as full bright in any case, whether shadow is added or not, so adding shadow is just more work. Whenever I ask about "total" data cost, you can assume I'm also asking about rendering costs, for 2 reasons: 1) I often wouldn't be certain which something is, depending upon the question and 2) even if rendering costs are not part of the object data, itself, I think it's potentially irresponsible to talk about how much data the object contains without looking at such a question in context of the total effects of the object when it is actually rezzed somewhere. Producing more lag with less data doesn't sound like a very laudable accomplishment to me, at least for non-griefers.

>For example, if either or both of the solids is using tricks of light (soft normals) to appear more rounded than it actually is, the intersection will destroy the illusion.  Thus, some extra vertices to help define the specific intersected shape you want to illustrate can help a great deal.

Excellent of you to mention this before I would otherwise have to discover it the hard way on my own. EXCELLENT.

>The vast majority of 3D models in existence have more than one UV shell.

That's the answer I needed. But the examples are anything but redundant. They should be clear to anyone who sees them. Again: EXCELLENT.

>I don't know that any of this is making sense to you yet, without your having ever UVed so much a single polygon. 

So far, it's a more effcient use of my own time than repeatedly backing up the tutorials. 

The things you're discussing are the things that are actually going to matter in my case, clearly.

[Josh Susanto]

Very nice, thanks.

That looks a lot more useful than what I made, but not for the uses I had intended.

I was trying to make a cube on which the frame would pull to one point and provide 6 uninterrupted faces.

I have since realized I could probably get my cube edges to remap enough to mitigate the appearance of new seams, but it it hardly seems worth the trouble, even without mesh as an option. My shape has enough grain built into it that it's going to have that corner pucker with any texture I haven't also engineered to compensate for it. 

Another template I made that I have since serioulsy considered has the pucker at the center of one face, which I guess would usually become the bottom of whatever the object ultimately decides to be. 

[Josh Susanto]

(Why would you do it like that?)

>Why wouldn't I?  All you said was a desk made from two tetrahedrons.  That's what that is.

Implicit in the challenge was the idea to make something more practical, rather than less practical. If the point is to show that the other guy's tools can produce something impractical, I suppose I could make a desk out of a box by turning it up on one corner and maximizing the vertical dimension while minimizing the other dimensions.

>You really think I didn't think of that, Josh?  OF COURSE I DID! 

Fair enough. I just wouldn't have thought that would be your preferred design.

>I probably also thought of about a hundred other permutations you never even considered, since you're still stuck thinking in terms of solids instead in terms of surfaces.

The desk discussion didn't start with me, since I was speaking more generally; thinking more about buildings. The specific challenge to make a desk with two tetras comes specifically due to the desk question.

If use of solids is thwarting you, though, in your design of a better desk with less data, please don't let it. I'd be happy to see a better design with less data, provided that it does not use infinitely thin or one-sided materials.

>You stated you believed a two-tetrahedron desk would be "practical". 

What I stated was that it could be no less practical than a one-box desk.

>Well, to me, the ONLY practical design for a desk is one at which a human being could actually sit.  You really want to tell me someone could sit at this?

 

You've pushed the points to opposite corners, where they could have both been pushed to the back. With both at the back, the points can be sunk far enough into the floor to create the appearance both of some amount of leg space and a center of gravity well above the visible base of support, at least in a tradeoff as good as what you'd get from a block desk with a perpedicular back. As for leaning on the desk at all, even assuming it is not fixed to the floor, leaning would seem to be more a question of the material of the desk than of anything else. Henry  Ford's desk consisted mostly of lead.

Again, though, the question was originally whether or not a 2-tetra desk could be more practical than a 1-box desk. Given that criterion, I don't see how even your designs are at all deficient. One possible counterargument might be the idea of shearing a trapezoid with the narrow end down in order to create more foot space by pushing the lower support part away across the floor in the back.  I concede that there might be people who prefer such a desk for some situation. Maybe. But at a higher data cost, I question how often that should really be.

>How is that design practical in any way? 

It's not a question of being practical. It's a question of being less impractical than something else that needs to use more data.

>At least my design had a space open for those little things I like to call human legs.

A lot of the solutions involving box desks do no more in that regard than what I have suggested. Hanging a box on the wall, for example, doesn't create leg space beyond the wall.  

A reasonable question is whether someone needs a desk narrower than will allow sufficient leg space with these kinds of designs. 

>The problem here, Josh, is not with anyone else's inability to visualize, but with your own. 

I'm not the one who visualized the points at opposite corners of the desk. 

If you make a desk as implied by sinking the lower points (as I know I mentioned) it will not fall over while the center of gravity remains inside the area of implied contact with the floor, unless acted upon by some force. So, OK, don't make such a desk out of balsa wood. 

