[MESH... Merchants....and the Market]

Then we have the factor qualtiy. The expectations for mesh is that they will bring a much better quality to SL compared to prims and sculpts. After hanging around for a while on the mesh test grid I doubt that.

I did a test to compare the LOD factor of a mesh and a sculpt that look very much alike the same at first sight. Results are very desatisfying. On the left you see the mesh on the right the sculpt:

Pic 1: At level 3 and 4 both stay in shape
Pic 2: At level 2 both start to loosing shape
Pic 3: At level 1 sculpt stays the same as at level 2, while mesh even looses more shape

So actually I don't see it, this much better qualtiy of a mesh. In my eyes the lod of the sculpt is better, at least in this test. It looses its shape in a less drastic way, and it does not loose again at level 1.



And then I did not even compare the uploads costs of both. To upload the mesh to SL you will pay 150 L$, uploading a sculpty costs you 10 L$.

[MESH... Merchants....and the Market]

When you have 1 prim sculpt sofa, and you make a mesh of exact the same model, the prim count will be at least 2.
The lowest possible primcount for a mesh is 1,5 this will be rounded upwards. So basicly the sofa costs two prims. But that is not all there is to it. When you want to script your two prims mesh sofa the primcount goes x 2. So the prim count of a scripted prim sofa is always minimum 4 prims.

And then when you have your 4 prims sofa in world and you decide to make it a giant sofa where you can sit 20 avatars, the primcount won't stay the same. The larger you make the sofa the higher the primcount will be.

Compare that to sculpts. Minimum prim cost of sculpt is 1. You can put like hundred scripts in your sofa, prim count is still 1. You can make the sofa as large or as small as you like, the object is still 1 prim.

In an economie where rezzings prims costs money in land fees prim count is a most important factor. It will only be a very small group who will be willing to pay for high prims variation of a object that is available in a low prims version as well with comparable quality.

[MESH... Merchants....and the Market]

You forgot MESH JEWELRY.

 

But MESH CLOTHING...

For mesh clothing I see a lot of problems around the corner. Moving avatars and mesh clothes don't combine very well. There are some exeptions, clothes that don't fit very close to the body can be well done in mesh, like capes, skirts of wide gowns and scarfs and such.

My teacher used to say: "You can use the clothing tag in your 3d prog for a lot of things, flags, sails, curtains, tablecloths and so on... but don't use it to make clothes for your characters. In 3D it is normal to model the clothes fixed on the characters. So basicly if your character needs three sets of clothes, you have to model the character tree times with different clothes fixed to the body."
Because when the character starts to move, what we as avatars do constantly, the body will stick out of the mesh clothes. In SL we do have a trick to prevend this, we can cover parts of the body with transparency, so it won't stick out... But we have another  problem as well: every avatar has a different size. A mesh that might fit fine for a long legged small breast avatar, just won't fit a short legged big breast avatar.

Till now we live in world where everything fits almost anybody. You must adjust some prims sometimes to fit prims or sculpted clothes better for your figure, but in general you can think of a SL a one size fits all community.
I'm curious to see if and how mesh will change this. Will we have a future where shops have clothes in different measures? Or will avatars become more and more look-a-likes?  Will we in a few years have a sort of 'Victoria 4' avatar that everybody must wear to be able to fit the newest fancy mesh clothes?

It's the one thing or the other that must happen for mesh to become big in the clothing industry. People must either give up on individuality and take a standard avatar that fits almost everything (or fits every thing of a certain designer) or designers must start making clothes in severals sizes.
I really have doubts that mesh clothes will fit well into a world where both creators and shoppers are used to a one size fits all culture.


 

[MESH... Merchants....and the Market]

I was pretty exited about mesh for a long time. At cYo we have invested a great deal of our time last year in learning to work with professional 3D programs. So our sculpty production for the brand was on very low level, because we were investing in the future.We did not invest a great deal of time yet in creating meshes for cYo but more in learning all ins and outs of modeling and animating 3D models.

