HD Pomeray

I would take this question over to ZBRUSH Central. They are a very helpful group and know ZB better than anyone.

I can't be of help with MAC as I run a PC but your specs look like they are plenty to run SL. Have you tried Firestorm ? V3 runs like crap on my PC but I Firestorm seems to be working fine. A little slower to rez than Phoenix but still WAY better than V3.

Just my observations but so far I have seen my mesh objects rezing Way faster than sculpties or regular prims. Just sayin...

I have also confirmed this. I created a mesh motorcycle that was 60 PE. I set everything in it to None, except the root prim. Physics weight was now 1.2 while PE was 60. The bike functioned but the fact that the tires were not physical was a problem. I then set the tires to convex hull, physics went to 4.9, and road it again. Bingo!! The bike road like a dream. I also noticed that when I rez this new mesh bike it rezed almost immediately verses a similar sculpy bike that took up to 30 seconds to rez in the same location. My conclusion is that Mesh and the new Physics limits is going to work very nicely for vehicles.

Speaking of 3Ds and PE... I tested a model using the Pro Optimizer in the modifier stack to create the 4 LOD's for uploading into SL. It seemed to work really well and was a huge time saver over re-crafting four separate models by hand. It allowed me to set a percentage of decimation for each lower LOD from the original model. I was wondering if you guys could comment on this and speak to the importance of LOD's two and three as they pertain to the final PE. Seeing that the viewer switches from LOD one to LOD two so quickly, it would be nice to take the second LOD to like only 90% and then drop off faster after that. Would this be a poor optimization strategy as far as PE and server load are concerned? It is important to me that as I learn to use mesh for SL that I do it in a responsible way for the good of the customer and SL in general. Thanks for your comments.

Drongle... I set the Advanced Building Options to true as you advised and it worked perfect. Thanks Bro... So... On the bike I am testing... I took an old build I had that was made up of sculpties and regular prims which came in at 30 prims. I then removed the sculpty engine and inserted a new highly detailed Mesh engine. Set physics to none on all parts except the root prim and inserted the scripts. PE = 60, Physics weight is 1.2. The bike handled pretty well but was a little sloppy in the turns. I then set the front and rear tires to convex hull and the physics weight went to 4.9. Well below the 30 Max. I then rode it again and it road like a dream. Conclusion... I'm building Mesh Bikes !! YEY !!

Thinking about this... what if you broke your ship model up into a few separate uploads. Those that need to be physical and those that can be set to none after linking them together? That's how I did my bike, it is 27 different parts, 26 of which are set to none and 1 set to convex hull. I'm not sure what the physical weight is but it is rideable so it must be under 30. Tonight I'll do as Drongle said to see if I can read the physics of the linked model and report back.

Drongle McMahon wrote: To see the physics weight in the edit dialog, Advanced->Show Debug Options->showAdvancedBuilderOptions: set to TRUE. Thanks Drongle, Now I can't wait to get home to check this out!!!

Where are you reading the Physical properties? I don't see it in the edit window anywhere once it is uploaded. I just did a mesh bike and set the physics to None on everything but the root prim and it rides great but, I can't see where I am at with the physical number.

Tarius Auxarmes wrote: Is it possibly because you can not predict the complexity of a given mesh? I think that's exactly what they said in the meeting. That they have no way to measure the the loading do to scripts. Some of this is just simply that there is no way to know up front how often a given script is going to perform certain operations. The other part is they have no tools at this point to analyze each script as it is loaded. Either way... they are being cautious with the first roll out and we may see things moderate down as time goes on. I know this is not a popular opinion but, personally, I'm good with that. Why screw it up from the beginning.

Mudbox supports 3D painting much like ZBrush, Blacksmith and PhotoShop Extended. Personally I find creating skins, clothes and tats on the 2D templates using a good graphics program, like CorelDraw Graphics Suite, much easier with better results. You could then bring the SL avatar into one of the 3D programs, load the new textures on it and do some clean up on the seams. But for creating high end graphics from scratch, I think you would be disappointed in the results of a 3D paint program. As with most graphics programs, we tend to use several different ones in a "workflow" to achieve the desired results. I think that's what people do with programs like Mudbox.

XiangChen Ugajin wrote: *chuckles* Then, they need to require a course for scripting, hair building, etc too. Yeah... I guess you have a good point there ... LOL

I’ll even go as far as to put my neck out on the forum chopping block and say I think it would be a good idea for LL to require a basic mesh fundamentals course prior to being approved for mesh uploading. {{{DUCKS}}} :matte-motes-agape: LOL

In reply to your fist statement, “That doesn't leave much that they ARE good for, does it?” I agree, the limitations of meshes will seriously limit their use in SL. But it will be a good choice some things… Moderately scaled linksets, vehicles, attachments, etc... will be excellent choices for mesh builds as long as the creator is educated in the proper use of them. In reply to your second part, I think that is what I have done as well and we agree that, “the concepts of 'best practices” needs to be produced, published and made easily available for the education of all that will be creating with meshes. That was exactly the point of my original post. :-)

I have been watching and reading the mesh forum for a few months now without contributing much, as most of the regulars in here are far beyond my level of technical knowledge. So, I just listen and try to absorb as much knowledge as possible about meshes and their use in SL. At this point my conclusions are that mesh imports can actually be a usable building tool for many projects but you really need to understand the intricate nature of how they and their PE work in SL. From what I see there are many “rules” you must follow concerning mesh optimization, scale, LOD objects, physical objects or representations, linking, scripting, and final usage of the actual mesh that come into play. I see that single objects, non-linked meshes, are probably not a good choice for mesh use. I see that objects larger than 10 meters are not a good candidate for mesh use. I see that linking meshes to regular prims and sculpts is probably not a good use for mesh. I think given the limitations of rigged meshes in this release, that meshes are probably not a good choice for clothing or complete avatars that need to be clothed. There are probably a lot of people out there that can create well constructed 3D models but will need to be educated on the proper use of importing and using meshes in SL. It’s not as cut and dry as building with prims or sculpts and will require a higher understanding of the process as a whole, taking into consideration all of the variables that effect the final mesh content as it will reside in SL. I’m really hoping that either LL or some of the more knowledgeable members of this forum put together, in laymen’s terms, some sort of guide or check list of the proper use of meshes in SL. I don’t see this as some say, creating a gap between average residence and pro builders, but I do think there needs to be some sort of way to pre-educate the average resident beyond the IP tutorial now being required by LL prior to letting just anyone start filling the world with mesh content. Your thoughts?

Tool Box List: (from most used to least) SL CorelDraw Graphics Suite ZBrush AC3D Carrara Pro 7 QAvimator Daz Studio

Another alternative to Gimp and PS is CorelDraw Graphics Suite. For about half what you would pay for PS you get an entire suite of professional graphics applications. Corel Photo Paint, one of the applications, is a full blown paint program that not only supports filters and layers, but you can open and save native psd files if you choose. CorelDraw, another application in the suite, is a kin to Illustrator and is my main graphics creation tool. The only thing not supported by Corel are 3D objects and the PS program that does this is their highest level program. Quite expensive. Take a look at CorelDraw. I love it. :matte-motes-sunglasses-2:

I don't think the jury is out on that yet .... Well crafted Meshes are coming our way and we'll see how they stack up in link sets.... On the other hand... Poorly crafted, stand alone meshes.... I agree ... Sculpties will win there.... So... choose your weapon wisely. 

That was a nice summation and I totally agree with everything you said including the intro as to the scaling issues. One other thing you could add to your "Mesh Pros" list is the ability to Rig a mesh. 

I have to disagree as well. How requiring payment info could possibly create a riff between pro builders and hobbyist or amateur creators is beyond me. First of all, if you are selling in SL or the market place you should have payment info registered to SL already. Secondly it is really not that hard to do for the average resident. It certainly does not require being a professional 3D content creator to become "non-anonymous". My hats off to LL for stepping up the requirements even if they are as simple as payment information.

With all due respect… you may be over thinking this just a little. The prim count in the market place is fine and should be what the PE is “as delivered”. If someone feels they need to cheat the customer by delivering, for example, furniture only suited to tiny avatars, then that merchant is only cutting their own throat. Placing a disclaimer in the body of your marketing text for mod items concerning the fact that PE is relevant to scaling is fine, but do we really need to calculate minimum and maximum PE for every item now? Maybe I’m totally wrong here but really?

We hear a lot about prim costs and rigging in this forum but I have only one question... Will we, or will we not be able to build Mesh vehicles that have as much detail as today's sculptie ones? Anyone have any insight on this? TY

@Moni It's not a different direction at all. You have never been able to edit textures in the viewer, yet they've been part of SL since day -842. You have never been able to edit sounds in the viewer. Yet sounds have always been a part of SL. You have never been able to edit poses. You have never been able to edit animations. These have always been part of SL and have always needed external programs to create/edit the textures, sounds, poses, animations... So what's so different about sculpts and meshes? As a builder, there are far more mesh creation tools in the wild, free and commercial, than there are sculpt creation tools. And unlike sculpts, mastering meshes gives you a credible skill you can use in the real world -- movies, cartoons, architectural simulations, videogames... Some jobs require ability with Mesh. No job I know of requires ability with a sculpty. People learning and mastering the Mesh inworld will be able to show off their skill and their portfolios within SL and land real jobs paying real cash because of them. All valid points... Seconds this!

If by much less effort you mean downloaded off the web and sold for profit then I agree with you. Otherwise creating anything in a 3D program does require skill that not everyone wants to learn or can learn. We are going to see a flood of models in SL; DCMA much? No Trinity, I don't mean stolen off the web or anywhere else. What I was getting at is that creating mesh objects is easier than creating sculpties. I have been creating in SL since 2005 and anyone that knows me will attest to my character and morals as far as building goes. The moral of my post is that, if those who already "create" content with sculpties in a 3D program will now simply have another option for creating that content which is easier than the former method, Sculpties. And those that choose not to learn a simple 3D program most likely weren’t creating sculpts in the first place. There will be always be those who choose to be dishonest and to limit our selves in fear of them is no way to live. Everything I ever built and put out for sale has been copybotted at one time or another. Should I stop building because of that? This popular notion that only the “elite” will be able to use the new mesh import is just not true. The number of residence utilizing sculpties far exceeds the “elite” and as I stated before, meshes are easier to use in SL than sculpties. There will always be those who do it better than the majority and those are the “elite”, but that’s true with cloths, skins, hair, sculpts, scripts, prim building, etc… Not just mesh creation. Also, there are several in world tools for creating sculpties. I would imagine those who are talented enough to offer them will have in world mesh tools before too long.

QUOTE: ____________________________________________________________________________________________ My concern about mesh is that from what I understand, it's kind of against the accessibility that makes Second Life so great. Instead of being a world created by it's residents, it's heading toward a world created by the elite few who have the time and resources to purchase and learn the programs needed to create in Second Life. It all makes me a bit sad. It seems over the past couple of years that Second Life has been moving further and further away from the utopian vision. Quoted for truth. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ The TRUTH is that creating mesh objects can be done with free tools with MUCH less effort than it was to create good sculpties. With sculpties you not only had to learn third party software, either in world or out, but there was a steep learning curve involved in how the model would behave, or look like, once uploaded into SL. With meshes, what you see in the 3D modeling program is what you see in world. Yes, there will be those that excel in mesh creation but that is true with all of the tools available in SL for creation of content. Some clothing designers are better than others. I have seen sculpties that just blow my mind on how detailed they can get. So to say that only the elite will be able to use mesh imports is just not accurate. Anyone with the desire to use them is only limited by their desire to do so. My big concern is that the "prim cost" seems quite high for anything with real detail. That being said, I can see where sculpties, one prim per object cost, will remain a viable practice for those that are concerned with prim count. e.g.. vehicle builders.