>You're seemingly so wrapped up in imaginary data points, and totally inapplicable concepts, that you completely ignore the simple practical considerations of form and function.

I was only comparing a 2-tetra desk to a 1-box desk. Really. That was all. And it wasn't even my own idea to compare such things in the first place. And we have compared them well, really.

Even your own design supports my own basic argument on the point that was originally made here.

 

 

[Josh Susanto]

>THANK YOU for this post, it was the little push I needed to stop answering Josh altogether.

Well, if your life is too short to spend any more of it humoring someone you find tedious, I can respect that, and I thank you for contributing as much as you have. I've been absolutely dead wrong about several things, and I would never have been straightened out so quickly some other way.

>We have a clear case of a person that has no understanding of 3D modelling whatsoever, or objects in 3D space even.

These things are not the same.

Lack of experience with programs doesn't mean I'm unable to solve real 3-dimensional problems in real life, or if necessary, to do so even without touching anything. 

There may be other reasons not to use tetras very much, but they would seem to have to be different from those so far given here. If you think I'm an ignorant a$$hole, I suppose I can live with that. But please don't conflate my personality with your own doubts about anything I may have to say about tetras. If you can think of them as separate problems, you might be able to get something useful out of the discussion up to this point, eventually. I already have.

>A complete lack of understanding what mesh or UV mapping is, let alone how to use it.

The whole reason I'm beginning to understand it at all is that I've been able to get you and the others to explain it clearly, rather than repeatedly rereading technical information that assumes I will only ask a completely different set of questions.

>All these things wouldn't matter if one was willing to learn and try things out.

I am trying things out. It's just a slow process because every time I've tried to do something, I've discovered something else that needs to be done first.

>But this is clearly not the case.

It is absolutely the case. But I understand that if you are at all interested of being persuaded so, it's going to take me a lot of time.

>I've wasted enough time on this.

That's quite possible. And if it's true, then I am sorry to have given you any trouble.

Thank you for your contributions here.

Should you choose to continue this or a related conversation at some point in the future, I'll make a point of trying to make it more productive for you, personally.

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Josh, the thing that really bothers me is you assume things that aren't true then sticking by them with a stubbornness I rarely see.

For some reason small things are spinning out of control for no reason, but that's not a one sided issue I think. I've spent hours on calculating and modelling writing ( and re re writing because of the forum issues I had) only to try and show you tetrahedrons aren't the preferred basic shape, neither is a cube, or one of the pyramids. The triangle is. You seem to grasp that concept, yet we're still going over and over it. Must be the both of us pushing eachothers buttons.(And ofcourse there's use for any of those geometrical volumes, I did not and will not ever deny that)

Then there's the big issue of poor cummunication and that's mostly from your side. You state people can't visualise things in 3d space. I can tell you I can and I can show you things, in fact I do. Chosen does a superior job at this, by taking more time to actually model everything then post the result. You on the other hand never do. This leaves everybody guessing to what extent you actually understand things and to what extent you are guessing and assuming.

These are the two things I ment by wasting time.

Maybe I was out of line on the you not being willing to learn. But you don't seem to do a lot of trying out. I haven't seen a single thing you've built putting anything you may or may not have grasped into practice, all you do is talk about things. I have read most of this thread and you do seem to be picking up things here and there and are trying to. Maybe put more time into practice than into discussion.

Will I resond to your posts? Hard to tell, I like to post, I won't deny that:) It's just our whole discussion that's spinning out of control and I'd rather help people than having to "defend" all my sentences, being torn out of context/proportion or not.

No hard feelings at all...

[Chosen Few]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

Implicit in the challenge was the idea to make something more practical, rather than less practical.

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I'm afraid I just can't see how a desk that nobody can sit at could ever be described as "practical".

 

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

If the point is to show that the other guy's tools can produce something impractical, I suppose I could make a desk out of a box by turning it up on one corner and maximizing the vertical dimension while minimizing the other dimensions.

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How is this about anybody's tools?  I thought we were talking about shapes.  Or are you saying you own tetrahedrons?

 

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

Fair enough. I just wouldn't have thought that would be your preferred design.

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My preferred design would be something that looks plausibly usable by a human being.  That means don't make a desk out of two tetrahedrons in the fist place. 

However, since the scenario was posed, ridiculous though it was, I went with a design that at least allows a person to sit at it.

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

If use of solids is thwarting you, though, in your design of a better desk with less data, please don't let it. I'd be happy to see a better design with less data, provided that it does not use infinitely thin or one-sided materials.

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So a desk that only the dismembered people or intangible apparitions can use is OK in your book, but a desk made form two-dimensional surfaces is not?  You've got some funny rules, man.