We have been waiting for the prim count and the adaptance of mesh by third party viewers and the respondance of the market when it comes to meshes, before we wanted to invest much in a mesh productline for cYo. And as it stand now I'm glad we choose for this strategy of wait and see.

I haven't been on beta grid this week yet, but as the prims count stays the same as it was announced lately by LL, we will abondon our plans for mesh in SL. The prim count is simply too high compared to sculpties. We rather prefer to model the hard way (sculpts) for a lower prim count, then the easy way (mesh) for a higher prim count.

Most of our products are single prim objects, and we don't want to see the prim count doubled for simulair products in mesh, or quatro doubled when you also want to put a script into it. When the announced PE count won't change, our decision is clear, we will stay a sculpty shop. We might do a mesh line for avatar attachments but certainly not for rezzable objects.

Do I feel I have invested a lot of time in 3D for nothing? Not at all, it has been worth every single minute I have spend on it. Mesh is great, you can do a lot of very cool things with mesh, and one of the best things about it that the use of mesh is not restricted to SL. Last week I got my first order from a RL compagnie for some mesh animations, my collegue creator is also working at an order from another RL compagny at this moment. So for us the future of mesh will be more and more in RL in stead of in SL. And when we have some time left to make things for SL we will simply stick to the good old low prim sculpties

 

 

 

[Pay to download product]

I use something simular for the psd files by cYo.

In the package the customer buys is a 'download laptop'. The user has te rezz the laptop and click it. Then he gets a unique and protected download link, where he can download the psd-file. The link works only for a short time for this single user. The download laptop was scripted for cYo, but I can bring you in contact with the scripter if you like. Just send me an IM or note.

[Why PE Has To Go UP with Larger Mesh?]

I guess LL wants us to think small...
and create flea circuses and ant cities.

[My wish - a blacklist for marketplace]

I specially would like to ban people who infringed my IP rights, but were not banned for that by LL.

[The Summer Slump]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

I have never had a summer slump, but I did see a dip after January that lasted through May, but picked up again the first of June.

 

---

I have neither have had any summer slump, i´m a merchant for more then four years now.

But I experienced the same as you, Pamela, a dip in January, that lasted .some months. For me it started picking up again in the end of April. I had some new releases at that time as well, while I had no new releases in the periode between January and April.

[Rampant Unwanted Advertising]

I only want to receive messages from merchants where I subscribed for receiving messages.

There are many methods merchants use to subscribe you against your will. You don´t even have to buy from them, visiting a store, or even being member of a populair group can cause these unwanted subscribes.

In most cases I ask the merchants how I did get on the list and ask to remove me. Most of the times they remove me, but some are really  bold and just refuse to remove you. Abuse reports don´t seem to help much in those cases. So now the result is that I simple mute merchants who send me unsolicited bulk messages. 

[The Death of Mesh]

“Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life?"



[Mesh and Sculpt Comparisons]

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Vivienne Daguerre wrote:Our argument is that they have gone too far, making mesh less attractive to use than regular prims and sculpties. If the hope of Linden Lab was that mesh would reduce lag and demands on resources, they will fail with the accounting system as is, because people will continue to use sculpties over mesh for most things. As the accounting system stands at this moment, mesh will likely be used mostly for rigged clothing and attachments, since prims worn by an avatar do not count against sim prim limits.

---

Indeed. At our business we saw a great future with mesh, until the prim count was announced. We have discussed it and as it stands now we are going to skip our mesh plans for the biggest part. When it comes to rezzable objects we will mainly stick to sculpties. The mesh line we are going to develop will only be for attachables.

The point is that rezzable mesh will be too expensive for our customers. Expensive in the sense of tier expensive. Maybe LL thinks that they are going to gain more tier income when meshes have a higher prim count than comparable prims and sculpts. But customers will choose for the most profitable deal. The lower the prim count the better. With sculpts we can create one prims objects with a comparable quality as it's two prims mesh equivalent.

