Chic Aeon

Well I certainly agree we can live better with mesh than when we just had 10 meter prims . And I haven't used many of my extra 1600 land impact bonus. BUT -- if you are on a 512 lot it is pretty easy to eat up those 117 prims so those folks are the ones that will get the most use out of the bonus. Since I have a store with lots of prefabs, decor and furniture (almost no vendor) I can definitely use the extra "prims". But many people won't need them, that is true. Part of what LL is battling is the cost here with the land impact points you get versus Opensim and other platforms. I know that you can't really compare the two, but people continually do. And the cost of land has always (well mostly always) been a complaint with lots of folks. Since they are not going to cut into their revenue stream, then giving people more (even if not always used) seems a realistic marketing plan.

You are SO clever. Yes the map would have been the answer. Busy day here on many levels. That just blew by me .

Yes I wrote that this morning and before that time. 702 is what I found which IS double the prims of a mainland 234 NOW. That was my take on what they said originally but the video must have been made earlier and they changed their minds on that. Can't think of any other reason. So much like Bay City but adult and with a Linden Experience in the middle . Much nicer landscaping though.

I don't think we will know until "we know" since the information we could base things on (official video for one) seems to be incorrect in some areas (the prim count for sure) At the end of the video it has a long list of scrolling text that says it is adult land and is "just like regular mainland" except for terraforming and a few other things and that you can't "move" the Linden houses or change their orientation. That SUGGESTS that it is commercial as well as residential. Since it is mainland they would be no covenant.

Since you seem to be running out of slots -- I am wondering what you AVATAR RENDERING COST MIGHT BE. You need to remove the company name or risk getting banned from the boards (there are rules ) I have NEVER run out of attachment points since we got more than one slot per area. In the old days in case you don't know, we could only attach ONE thing to one place (like a necklace to chest).

It seems a bit vague from the official statements (including the video on housing) whether staying to the theme will be mandatory or just "advised". That would make a big difference in my mind. Went back and watched it (painfully for a machinimatographer) again. It does say same as mainland so that certainly sounds like residential or commercial. And it doesn't say MANATORY theme -- hence most likely not worth making more house choices. It also explains in a quick text addition that "double prims" means DOUBLE the original 234 of a 1024 lot -- which no one has anymore so I was considering (not noticing the text overlay) that it was double what a mainland lot would be. So I was WRONG about that and will go back and edity my earlier comment. Keep on reading. Having reviewed all this LOL - I am not seeing the giant draw. According to Patch, private lands will have the ability to be double prim in a few months. BUT if there are only 24 houses per sim. ... OK. I went back over as I am a curious gal and while I wasn't able to count how many houses on a sim I am going to take your word at the 24 since you should know . There is a TON of water and roads and parks and such which does make it much nicer and the main reason why I have enjoyed living in double prim private lands -- that buffer thing. BUT while I was there I looked at the land tab, and I WAS RIGHT about the prim count. It is DOUBLE what a regular mainland 1024 would be now - 702. So pretty confusing especially since the video says differently. Here's the photo: 

Finally found the info hub -- not completely active it seems at the moment. Here is some of the information from the notecard. The land can be single owner or group residence. From the notecard: Your Horizons parcel is a 32 m x 32 m square, with a land area of 1024 sq m. Anywhere else in Mainland regions, a parcel that size would have a Land Impact allowance of 351. In Horizons, however, your parcel has a L.I. allowance of 702. You can do a lot of building and decorating with an allowance that size. You have two options for building: 1. You may build your own house or other building on the parcel or 2. You may use a Horizons Home. If you build your own home, you have freedom to choose the style and size of the building, as long as it fits on the parcel and is within your L.I. allowance. If you choose to use a Horizons Home: * Your Horizons Home is free of charge and will not count against the L.I. allowance for your parcel. * You may choose among 6 standard styles * You may place any one of them in a preset location on the parcel, and you may change the style as often as you like * You may choose from a menu of colors and style options for the house, and you may change them as often as you like. You may change your mind about whether to use a Horizons Home or build your own at any time, as often as you like.