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

You've pushed the points to opposite corners, where they could have both been pushed to the back. With both at the back, the points can be sunk far enough into the floor to create the appearance both of some amount of leg space and a center of gravity well above the visible base of support, at least in a tradeoff as good as what you'd get from a block desk with a perpedicular back. As for leaning on the desk at all, even assuming it is not fixed to the floor, leaning would seem to be more a question of the material of the desk than of anything else. Henry  Ford's desk consisted mostly of lead.

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I hate to burst your bubble on this, but  moving both cornders to the back wouldn't create any leg room to speak of.  I'll explain.

In RL, standard height for a desk is 28.5 inches.   A deluxe size desk top is 36" deep. Assuming the back of the desk is square, that gives us a slope for the hypotenuse of about 38 degrees.

Standard chair height is 18", which means the top corner of the knee cap for a seated person is about 23" from the ground.  That means the knee cap will collide with the sloped bottom of the desk just 2.4 inches from the front edge.

I don't know about you, but my legs extend way more than just 2.4 inches past the front of my desk.

In order for the slope to be slight enough that the legs could fit underneath it without colliding, the desk top would have be 95 inches deep, almost 8 feet!  That's more than two and a half times the depth of the largest desks commonly available. 

 

All that is assuming the bottom corner of the desk is flush with the floor.  If the bottom extends through the floor, as you propose, then the slope becomes even steeper, so the knees would collide with the slanted surface even sooner.

 

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

A lot of the solutions involving box desks do no more in that regard than what I have suggested. Hanging a box on the wall, for example, doesn't create leg space beyond the wall. 

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If you're going to mount a cube against a wall, then you can delete the two triangles that face the wall.  You can also remove the two that face the floor, since it's highly unlikely anyone will ever look up at the desk from underneath (and even if they did, the absence of a bottom surface wouldn't spoil the impression that the object is in fact a desk). That's standard practice in game art.  In fact, if I were ever to turn in a desk like that without those triangles removed, the work would be considered incomplete.

In that scenario you've got eight triangles, and eight vertices, equivalent to the tetrahedrons in cost.  But unlike the tetrahedrons, it gets to actually look like a desk.

As for lack of leg space beyond the wall, how is that in any way relevant?

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

I'm not the one who visualized the points at opposite corners of the desk.

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Neither was I.  My design was at least workable, even if uncomfortable.  Yours, as I just explained, is impossible.

 

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

 

If you make a desk as implied by sinking the lower points (as I know I mentioned) it will not fall over while the center of gravity remains inside the area of implied contact with the floor, unless acted upon by some force. So, OK, don't make such a desk out of balsa wood.

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It's not about whether it looks like it might fall over.  It's about the fact that no human could sit at it.  Heck, you couldn't even push a chair in under it.

[Chosen Few]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

I just meant to point out the irony of people being concerned about mesh and sculpts being undercharged or overcharged when I never heard anybody say anything about regular prims being undercharged or overcharged for about 5 years.

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I'm glad you're finally getting that.  That's been one of my main points since we started this duscussion.  People in SL are thinking about all the wrong things, and have been since the start, with regard to resource alocation.

 

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Josh Susanto wrote:

There is no such thing as a crock pot, for instance. Not anywhere.

---

Really?  How odd.  I can send you one of those, too, if you want.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

If you've had joint problems, I'm not a doctor, but I can suggest at least considering bromelain supplements. It's anecdotal, but I know a percussionist in Vancouver who was suddenly able to stop wearing wrist braces for tendonitis after many years when he started taking the stuff.

---

Thanks, I'll look into that.  It probably couldn't hurt.

I've actually had to do a lot, these past several years, to become pain free.  Improved diet, regular exercise, a fantastic chiropractor, as well as several thousand dollars spent on ergonomics, and I'm doing quite well these days.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Yes. I see that I could be making more than rocks and logs, for sure. I've just made those the core of my business because sculpts like to be a rock or a log.

---

Well, as long as the sculpts are happy, who are we to judge? 

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

I should think that anything that can would allow polygons to be removed from a curved surface without losing the curve would be crucially important, yes. This should be an easy point to understand, in principle.

---

Just to be fully clear, removing polygons from a curve WOULD lessen the curve. There's no getting around that.  Soft normals just serve to make surfaces look more curved than they actually are, so you're less likely to notice the loss.  It's a trick of light, nothing more.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

There's some difference in the color gradients near the centers, at least on my monitor, but that's much less conspicuous than the difference in tooth patterns on the left edge of each image. I'm not going to pretend I could possibly have any reason to think either of these things must matter, just for the sake of being difficult. The examples effectively look the same to me

---

Those jags aren't relevant, just so you know.  I just happened to take the screenshot without any antialiasing enabled in the viewport. Now that you mention it, they do stand out. I didn't even notice them at the time.  They're not related to the subject of normals in any way, totally separate thing.