The whole point is: who is going to pay?

Objectively the render costs are higher for sculpties. So for LL it is cheaper to rezz mesh then to rezz sculpts. Though the customer will be charged more for this less recourse demanding variation. But for the general customer it does not matter if an object is economical in use of recourses. It matter that he has so and so much prims available on his land. And the lower prim variant of an object (with comparable quality) will always be the favorite.

[What is the solution for send object to second life viewer 2?]

You are on a whole different grid. Your inventory on the beta grid is synced with your inventory of the maingrid only once in a few months.

[Mesh and sculpt - comparison of LOD]

Test 2

Maybe I am doing something wrong. But what I did is this: I made the model much heavier, and uploaded again, while I let the automated LOD settings calculate the levels.

The most left is the new heavy model, as you can see it's possible to reach a very reasonable lod.

The mesh stays perfect in shape, till we reach level 1. There the model starts to loose shape as well.

So it will be possible to create a perfect lod for your meshes, but it will cost some. The newest mesh I just uploaded has a prim cost of 22.

[Mesh and sculpt - comparison of LOD]

I'm the creator of both the sculpt and the mesh. And yes.. when I create sculpts I take lod effect in account when designing the sculpty. When I would do the same with mesh I get a much heavier model. And thus a much heavier prim count. Since I have the model in mesh now already I can do a test to see what a good level of detail will cost for mesh compared to a 1 prims sculpt.

[Mesh and sculpt - comparison of LOD]

Often I hear the argument that mesh has a much better LOD then sculpties. Now I had made a lamp that has no optimal LOD. Since the model was very easy to make in mesh, I did that and uploaded both sculpty and mesh to the beta grid.

For uploading the mesh I used the automated LOD setting from LL (Prim count 1,55). This is the result.

The mesh is on the left side, the sculpty on the right.

Pic 1: At level 3 and 4 both stay in shape
Pic 2: At level 2 both start to loosing shape
Pic 3: At level 1 sculpt stays the same as at level 2, while mesh even looses more shape

So actually I don't see it, this much better LOD of a mesh. In my eyes the lod of the sculpt is better, at least in this test. I looses its shape in a less drastic way, and it does not loose again at level 1.

Any other people who did comparision tests? What were your results?

 

[Weight watcher's frustration]

---

guY Ralior wrote:

Ultimately "mesh" which was being praised as this new awesome, great, creatively expansive thing, seems is turning into a way for LL to make more money not only on the new availability of mesh but also and even more so on the system they have had in place for years.

---

LL can only make more money when mesh will be widely adapted by the users. For rezzable objects mesh isn´t going te be interesting with this high prim count, the market will be too small. Seen from a merchants perspective mesh is only interesting for attachments. Attachments are free for the user. Whether I wear a 1 prim ring or a 300 prims ring, for me as a user the price is the same: zero. For LL the price is not the same. With the 300 prims ring I'm a more expensieve user then with the 1 prim ring.

Mesh will become big for the attachment branche, but for rezzable objects mesh will be mainly ignored since cheaper prim low sculpties are available. So when these plans become reality, there will be a market for meshes where is nothing to gain for LL, except from 5% sales from the marketplace. 

But its seems that is how they want it, well then that's how they will get it.

 

[cant upload texture]

---

Shelby Silverspar wrote:

---

Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

I disagree that PNG is a better format. ...it's much too easy to upload textures containing the alpha channel by accident ...

 

But, each to their own.

---

I have to disagree, how do you get an alpha channel "by accident?"

PNG files are smaller, for some things tga is a better technical choice, but for the majority of people the easier to create png file is just fine.

---

---

PNG always has 4 channels, a red, a green, a blue and an alpha channel. Even when you use a picture that has no transparency at all, the png file still includes the alpha channel when you upload it to SL.