I have been exploring there this evening and it looks pretty good. A little "low poly" for my tastes but some of the houses are quite nice -- and some not so much. The official post say you can use your own house but that it is "suggested" it fits within the theme which is a bit like Tomorrowland in the original Disneyland *wink* but crossed with "little boxes on the hillside". I have been trying to find the demo for how the mailbox hud works, but no luck so far. One other thing to note. Inara Pey, in her article with help from the Lindens stated that one needed to have payment info on file as well as payment info used. My tests show that it seems like the "payment used" part is actually "lindens purchased" and not just credit card charged for premium membership. Here is what I wrote on her blog. Apparently the info you were given on access isn’t quite working as it was designed? Or as you were told? I have “info used status” and got this message: [21:00] *** IMPORTANT INFORMATION **: You can receive gifts for completing all the quests here. If you would like to collect the daily L$ reward for completing quests instead, you need to verify your account by visiting https://accounts.secondlife.com/billing_information, and making a one-time minimum required purchase of L$. Wondering just what was going on, I had a friend who is a current premium member try and she got no message. (She had at one time VERY long ago purchased Lindens.) Then I had ANOTHER current premium member try, one who has payment info used status but has never actually purchased lindens, just paid his premium fees. He got that same message that I did. One more non-linden buyer tried and again had to purchase lindens before “playing”. So it appears there is a bit more needed to be able to enjoy the experience. That should keep the crowds down a bit. *wink*. Actually there are only a few folks there at the moment. I am trying to find the house demo area but so far that hasn’t happened. I didn’t know anyone who has purchased lindens but isn't a premium member so can’t report on that scenario. Since I have no intention of buying lindens I don’t need LOL I won’t be playing. I guess I could OBSERVE and I may do just that. A friend of mine who was interested (past premium member) will no doubt pass too. A little odd really since folks had to give their credit cards in order to pay their premium fees and sometimes tier. If someone JUST needs to have info on file still ( I don’t know if my friends still do since I think they pay their premium with lindens now) then that is one thing. I guess the buying is to check and see if the current info is correct? Not sure but I think this is going to hurt the acceptance or the new experience. Hmmmmm. Thanks for the post!  Edit. Found the payout portals and there is this sign, so that's the deal. 

Wow that is a lot of comments. Let me see if I can comment on your comments to MY comments. Glad to know the elephant can be a baby. I personally have no real desire to be a none human unless maybe for a film which I don't do as much these days, but SUPER cute and impressive. What I meant was that in this thread (and also on the Kettle Quest video from long ago that I mentioned), folks have shown what happens to the models in world when viewed. I am guessing that newish 3D modlers will have a difficult time relating the previews of what the uploader is planning on doing LOD wise to the DISTANCE that relates to inworld. Maybe others will have some ideas on this -- haven't read down the thread yet. The very cute shoes could easily have been lower -- well TONS lower. I have some very detailed slippers (never could wear them as I didn't have Slink flat feet but did REZ them and had them in photos). They were 1 li each. So maybe the designer just uploaded everything as high as it could go? Have no clue but 128 for a pair of shoes is too much. I think my ARC went up 20,000 or so putting them on or off. Sculpts often do the same thing and those are getting deleted mostly. A few low impact jewelry items are still in my inventory. I have several blogs and a Google Plus page (I am not really a networker -- well I don't think of myself that way -- as I don't Tweet or do Facebook. My Google plus page is mostly about Blender and tutorials and Opensim (where I am no longer so involved). My 8 year old fashion blog -- coming up on 4,500 posts is here : http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/

You might want to do some research on TMP and designing for that body. It is pretty much "out the door" with the top three being Maitreya, Slink and Belleza. Lots on the forums about TMP . You might also want to check into Avastar since most clothes designers in SL use that (an add on program).

REALLY love your elephant -- and the eyebrow movement is fantastic LOL. As we have seen on this thread there are many methods that can be utilized to get good LODs and low land impact numbers. That being said, one thing that wasn't shown in this video and I think really needs to be shown (maybe next video) is how the uploader "previews" relate to the models in world and how they look at the distances based on the size of the models (in this case medium furniture size). I don't think anyone not intimately involved already with uploading mesh will "get" the relationship between the viewing pane and the inworld model until it is shown. On that note and taking a segue, I tried on a pair of very cute bootlets this evening. They looked great. I did note however a HUGE jump in my avatar rendering cost as they placed themselves on my tootsies. Took them off, put them on . Went "wow". Then I rezzed them (and happily they would rez rather than giving an error message). They were 128 land impact!!!!!!!!! We haven't really said much about clothing on this thread, but just because one might make wearables, that doesn't mean they can (should) forget about land impact. I won't be blogging about those shoes even though they were very cute. Insert sad face. **************************************** There has been a ton of good information on this thread. Lots of opinions that readers can pick and choose from depending on their outlook and perhaps customer base. But even if the only real effect is to get some folks to realize they need to think about LODs, that's a good thing in my books. Pssst! If there isn't a baby elephant yet, there really needs to be one!

As far as I know I only have ENGLISH listing (that is I didn't make any other versions) so the language thing may be the problem. I have edited from the viewer AND from the web (separate occassions at about the same time) with both working fine. Just some input.

