Maeve Balfour

Arton: I'm not totally sure why the PE changes are so drastic (although not complaining!) For the physics hull that I uploaded as a separate mesh, I actually used its mesh for its physics shape as well (was only about 34 triangles). So both are the same. This fake physics hull mesh came in at around 0.5PE (two of them linked equalled 1PE). Not sure if its how the uploader combines things that results in the big difference, compared with the original mesh prefab. Mayhaps because I was extremely savage on the LODs for this separated physics mesh that it is so small in PE (since it is intended to be used with a full alpha, LOD quality is irrelevant for it). Quite possibly this might result in the separated physics hull being so small (combination of low triangle count and extremely low LODs. All I can say is that I was very surprised at the PE difference, although definitely happy to take advantage of it.

I am currently experimenting with creating structures in mesh, purely for my personal use on my home plot... I'll share a few things I have learned along the way to date. Originally I was trying to create an entire structure as a single mesh object. Although feasible, as Ishtara mentioned, it resulted in textures being spread across wide areas, resulting in blurriness / pixelation. Sometimes this is acceptable, in areas where AVs wont see them up close... say, high ceilings, rooftops, background details etc. But for up close, they don't look so good - although if you work with materials and use tiling textures, large areas could work okay. So now I break my structures down into chunks that I know will handle textures without too much overstretch, especially when combined with material mapping and overlapping UVs (as I talked about in the alpha glitching thread). For things like windows with alphas etc... I imagine you could make them in a separate mesh, and then fit it into your main structure. Remember that you can have a number of windows, spread throughout your house (within the 64 metre limit) all still in the same mesh object. Combine this with materials, and you could save on prims there if you get creative. The alpha issues probably wont be a problem, especially if they are located in different rooms etc. However, if they have working parts (open/close etc), as Ishtara said, they would be better as invidiviual meshes or prims. Regarding PE cost... I learned something surprising last weekend. I have been building room interior prefabs (individual rooms, corridors etc which I intend on using in a modular fashion in my builds). I had been having issues using my optimised mesh physics hulls (which I include in the uploader for SL), with them not being acurately reflected - I would be walking on air, so to speak, with the floor of the physics hull seeming to be sitting out of alignment with the actual visible mesh. So as an experimental workaround, I uploaded the optimised physics hull mesh as a mesh in its own right, aligned it with the phantom main mesh, and used that combined with a full alpha texture to hide it, and it fixed the issue. THE BIG SURPRISE WAS THE SAVINGS IN PE. The original prefab, with optimised physics included, was about 10PE. When the prefab mesh was rezzed as a phantom, with a basic 3-point triangle for its physics hull (all meshes need a physics shape, regardless of if they are phantom or not), the prefab phantom was 1PE - a 9PE saving! The mesh physics hull came in at roughly 0.5PE. So combined, the two meshes are about 1.5PE, compared to the original 10PE prefab with physics included. So things like this can shave a vast amount of PE, plus the bonuse of easier texturing combined with materials. Also, for things like interiors, you can be savage with the LODs, because most of the time they will only be visible when you are standing inside them or close by - especially if by design you ensure they are occluded from long view by exterior walls etc. With my prefab experiments, each room is sitting between about 0.5PE to 2PE including relevant physics hulls, with reasonable amount of detailing and efficient UV and material work. So yah, depending on how you plan it, meshes are definitely viable. However, don't disregard prims - they will always be a valuable tool for builders. :matte-motes-smile:

