Codewarrior Congrejo

>>> I found that keeping the texture looking as similar as possible in each LOD level helps to preserve the look. You got your answer right there, all by yourself =) If it is not a huge structure that needs to be seen from very far, the lowest 2 LODs should really significantly 'decrease' in the amount of used polygons / tris. And as you figured already, keeping these (and also the medium) higher - increases the landimpact quite a bit. The texture is your biggest tool here. Loose more and more geometric detail and rely on the texture to fulfill the visual reference. In some cases you can even think of having just 1 polygon planes, where the texture draws a transparent cutout of the object, placed on the same UV in a corner and small in detail. That is the most extreme you can go to cut something down on its lowest level. You should not worry too much about how things look from further away in terms of the fine details. And not only you personally, also the others will have a better viewing experience when the object doesn't force high polycounts to be rendered onto them, even when being on a further distance. Some may run on LOD setting of strength 4 and most probably on 2 so building for the 'average' is always the best choice. But the average user also mostly does not have a high end computer. So optimization and rendercost should always be more important then aesthetics : ) With big structures like walls I'd stick with everything that keeps the 'outter shape' (the visual outline) at the medium LOD intact, but remove all fine details, and go noticeably down for the last 2. If there are not many other structures around or to be expected. And you just have maybe a main building and those walls taking the most place on the region, you can of course depending on such cases decide to go for heavier models in the LODs and just accept the higher landimpact. Edit: your idea to build 2 sets is one possible solution too. But keep in mind if its something that is placed where many users can come and go, then possibly most owners won't remove and replace their walls all the time to give every visitor the best experience. So maybe a 'good structured' build that is good for no matter who ( regarding the settings and computer) is looking at it might save you some work and do just as good as 2 versions. =)

Hey Gaia : ) ok, here is how i understand it; the wiki (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewerhelp:Appearance_Editor_-_Alpha) doesn't give much info. And the included link to alpha just says what is already clear to me: alpha computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial transparency. Textured objects and avatars in Second Life can be rendered partially or completely transparent through the use of alpha masks. Which would be a pointer towards just regular transparency. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_compositing) And alpha Images or channels in general are still something that is 'rendered' just rendered as transparent. Transparency itself is actually pretty cost intense in terms of rendering, due to creation of several drawcalls / figuring what is layered on top of each other, etc. (and increasing- the more transparent layers are overlapping) The not noticeable alpha / Z sorting issue, is based on the fact that we deal here with a 1 Bit alpha image. Means it accepts only 100% transparent or 100 % opaque (black / white), and is handled by a so called cut-out-shader. Thus those alpha layers are not 'sorted' the same way as other alpha textures. The fact that it is a 1 Bit Alpha / Cut out shader - also leads to the following points: The fact that the Alpha layer can *hide* the body at 'any given pixel' of the map (so to say) if it would be polygon / faces that are actually derendered or even removed, then the whole face would have to dissapear - when being based on the gemoetry and not just mapped transparency. (just as it does with whole faces and when a rigged mesh is worn where some verts have no weights and being derendered, or like a mask-modifier in blender behaves) *** Edit: to show what i meant with that: if it actually would remove the faces / geometry one shouldn't be able to : - make a circle (as on the left side) because it would need to hide all influenced faces and thus i should see 'polygonal patterns' missing. The fact i can make a circle leads me to the conclusion its simply layering transparency over it. - same with the example in the middle: diagonal cut. - And on the right side i took it further, i detached everything (except the things that can't be taken off like the shape) put on a full set of 100% alpha layer to hide everything. And it still renders the avatar as textured with 1000. Which means the avatar is defenitally still there and not completely derenderd. (including the geometry being still there) Edit 2 : i am still doing some tests on the 'checkbox' to hide full parts. which is supposed to take off a full part from the baking process. i will return once i have that done. >> okay even with fully enabled check-boxes on all bodyparts, the textured 1000 still remains, and so does the shadow the avatar throws onto the ground. So even here we are just still on the regular 1 Bit Cut out with no removal of topology at all. Maybe that changes when we have the server side baking in place but so far it at least doesn't seem to do anything in regards of 'really' removing the avatar completely. Maybe anyone has a final answer to this ? I would love to hear that too. Aside from that (no matter how the avatar would be derendered ) the general wishes still remain : )