I certainly don't understand why folks buy things from a photo IF there is a demo out or even in my one star review case FREE TO TRY. I have only purchased a very few things without seeing and they were under $100 linden so no big deal if awful. I was coming to post a screenshot that I just took so I will paste it in here. This is one of the works of a popular creator (one of a FEW mind you) that seem to give no thought to uploading. The items are very nice but fall apart before they even rez. And while they ARE 1 land impact (a seemingly magic number) they could have MUCH BETTER HOLDING with no real increase in the LI number. It boggles my mind really.  I am pretty sure you know who this if from and if not from that person, then from one in the same mindset. It is not my place to preach to them; they are much more fa-mous than I and certainly make more money (or I would suspect so) but still, I cringe. A couple of extra clicks and people not running LOD 4 could SEE this stuff (sigh). Great new notebook-tablet computer today. We have already bonded -- and I made some ART, so a good day.

It is certainily likely and quite possible that those reviews aren't actual reviews at all. It is a long time practice to "seed" reviews with alts and friends. It is also a long time practice to buy competitor's items and give one star scathing reviews ^^. In many ways reviews don't count for anything in SL and that is a sad case. This is talked about often on the merchant board. I have one "person" who I am pretty sure I know the identity of who continues to buy a product apparently just so that he (she, they, alt 3 etc) can get the rating down to 1. I know an expensive large home make who was notorious for instant and glorious reviews on new houses LOL which were not all that great. OH, and the item that keeps getting one star reviews (I think there were three or four this last month - on a rampage) has a FREE DEMO and has had for well over a year. So there is no reason for anyone to buy something they have issues with and give a 1 star review. Oh wait -- there is. Sorry. Off topic but it really makes me mad. Pertanent comment in bold I doubt seriously that the person on your land would have bought the house if his LOD wasn't set up so high. We will be living with the aftermath of "how to make your scuplties look better" notecard instructions for a long while I am afraid.

Thanks. I knew how to fix it that way but didn't know how to make it STICK. So I will look at my presets again but I think I have them correct. But the ODD thing is that it doesn't do it all the time and is just it seems when I rebake to the SAME texture plane that I had previously baked to (so rebaking onto a texture named "cart2" for example). If I make a NEW texture plane and bake to that then it doesn't do the alpha channel thing. Just putting that in here for posterity .

Not my knowledge area but I do know that most rigged clothing is no modify so people can't check the name of the creator that way. There are also scripts that you can add so that rigged clothing cannot be rezzed (I have seen that somewhere here on the forums so a search might turn it up). That way there would be no way to tell who made the original mesh. You could put your shop name in the description of the garment.

Not my area but the photos I have seen have a seam marked up the back of the skull to the front hairline and then the rest of the mesh is sort of flattened out. I am guessing there is info on this on the web. It would be the same I am thinking for various platforms. Google is your friend. I typed in "uv seams mesh head" and then looked at IMAGES and could see a lot of ways people have mapped -- some like I describe. Good luck.

In the past, when transferring money it specifically asked you what email at Paypal you wanted to transfer to. If it really didn't, then that is a change. I would GUESS that in the case of a change it the money would default to the email connected to that account. That sounds pretty dangerous and not a good plan. ARE YOU SURE YOU PROCESSED YOUR DOLLAR BALANCE? You not only need to turn your lindens into dollars, you THEN need to process your credit to send it to Paypal (rules have changed so it is pretty expensive in fees to process so some of us are waiting for lots of money before transferring out -- no doubt part of the LL plan ). If you look in your account summary you will see your dollar balance and next to that in green a link for processing credit.

Most likely not YOU, but the sneakers. When mesh is made "incorrectly" ^^ so that levels of detail don't work for most folks, this is what happens. If you are using Firestorm you can increase your LOD viewing distances in the Quick Preferences panel. You can also set RenderVolumeLODFactor in the debug settings and move the number up some (2 "should" be good but you may need to increase to 4 to see those shoes if LODs are the issue). A good reason to ALWAYS try the demos before buying mesh . If the sneaker are there but the TEXTURES aren't rezzing, that is a different issue. Maybe someone can help with that. Add a bit more info to your post to get better answers!!! *wink*

Thanks for all that testing. Have a snippet so I don't lose the info. I DID finally (FINALLY) get the linkset (multiple meshes in one file on upload) physics thing. Sometimes it just takes me awhile. Poco a poco.

So -- can I make a new object that is a triangle facing down rather then delete a lot of loop cuts and such? I seem to remember a message long long ago about not being a part of a material set or something like that. And does one need a triangle PER material? Done for the day (whew) but will try that next time. I do think your edge effect is very nice. I have done that on wooden boards now and then. IF the "table" would have been less detailed and the pieces a bit thicker then I think it would have been worth it.

