Why does my avatar rez and then get fuzzy again?

[Jennifer Boyle]

This is nothing new, and I've wondered about it a long time.  Often when my avatar is rezzing, it will rez completely and then part or all of it will get fuzzy again.  If it is slow to rez, and I rebake, it will become sharp instantly when I hit alt-ctrl-R and then get fuzzy again, and, if I'm lucky, then become sharp.

Why does it do this?  It seems like that once the viewer had rendered it, it would be able to keep on unless something changed.

[Chelsea Malibu]

It's their 12 year old graphics engine. The first one is your client side then after that, it's loading for the world as I understand it.  Either way, it's old and antiquated version of JPEG 2000.  What you are seeing is it's progressive rendering.  It's always been like that.

[Jennifer Boyle]

I'm making photos of myself, and I have to hit alt-ctrl-R, wait a few seconds for my av to get sharp, and then quickly snap the photo before it gets fuzzy again.

Weird!

It seems like it shouldn't be hard for the developers to make the viewer remember what I should look like once it knows.

[Nalates Urriah]

It will probably help if you know what is happening.

You already know that clothes are in layers on the avatar, just like layers in GIMP or Photoshop. Your viewer downloads each texture used and renders your avatar. You see the first sharp render when that completes.

Next the viewer bakes a texture that is a composite of all the layers you are wearing. I think you see this composite in the first sharp render of the avatar but the change to it is invisible to you... but that is speculation.

Once the new texture is baked it is sent to SL. This is then the texture other avatars see when looking at you. It saves them having to download all the textures needed to make up your appearance.

You too download the texture SL is using for you. This is when you see yourself go blurry.

So, something is going wrong with your download and texture decompression.

There are two common problems. One is the in the viewer you are using. SL Viewers use a KDU library to handle the JPEG2000 upload and downloads. It compresses and decompresses the image. The people that made the clothes may have used an SLV or not. You may be using a TPV. So, an uploaded texture may have not be decompressing correctly in your viewer and whatever JPEG2000 decompression code it is using. If the creator used a TPV it MAY affect decompression in any or all viewers. This is a problem from last year and early this year. Now most viewers have this handled. So, it is much less of a problem.

If you are seeing this with everything you wear, including different skins, it may be a connection problem. You can read through Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection to see how to test your connection and locate problems.

JPEG2000 is used because it allows several levels of image quality to be downloaded as needed. So, that avatar 100 meters away may only generate a request for the 32x32px image. Your viewer may be having a problem deciding that you need something more than the 64x64 image. If you change viewers and the problem goes away, that is likely the problem. If not, it is more likely a connection problem.

2 and 3% packet loss can cause the request for a larger image to fail. So... check you packet loss.

Once you get a good copy of the full texture, its highest raze version, the viewer will remember it.

[Jennifer Boyle]

Thank you ! Thank you! Thank you for one of the most useful posts I have ever read.  Your page about troubleshooting connections that it has a link to is wonderful.  The reason that I didn't respond sooner is that I've been playing with tracert and learning more about it.

The evening after I read your post, I ran tracert several times.  The times were really bad, 200-500 ms, and the bad times started with the hop from my modem to my ISP.  I called the ISP support line and talked to a moron who insisted that I delete my Web browser cookies and clear its cache, even though I emphasized to him that I was calling because I had slow response in an online game and bad times in tracert.  He had me run an online speed test, and it showed slow speeds.  He then said it was a problem with my computer.  I said I would use a different computer, and did so, and got slow times on the speed test.  He then transferred me to a PAID support line.  I told them I refused to pay them to fix their own network and hung up.  So much for getting the ISP, one of the largest in the US, to do anything.  

Interestingly, the next morning the times were MUCH better.  A few times since they have been transiently bad, and the times when they are seem to be the same times when SL is laggiest.

To a nonprogrammer, it sounds inefficiet for the viewer to download the baked avatar texture that IT uploaded.  Why would it need to do that?