AcidBingo

Much obliged good dragon! Truth be told, some of the poly counts I've seen thrown around here make my head hurt, my toes curl, and my hair turn white(er). It's taken all of my self control not to necro some old threads on this here forum and tell these damn kids what for! (That and to stay the hell off my lawn.) I cut my teeth working on an MMO many, many years ago (sadly it died a horrible death prior to completion), and a lot of the principles I took from that still stick around with me to this day. Some are still useful in all contexts (work with the absolute minimum dammit!), some, in today's market of 40-90k hero characters, well, some aren't as useful from a bleeding edge portfolio standpoint. Meh, it's still fun, and working within constraints can actually be beneficial both from a creative side and the "we don't wants no lag" standpoint respectively. As an aside and a little story from my past that no one asked for, my lead once came to me and asked for a 16 pixel texture for an item, which, ok, fine, but this was not a teensy weensy asset that nobody would see, but on one of our main weapon models! I'm not sure if they actually needed it or if they were just f***ing with me for the lols, but I did it anyway. It was pixelated as hell, but it worked dammit!

Thanks, and no worries. I was pretty sure you were going down the right road as far as skin weights getting culled went (and it's possible that you were still right and that was happening under the hood in the importer)- which made the problem more frustrating for me because that's the one part of the process (at least in Blender) that I don't have much control over (importers are another thing entirely). There's a part of me that really...REALLY didn't want to use Avastar, not because it's paid or I don't like third party stuff, etc., but because I'm a control freak and like to know what's going on with my stuff at all times. Lacking that control in a situation like that makes me act a bit... off. Since Blender was my main point of entry to the problem, I basically was skinning and reskinning that damn mesh over and over again with no forward movement. Finally I just changed the one element I had the least control over, the importer (and therefore the viewer) itself. I'm really hoping Beq can shed some light on this. My most optimistic thought about it is that the FS importer may have more stringent rules as to what can be imported as LODsand how they work together, but I am the dumb when it comes to all that kinda stuff so I'm probably way off base in that assumption.

Yeah, but to be clear this crashing behavior was only on the LL viewer, so I don't think it's an FS problem. FS was borking my LOD meshes and I d/l'd the LL viewer as a final Hail Mary to see if it changed anything (🎉). Doesn't explain to me why the results between LL's importer and FS were so drastically different though, so it might be a good idea to bring them in anyway? From what I've gleaned from the forums there's a difference in the FS viewer and thus the importer when compared to the LL version; at least as far as I've been able to understand things. As for the LL viewer the LOD's imported along with the mesh right at the start of the operation (no collider included in my files since i just wanted to use the bounding box anyway). The results I got with this crashing behavior were inconsistent, too. When I first started loading the model into the uploader there it crashed to desktop pretty much every time. Then there were one or two times where this behavior didn't occur and everything behaved itself. Made some changes and tested the upload again, added cube (Bounding Box); crash city! As an aside, thanks for your help in this, and for following up. It's much appreciated!

So I've got my model, and have optimizeded my LOD meshes (seen here) and now that I've managed to claw my assets and costs down to something I consider semi-reasonable I have to ask... what is considered reasonable? I know LI and associated costs aren't necessarily indicative of actual render costs, but what is the average in this instance or your experience? Currently my mesh and LOD's sit at about L$35 to upload, L$10 of that is for the model base price from what I can tell. I did a couple tests on stuff: replacing my HQ model with my LOD2, filling 1 & 0 with custom meshes and then generating the lowest. That only dropped my cost down about L$10, which to me is negligible, and I honestly want to keep my HQ model if possible (it's my first born, I don't wanna kill it if I don't have to). I'd say it's got a high tri count when compared to other meshes, but is that actually true? Having seen some walkthroughs and workflows from some creators on youtube and elsewhere, some clothing items in the wild have bigger polycounts for their hq models than all of my meshes combined! In this forum I've seen people state that they've made relatively small clothing items with counts as high as 20k, granted those same people got super aggro on their LODs, but still? 20k?! Others I've seen using full size materials with high poly meshes and normal maps for elements that can only be seen under a microscope. While I know that isn't supposed to be the norm, it kinda is anyway? Given that, I guess I'm asking, is my model within acceptable ranges? The HQ is twice the polys that the base character is, but again, when I look at all the other stuff out there that kinda leaves me scratching my head. As for my materials, they aren't going to be that complicated. 2 textures (color and spec, maybe even just color) per material x 3 materials. Thanks!

BWAHAHAHAHA!!! So on a whim I decided to check something, and that something has born fruit. SUCH FRUITS! All this time I've been trying my upload on the FS viewer. Switched to SL native viewer, and the LODs work FINE, swimmingly in fact... the import window on the other hand, not so much apparently. The SL native viewer crashes every time I try to calculate costs, Lol. Edit: SL viewer only seems to crash when I add a bounding box as my collider first. Without that it calculates the cost "fine?"

Sigh, still trying at this. Have re-skinned and re-weighted so many times in so many different ways, I could do this in my sleep. I've literally lost count of how many different angles I've tried to solve this, with different setups, different settings, none of the LOD's work together in spite of being fine as HQ models, in spite of having weights literally copied from one another onto the meshes in Blender via Avastar. Each shares same weight count. None have any issues that either Avastar or the uploader are willing to pinpoint. Can't find one tutorial on doing custom LOD's beyond how to make the meshes themselves. Not skinning, not importing and/or troubleshooting. Methinks I'm starting to get a wee bit discouraged. Just a tad. A wee bit, so to speak. On the plus side, tore into the lower LOD's and managed to get costs down a bit. Huzzah 😐

Okidokie. Cleaned weight maps on all LOD's, no weight maps removed or changed. Same result. As for the workflow suggestion, I agree. In fact this isn't my first rodeo when it comes to trying to skin this guy. I have tried many permutations ending up with my current which involved exporting every mesh level as an obj, reimporting them all and then binding them again from scratch... it's been a long road. Thankfully the first time doing anything is the hardest, so... yeah. No worries on specific wording, I'm fluent in Maya, Max, and Blender, so whatever lingo you decide to use works for me!- and anything that doesn't, I have the google.

Thanks for the reply! So as per your suggestion I went through and checked the bone influences in both Blender and the uploader. Unfortunately, all the LOD's have the same influence count (21). That's from using the uploader and the Avastar Mesh Inspector. If necessary I can go check the weights individually, but then it'll be a LOT longer before I reply again

Thank you for your reply! Hadn't gotten to the physics yet, wasn't sure exactly how they were handled on avatars if at all. How low would you suggest going on the physics object? I tried using a cube as you mentioned, how much lower should I go?- degenerate tri or (?) On a whim I threw in a box man mesh that fit the shape of the character, mostly to give the uploader something with a full hull to work with, that alone dropped the physics cost down by half. If I can get away with less I'd like to, just not sure what the limits are there. The perfection I'm concerned with at the moment is the LOD deformation to the rig. All other issues you addressed are things I can easily take care of myself without much hassle. As mentioned in the OP each LOD mesh's weighting works fine when used separately, it's together as an LOD set that they start messing up. This is the part I'm stuck on for the most part, until this problem is addressed everything else is secondary. There's a caveat somewhere that I'm missing, which is why I posted so much info about my workflow and setup. Just in case someone who knows what they're doing comes along, skims what I've tried so far and can pipe up with, "But you forgot XYZ genius!" Mainly rigging-related issues. Fitted Mesh bones (the ALL_CAPS ones), previewing the effects of SL's shape sliders, and animation exporting are the biggest ones. LODs and UV mapping are still done with Blender basics. This is a far less a granular answer than I was looking for, but thanks just the same. I'm aware that it's for 'rigging-related issues,' and despite the diatribe that is to follow, I think that conversation is probably best had in more detail elsewhere; perhaps in a dedicated thread. "Short answer:" What I'm not aware of in regards to Avastar is what settings it's changing or what operations it's performing without my knowledge. As mentioned in the OP, there are settings being used in AvaLab's own tutorials from earlier revisions of v3 (from what I can tell) of the add-on which are simply not present in the updated version. This makes it difficult to follow along as that setting they just clicked in the video...isn't there anymore!- it's either been automated, moved under the hood into the exporter under "Sanity Checks," moved to a different workflow tab, or it's been removed entirely. Certain workflows, skin weighting for example, when using the addon seem to have a preference whether you're using native tools or the addon's modified version, BUT, it may also be that simply by entering into weight paint 'native' is taking you in a roundabout way to the same operator as the addon's menu. It's hard to tell. 🤷‍♂️ These are just a couple of examples thrown out to illustrate my point (I don't necessarily need a rundown of these particular operations, Ty!) That being said I am by no means bashing on Avastar. It does what it's supposed to and does it well if not in a slightly confoozling manner sometimes. I bought it, I'm using it, I am for the most part content with it, but that's not to say I don't think the documentation from both AvaLabs, as well as (and maybe especially) it's end users out in the wild, can't be better. Simply adding "supported version" numbers to the knowledge base articles as they're written would go leaps and bounds towards helping with that. Again, as stated in OP, it's a massive undertaking for the devs, I understand that, (to whoever they are, "I acknowledge, validate, and appreciate you and your effort!") but the version number bit wouldn't be a massive time sink and would help tear down some barriers of understanding. I also acknowledge that for the most part, Avastar is trying it's damnedest to be idiot (read: Me) proof. It's what you do with tools you intend for widespread use. Blackbox any and all stuff the end user can tweak that they shouldn't be tweaking or could burn their fingies on, provide points of entry to the stuff you do want them tweaking, and corral the end user into a space where they're supposed to be without the risk of them getting out of their playpen and into the scary parts. What I kinda balk at is the not knowing the difference part I mentioned earlier. If I know that Avastar handles X&Y but not Z, then I know that Z is my problem and therefore I don't have to rail at the gods when Z doesn't work properly. Z was my responsibility and I therefore can't blame it on the magic box. Without that distinction being made, the end user is free to blame every problem on the magic box whether the box deserves the credit or not. Make sense? *Pant Pant* Now, getting back to SL in particular, this part was only supposed to be the start. Once I get to the point of not having my beautiforous LOD's mangled beyond all recognition on import, I can worry about wonderful problems like LI Cost, Rendering Cost and the like.

Greetings SL people! Newbie user here with what I'm hoping is a Newbie problem! I'm trying to make a mesh avatar for use in SL using Avastar 3.1 and Blender 3.2. Everything seems to work OK up until I reach the point of adding custom LOD's to the model via the uploader. The high quality mesh works fine, however, all of the LODs are deformed in one way or another. There's not even a great deal of consistency in how the LOD is going to Cronenberg out when compared to the others. One thing I have noticed is each LOD mesh works if used as the high quality version and seems to animate properly in the uploader window, just not as an LOD of another mesh. Uploader does not spit out any discernible errors in either mode as far as I can tell. High Quality Version in Uploader Varying Degrees of Cronenberg It should be noted that Cronenberg levels are vastly improved from what they used to be, and while *almost* imperceptible on a couple levels, it's still more than I can abide. I desire perfection... or at least close as I can get to it. All meshes' transforms are zeroed. World units are Metric with 1 as my base unit. Mesh was built directly around the Avastar character with appearance settings set to 'male.' Applied rest pose prior to skinning (this seems to have improved results a bit). Each skin was weight copied from the Avastar character (head, upperbody, lowerbody) then weight painted to fit my character's mesh at each LOD level, and each LOD is weighted to the basic 21 bones. No zero weights, skin weights do not exceed 4 per vert. Using joint offsets in uploader window improves the pose slightly, but does not seem to have any effect on the LODs bugging out. Mesh is comprised of 3... "faces?" (sorry still acclimating to the SL lingo!) I.E. there's three materials on each LOD. Each mesh was originally three parts (head, upperbody, lowerbody) which were joined together, as exporting them separated yielded even more Cronenbergian results than what I've shown here 🤮 Uh, I tried hard-applying bounding box limits on each LOD, didn't seem to have any effect, positive or otherwise. No doubles, uh, also noticed that the uploader window doesn't reflect my weighted normals, which is... fine, I guess. Uh, let's see here, calculated upload cost with custom LODs is twice or more what it would be if I let the PotatofierTM (I.E. the auto LOD generator) do its thang. Hoping that'll resolve itself a little once the other issues are taken care of. If not then it's just another hurdle to jump in the future. Again, I'm really hoping this is a newb-newb issue, like a setting or something and not something more dire. I've tried reading as much as a could about making meshes for SL, and have a game art background to draw from on the content creation side. Unfortunately, while I'm Godzilla when it comes to Blender, SP, and the like, I'm a complete Bambi on the SL/Avastar side. It'll be cute when I learn to walk right. That said, a lot of the info I've been able to locate, either from Avastar's knowledge base, videos on YouTube, this forum, etc., are often outdated or deprecated (often I can only tell what version the tutorial/post is for by what Blender version they're using), sometimes contradictory, vague on certain details, or a combo of all 3. I understand that from a dev's standpoint that's a lot of stuff to juggle and keep updated and boy howdy am I appreciative, but it's more than a little frustrating from a new user standpoint if I'm being honest about it. I'm not sure which sources to trust on what tasks, and I'm even less sure as to what Avastar takes care of under the hood/vs what it expects me to do on my own; some tutorials I've watched had settings that aren't exposed to the user anymore (I'm guessing these fall under the 'sanity checks' label), and therefore I'm not sure what I'm supposed to set or let Avastar take the wheel on for certain stuff. Blah. Anyway, any and all help is... er, helpful? Thanks in advance!