I had an epiphany while washing dished and making lunch (usually it is during tubbing time) so I am going to stick it in this thread as it kinda seems to encompus the ideas here. You, Drongle, have talked about that nasty triangle that you see when people cheat on their LODs. I didn't connect that to the "zeroing out" the lowest LOD on the uploader until you mentioned that specifically. I also didn't understand is why I never see that in my things since I have been zeroing out the lowest LOD on small things forever. I almost never see that triangle as I roam the world (I obviously shop at good places) but I did last night as a smallish decor item disappeared at very close range.Yes, ugly. Agreed. As far as I can tell my things don't have that issue because by the time they disappear the item is VERY small on the screen and if a triangle appears one doesn't notice it. So it isn't JUST using the uploader rather than making custom LODs, it is most likely using the default settings along with the zeroing out on small items (that is where I have seen it). Couple that with creators having their LODs set to 4 one method or another and there is definitely a recipe for disaster. As I have mentioned before many of the items with insufficiently holding LODs also are VERY low download, so the LODs could be improved without raising the land impact FINAL NUMBER. And still, for me, the biggest issue is people testing their models at a lowish LOD setting. OK. Back to work.

I would be happy to vote, but I tried two different browsers and that photo is so dark on my screen (which I have pretty bright as I like that) that I can't see much at all. I can see a "shine" on an edge (guessing) on the one on the left. Since any furniture in that triange range would make me gasp and rethink should it happen, I would have to say "no". My only reason to make something that finely detailed and smooth would be if I wanted to take a close up of it for a film. So far in four years there has been one occassion. It would be great if you could get a brighter photo. Not sure why that is so very dark. Your others weren't. One thing, I think, that is difficult for folks starting with 3D modeling to "get" is that there are MANY purposes and uses for models. On our platform things need to be pretty light in that triangle count area -- not Blockworld, but certainly not like many 3D items that are made for the purpose of RENDERS, not game engines. There are so many learning videos out there that have you subdividing a few times and then adding a subsurf modifier at 4 (cringe) that it is easy to see where that confusion comes in. I do now and then use a sub-surf modifier but then after applying I go in and take out a bunch of the edge loops that really aren't needed (usually for me it is the corners and edges that I wan't smooth and I don't need all that extra topology). I just finished (well almost) one of the most complex pieces of furniture that I have made to date. It is 7048 and 2 meters wide by 1.75 meters high and .8 deep. It has tons of details and lots of metal trim, pulls, bolts etc and came in at 3.4 with extrememly long range good LODs. It is even good at 1. It has plenty of details as it is so adding more with extra bevels in thiscase would just be superflous. Other folks of course might have different ideas . It is all on one texture too which was SO not easy to accomplish. Even though I love mapping I was VERY happy to get it done. Edit: a PS I am guessing that your REAL questions is "if we can get the land impact down to 1 should we worry about how dense the mesh is" or something of that sort. I suspect that for some people the land impact count is the bottom line. I am not in that camp. Somewhere between most efficient and prettiest there is a balance point. It is different with each model. I try to find that sweet spot. Again, MY "sweet spot" may not be that of others.

Very nice job. Careful mapping and tiling texture? I will always be using bigger textures as mine almost never tile *wink*. After a year (well more) lerning Cycles and how to get what I want I won't be going back to tiling unless I am on a platform where that is the only option (Cloud Party was pretty much that way but I think now that I am smarter I could probably manage "something" a bit better than I did there ). I guess the point is that one can make some pretty nice stuff with good LODs (and presumably good physics) for 1 land impact. OR one can have some pretty stuff that falls apart at a couple of meters. I vote for the first option . It should probably be noted for folks that don't know, that the BIGGER something is, the easier it is for the LODs to hold (a viewer distance algorythm thingie that I don't really understand). That is why some popular trees in SL work fine when large (and usually fairly primmy) but fall apart when when made smaller and looked at mid distance. I have some old LAQ trees however that look good AND are low prim and can be about any size. So it IS possible to have your cake and eat it too!

I generally agree with that and that is my base position. BUT, I was educated by a long, lenthy and loud thread a few months ago. If I have it correctly, while mesh is more efficient in terms of vertices (the texture argument doesn't really hold the same weight for me since while you CAN assign all faces and bake, mesh often has more than one texture face (material) assigned to it -- PRIMS are actually better for first time loading because basic prim recognition is built INTO the viewers. This doesn't work with tortured prims, but with prims that haven't been changed other than dimentions and ratios. So (not my words) an uploaded mesh cube with six materials assigned is no better (and in some people's minds worse) than a prim cube. I will let others argue this if they want to. I already spent way more time on that other thread awhile back . Well made mesh with good LODs and a physics model is almost always lower land impact than its prim equivilent. The more complex, the more this shows. I think that might be the only Universal statement we can all agree on. And maybe we can't all agree on that even LOL.