The default avatar files for Maya, can be either taken from Wiz Daxters plugin: bg.blogspot.dk/p/slav-maya.html (but be aware that only the purchiased version offers custom avatars and other features) Or from here: here: https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/attachment/59951/Default+Male+%26+Female+Rigged+Avatars.zip (it should include several file formats / inclusive Maya readable ones) Or: http://msstyle.host56.com/secondlife/_Default_Meshes/ Another one that works good is : http://blog.machinimatrix.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SL-avatar-rigg.dae For Photoshop you can use any OBJ based model, as i.e. the ones from here : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Clothing_Tutorials

Heya, i would not suggest to have the waist at zero weight or 'solid'. this just leads to unwanted results in behaviour of what a pants should do. Smooth bind in maya adds the weights based on the underlying skeleton and its influences. So is always a good starting point. But still needs tweaking and retouching the weights to work correct. Especially since it often creates a lot influences from possibly unwanted adjacent bones, which then have to be removed. Generally imho have the strongest influence (red) in the groin area (on the front and also at the behind) and around the waist. Weights full full or high strength against the Pelvis bone. This image was for another post and in blender what visualizes what i meant with where the weights should be. (see left side) Red = 100 % weights towards the pelvis, orange - blue is the transition of decreasing weights. Then you create the weights for upper / lower legs. And on the spots where these areas 'meet' its best to have a decreasing influence (0.57, 0.5, 0.25 etc) towards the opposite, and have these overlap from each opposite bone. This will grant a soft transition between each main influences. Edit here too : if the topology is very similar to the one of the avatar then yes, copying the weights will work too : ) But in most cases might still require refinement and tweaking.

Hey Justus, we can't really do that for you. It's just users helping other users in the forum. What you can do is to follow some of these steps. Either try and recover your password from here: https://secondlife.com/my/account/request.php Or like in your case where the emailadress is lost too/ or don't have access to it anymore, the best is to submit a ticket here: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ and explain your problem. You certainly will be asked to verify your identity with valid proof. (driver license, passport or similar) in order to get access to the old account.

So I'm wondering, wouldn't it be better if we did had new avatar mesh with more polygons than the current one, eliminating the need to wear all those add-ons? My personal thought about that, and the whole avatar 2.0 subject: I do believe that the one of the possibly best solutions for everyone would be to have an option to literally derender / deactivate the underlying default avatar whenever you choose to wear either so many attachments that is is not visible anymore or a full body mesh avatar on top of it. This way we would reduce the cost it still has underneath the things worn on top. And people could choose to wear whatever mesh avatar they personally like the most. (and on top of that no matter if human or not) And since it's hard to serve the uphold of existing content by replacing the skeleton (to fix some of the issues it has) it would probably be best to just add the capability to either upload own skeletons or to insert changes to the existing one, if you would like to change something for a certain rigg to work. Possibly even add a limited amount of additional bones. On top of that I'd wish for the ability to upload a limited amount of own shape keys to deform a full body avatar or attachments based on other very own topology. This would defy the need of the deformer, yes. But bring up the possibility (along with the other 2 options) to create fully functional replacements for the existing avatar all on our own. Because even if secondlife makes a new higher detailed mesh, there still remain certain points to be considered: - (as stated in one of my former answers and here) - the upholding of existent content / old content remaining usable - and the fact that we still would have people consider even the new avatar not to be exactly what they wanted. And feeling the need to replace certain body parts or even the whole thing with something else. With these choices, users could either stick with the old avatar as-is, or covered with items to replace certain parts, or just replace it with the variety of full body meshes / avatars being provided by creators, and choose what ever they personally prefer in terms of its look. Surely it would be nice to have for easy solutions to just have a generally 'nicer' looking avatar you could just use as-is again and put some clothes on etc. But I think it would by far not solve all mentioned problems. I can only hope and wish, though : )