But yes, there are some subtle differences in the shading gradients.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

I hope so. That would seem to be a major advantage to whatever medium was allowed to support it; especially if it could be applied to particles.

---

You'd better hope they never allow normal mapping of particles.  It would be difficult to imagine that adding so many more lighting vectors to objects that can spawn by the thousands would be a good idea.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Excellent of you to mention this before I would otherwise have to discover it the hard way on my own.

EXCELLENT.

 

That's the answer I needed. But the examples are anything but redundant. They should be clear to anyone who sees them. Again: EXCELLENT.

 

So far, it's a more effcient use of my own time than repeatedly backing up the tutorials. 

The things you're discussing are the things that are actually going to matter in my case,

clearly.

---

Glad to hear you found the informaton so helpful.

 

 

[Josh Susanto]

>I'm afraid I just can't see how a desk that nobody can sit at could ever be described as "practical".

I'm sitting at the front of a block-shaped cabinet right now.

Believe me, I'd  rather be sitting at any of the tetra desks we've discussed.

>How is this about anybody's tools?  

OK, maybe not tools. Materials? I'm still not clear on  whether a templated shape in cyberspace is a tool or a meterial.

Should I have said "components"?

>My preferred design would be something that looks plausibly usable by a human being.  That means don't make a desk out of two tetrahedrons in the fist place. However, since the scenario was posed, ridiculous though it was, I went with a design that at least allows a person to sit at it.

And you did great and I should have been a lot nicer about it. As undesirable as those desks are, you've nonetheless utterly pre-defeated our blue ribbon panel of rocket scientists in any future effort to show you a less impractical desk made out of a block without adding any data. I'm not the winner here; you are.

>So a desk that only the dismembered people or intangible apparitions can use is OK in your book, but a desk made form two-dimensional surfaces is not?  You've got some funny rules, man.

I'm using a block for a desk right now and not liking it too much. But parts of it don't disappear when I view it from different angles. The criteria for this challenge were stated before you made these desks, and the point was specifically a comparison between a 1-block desk and a 2-tetra desk, in order to demonstrate one principle under one set of conditions. If you'd like to compare 2 other things, I'd probably be very interested in that, too. I understand that a functional desk might be made out the glass they use in interrogation rooms, for example. 

>I hate to burst your bubble on this, but  moving both cornders to the back wouldn't create any leg room to speak of. 

It creates more at the sides than at the minimum toward the center; moreover: more than none, which, so far, is more than has been offered here by the other design team.

>I'll explain.In RL, standard height for a desk is 28.5 inches.   A deluxe size desk top is 36" deep. Assuming the back of the desk is square, that gives us a slope for the hypotenuse of about 38 degrees.Standard chair height is 18", which means the top corner of the knee cap for a seated person is about 23" from the ground.  That means the knee cap will collide with the sloped bottom of the desk just 2.4 inches from the front edge.

Depending upon whether you keep your knees together or apart, yes.

Both would be nice, but either would be better than neither, no? 

>I don't know about you, but my legs extend way more than just 2.4 inches past the front of my desk.

You don't know about me, but that's a big subject on which I can't fault you more generally. I don't know about you, either, but that's unrelated to any kind of animosity. You have thought this through from comparison to better desks. I see that, and I'm impressed with it. I've thought it through from comparison to worse desks, which I'm still convinced would include anything made from a block shape without adding any data.

>In order for the slope to be slight enough that the legs could fit underneath it without colliding, the desk top would have be 95 inches deep, almost 8 feet!  That's more than two and a half times the depth of the largest desks commonly available. All that is assuming the bottom corner of the desk is flush with the floor.  If the bottom extends through the floor, as you propose, then the slope becomes even steeper, so the knees would collide with the slanted surface even sooner.

It's ridiculous, yes. But that is also one result of applying the rectangular top surface criterion, which I thought I was being pretty charitable by being allowed to apply in this challenge. I've worked at corner desks with triangular surfaces, and I think we've all seen them. If you're unable to make a more ergonomic 2-tetra desk with a triangular surface, your head is probably due for an MRI. 

You and I have become embroiled in a partially false disagreement in this desk issue 1) because the point that was originally being made with it is not only what you are trying to make (not that anyone but me has discouraged you in that), and 2) because the criteria I agreed to apply are not necessarily criteria you would have chosen to impose from the opposing end of the original disagreement. 

In regard to knee space (of which I still insist there is more than you've explained; just not all the way across), I was thinking more of foot space at the sides than of knee space in the middle; neither of which I have right now in RL. The other team hasn't offered anything better in terms of foot space. 

