Anna Nova

I'm so pleased it's Windows-only with a $10,000 computer. I'm sure 'everyone' will be flocking there. I went to look, but my Linux machine isn't supported.

Building well with Mesh used to be a secret. But thanks to the good guys here, it's secrets are out. Probably just in time for all you Windows losers to desert SL for Sansar......

That's brilliant ChinRey, thank you so much for taking the time to explain it. I shall go away and cogitate a bit, do some experiments in Beta (found my way back in, thanks), and maybe ask a supplemental or two. Thanks also Arton Rotaru, it was late, and I was more stupid than usual. P.S. The problem with the new ToS. I had already agreed for SL, it was only for Aditi (Beta) that I couldn't do it from the SL viewer, and as far as I know there is no way to log in and agree for Aditi. In the end I just used Firestorm to agree for Aditi, then relogged using the Official viewer.

It didn't offer that. The checkbox was greyed out. It sent me to https://mysecondlife.com - but that just gave a list of friends, no terms to agree to. This is off topic though. I'll fix it. It may be that I use the Linux versions. I WILL NOT use anything Microsoft or crApple EVER!

Yes, I just spotted that, thanks. I can't use the SL Viewer in Beta at the moment, since it wants me to agree the new terms, but points me to a webpage that has nothing to do with that! I love SL, so consistent, so well managed, so expletive deleted. EDIT: I'm not having a good day. Of course, I can agree the terms in Firestorm, and then log back in with the Offal Viewer.

Also when I upload a mesh with a physics there are no such options. Both Method and Quality contain no options except 'Default'. See photo:

Thanks ChinRey. I DO want to spend the time learning about how mesh physics work. I have been following this forum for months trying to discover leads. I am not a beginner, but clearly I am missing something. Could you give me a lead?

I'm mystified by being unable to rezz things on top of some of the various mesh surfaces that we have made. A good example is a mesh floor that when turned to prim, gives this when you try and rez a cube on it: Can't rez object at { 132.978, 76.3267, 67.5285 } because the owner of this land does not allow it. Use the land tool to see land ownership. or sometimes: Failed to place object at specified location. Please try again. I AM the land owner. If I leave it as a Convex Hull, everything is fine. Some meshes when turned to prim behave as expected. And it does not appear to be related to Analyzed/Cube physics or Not-Analyzed/Triangle physics. The work around we use is to link the mesh (not as root, of course) to simple invisible prims (which are set to Convex Hull to reduce LI), and then set the mesh to None. What I would like is to understand what is happening, so that we can plan around it. I may just be being very stooopid again.....

Nice. Worth a watch, even though I know this stuff. One comment, hopefully constructive: You talk about 'saving', but what you mean is 'exporting as a collada'. To me 'saving' means clicking 'Save', and saving a .blend file. Not a biggie.

Amen. Been there. Got the T-shirt. (but didn't get the weights right)

The confusion arises because the materials (in Blender) exhibit in SL's editor as 'Select Face'. You can have a lot of faces (using the Blender terminology), but each Object in the collada (.dae) file can only support 8 materials. If any object has more than 8 materials assigned to it, then that object is split into two by some mysterious SL up-loader algorithm. You can create more materials in Blender, but it's the number assigned to each object that matters.

Hey, how did you know? OK I got it. The wonderful 4000 Linden airplane needs a noob non-mesh naked pilot. Phew. I hadn't thought that size of inventory was an issue (mine is about 50000), but I guess I can do some packing into boxes... Thanks anyway.

I'm rather fond of sailing and flying in SL. The main issue I have is that sometimes I get separated from my vehicle at sim crossings and then for some long long time afterwards I float off across the sims, totally out of control. And when the simulator finally gets round to grounding me, I can go straight ahead but not turn. The only answer is a re-log. I have been trying to catalog what causes this. I have a very fast 8-core AMD processor, a super-powerful nVidia GTX1080Ti graphics card, but maybe not the fastest internet collection (I live the 3rd-world internet region of North UK). I use Linux and can't change that. Clearly going slow helps - but doesn't eliminate the issue. Also I noticed that using a VPN increases the ping time, and hurts this too. Oh, and I know you can't cross a corner. Is there anything else that I can avoid that will help? (Please note I am NOT complaining about it)

Thanks for the compliment, but it's not justified. Anything Chic Aeon, arton Rotaru, Aquila Kytory, Chin Rey, and recently Beq Janus, posts is worth a deep study. There are others, but they helped me recently. I think it's worth remembering that the up-loader only gives a guide to the eventual LI. Sometimes when you turn it to prim it is way off. And the detail is important - which element: Physics, Download, or Server is the dominant, because when you link it's the sum of each - and then the biggest. My motto: "Just because SL is made from logic, doesn't mean it's logical". But then I'm made from meat....

In the end I changed the whole build. It turns out impossible to do what I want by dividing the 8 segments vertically, because, as Aquila said, I needed to stay below 8 materials - and that was indeed my problem. I reformed the full 8 segments, then cut into two horizontally - the Drum part with complex windows, and the Spire with the portholes - this then allowed me to reduce the number of materials in each part. As it happens this just about halves the LI of the whole cupola and spire, allowing me to add some more details too. This photo shows the old Cupola (32LI) and the new one with the extra finial (16LI), there are about half the number of triangles in the new physics too. Sorry my photography isn't so good, especially the screenshots of Blender. Thank you for all your help.

Aquila, I think you are a genius, I add a glass material late in the day.... I'll try that tomorrow. Sorry I left the edit window open in the second shot. Not relevant. Many thanks to everyone.

same way using the box always works. If the item is basically a box with lots of surface detail, then the simplified phys is just a box. In this case the only difference between the two items is the porthole, so the physics that I want is the same. The two objects are the same size, oriented the same, with the same everything. The whole thing is going to be way up in the air, so I don't need a collision plane for the porthole. The lack of an error message is a clear bug. IMO. In both cases there is only ONE object in the .dae file, and there is ONE object in the physics version too. So all the shape object stuff doesn't apply.

OK, thanks for the replies so far. I have two objects now that I want to apply the same physics to. OK some photos. First in Blender the Cupola physics, camera7, showing that the origin is set at the center, and the rotation, scale and location are applied. Second, in Blender the Cupola version, same. I didn't bother with a pic of the Blender for the Cupola without a port - it's identical to the Phys from camera7 although it has all the window detail. Third, in Aditi (beta) the upload window for the version without the porthole, showing that the physics is accepted. And next to it the texture final version. Finally in Aditi, the upload window with the Porthole version, showing that the PHYS has not been applied - uploading works, but there is no prim to switch to. Just for fun I pushed Analyse, but it doesn't do anything. So, I tried my trusty BoxPhys ( a box....) and it won't accept that either. So it has to be something to do with the dae file of the object itself. In desperation I tried using the 'high', but got the degenerate triangles..... The last pic is the objective, but with physics. Thanks for trying to help.

I'm sorry but I am clearly having a bad day. I built a segment for the cupola of my new build, and made a faces physics file for it. Using the SL Viewer and the latest Firestorm release, I get the same effect (see I do listen!). The object .dae is accepted and displays, but the physics .dae, while accepted without error message, is not used - and there is no obvious physics visible in the uploader window. I tried carrying on, in the hope the phys was actually there, but just not visible, but the upload has no physics and remains a hull. If I open the physics .dae in the uploader as the object (i.e. on it's own) it looks fine, and I can apply it to itself as physics, and that looks fine. The object is made in blender and the physics is a simplified version - so planes, not Chic's Cubes. I have done a cursory look through the secondlife viewer log, but it is all gobblede***** to me. This hasn't happened to me before, so in desperation, I am asking for help again.

I wondered why Aditi was deserted...... Thanks for the heads up.

My other half and I are building a very complicated house at our parcel in Ogilvie. It is an SL model of a real building, and we are making it together, so in the end the High LOD version will be a linkset of some of my Meshes made in Blender, and some of hers made in world of prim, and converted to mesh using this mesh converter. Now I understand (a little about) how to make lower LOD meshes in Blender, and I guess she can make simplified prim-mesh things too. This is how we plan to make the medium-LOD versions. However, doing it this way means that we will always have the same number of items in the linkset as the LOD or view distance changes. Is it possible to make a lower LOD model to replace a Linkset at distance? I'm actually thinking that at long distance a solid 2-prim block would suffice. And, yes, I may be out of my mind (making things for SL does that). Anna

I just get more confused with all the 'planes/cubes/Firestorm/OfficialViewer/analyzed or not' stuff. In the end I decided to just try things until they work. I can't see any logic to it at all. But it don't half take a while! Thank God for Beta.....

I want it too. I am fed up of hours aligning verts in the UV.

I liked the Golden Retriever best. But the tips on LoD are quite useful too. One day I'll have time to make LoDs, honest!

I often look at subsurf (yep 2 render only) in blender, but usually the smooth seems smoother.