If i understand your questioncorrectly you want to have 4 computers bound in a LAN (local area network) to run secondlife at the same time? It all depends on the ethernet cards each of the computers has and what kind of computer it is and how much data it can process (connection wise, as well as other processing) Plus it may be mentioned that some packages offered by ISP providers prohibit running more then one computer. (but that is something you can only see in your contract with your ISP or ask your ISP's support) Generally of course the more bandwith you have available with your connetion the easier it will be. (1.5 Mbs and above) For 'best' experience it should serve around 1.5 Mbs for each of the 4 computers but that isn't necessarily needed: there is something else to contemplate that would not require you to change your whole internet package in order to just play some evenings together in the same room with your friends: If each of the 4 computers sets their Secondlife client, to a bit lower bandwdith usage ( you will have to experiment a bit until it runs stable for all of you): Go to Me menu > Preferences. In PREFERENCES window, click Setup tab. Move Maximum bandwidth and lower the amount * it should be mentioned here that too low settings might disable the voice capability. or other experiences. So as said you need to tweak a bit and see what works best for all 4. This will throttle how much of the available bandwidth each viewer will use. Also the settings of the router which handles this local network can throttle or manage the all over traffic and put it so that each client has a certain amount available (depending on the router software and settings it offers) You also should ensure that all 4 computers are hooked up with cable to the switch or router and not by wifi. However, if you have any situation where all 4 computers will most likely be all the time running secondlife at the same time you possibly should switch to a DSL 6000 or similar. Which would be something to consider in general when there also would be also other games running at the same time or other bandwidth demanding applications. But in general as being said above it is not needed. There are many ways to tweak these things.

just on a funny note: if you don't mind you can also change your display name to :donotwantfriends But even this does not prevent you from having some very optimistic persons still trying to add you and hoping to win you and your grumpy personality as a friend. As the others already stated, best is to decline the offers, or even go with Lindal's advice and create your very own local region on your computer with OpenSIM, there certainly no one will ever disturb you. ; )

Heya, no shame in that everyone has to learn or is new to something at some point. To answer your question, have a look here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Graphics-cards/ta-p/700073 It also tells you where to look for your graphic card and find out which one you have. And explains how to update your drivers. Another way to find out what hardware you have - when you have Windows OS is to choose Start > control panel > device manager. There are all hardware components of your computer listet. And a rightclick on a certain entry and opening its properties will even tell you from when the driver version is.

Heya Anykan, the avatar is not 'lost' so to say. However to restore a password you forgot you can require a new one here: https://secondlife.com/my/account/request.php In cases like yours when you forgot your emailadress too / or don't have access to it anymore, the best is to submit a ticket here: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ and explain your problem. In most cases you will be asked to verify your identity with valid proof.

Hello Flamereader, This can be based on many things - your firewall or antivirus is blocking the slvoice.exe and needs a rule / or new rule to allow its access. - the voice service (vivox) has an issue - or another voice application is occupying it (like skype, ventrillo , mumble) - Also there is an issue with skype switching the microphone volume down to zero, even if the auto adjusting is disabled. (opening skype, switching it in the settings to normal volume again fixes that) - your bandwidth settings are throtteling the voice stream - for more infos you can have a look here : http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_voice

So if made "correctly" the folks without "Advanced Lighting Mode" enabled should see say a plain brick wall. The folks with it enabled (depending on what maps have been added ) will see an enhanced version of the same wall with more of a 3D look and greater detail and maybe sparkles in the concrete. So things don't necessarily need to look BAD (this from another post I saw so hopefully correct). yes, that you have understood fully correctly. And the video you posted is a good example of what i meant to explain : )

i did not say that. Maybe you wanted to reply to someone else, or just to the thread in general ? =) And i promise i will leave your avatar alone >.>

Generally it's a normal human attempt to warn others, about people doing something wrong. But naming them in public (like in this forum) can bring you into a lot trouble yourself. in this certain case the object is from a share CG page, which means you personally have no way of knowing if the person in question legally bought this object and thus holds certain rights to use and resell it. It says non commercial use only, but he/she could have made a deal with the creator - as far as you could know. If anything will be done against it is another question. Because only the copyright owner / IPR owner is capabale of taking legal actions against such a person. In this case it is apparently clear who the original creator is, so it's best to send them a note about this too. And leave all further actions in his hands. However, Linden lab is capable of banning accounts which have broken the TOS with valid proof.

