IvanBenjammin

ChinRey wrote: IvanBenjammin wrote: but their silence on most things mesh makes me feel that they don't understand their own system, and that's disheartening. Oh yes, Oz has actually more or less confirmed that. But to be fair, we shouldn't really blame the current SL team for the sins of the past. Linden Lab's development work is far better organized and much better focused than ever before. (That's why I suggested a time machine earlier in this thread. Problems should always be handled by their roots and in this case we need one of those for that. ) The Lindens who developed SL mesh didn't document what they did properly neither internally nor for us users. Key people in that project don't work here anymore and even if they did, they probably wouldn't remember in detail all the cool (presumably) and unusual (definitely) shortcuts they took more than five years ago. That's the situation and we just have to deal with it the best we can. IvanBenjammin wrote: Maybe I'm just tired after wrestling with the uploader for an entire day (I hate you so much, physics...). Oh, the physics. That's a different can of worms. This probably isn' very useful : http://anarchy.cn/manual/12/HavokSdk_ProgrammersManual/bk03.html LL did actually publish a simplified end user's manual for Havok. It is a pdf file somewhere in the wiki (Aquila, do you remember where?) and if I remember correctly, it seems to contradict Havok's own manual in at least one crucial detail. Beq once suggested to me that SL is using a simplified rather than a full version of Havok, not sure if that's the case. Huh. Well, that explains a lot. I don't blame anyone, its just frustrating to not have clear answers on certain questions. Thanks for the link. I think I understand how the physics works for the most part. My issue with it is that its just not consistent or particularly predictable when you're working with a certain level of complexity. But you're right - we just have to deal with it.

Why does that give me the impression that the Lindens are as in the dark as we are? Community engagement is always a positive thing, as is information about best practices, but their silence on most things mesh makes me feel that they don't understand their own system, and that's disheartening. Maybe I'm just tired after wrestling with the uploader for an entire day (I hate you so much, physics...).

I've done some testing: I made a cylinder in Maya, 1 version with split edges, the other bevelled. In both cases, they have Maya's soft normals (which aren't quite the same thing as averaged normals) the UVs were reduced down to a single point. I import to Blender as obj, then output as dae. In both cases, I got the results I was expecting. With split edges, the SL uploader was telling me it had 128 triangles, 130 vertices (the extra 2 vertices accounted for because of the ends of the cylinder). The bevelled version (with both top and bottom edge loops bevelled) had 256 triangles, 130 vertices. Now, it gets interesting when I start delving into Blender's smoothing functions. I have to export from Maya without normal data to get Blender's auto smoothing to work, but when I exported the bevelled cylinder with auto smooth at 180 degrees, SL's uploader tells me it has 256 triangles, 258 vertices. Without auto smoothing (and without imported normals from Maya) its back to 256 triangles, 130 vertices. So it would seem from my testing that auto smoothing is indeed the culprit.

I would be very interested to see what you discover through testing, because that makes no sense. Is it just me, or does understanding SL tech feel like archaeology, piecing together explanations out of clues?

Drongle McMahon wrote: While I had the table, I tried one more thing that demonstrates how little effect the high LOD complexity has on the LI for something this size. I made a single segment bevel on all the sharp edges (made with edge split modifier in the original high LOD model) and then transferred the normals from the previous high LOD version. This has the effect of adding edge highlights under advanced lighting, as you can see in the left panel of the picture, comapred with the righ panel. Of course, these are only visible when you are this close. This raised the high LOD triangle count to 9136, nearly two and a half times as many as in the original. So that's two and a half times the work for the renderer (is it?). The download weigh and LI were still 1. I would be interested to know people's views about whether all that extra goemetry is worthwhile for this improvement. Doing something similar with much bigger objects, like a house, would not be so cheap, as the high LOD has increasing effect on the LI.  (9 am default sunlight, with shadows.) Can I ask what the difference is in vertex count between bevelled and non bevelled versions? Vertex count is just as important (if not moreso) to the renderer as triangles, and in theory there's no difference between a hard edge and a bevelled one (as a hard edge has to be split into at least two vertices by the renderer). IMO its worth it. I try to bevel outer edges wherever possible - it looks so much nicer, especially with normal mapping.

Its height to width ratio is about 8:1, which means you can use a 1024x128 texture, or 512x64 if you want to be super optimized. I'm not sure how UV aspect ratios work in Blender, but generally speaking you want to stretch out your UVs to fill the whole width, and just use a rectangular texture. You'll notice that the UV grid is 8x8, which is very helpful when working out the aspect ratio of textures.

I wanted to resurrect this thread because I've managed to incorporate custom normals into my workflow. I model in Maya, and have recently been fighting with normal artifacts and having to add far too much extra geometry to compensate. As always, thanks to Drongle for doing the research. For the record, I model in Maya LT 2017, export as obj to blender, then export from blender as dae. In maya, I soften my edges as needed (Mesh Display> Soften Edges. NOT to be confused with averaged normals), then export as obj with normal information (checkbox in export options). In Blender, the only thing I do is export out as dae. As mentioned by Drongle above, the key is unchecking the 'triangulate' option during dae export. This way, the export from blender preserves my normals from Maya. Its now apparent to me than this triangulation is responsible for a lot of normal mess...

arton Rotaru wrote: So what is that wildly unorthodox, but 100% lossess method to reduce any dae file to 1/4 of it's render complexity? Sounds like one of those ads that promise to share the secret of getting rich quick... ...If you just click here and pay us first.

Zed Tremont wrote: Thank you for your reply Ivan. I will look in Quixel suit don't have that one... yet. Looked at the materials of the program, there are a lot and seem to be of a very high quality. Have substance painter and designer, ready materials... I'm not so impressed and some of the materials for sale are downright not OK. Still it is a great and useful tool. Q if I may: I'm very sure the problem is that the camera takes a correct bake of whatever is visible. The backside, not at all. How is this with Quixel and/or Xnormal. Will do further testing/painting meanwhile Using any kind of camera to bake is a new one to me, but maybe that's something you do when you want to capture reflections and specularity? For most baking - ambient occlusion, normal maps, etc etc - you cast rays down the normals of your low poly model, and render whatever it hits on the high poly. Regarding Quixel: Its not the material library that I love it for. It has a lot of presets, and each update seems to add more, but IMO its power comes from its excellent normal map creation and masking tools. A lot of the presets are nice, but you won't want to use them as-is - as Arton mentions above, they're designed for a different rendering environment.

I love the Quixel suite - its my new best friend. I don't use the maya baking tools (I prefer Xnormal for that, despite its retro appearance), but generally speaking, it can be hard to diagnose bake problems from a diffuse and/or ambient occlusion render. Try doing a normal map bake and see what artifacts you get - if those hard edges show up, for example.

Lvddawter wrote: Oh, I do tell my friends, but there are several limitations. The biggest is in the fact that those who are viewing the item on the MP are looking for something I bought. These people realize they have an unmet need - a need that I'd bet few of my few friends have at that moment. The second is that people visiting MP are currently attempting to fill that need. They have taken the time away from SL and are in a buying frame of mind. Telling my friends happens only when I'm logged in, and relies on them remembering my recommendation if this need ever arises for them. Third, even the best product isn't perfect. In many cases I try to give a fair mention of what I believe are its flaws, deficiencies, or areas where I feel there's room for improvement. This is where merchants get feedback. Sure, I can, and have, send them NCs in-world, but why not kill two birds with one stone? Fourth, seeing a merchant's response to a review has value in itself. It gives an indication that there is an active concern for customer support, and what kind to expect. There have been times when this has made the difference in what I've chosen to buy. I don't take reviews from others at face value, and I don't expect others to treat mine any differently, but any voice (even from someone I've never and will never meet) is better than none at all. Word of mouth is important for a merchant to consider, but it has far more value in killing than nurturing a product. People are far more likely to remember bad mouthing than praise. TLDR; I speak with less than 100 people per week. Few are interested in buying what I just did, and wouldn't remember me if/when they are. Compare this to the thousands per week who are actively interested in buying something similar and are visiting the MP. Yes, all valid points. Have you considered contacting the merchant and asking if they'll refund you if you buy it again on MP to leave a review? Frankly, I don't want LL messing with systems that work, or competing/messing with the likes of Caspervend (who make a good, stable product that doesn't take a 5% commission). The time and resources that would take could be better spent on improving the MP as-is.

If you want to reward the creator, tell your friends about it and encourage anyone looking for the same thing to buy. Word-of-mouth drives the SL economy far more than the MP review system, at least in my experience.

entity0x wrote: IvanBenjammin wrote: Then I guess you win whatever contest we were having... Technically, you made a challenge, so I answered it. Don't worry, Maya is clearly the industry standard, so you win by default. The op wants to use menus, well Maya is heavy on the use of them - she should explore Maya tutorials. The op doesn't want to learn shortcuts - then stay away from Blender tutorials - shortcuts are taught and used from day one. I knew I would temp debate by even mentioning the differences in using Maya vs Blender, but it was in the context of the desires of the OP. I really wasn't trying to start a debate or challenge, though I can see in retrospect that what I said might've been seen as contentious. The wording of your post suggested that Maya was slow and awkward to use, so that's why I felt the need to point out that it wasn't.

Then I guess you win whatever contest we were having...

Drongle needs some kind of lifetime achievement award for that post - I've lost count of the number of times I've referred to it.

Most Maya tutorials are menu-centric - they seem to love opening up 5 options in order to do the simplest of actions. Compare how long it takes to add 3 loop cuts to a cube in Blender, vs 3 balanced loop cuts in Maya. Now add 1 loop cut and slide with it on a cube - but try to do the same in Maya without having to open up the options box and resetting it back to 1 and make sure the loop is centered too. That's some pretty strong anti-maya sentiment. What did Maya do to you? I'm not trying to get into a software debate with you, because at the end of the day we're carpenters arguing about hammers; But for the record, I can do what you suggest in about 5 seconds in Maya.

So.... let me start by saying I'll go out of my way to help my customers and do what I can to ensure they're happy. But sometimes, customers are rude and/or demanding, and it can be a real struggle to smile and politely attempt to make them happy because you know they have the ability to sink your product with a 1 star review. I've had people attempt to blackmail me with that fact, and that's a really unpleasant feeling. Some creators are long gone and still have products for sale, this is true. But sometimes they - like other humans - take vacations, and will return to help you out when they can. Before you assume they don't care about your problems, make sure they've received your message, that you're polite, and that you've read all the instructions provided, if any. That 'alt' that posts a countering review might just be a real customer who genuinely didn't have any issues.

Some people seem to get a kick out of starting 'rumors', then sitting back and watching how they spread.

My latest cashout earlier this week was less than 36 hours. It takes another 48 hours to get from paypal to my bank account, but the shorter processing times mean I get it within the same week instead of 8-10 days.

Maya uses the Y axis as its 'Up' axis, most other 3d apps use Z. You need to find a option when you import the skeleton to swap the Y and Z axes.

Coming up: Searching for adult content shows adult content! More on this shocking story at 11!

Uhh... I replied to the thread, which addresses it to you.

Macs being better for 'creatives' (more commonly phrased as 'Macs are better for graphics') came about when Photoshop was Mac only. More recently, Mac displays have been superior to most PC displays, but this is a false comparision - you can get PC displays with the same quality, its just that most people don't because they're expensive. With Macs, you have no choice. All hardware differences were rendered superficial when Apple switched to Intel CPUs, anyway.

ChinRey wrote: IvanBenjammin wrote: (leaving aside the fact that the word 'lag' doesn't mean what most people think it does) "a usually long putt struck with the aim of having the ball stop near the hole" according to Merriam-Webster. (Some other definition there too but that's the one we use here, right?) IvanBenjammin wrote: b) its not the environment that causes SL to run poorly. There certainly are exceptions but not many. Second Life has always had very strict restrictions how much you can rez on the land but very few limitations to what you can wear. I don't know if that means they felt avatars were too imoprtant to restrict or that they never thought avatar lag would ever become a serious problem. But this meant that Second Life tended to be more attractive to people interested in avatar appearance than in the scenery and even many of those who came here to experience the wonderful virtual world tended to become more and more avatar centered. People are always very good at finding and exploiting loopholes of course and the result is what we see today. That definition of lag is about as relevant to SL as any other It was probably a little of both, insofar as it was planned at all. By the time avatar load became an issue, it was too late to step in and put restrictions in place. Feedback loop again: Without any restrictions, it just got worse. In the last couple years it seems like they've made an effort to catch up and address the problem, but there's only so much that can be done while staying true to the principles of creative freedom they've established.