As much as I don't want to use a 2-tetra desk in RL, I'm still literally sitting in front of a block to which people who superficially seem to agree with you have not provided any better option with their preferred building component.

[Josh Susanto]

>I'm glad you're finally getting that.  That's been one of my main points since we started this duscussion.  People in SL are thinking about all the wrong things, and have been since the start, with regard to resource alocation.

I think we're of a like mind on this point, but ironing out the details can be a pretty messy process. Persuading people to apply the meter as a meter would also break a lot of content, but I've gradually come around to the belief that at least a general shift in that direction could be a real improvement.

(There is no such thing as a crock pot, for instance. Not anywhere.)

>Really?  How odd.  I can send you one of those, too, if you want. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif" border="0" alt=":smileyvery-happy:" title="Smiley Very Happy" />

I think we've got one coming from CA in few months. Meanwhile, you're being deprived of several types of fruit, the deprivation of which would cause riots if it were abruptly imposed today, rather than decades ago.

>Thanks, I'll look into that.  It probably couldn't hurt.

The other proteases have not been conclusively linked with joint health, but they are found in papaya, kiwi, and fig.

>I've actually had to do a lot, these past several years, to become pain free.  Improved diet, regular exercise, a fantastic chiropractor, as well as several thousand dollars spent on ergonomics, and I'm doing quite well these days.

I never think about it. But I also sleep on the floor and prefer to. I also suggest people hike up mountains in NH barefooted just to see how they feel later, but they never do it.

>Well, as long as the sculpts are happy, who are we to judge?  **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" border="0" alt=":smileyhappy:" title="Smiley Happy" />

The rock sculpts might be the very last thing to be replaced with mesh in some distant year, but I realize the market will nonetheless saturate before that anyway. Once no one is any longer willing to pay more for something comparable than what they now pay me (or each other for my products, which may be nothing), I'll be competing mostly with my own extant copymods. 

>Just to be fully clear, removing polygons from a curve WOULD lessen the curve. There's no getting around that.  Soft normals just serve to make surfaces look more curved than they actually are, so you're less likely to notice the loss.  It's a trick of light, nothing more.

 That is probably an important point for some other reader. In my case, you say tomato. Well over half of the curvature my own eye thinks it sees on my current sculpts is something I know isn't really there. And I'm a pretty harsh critic, generally. The limits of things on the screen are practically always a bigger challenge to fudge than anything inside of them. If this is also a way to save data, though, I need to know about it. 

(There's some difference in the color gradients near the centers, at least on my monitor, but that's much less conspicuous than the difference in tooth patterns on the left edge of each image. I'm not going to pretend I could possibly have any reason to think either of these things must matter, just for the sake of being difficult. The examples effectively look the same to me)

>Those jags aren't relevant, just so you know.  I just happened to take the screenshot without any antialiasing enabled in the viewport. Now that you mention it, they do stand out. I didn't even notice them at the time.  They're not related to the subject of normals in any way, totally separate thing.

Moreover, if you're doing anything that makes them relevant, you're probably doing something wrong. I mentioned them to emphasize that I couldn't even see much of anything else. It was actualy a way of being clear about how difficult it should be for anyone to disagree with you on the main point.

>But yes, there are some subtle differences in the shading gradients.

And if you had not asked me to look for them, I wouldn't have detected them at all.

 (I hope so. That would seem to be a major advantage to whatever medium was allowed to support it; especially if it could be applied to particles.)

>You'd better hope they never allow normal mapping of particles.  It would be difficult to imagine that adding so many more lighting vectors to objects that can spawn by the thousands would be a good idea.

Interesting problem. What about alphas, though? Shouldn't normal mapping of alphas essentially provide a kind of rudimentary holography?

 >Glad to hear you found the informaton so helpful. **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" border="0" alt=":smileyhappy:" title="Smiley Happy" />

Of course. I am difficult; I am not unappreciative.

 

[leliel Mirihi]

---

Chosen Few wrote:

You'd better hope they never allow normal mapping of particles.  It would be difficult to imagine that adding so many more lighting vectors to objects that can spawn by the thousands would be a good idea.

---

Doesn't matter one bit in a deferred renderer, the lighting equations are completely decoupled from the geometry.

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Interesting problem. What about alphas, though? Shouldn't normal mapping of alphas essentially provide a kind of rudimentary holography?

---

No. Normal mapped alpha textures would look no different than normal mapped opaque textures. Holographs are a much more difficult and interesting problem since they appear to reflect light where there is no geometry at all.

Things are obviously more complicated than that.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

 

Since we can move the vertices of a tetrahedron around and can apparantly forget about any forces besides gravity, a box could result in the left desk in the picture. I didn't calculate it, but if the desk shown would fall over it would be to the back I'd say, meaning there can be more legroom than is shown right now. We can even push two vertices together, resulting in the desk on the right. That would save one vertex and two faces. I prefer a normal desk really, but I'd prefer any of these two over any of the tetrahedron ones I've seen or came up with myself.

 

EDIT the board facing your legs can be vertical when two identical prisms are pushed together, it would precisely be on the center of gravity. Make the backboard bigger than the top and you can even slope it the other way.

[Chosen Few]

---

leliel Mirihi wrote:

Doesn't matter one bit in a deferred renderer, the lighting equations are completely decoupled from the geometry.

---

 Ah, I hadn't considered that.  Thanks.

[leliel Mirihi]

---

Chosen Few wrote:

---

leliel Mirihi wrote:

Doesn't matter one bit in a deferred renderer, the lighting equations are completely decoupled from the geometry.

---

 Ah, I hadn't considered that.  Thanks.

---

It's actually not quite as easy as I let on. Doing normal maps on alpha tested particles isn't hard, but doing normal maps on alpha blended particles is. Especially since doing alpha blending in a deferred renderer is pretty hard in itself. Altho since people have figured out how to do volumetric shadow mapping on particle clouds in real time we aren't that far off from it.

[Chosen Few]

I hereby withdraw from the great desk debate.  I'd just like to leave you with two points on the subject, and then I'll leave it alone:

1.  The only reason I got involved in the first place was because Kwak had made a minor wording error in one of his posts, and I wanted to show him that, in response to his having pointed out a similar error in a post of mine.  It was all very lighthearted, and I never expected it to go beyond the single post.

2.  In Kwak's most recent post, he did a nice job demonstrating how a practical desk can be made from a single cube.

 

Moving on...

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Persuading people to apply the meter as a meter would also break a lot of content, but I've gradually come around to the belief that at least a general shift in that direction could be a real improvement.

---

That's a really hard one to tackle.  There are two main hurdles to overcome, even if you forget about impact on existing content:

1.  If an SL meter is equal to a RL meter, then avatars are NOT equal to humans, in terms of the height at which they can exist with realistic human proportions.  I wrote an extensive analysis of this, way back on the old old forums.  I don't feel like scouring the archives for it right now, but if you can find it, it's a good read.

In a world in which human characters need to be able to interact with props and sets, the only real measuring stick that applies absolutely is the size of those human characters.  The "meter", as a construct, is pretty meaningless by comparison.  The human scale determines the object scale.

2.  For navigation and viewability reasons, interior spaces such as rooms, corridors, etc., need to be larger than ther RL counterparts, in almost any virtual world or game, and SL is no exception.  When you walk around in RL, you're not viewing the world in third person mode, through a camera mounted above and behind your head.  So, eight-foot ceiling height works just fine.  In the 3D simulation, though, an eight-foot ceiling just can't work.  The camera ends up above it.  Even in first person mode (or mouselook in SL), eight-foot ceilings tend to feel cramped and cluasterphobic.

In RL, you also don't navigate by pressing buttons, and then waiting for the associated actions to happen.  If you want to walk around a big couch in a small living room, you can do so very easily, in any of a hundred different ways.  But in a 3D simulation, you don't have that ability.  The room has to be larger than its RL counterpart, or you'll never get around that couch without bumping into it.

 

Bottom line, if you want realism of measurement in 3D creations, you'd best immerse yourself in a nice CAD program, and forget all about realtime simulation.  If you want to interact in a virtual world, a certain suspension of disbelief is required.

 

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Shouldn't normal mapping of alphas essentially provide a kind of rudimentary holography?

---

If you mean can a normal map and a transparency map be applied to the same surface, in order to create the appearance of both depth and translucency at the same time, the answer is yes.  But whether or not that could pass as convincing hologram is another story.  It would depend on the specifics of the model in question, I suppose.

[Josh Susanto]

A)

I'm conceding the specific desk debate to Kwak on the original terms.

The cube desk absolutely can provide more leg room.

In practical physical terms, Kwak's design would mean a more practical desk, especially inasmuch as there is no appreciable balance advantage to the tetra desk. An unstable desk is an unstable desk regardless of how unstable, and I believe that attaching either desk to the floor would be a better option than trying to shift the weight around inside of either of them, even if they really weren't both sticking into the floor anyway.

Whether the extra leg room warrants the use of 12 triangles, rather than 8, is a part of the larger question the immediate debate was intended to address, but it was not part of the immediate debate, which I do concede.

I can conceive of no configuration of 8 triangles that will produce a better rectangle-top desk than the configuration of 12 triangles shown, and I hold no hope of doing so. Eliminating the triangles on the sides and reducing the desk to two infinitely thin squares, I do not personally regard as an acceptable solution. You might be able to remove 2 on one side and get the count down to 10, but that is not at all what we discussed. Moreover, to do so merely support's Kwak's earlier admonition not to "think in prims", which I recognize has almost certainly been a detriment to me here in considering what the real question should have been. 

Thank you, Kwak, for staying on long enough to see this question to conclusion. You are truly a good sport.

B)

>1.  If an SL meter is equal to a RL meter, then avatars are NOT equal to humans, in terms of the height at which they can exist with realistic human proportions.  I wrote an extensive analysis of this, way back on the old old forums.  I don't feel like scouring the archives for it right now, but if you can find it, it's a good read.

>In a world in which human characters need to be able to interact with props and sets, the only real measuring stick that applies absolutely is the size of those human characters.  The "meter", as a construct, is pretty meaningless by comparison.  The human scale determines the object scale.

I have debated the question from more than one side, myself now. I originally thought that redefining the Linden meter as a "cubit" and leaving it at that would be a better solution than trying to persuade people to use the meter "correctly". I still consider the cubit to be a better solution than simply allowing the current degree if inconsistency to continue without any official action. But I have also become persuaded that the meter, properly supported, is a slightly better solution. That is; in order for the meter to work, LL has to stop doing various things that keep people confused about it.

>2.  For navigation and viewability reasons, interior spaces such as rooms, corridors, etc., need to be larger than ther RL counterparts, in almost any virtual world or game, and SL is no exception.  When you walk around in RL, you're not viewing the world in third person mode, through a camera mounted above and behind your head.  So, eight-foot ceiling height works just fine.  In the 3D simulation, though, an eight-foot ceiling just can't work.  The camera ends up above it.  Even in first person mode (or mouselook in SL), eight-foot ceilings tend to feel cramped and cluasterphobic.

I appreciate the camera/ceiling issue. But making avatars bigger to match the higher ceilings seems like a rather inelegant solution as compared to just lowering the camera, or at least providing that as an easier option than what people mostly have now.

>In RL, you also don't navigate by pressing buttons, and then waiting for the associated actions to happen.  If you want to walk around a big couch in a small living room, you can do so very easily, in any of a hundred different ways.  But in a 3D simulation, you don't have that ability.  The room has to be larger than its RL counterpart, or you'll never get around that couch without bumping into it.

More reasons I don't spend a lot of time in houses. Making the room bigger makes some sense, except that people then also make their avatars bigger and we're stuck with the same problem as before,  just with less room on our land. 

 >Bottom line, if you want realism of measurement in 3D creations, you'd best immerse yourself in a nice CAD program, and forget all about realtime simulation.  If you want to interact in a virtual world, a certain suspension of disbelief is required.

 Agreed. There is a way to suspend belief, though, which uses land more efficiently, and a way that uses land less efficiently. I have a huge avatar, sure. But that's intentional. He's a cannibal, so being big makes him even more fierce looking, in spite of his tiny, perpetually limp p3n1s. I also have an alt which I usually keep set to realistic dimensions so that I can give at least some real consideration to matters of scale and proportion when I think it might be important.

 (Shouldn't normal mapping of alphas essentially provide a kind of rudimentary holography?)

>If you mean can a normal map and a transparency map be applied to the same surface, in order to create the appearance of both depth and translucency at the same time, the answer is yes. 

Yes, that's all that I meant.

>But whether or not that could pass as convincing hologram is another story.  It would depend on the specifics of the model in question, I suppose.

I used the qualifier "rudimentary" quite intentionally.

When I was a kid, holograms were just slabs of image-polarized glass. They looked like slabs of glass from any angle that was not essentially frontal. That's what I think of when I say the word "hologram". I guess other people assume I'm talking about the doctor on Star Trek or Rimmer from Red Dwarf. I'm not.

As an adult, I have had the idea of filling a warehouse with jungle plants and producing huge wall-sized sheets of holographic jungle, which can then be cut down to basically any size and allow the whole warehouse jungle to be seen, but from a smaller number of angles, effectively allowing people to buy a "window" of any size that will extend the visual limits of a small room into a warehouse jungle. This should allow the eyes to focus at distances far beyond the physical wall of a closed room, causing a relaxation response such as a person gets focusing on horizons or other distant objects. 

These more extreme effects, I have absolutely no expectation for SL to produce, especially without stereo viewing. But I am intrigued by the possibility of producing perceived depths in SL which exceed the depth between the camera and the object on which the image is mounted.

In principle, this might be acheived by using 2 layers of normal-mapped surface; 1 to function as a sort of window texture, and the other to function as the view. Properly engineered, I believe there should be some ways to produce false parallax effects through repetitive textures, well-considered angular projection onto curved surfaces, and setting of normals to cleverly disjunct values. 

Or I'm wrong.

It wouldn't be the first time.

[Chosen Few]

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

I originally thought that redefining the Linden meter as a "cubit" and leaving it at that would be a better solution than trying to persuade people to use the meter "correctly". I still consider the cubit to be a better solution than simply allowing the current degree if inconsistency to continue without any official action. But I have also become persuaded that the meter, properly supported, is a slightly better solution. That is; in order for the meter to work, LL has to stop doing various things that keep people confused about it.

---

I can't imagine why you think simply renaming the unit would change anything.  Why not call it flibberdygibbit, or a quackamazoo, or a thingamabob?

I do have to say, though, if you absolutely must pick a name, then "cubit" would be among the worst of all worst possible choices.  A cubit is not a fixed unit of measure.  It's the length of a human forearm.

I'm perfectly content with the word "meter", as it literally means "unit of measure".  That's all we're talking about, units.  Exactly how many of them it takes to equal the height of a ceiling, or the length of a football field, doesn't particularly matter.  All that is important is that we all do have a fixed standard unit, against which to compare everything and everything else.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

I appreciate the camera/ceiling issue. But making avatars bigger to match the higher ceilings seems like a rather inelegant solution as compared to just lowering the camera, or at least providing that as an easier option than what people mostly have now.

---

Who said anything about making avatars bigger to match higher ceilings?

Assuming a "meter" is a meter, the average avatar in SL is about 10-15% taller than the average RL human. That's tends to be the sweet spots for best body proportions.  Even the very tallest avatar you can make (without putting it on stilts) is 2.5 meters tall, while ceilings tend to be anywhere from 4 to 10 meters high, or 60- 300% above realistic height. Two are completely unrelated.

I mentioned avatars have to be a little taller than real humans, in order to arrive at correct body proportions. That has nothing directly to do with ceiling height.

Also as I said in that same post, the reason ceilings need to be WAY higher in SL (and in games and other virtual worlds) than they do in RL is almost entirely because of freedom of view. Low ceilings interfere with camera placement and camera movement, period. Simply lowering the camera to try to compensate won't do. Also as I said, even in first person view, realistic ceiling heights feel cramped and restrictive.

There are necessary differences between any simulation and the real thing. 

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

More reasons I don't spend a lot of time in houses. Making the room bigger makes some sense, except that people then also make their avatars bigger and we're stuck with the same problem as before, just with less room on our land.

---

People don't make their avatars bigger in response to bigger rooms. Nobody ever says, "Wow, this room is so big, I better step up my avatar size."

Most people, myself included, tend to make avatars large because the larger sizes happen to be friendlier to arriving at realistic body proportions than the smaller sizes. Some do it simply because they don't realize that in-world measuring devices measure eye height, rather than top-of-head height.  Others do it, because they think giantism is fitting for whatever characeter traits they want their avatar's appearance to suggest.  That's really it.

 

To be well navigable, the footprint of a room in SL needs to be 25-50% bigger than it would be in RL. Even the largest avatar you can make (not counting attachments) doesn't take up 25-50% more floor space than a real human.

Ease of navigation has almost nothing to do with avatar size. Try it for yourself. Make an avatar shape with all the settings zeroed out, so it's as small as it can be. Walk around a room. Now maximize all the settings, so the avatar is as large as it can be. Walk around the same room. You won't notice much difference. The controller node that carries the avatar around doesn't particularly care about the avatar's size.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

There is a way to suspend belief, though, which uses land more efficiently, and a way that uses land less efficiently.

---

If you want to suspend it so far that you don't care about bumping into things, or about the ability to have an unobstructed view of the scene, then have at it. I think you'll find it pretty lonely, though, as not many people will want to have that kind of experience.

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

I have a huge avatar, sure. But that's intentional. He's a cannibal, so being big makes him even more fierce looking, in spite of his tiny, perpetually limp p3n1s.

---

I really don't need to hear what fantasies you have about your avatar's genitalia. Let's just leave that one alone, m'kay?

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

I also have an alt which I usually keep set to realistic dimensions so that I can give at least some real consideration to matters of scale and proportion when I think it might be important.

---

You keep an entire alt account, just to change appearance? Why not simply change outfits on the same avatar?

 

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

 

In principle, this might be acheived by using 2 layers of normal-mapped surface; 1 to function as a sort of window texture, and the other to function as the view.

---

I think you're in for disappointment, if that's what you're expecting from normal maps. All they do is suggest extra surface detail, nothing more. At best, the setup you describe would look as if you parked one of your relief sculptures an inch or two outside the window.

It sounds like you're trying really hard to envision ways of preserving your existing work habits, "Slap texture on surface, push button to make relief". I'd recommend you concentrate your attentions on learning to make real 3D models instead.