If it says exactly 'you can not access from this computer': this could mean that this certain computer has been part of violating the terms of service, and thus its IP has been banned from secondlife. But in rare cases it could also be a mistakingly set flag. Why this has happened, is nothing we can figure out here for you. ( some possible reaons - see here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Why_is_my_account_on_hold%3F) If it keeps doing it, best is to contact the support from your new account: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ And ask for help.

Hello Enaud, there are several ways to find this object: - if its just small and maybe even covered with a transparent texture. you can press CTRL+ALT+T this will show all transparent objects in red, then select it, right click and delete / or take back into inventory. - the other method is to rightclick just anything that you can see, to open the 'edit window' and drag a selection border around the areas where you assume you have rezzed it. Once the objects are selected look closely if there is anything or something small showing up amongst all of the now visisble selection borders that could be your object. In that case again rightclick this specifiic object and delete or take. - If you have parcel rights, you could also look in the about > land window and look for all objects that have been rezzed by you. Or you speak to the owner / manager / admin and ask them to look for this certain item and return it to you.

Hello Prairie, have a look back at the other post where you replied: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Land/Why-can-t-I-rez-items-in-the-house-that-I-received-from-SL/qaq-p/1966743 There have been posted answers regarding what to do. On top of the answers there: if the problem stays, you are a premium member and can contact the lifechat, and explain your problem. Since several people are reporting this at the moment it might be as well a known issue. So contacting the support is the best solution.

No this is a known problem, so no reason to call anyone - anything : ) Have a look here : http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/wearing_entire_inventory There are some suggestions on how to fix it.

The restriction might generally not be a bad idea to enforce more optimization onto the creators. I'm curious what comes out of your request. Eeven though i still believe that 'knowledge' about how to create reasonable content is a big part of the issue, and why i am always so willing to give long answers on that matter. I.e. with Z-Brush - it's not really the fact that the mesh comes from Z-Brush, it's rather an issue that the creator doesn't really know how and where it's use is in the creation pipeline. The content i am seeing is created in all sorts of 3D software and the outcome (addressing only the 'bad models' here) is mostly the same: way too heavy. No idea what retopology is, or why it would be needed to make a lower version of a model and how to achieve this. And of course no idea about what reasonable values are. Maybe the uploader should slap one into the face with even more complicated terms in regards of rendercost, estimated drawcalls and whatnot, or have numbers blinking in red.. so they wonder and start looking things up, and to learn that there is 'more' to the whole concept of reasonable models and renderpipeline then just how many prims it will take on a region. (just a funny side note - not to be taken literally) Just like i quoted one Dev yesterday, stating on the wiki for culling, that they somewhat did a bad job on teaching people about creating reasonable content, due to the belief that this should be something the creator shouldn't need to worry about and the software just deals with whatever is put into it. A philosophy that didn't really pay off at the end as he figured : ) And i have already said this in another thread, but i don't even think that normal maps and specular will relief us. I am kind of certain that people will just plaster those on top of the high polygon models. But time will tell =)

Amazing! So much more detail than with present avatar meeks...you've got to be kidding me.. *runs* i am hereby addressing linden lab.. do not.. under no circumstances.. ever have Coby suggesting anything in regard of avatar 2.0 ! never-ever ! PS: all the fun aside - looks cute! if you can port that look to the final version it even supports nicely that 'rough' wooden carved look of the original =)

okay, that is basically a 'human' / biped avatar (in terms of having 2 legs and 2 arms etc), so at least nothing with 8 arms or needing much deformation as something like a dog etc. ; ) That model kinda looks familar ^.- but anyways: What you could do is basically what i explained here Rigging Thread (Mesh). - Take a new untouched default SL skeleton (male or female is up to you) just keep in mind which ever you may choose, you will need to wear a 'shape' accordingly to this choice underneath the mesh avatar. (either male or female) - Don't forget to unparent your model first from any other armature you might have it assigned to at the moment. (and in best case also delete all weight groups) and delete the armature modifier. To have a clean and fresh start. - Straiten out the arms to fit to the t-pose of the skeleton/armature. (at the moment they are making a forwards curve) - And turn the hands so that the palms are facing downwards (like the SL default avatar has them) - Adjust the topology to fit to the moved / rotated / newly alinged arms and hands. - Then also move the legs and feet of the model together to fit better to the initial T-Pose of the armature. These steps will prevent you from having to do custom animations already for simple standing poses etc. And you can make it work with 'most' (not all) animations being done for the default avatar. - After this is done switch into editmode for the armature and move carefully by staying in the orthohraphic views (front, top, side) the tips and tails of the bones, so they will fit the length of his arms and legs and the rest of his body. But stick to the straight t-pose, just change the length of the bones / positions of the tips/tails. - Make sure you adjust both sídes the same way (so that there won't be any issues regarding differently behaving sides) - Then parent your model to the armature, preferebly in that case with automatic weights. (I wouldnt copy from the default avatar, the structures of both models are too different) - now you can start to adjust the weights and refine them to fit the requirements for SL and behaving like wanted. - Then you export your model along with the skeleton, and upload it to second life to test it.

arr man yeah you're mashine is a bit outdated. Im am sure you'll find some solutions. PS: i don't know on what status your drivers are. Possibly you could try to update those, to get a bit more compatiblity out of them. And there are also often thirdparty drivers which allow ocerclocking or adding missing functionalities to older graphic cards. (use of those at own risk) but i did that for my older laptop for a long time that i have apart from my computer. To make it able to run certain games and other stuff. But that is something you for that will need to dig through the internet, in oder to see what driver or software wise enhancements you could possibly pull up for your card. Just a suggestion =)

Heya Sefa, welcome 'back' then ; ) Why it is on hold is hard to say (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Why_is_my_account_on_hold%3F) It's hard to say what was going on in your account over the past years (corrupted or copyboted items being in your inventory, someone taking access to it and doing silly things, and so on) And it still also could be that it is just a failure and you didn't really do anything. But we are just users as you - so we can only guess as well. By submitting a ticket you did the right step. That the ticket from last year is closed by now is just normal. But give them a bit time to reply you just tried it today. Last step you could try should the support not want to reopen the account is to write an appeal (see link above)

As the others already said it depends on many factors. - the amount of triangles used in the model (if it's has a lot of polygons and could possibly have been made having the same look and shape by using quite less) - Along with the first point comes the LOD levels of the model. When you build them yourself, and when you build very good and optimized LODs for your model you can decrease the impact quite a bit. - The scale / size of the model - The physics shape that was build for it, or the used offered algorythm to create a physics shape in the uploader. But as you see it breaks down into several categories. Physics impact, download weight, rendering cost etc. Thus there could any of these - or all of them together be the 'troublemaker' here. If you could provide a bit more information about the model. (Wireframe screenshot out of blender), the amount of tris/faces, its scale etc) That could help to identify what is causing the high landimpact.

Heya Chic, 1) great, i'm glad my answer was understandable. : ) 2) regarding the 'uglyness' for people with no capability of enabling advanced lighting, i guess their world will not literally look uglier, but of course not enhanced either. Since normal maps are usually used for bringing out details that are apparent in the diffuse texture as well. So they will just see it as it always was before the normal maps will be introduced just as a textured flat area. Since normal maps can't really fake 'extremely far' going indents or bumps they will i.e. still see things as before just more textural (instead of having high polygon amounts shaping those tiny details out, like the small wrinkles on a jacket, pores in leather etc) But i am kind of afraid that even with normal maps and specular maps, people will most likely just start to sum things up, lol. Meaning creating high polygon objects and clustering normal and specular maps on top of it. I guess it will have to show how much improvement in terms of 'reasonable' designed content that will bring us. Edit : just seen that Kwak basically has the same fear - seems i am not allone with that ..=) PS: it must be this time of the year - my CPU fan is making ugly noises too - guess it is time for some dust removal.*sighs*