Fluffy Sharkfin

According to the article a flat plane for now but later on a proper placeholder object

When you say "shiny and full bright" are you referring to the old legacy shiny and fullbright settings or the newer materials based equivalent? I think the point Qie and others are trying to make is that, while adding additional detail to a diffuse texture can be used (very effectively) to simulate depth and shininess on objects in certain circumstances, it can't replicate the effect created by using a normal map since it's still just a static diffuse colour texture whereas a normal map is literally bending light in realtime. To illustrate here's a quick auto-retopo I did of a doodle/practice sculpt I was playing with (it's just under 2000 triangles, so about the same polycount as a sculpted prim and has a blank grey diffuse texture)... and here is the same object with different lighting... As you can see the placement and colour of any highlights and shadows on the surface of the object that are simulated by the normal map will change based on the direction and colour of the lighting under which it is viewed and that's just not something that can be achieved with a static diffuse map.

A question was asked and subsequently answered, the only reason this thread is 4 pages long is because some folks decided that they needed to express their opinions on something they didn't even see. Had nobody tried to offer their opinion on an incident they didn't witness or have any specific information about and had instead stayed on topic by answering the question asked in the OP then there would be no drama at all. Honestly, the only drama in this thread has been created by those insisting that this thread is about inciting drama... and the reason these so-called "firecrackers" didn't crack that well is because they are a figment of your imagination!

I've seen quite a few items where the specular colour map seems to just be a greyscale specularity map rather than a 32 bit texture, which would certainly explain why some objects can appear "blown out" at times since the purpose of the 32 bit specular map is that the first 24 bits (i.e. the RGB channels) modify the colour of the reflected light while the specular exponent is controlled by the 8 bit alpha channel (eta: of the normal map).

While baking lighting into a diffuse texture to simulate depth and reflection/specularity can yield exceptional results it just doesn't produce the same results as normal maps when viewed with dynamic lighting. I'll agree that the "shiny" part of the equation is lacking, although if the object your dealing with is modifiable you can usually tweak the specularity/environment settings to tone things down a little. I suspect part of the problem is that some creators aren't utilizing the materials system to it's fullest by including the specular exponent and environment intensity maps in the alpha channel of the normal and specular maps (which can have a dramatic effect on the end results), however the much larger problem is SL's environment map is truly awful which is why they're also working on reflection probes in order to replace the default environment map with something that doesn't look like a background for a 1980s handheld video game. As someone with a relatively low-end GPU I must admit it's going to be a rough transition if they remove the option to use forward rendering but personally, as a creator, I'm pretty happy about the decision since it will make a huge difference to the amount of work involved in creating things for SL if I didn't have to accommodate non-ALM users.

It certainly would have made this thread a lot simpler (and shorter) if the nature of the incident had been made clear from the outset, and I must admit I would have raised an eyebrow at the seemingly salacious nature of the OP were it not for the fact that I've "known" Ingrid for many years and although we've only ever spoken a few times in world (on my original avi) I've seen her participate on many iterations of these forums so I know that inflammatory posts and inciting chaos really aren't her style! Honestly I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if there are any specific additional steps that need to be taken when reporting this type of incident, given the seriousness of the offense perhaps LL should be handling them a little differently?

That's just the burden we bear for living in a world of entirely user-generated content, mesh may have amplified it a little but SL has always had to deal with the fallout from being the digital equivalent of a patchwork quilt being worked on by thousands of people all with wildly disparate visions and ideas. I guess at most all a new user needs to know is the basics of how mesh works to explain why a sofa or table suddenly changes to some weird spikey abstract sculpture once you get more than a few meters away from it and that their options are to either avoid buying/using content that does that or tweak their settings which may have a detrimental effect on performance and their hardware.

And TOS! Anyway, dragging this thread kicking and screaming back on topic, a new user doesn't need to know all that much about LOD beyond what the acronym stands for, and that the term gets used (and misappropriated) for a variety of different things like the individual meshes of decreasing complexity that are used to create mesh objects in SL, the object complexity settings in the viewer and sometimes as a way to describe the "quality" of a particular mesh object. Giving a newbie any more specific information would probably be a little overwhelming unless they're expressing an interest in creating mesh or are specifically asking about tweaking their object complexity settings (in which case just tell them to try it and see but maybe include a friendly warning that it may potentially cause a drop in frame rates and increased gpu usage).

FIFY, we have to capitalize every letter, otherwise people may not realise just how important LOD is!

Yes! Both!! LOD is everything... in LOD we trust!