Hmm... I'll explain myself a little better (my usage of the word component is probably confusing the issue). To explain materials.... As an example, think of the faces on a standard prim cube in SL - it has six faces. Now, say you created a basic MESH cube. You could define each of those sides as a separate material (most modeler programs should have a method to define material zones). SL treats materials in the same manner as it does with faces on a prim... so in this example of a mesh cube, with six material zones defined (one for each of its sides), you can apply totally independent textures, just as you do with a prim cube in SL. Now, since with material zones you can display totally independent textures, this means you can overlap the UVs, as long as the UV islands for each specific material area don't clash - so in the example of the mesh cube, each face could share the exact same UV space (I hope I worded that clearly LOL). In my mention of hiding components in my meshes in my last post, I was referring to how i define sections of my meshes into separate material components (doorways, walls, trims, overlapping sections where my prefab meshes meet etc) - by being defined as individual materials, they can be hidden if needed via alphas applied to them specifically (via the edit face option in the SL build menu). ....... Now... here is a potential big advantage with materials (I havent properly tested this yet, but since it works in general 3D modeling, I would think it reasonable to assume it works for SL also (anyone please correct me if I am wrong). Say you have a large, complex mesh, which will be difficult to fit everything into a single UV map without it all being reduced to tiny islands with not much resolution for detail.... If you build your mesh with materials in mind, you can break it up into partial components (SL mesh supports up to eight materials in a single mesh object - so you could divide up a complex mesh into eight components if necessary). Now, what I would do is export each of these components to a separate file, where I'd UV map them on their own. When done, I'd import them back into a single mesh file - each of these pre-UVmapped imported meshes should hold their UVs. I wouldn't recommend doing any changes to the new imported component meshes other than a little resizing if needed (welding / deleting vertices and faces will probably kill their UVs). At this stage, define each of the imported components as individual MATERIALS. When done, export the project as a single DAE file for SL... this should automatically include the UVs as a single merged map (or mayhaps the file would treat them as independent?). Regardless... each of the material components can have their own independent textures painted onto their defined UVs, and then applied as textures using the SELECT FACE option in the SL build menu. Now, If this concept works... I imagine it would also be feasible to use repeats of material components within a single mesh file to further add to their versatility (say, a single column inside a building, defined once with a single UV and material, used repeatedly inside the mesh (it would have the same texture for each repeat)). Fingers-crossed this actually works - as I said, I haven't properly tried this as yet. :matte-motes-big-grin-wink: And ALSO, keep in mind that single material zones DON'T HAVE TO BE CONNECTED... the polys can be totally separated if need be, spread throughout a mesh - say, a series of windows in a house, or posters on walls all over the place - they could all share the same material and UV within the same mesh file. Try doing that with a prim! Phew... I've probably missed something there somewhere. But yah, materials combined with overlapping UVs can be seriously powerful. The biggest challenge (and FUN) is thinking of all the different ways you can harness their usage. :matte-motes-smile:

Glad it works! Also, try it out as a single mesh... (I probably didn't word my idea very clearly, due to the early hours of the morning LOL)... In theory, if you have it as one mesh component, and for each of the alpha areas use a different material (up to 8 in a single mesh), I would assume the result would still be the same (each material area can have entirely different and independent textures/alphas/UVs etc). Looking at your screenshot, I would think it would render exactly as it does here, and probably save a little percentage of PE in the process (being one mesh instead of two, although the difference would be very slight). I often use materials to separate out components in my meshes... say, if I want to hide a bit of overlap in a prefab room interior, I can apply a full alpha texture. Materials are definitely worth using for their added versatility. :matte-motes-smile:

This probably won't work, but I'll mention it anyway JUST in case.... Have you tried sectioning out your alpha planes into separate materials? A long shot, but worth trying....

I experimented with a workaround to my issue (misaligned physics hull) which works quite well. Not exactly an elegant solution, but the PE it saves me makes it worthwhile in my case. In essence... I upload my original mesh room prefab with a minimal 3-vertex flat triangle as its physics shape. This is used inworld as a phantom object. I then upload my extremely basic physics hull for this prefab (34 triangles) as a mesh in its own right, using it for both the LOD1 and its physics hull in the uploader. Inworld, this is used for the physics of the original prefab mesh, with an alpha applied to hide it. When hidden and aligned, the prefab in general functions as expected inworld (walls and doorways etc). My biggest surprise by separating these was the savings in PE. The original prefab, with the same hull (including misalignment issues) in the one mesh object was about 10PE. Separated out... the phantom version of the mesh prefab is 1PE... and the physics hull mesh I assume is around 0.5PE (as a test, two of these physics hulls linked is 1PE). So by separating my prefab example into two meshes and faking the physics in a hidden mesh... I dropped the PE from about 10 down to roughly 1.5! My jaw is still hurting from it hitting the floor LOL. So yah... although inelegant, I think my workaround is sufficient for my needs at least. Just thought I'd share this. :matte-motes-smile:

Thanks Muffey for your excellent summary - you worded it all far better than my sleep-deprived brain could have hoped to a few hours ago! Venus: Yah, I can empathise with your disappointment in regards to the non-rigged skirt. Personally, I think it's poor practice for merchants to not at least offer a mesh demo to test out prior to purchase. If I can't try before I buy in regards to rigged meshes, I won't touch them. Perrie: Yah, as you allude to, morphing meshes are probably a lot more complex for LL to implement than most residents realise. I don't know much about the technical side of it, but I imagine it involves rewriting a lot of the code for rigged attachments (and hence time consuming for LL's limited resources). From what I understand via a couple of podcasts I have watched / listened to in recent times with Charlar Linden (head of mesh development), mesh was released to the main grid as a "work in progress"... functional enough to be usable in most cases, but with room for improvements as time allows (morphing rigged clothes being one). Not perfect, but at least its available. Having listened to Charlar talking, it is clear that he is passionate about mesh development, and his love for it is infectious. Things will improve as time goes on... mesh is in its infancy for now. :matte-motes-smile:

Hi, I've just dropped in, after following Venus' invite thread from over in the mesh forum. Hopefully other mesh weavers will follow suit and offer their knowledge as well. :matte-motes-smile: Although I'm still learning all the ins and outs of SL mesh, I am very excited by its creative potential (and this is me speaking purely from an artistic viewpoint, not as a merchant). There will no doubt be an awkward transition phase in regards to mesh-enabled viewers and the percentage of residents able to see mesh, but it will improve eventually. In regards to clothing.... Mesh as clothing can be either rigged to follow the AV's movements, or worn as standard attachments (as mentioned already). Both methods have their plusses and minuses, but if designed carefully, have a lot of potential. Rigged meshes currently cannot be resized for body shape, due to them being required to follow an AV's "skeleton" rig (the joints system used for AV animation). As far as I know, they can conform to AV's height etc (or bone length), but not for body "thickness"/shape. However, LL are looking into developing "morphing" for meshes, which will hopefully allow for rigged meshes to be adusted for body shapes. Unfortunately, it won't be for a while - it's on their "to do" list, but that could mean quite a while. But it will happen eventually. Meshes worn purely as attachments can be very effective too - pretty much the same as sculptie attachments work currently. UNRIGGED mesh attachments can be easily scaled if perms allow, and if made efficiently can greatly reduce rendering cost in general (less lag etc). As an example, I am experimenting with different footwear meshes I am in the process of creating... these are intended to be worn as attachments (unrigged) in the same way as sculpted footwear is worn. Being a single mesh per foot means they can be scaled up AND down dramatically, without hitting the minimum prim size issues which often plagues complex sculpted footwear... so fitting them is very easy (even tinies could wear them - which is probably a neglected niche). However, for things like skirts, mesh attachments will have the same issues as sculpties - that "cardboard" effect. But yah, mesh has a lot of possibilities for SL clothing. I can forsee my Linden balance burning already! :matte-motes-big-grin-wink:

Yes, I always take great care to ensure that the bounding boxes are exactly the same for both the physics hull AND the mesh. Usually I take the LOD1 mesh, and reduce it to its barest form for the physics hull, and in the process ensure that the outermost vertices for both remain identical to retain overall matching size - which I assume will result in the exact same bounding box. (Please correct me if I am making any incorrect assumptions). :matte-motes-smile:

It never ceases to amaze me at how brazen some people are (or just purely stupid) when it comes to dishonest practices - in this case selling stolen meshes. I am not surprised that it is happening, sadly, but rather at how blatant they are in doing so. Generally, thieves aren't exactly rocket scientists, so their skill levels in regards to rigging, quality control etc will probably be pretty low - and this will unfortunately give mesh a bad taste for many customers who get ripped off in this manner. Having been a Poser user for several years, I am fairly familiar with a lot of the general content around the related community (DAZ-3D figures etc). I won't point any fingers due to TOS, but I have already alerted DAZ on one occasion when one of their main figures appeared in the marketplace advertised as a "next generation avatar" (the seller even "borrowed" a promotional image from the DAZ website to use in his own listing!). Not sure what it was like within SL, as I refused to purchase it, although one customer had left a bitterly disappointed review. Regardless, the item seems to have been removed fairly quickly. I guess it is up to us honest mesh creators and users to be vigilant (but not vigilantes) in keeping our eyes open, and alerting rightful mesh creators if we recognise their works being listed in here illegally. :matte-motes-frown:

Hmm... Thanks Arton. At least that confirms in theory that I'm not missing any required steps. :matte-motes-smile: Your workaround suggestion should solve this, although I can see a lot of trial and error in getting it to look right. It is interesting to note, though, that if I use the auto generated physics hull, it is perfectly aligned with the mesh, but when I use my optimised hull, it is out - despite being exactly matched. Ah, the price we pay if we strive for perfection! Gotta love it! :matte-motes-wink:

With your cubes, are the visible faces on the INSIDE as well as on the outside? (Not sure if this is the case from your description). In other words, are there interior faces AND exterior faces? Reason I ask, is that physics depends on the directions the normals are facing. An example being a single faced plane with no thickness... if you have the normal for that flat plane pointing upward, you can still walk on it, even though it has no thickness. Mayhaps your problem side in your cube has something to do with the normal directions. I am currently working on a series of interior room prefabs - to save on triangle counts, I am only creating faces for the visible parts of each section (the interior walls, floor and ceiling etc). When viewed from outside, the sections not being viewed from a front angle are invisible (due to their normals facing inward, in the same direction as the camera), but when viewed from inside, everything appears as expected (when assembled, the prefabs' invisible walls will be hidden by adjacent rooms or exterior walls). Anyway.... I can walk about as expected INSIDE my prefabs, but due to the normal directions, I can actually walk THROUGH the walls from OUTSIDE (due to the normals facing inward). So this might explain your issue too. EDIT: Retesting what I mentioned in the previous paragraph.... If I have an OPEN DOORWAY of one mesh facing into the outer wall of another of my prefabs, I can walk inwards through the wall. BUT (and I don't understand this), if i try walking through the outer wall of the same prefab ON ITS OWN, it doesn't work (acts like a normal wall would). Can one mesh and its physics hull somehow override the physics of another mesh hull? Mayhaps it is a matter of overriding interaction depending on the AV's location? Very curious.... As a side note - I can see potential uses for normals in this manner - one-way doorways etc. Could be quite handy in certain circumstances. :matte-motes-smile:

Chances are I am missing some obvious step or two. I have been creating custom physics hulls for my mesh constructions (room prefabs etc) - heavily optimised physics meshes representing basic surfaces and openings to match the main LOD meshes. In my modeler, they align perfectly (in scale etc); however, once combined inworld, they seem to be out of synch - the floor of the physics hull is often slightly higher than the actual mesh floor, resulting in AVs "walking on air". Doorways seem to align in regards to walls etc... just the floors themselves are out a bit. I have been ensuring the floor plane and the ceiling planes are in alignment, and ensuring the physics mesh is still the same overall exact dimensions as the main LOD mesh etc. All normals are correct and in working order. In the uploader, the surfaces appear to be in synch... so i am left scratching my head here. Any suggestions? :matte-motes-smile:

Thanks for the tip Wade, that could come quite in handy for certain things. Especially being that the isolated "expensive" mesh can have LODs applied separately from the main meshes, helping to retain overall shaping while getting a better PE. Getting off topic a little... but another thing I learned (which others here probably figured out ages ago LOL), is for complex UV-mapping projects, considering breaking it up into component meshes, and UV-mapping them in isolation in your modeler. Then, with this done, bring them all into the main project file, apply separate materials to them (up to eight materials), and export it all as a single mesh. Then you simply apply textures to your complicated mesh via the different material zones, which will allow greater detail textures due to their independent UVs (instead of them all being forced to fit into a single UVmap). Keep in mind though that the extra textures will increase general streaming inworld - so use this with care and balance. But yah, thanks for the tip - it all helps :matte-motes-smile:

I still remember it like yesterday. Down here in New Zealand, the enormity of the event left us numbed to the core. Just the utter senselessness of it all. Words fail to adequately convey my feelings. I cried... we all did. It mattered not that we live half a world away... we all felt it deeply, and our hearts ached. You are not alone in this anniversary. Hearts and thoughts are with you... From my corner of the world, and all over. Take comfort in that. We will shed tears with you.

Tinies will also win with mesh as ATTACHMENTS. I came to this realisation while creating mesh footwear (intended to be worn as unrigged AV attachments). Since my footwear is being created in single mesh objects (one per foot), instead of the standard linksets of sculpties and the LL limits on minimum prim sizes, my footwear meshes have a vast scope for sizing up AND down, and can be distorted easily as well (width / height / length). I haven't tried them yet with a tiny AV, but I would assume that with full mod capability, mesh attachments will be a "massive" bonus for tinies (please excuse the pun - I couldn't resist it!). :smileyvery-happy:

I was a doggedly stubborn V2 user, and am now a V3 mesh-enabled user, so I am happy enough. :matte-motes-smile: Mesh is here to stay, regardless of what people say about it. Sooner or later mesh-enabled TPVs will kick into gear, and mesh will be visible to the majority of residents. It's just a waiting game for now. I'm just quietly building my little mesh inventory, having heaps of fun doing so, and when I feel ready, will consider offering it to other residents via the marketplace and inworld. If they sell, great.... if not, well, I'm having fun, so that's all that matters. :matte-motes-smile:

Hmm... good question.... Though, in theory, I don't think you will necessarily need to. In the SL mesh upload window, there is an option in the third tab (if I remember correctly - I am typing this on a break at work) which lets you define your scaling. Also, keep in mind that you can easily rescale things inworld in SL - often my meshes import into SL at a miniscule scale (due to me forgetting to change my export settings from my modeler LOL) - to fix, i just use the standard SL build tools to upsize my meshes. For rigged clothing... I assume this would be the same; if your meshes are proportionally correct, you just resize them to fit your AV in a T-pose, then wear/attach it. A good exercise would be to try uploading a basic mesh - even a mesh cube, for example - just to get a feel for things (and to see if your poser .dae files actually work with SL). :matte-motes-smile:

Not wanting to spend your money for you (/me laughs), but since you now own PoserPro 2010, you are actually eligible to upgrade to PoserPro 2012 at a fairly heavily reduced price: Link: http://poser.smithmicro.com/comingsoon/#order (pricing is about a third the way down the page). Note that the pre-order offer closes soon (September 20). I am very tempted to grab it, regardless of SL compatibility, being a Poser user anyway. (For the record, I'm definitely NOT a salesperson trying to sell it to everyone LOL!) :smileyvery-happy:

I haven't tried it myself as yet (although I use Poser-7 for AV animating). In theory, your version of Poser should be capable of rigging meshes to the SL AV, and exporting for use in SL (provided it can export in a compatible Collada format). Myself, I use Blender 2.49b purely for its Collada exporter (I import my .obj files, use Blender to convert my quad meshes to tris, and export to Collada 1.4 format). Considering Blender is free, it is a perfect alternative if your version of Poser doesn't export to the required Collada format; so no extra software purchase is necessarily required. A sidenote: I am very intrigued by the upcoming release of PoserPro 2012 (in concurrence with the release of Poser-9). From what I understand, PoserPro 2012 introduces weight-painting to meshes in conjunction with the rigging process. Considering I am a total Blender noob, especially with the interface and the rigging process, but a veteran Poser user, this new version with weight-painting is very tempting - fingers-crossed it is compatible with SL exporting.... if so, it could be a very powerful tool for SL content creators. :matte-motes-smile:

Hi Wade... I bought one of your delightful little birds on the weekend. Just letting you know that for myself and my partner, the bird works perfectly fine for both of us (clicking on it for the menu etc). No crash issues whatsoever for either of us. When I accessed your vendor inworld (at time of purchasing a few days ago), I had no problems at all either. Mayhaps it's a certain set of conditions on your customer's end that is causing it? (Possible flaky V3 on her system?). But yah, your meshes worked fine for me :matte-motes-smile:

It will be interesting to see what happens when/if some of the major franchise holders realise their intellectual properties are being sold on a widespread basis in SL (in all forms, be it mesh, prim, sculpt or AV). I'm not referring to stolen meshes in this case, I'm referring to recognisable concepts (example being the stormtrooper mentioned). It's one thing to be "vaguely based on" something so it is sufficiently different to NOT be a direct clone/ripoff, but another thing entirely to be a deliberately recognisable clone of an existing franchise/movie etc. Being a little familar with general 3D outside of SL, some studios such as the one which produces the Star Wars films are tolerant of fan-based works (meshes, artwork etc) as long as they are NOT SOLD for currency (in other words, passed around FREE) - they tend to take a very dim view of people making actual money from their franchises. Others such as Disney totally stomp on any form of derivative works, regardless of whether it is free or not. So it is very thin ice to be walking on, when creating anything even remotely based on others' intellectual property.

Adding my thanks as well.... I've been quietly following the mesh developments, dabbling with my own, and occasionally testing on the beta grid. A huge amount of hard work has been put in by the development team behind the scenes, and I want to express my gratitude for their efforts. Now mesh is finally here on the main grid, and I can really begin to explore its creative potential. Having been playing with mesh in general for the past number of years, I am definitely looking forward to bringing my practical experience into SL and seeing where it goes. Far easier (for me) than working with the limitations of sculpties. Also I am pleasantly surprised by the upload costs. Having been expecting something like 150L per mesh upload, I was seriously happy when my first mesh only cost me 17L - I am a happy panda! So thank you, LL mesh devs! So much fun to come! :matte-motes-smile:

It could be due to lost/bad connections with SL.... it is VERY touchy when you start losing packets of information. If you lose a reliable connection, the Viewer will usually terminate itself (not sure if it's a genuine crash or a "feature"). Something worth trying is turning off HTTP prefetching (I can't remember the specific name of it - I am not at home to look this up on my viewer) - do a forum search for it, has been mentioned plenty of times.... basically, it's multi-threaded texture downloading to your viewer, and something that has caused me drop-out issues with my crappy connection. It might also help reduce your log-out rates too. :matte-motes-smile:

I'm currently experimenting with mesh footwear as attachments, and in regards to prim equivalency (tris) they compare very efficiently when compared to building the same in sculpties. It's the LOD factor and associated cost that pushes the PE factor up - being smallish items in the world view, the LODs drop away very quickly - it is something I am still experimenting with, and so far have yet to get around to creating my own customised lower LOD meshes (due to lack of time for now, I am just using the default LODs for testing purposes). Currently as an experiment I am using the full LOD mesh for the first three LODs, and a very high minimum LOD - not efficient at all, but as a basic proof of concept still very favourable in comparison to an equivalent sculptie build in PE costs. No doubt when I get organised, and create proper, optimised 3rd and 4th LOD meshes, this will improve the PE considerably. The high level of control for texturing via UV's more than makes up for the hassles of PE control, in my opinion. At the moment, with the unoptimised LODs pushed very high, my experimental shoe build is hovering around 30PE - a similar style shoe I bought inworld made from sculpties is around 40 prims. With a bit of work on making proper LOD meshes, I reckon I could push my PE down much further. Also, using a simple box as the physics mesh drops the PE by a big degree (as far as I know, all mesh requires some kind of physics shape, regardless of whether they will actually need physics or not... I should model up a simple 3-point physics triangle for my next project). All in all... mesh as attachments has a lot of potential :matte-motes-smile: