Anna Nova

Yes, every good thing has a down-side. I don't like being told what to do either. I have a term for those who try and make me: <expletive deleted> do-gooders! It's not hate mail directed at you, but at the idea that the 'developers know best'. They don't, but they do usually know more. I suggest you take the revert-on-reload code out. and before you ask: 3.

We noticed that.

Gotta be the best suggestion so far.

I just replied to post from 2011. DOH! I'd like old posts, where the original question is over 1 year old, to be a different color. 'Cos I'm a bit dim in the mornings.... And if you are fixing the website Mrs Linden, please can we have a Cancel button on the editing window. (for when I realize I'm replying to a 2011 posting.....) Embarrassed.

There is general advice about learning to program in any language. And then there is LSL. If you haven't programmed before, I think LSL is OK to learn how, but not ideal, I'd start with Python - mainly because of the teaching resources. LSL has some nasty little gotchas, like no proper arrays, that make you think. (A strided list can sometimes be used, but it's hard) The best advice is to have a project, and start. Just reading stuff, or copying other (much more skillful than you) scripts, usually generates more questions than knowledge. It's not the programming you need to learn, it's the debugging, and since LSL doesn't have wonderful debugging tools, you need to 'get yer eye in'. PS, I need an Ancient Thread Spotter built into this website please Mrs Linden! Anything older than a month in purple?

For some of this stuff http://w-hat.com/#name2key helps. Lets the list be of names and fetches the UUIDs. Not good economics if the list changes very slowly, of course.

You have to set your LOD to 4, then you can see it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but isn't it the MOST fantastic upgrade ever? The LOD and Physics additions that Beq made to the editor have been needed since mesh was introduced, and now we have them! Anyone who makes mesh and uploads it to SL or Opensim benefits hugely!

Thanks, both of you. I thought I was missing something, but I'm not. I understand about linksets in one file.

I have started making my meshes with 4 LOD versions, as encouraged by your good offices here. So far I have been unable to upload them all in one file, although I feel certain it is possible. I have had to assign 'mesh' to High, mesh_LOD2 to medium, mesh_LOD1 to low, and Mesh_LOD0 to lowest by hand in the uploader. The mesh_PHYS is assign in the physics window, as I have been doing for some time. ('mesh' being a simple name like 'door', nothing special character_y in it.) I tried carefully naming the meshes as above and exporting a DaE with them all in, but this doesn't seem to be noticed by the uploader. Is this possible, or is there a trick I'm missing. BTW the results are so good I am kicking myself for not having been doing it forever! Like a door going from 0.5 to 0.6LI, and being seen from a sim away at browser LOD 1.0. PS. The new Firestorm is awesome!

Where on earth did that Edit panel come from? My firestorm doesn't have those yummy mesh indicators. Is this a 'yet to be released' version?

Thank you Aquila. I did as you suggested and it now works as I expected. What's even more important, I actually understand why! So much of my blendering is blundering about following 'push this button' instructions without understanding why. So I really appreciate you taking the time to explain it, and make the superb illustration.

Happily Optimo's comments are WAY over my head at the moment. I am still at the 'find a way to get blender to help me make Normal maps' stage. I can get a nice flat blue texture out of it, but it doesn't seem to be able to see my High Poly.... What I did was to take a side of my building with the slats on it, they are 0.05 thick. I call this my High-poly, although it isn't very high in blender terms, no subsurf or stuff like that. I made a Low-poly copy in the same location, stripping out the slats. This I set up with new texture, and added a texture node assigned to it in the node editor. Then I select the high-poly, and then the low-poly, set Selected to Active, and Normal map, and tell it to bake. Sure 'nuf it bakes, no errors, but also no slats. The Ray Distance is 1.0, so 0.05 should be well within range, but it doesn't see it. I am missing something obvious, I know. I note that Chic gave up. Maybe this is a broad hint, 'cos she is way cleverer than me.

Also, I never made a sculpt before, so that's about 7 learning curves running in parallel... I can get the 4 walls of the house down to 20LI as a linkset of 4 with analyzed physics, which is acceptable - and that is with the battens as mesh, but one sided (we will make the inside rooms as separate mesh). To go any lower has to mean using texturing and simplified structure. The use of normal map is just one idea, but since I never did it, I'm going to use it as the learner. The Normal Map Website might be one way to go using a de-colored version of the texture. Shadermap 2 is a windows program, so not available to me, it looks fantastic though. However I did find this: http://awesomebump.besaba.com which has a Linux version, I have installed it and it runs ok with fast results on my GPU (GTX1080Ti). I'll report back.

When I started with blender, a couple of years ago, it seemed natural to use the latest thing. And Chic's videos used it too, so I never used Blender Render. I'm really grateful for all the hints.

Just for completeness I found this too. https://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/cycles-bake-normal-maps.php I usually use Cycles.

I am about to try my hand at my first bit of normal mapped texture making. I'm making a model of this building. I have started with the walls being meshed with the vertical strips, and this yields quite a high LI with good LODs. So my plan is to make the wall texture with a strong normal map to simulate the strips. In RL they are about 40mm proud of the wall surface. The doors could use that too. My usual texture-making tool is GIMP, since on Linux I can't run photoshop. I can also use Blender. Can some kind soul point me at tutorials etc.. on how to get started?

I'd like to say that I am quite competent to make my own clothes, but the body makers want to restrict their kits to people with a store. I will never sell anything, I don't need the money, I don't have a capitalists instincts, I don't want your complaints. But I would like to make my own clothes. But it's a free second life, you do whatever you like.

SL relies on you wearing a bare minimum, I think skin,shape,and eyes, in order to rezz your avatar when you log in. So it can't delete the last outfit, or you would become an orange cloud. Most of us, nowadays, alpha-out the SL-essentials and put a mesh on, but they still have to be there. You can make a minimalist outfit though, with just those items in it.

I know of this clothes store that gives away a L$200 gift card every week. Over the year I have got most of the stores', now free, no-mod clothes. They are quite good if you like boring textures, and some of them fit. Since they are so obviously not valued by the seller, I have considered copying them to texture myself....... but life's too short.

The process of UV mapping, it's called unwrapping but mapping is a better name, creates a 2D picture of all the faces of the mesh. The relative sizes of the faces in the UV map determine how the texture will be sized in-world (or in-render) - and this can be used to distort the texture too (by stretching the UV map face). The orientation of the faces in the UV map determine the orientation of the texture. It gives tremendous control over the way a texture is applied to the mesh. I usually spend roughly twice, and sometimes five times, as much time on the UV-map as on creating the mesh itself. But if all you want is to apply a uniform texture, like plaster, to something simple, then the Smart Mapping works quite well. Chic's videos are very good.

I'm glad someone actually helps with the Geek-View of SL! And yes, PLEASE start a new, well named, thread!

I had a friend once who bought wine like that. Bought it, put it away, and refused to drink it until he had forgotten how much he'd paid. Great guy to visit!

Trouble is that lots of people joining SL from Europe and elsewhere expect Consumer Protection. And there ain't any. SL has no police, no courts, no ombudsman, no arbitration, and no one to complain to. Hence the advice 'Caveat Emptor', and Demo,demo,demo.

But what about the unrecyclable plastic waste? You virtual planet polluter!