To be fair, it didn't veer all that far, it just turned from a discussion on what to tell noobs about LODs into an argument about what not to tell them. 🤣

I think there's been so many threads of varying tone orbiting this topic over the years that everyone tends to get a little skittish whenever the subject is mentioned, so it's understandable that some people may jump to erroneous conclusions and assume the thread is just a continuation of past discourse. As has been pointed out already the process of filing an AR for this type of incident is essentially the same as any other. Take screenshots, list names and times and any facts that are pertinent, that's pretty much all you need to do.

The implication seems to be that what they were doing would be against TOS if said avatar is meant to be a representation of a pre-teen or young teen. Sharing the exact details of the incident or the location at which it occurred probably isn't necessary. I think the OP is simply asking how to report such incidents, rather than asking for opinions on whether any rules were actually violated (after all that's for LL to decide, not us).

Simply put, even a complex explanation of LOD models in objects and LOD settings in the viewer would only take up about a half a page (a page at most if you allow for questions/dissenting opinions) but this thread is 4 pages long so folks have to do something to fill up all that extra space!

No apology necessary! As I said I'm of the opinion that what others do with their possessions is entirely up to them however detrimental it may be but at the same time I do take exception to people trying to misrepresent those actions as completely harmless in order to try and convince others to follow their example.

Absolutely, there's very little similarity between a combustion engine and electronics equipment and the speed of a vehicle is mostly irrelevant in comparison to the speed at which the engine is running but the basic premise that using something carefully and not overtaxing it is far preferable to running it at its maximum capacity remains the same. When I said it wasn't a bad analogy I meant it from the perspective that it actually proves your point quite well. 😅

I don't really see a dissimilarity. Regardless of if it's a car or a pc or anything else if you continually push something to its capacity you will most likely shorten it's lifespan considerably. However I'm merely making an observation as a mildly bemused bystander so I'm happy to yield the floor to your righteous indignation since I'm not particularly invested in whether other people abuse their possessions as long as they aren't abusing mine.

Not a bad analogy since the effect of continually running an engine at maximum rpm is not entirely dissimilar from what happens when you run your pc hardware at its maximum capacity 24/7.

I assumed it was intended to highlight that maxing out your own LOD doesn't have any effect on what others see, and that those with high LOD settings may not be aware that the clothes and hair their avatars are wearing suffers from inadequate lower LOD models. I suppose there are some who would be appalled to discover that other people can't see their avatar in all its finery and others who feel that as long as they can see their avatars properly it doesn't matter what other people see. Personally I tend not to worry about what other people see on their screens when dressing my avatar but who knows, perhaps we have a social/moral obligation to care more than we do since our appearance & behaviour can have a direct effect on the user experience of those around us?

It's a scientifically proven fact that a residents draw distance is inversely proportionate to their level of narcissism, the more self-involved they are the smaller the radius of their attention becomes and vice-versa! 😅 I think one of the more frustrating things about SL from a creative perspective is the lack of continuity in regards to how content is displayed for each resident. It's bad enough trying to accomodate the ALM vs non-ALM users without having to worry about wildly varying LOD settings and all the other things people seem to tinker with.

Technically, if you want the political RP to seem realistic, then you won't actually deliver on the cake either but will instead send out tiny samples of cake a few months prior to the next election along with a solemn promise to deliver even bigger cakes should you get re-elected?!

Honestly, you had me at "free chocolate cake"... where do I sign up? 😄

Online humour can be a tricky thing. I'm always hesitant to judge peoples responses since, while it's possible that others have mistakenly taken a humorous post too seriously, it's equally possible that I'm just not recognizing the humour in their replies. Better just to assume everyone is joking and laugh at everything!

That's got to be a lot of sliders given that there are 130 bones in the SL avatar skeleton, most with multiple rotational axis. Even assuming the poser only supports the standard bipedal avatar rather than also supporting things like hind legs, wings, etc. and doesn't provide posing sliders for the facial bones that's still a lot of sliders! I hardly ever take photos myself but still I'm curious to see it in action.

It will be interesting to see what ingenious ideas people come up with (one of my favourite things about LL giving us shiny new features is seeing all the innovative uses SL residents manage to find for them). Perhaps one of these whizzkid AI coders will take some time off from putting artists out of a job and write an AI that can analyze a music stream and automatically generate dance animations that sync up to whatever song is playing? 😅 I keep meaning to try BD but lately my primary concern when selecting a viewer has been performance, since my PC is sorely in need of an upgrade. As it is I can't really spend time in-world when doing anything in 3D apps although that's unsurprising given that the software I use generates millions of polygons, I suspect I need some pretty expensive hardware to be able to run SL smoothly at the same time.