Extract Mesh?

[Sae Luan]

I think I know the answer to this, but is there any way I can extract a mesh I uploaded into Second Life back to my computer?  I had to restore my computer to factory settings on the 2nd, and the backup of my files I made didn't work, so I'm left without any of the models I was working on.

I don't think you can, but I thought I'd see if I was wrong.

Thanks!

[Chosen Few]

Ouch, Sae.  I'm sorry to hear that.

I suspect it's only a matter of time before someone builds a viewer that has mesh export capability.  I don't think it's been done yet, though.  Until and unless that happens, then short of ripping your models out of your graphics buffer while they're on-screen (which isn't a particularly neat and clean process), all you can do is begin anew.

[Sae Luan]

That's what I was afraid of.  I could throw my computer out the window right now.  I am now saving everything to a new external hard drive so I don't have to have this issue again.  Too bad I wasn't doing it before now.

[Chosen Few]

I learned my lesson the same way a few years back, when a hard drive crashed on me.  A $200 visit to a data recovery specialist did the trick.  I was able to get all my files back, very fortunate.

Needless to say, I don't ever want to be in that position again.  I now use a RAID mirror, so there are always two copies of every file, on two different drives.  Plus, I manually backup to a third drive on a regular basis.

[Zslash Cyberstar]

oh yes, i feel your pain and i have also learned now i keep everything backup up on my VPS, another external and on my computer hardisk lol all 3 disks or should i say work folders are in sync ^^

[DanielRavenNest Noe]

I'm sorry you lost your files, Sae, but Linden Lab intentionally didn't allow for extracting mesh for two reasons: (1) to slow down people who want to steal other people's meshes, and (2) when it is uploaded, it's converted to an internal format, so it is no longer the Collada .dae file you uploaded.  As Chosen mentioned, there *are* ways to extract model data, but since they can be used to steal other people's stuff, I won't give details either.

I use a staged backup plan based on how important the files are.  3D models I sell and personal files (like photos) get the most backups.  In order what I use are:

* Original on my C: Drive

* Copy of important folders onto external hard drive

* Second copy of very important stuff onto my older, second computer

* Third copy of the most important items onto Windows Skydrive.

Yet another way to back things up is create an extra Gmail account, and mail the files to yourself.  I don't use that because of the file size limits and total storage limits, but it's OK for smaller stuff.

Any backup plan is useless if you don't actually follow it.  If you are not good at following a plan manually, an automated system like RAID or an auto-backup program may work better for you.  I do it manually, but I keep important files together in a folder and know to copy the entire folder around the 1st of each month.

[Sae Luan]

Yeah, and I am completely for LL taking additional steps to protect content creator's works, so I'm not upset over this at all.  I think I'm more upset that I never thought to take preventative measures to not lose my work files until now.  I fully intend now to backup my work folders twice a week.

Unfortuantely, worse than losing all my work files was losing the videos of my daughter we took in the hospital when she was first born.  One was even video of her at 5 minutes old.  I guess we live and we learn... this was a hard lesson for me.

[Mikki Miles]

oh my, that's bad...

after similar experiences (and I DID backups, but lost a harddrive AND the backups within 2 days, but for different reasons) I save backups on a HD here, and have an online backup, there are several available. The good thing is, you don't have to think about that, it just saves in the background...

but...it costs money