With TGA you can choose to upload as 24 bits file (just the red, green and blue channel) or a 32 bits file (r,g,b and alpha channel).

For textures without any transparency I prefer tga 24 bits. That is because of this known 'alpha bug'. When two prims with textures that have both an alpha layer meet each other, graphic cards don't know which of the two to show first. Then you get this effect of two prims fighting to be seen first. You can advoid this at least for texture who don't need an alpha channel at all, by using tga 24 bits for uploads without any transparency.

No matter which file format you upload, in the end SL will convert both tga en png to a JPEG2000 file.



 

[Calculating "Prim Equivalency"]

cYo is a succesful supplying business for builders and creators, we make sculpties with editable textures. With the promise of mesh coming to SL we made plans for the future of our business. The idea was to start offering meshes with editable textures to our customers when mesh would be finaly available on the main grid. In first instance next to the existing sculpties, and maybe later change all our initial sculpties into mesh versions. Depending on how mesh is adepted by the user base of SL.

We did some work on the beta grid, but did not invest a great deal of time yet in making meshes. It is still satisfying and profitable to make sculpties. And now after we have read about this prim count for meshes, I'm glad we didn't. We still can turn back on our plans for the future, we still can be a sculpty supplyer.

For the market we work for are two aspects very important: high quality and low prim count, at least when it comes to rezzable objects. For attachments it's a different story, attachments don't cost prims on land, there is high quality the main argument for buying. But for rezzable objects the combination high quality and low prim count is what makes an object economical valuable, all experienced merchants of rezzables know this.

So the conclusion for cYo is simple. When mesh will have a higher prim count then sculpts, we will stick to sculpts. We don't see that there will be a large market for the more expensieve mesh versions. We might do a mesh line with avatar attachments in the future, but when it comes to rezzable objects you won't find any mesh at cYo.


[tiny sculpts...fuzzy sculpts]

I make them with an opacity to 75% and they still stay in good shape. I think we use the same method, but anyway here is a tutorial how I do it.

 

It might have to do with the texture format maybe. I upload them to SL as 32bit tga file. And that doesn't give a problems of blurriness. What format did you use for your tiny?

And also make sure that, when you upload the sculpt map to SL again, you use lossless compression during the upload process.

[Clothing texture alinement]

[Clothing texture alinement]

When I made SL fashion those were the thing that took me the most hours, taking care of the seams between top and bottum, at the sides of the tops, arms and legs. The one between top and bottum is the hardest... you almost have to do pixel by pixel when you do it by hand.

In the meanwhile program are developped that make life easier for the clothing designer. You can work now directly on the model for example in PS 4 and 5 exended. Or you can use a tool like Multi-Chan Hax.

 

[Seams in sculpties]

Wow yes, that is what you mean. I just had to replace one pixel... and now the sculpt is perfectly closed.

1000 kudo's Drongle. You know so much and you are always willing to share your knowledge. I really appreciate your contributions.

[Seams in sculpties]

Hi Drongle, thanks for replying.

Sure I use a standard map, in this case it's 64x64. The file is saved as a 32bit tga file, before uploading to SL. For sculpts I mainly work in Blender and use the Domino Marama scripts to export.

So do I understand you right, I must use the colored sculpty map tga and replace and copy paste the left row to the right row, just in Photoshop or such a program?

[What do you Create in Second Life! Show me what ya got!]

Some of my latest sculpties

[Seams in sculpties]

I came across this problem a few times now.When I make sculpts that are more or less rectangle orientated I use a cylinder or a plane to start with, and then fold it as long till I get the shape I want.I do this to avoid the ugle point where all comes toghether and that is so hard to texture nicely.

In my 3d prog the sculpt looks fine, and is closed at all sides. But then when I upload it to SL and I use a cylinder or a plane as stichting type, I get a little hole at one point of the sculpt. 

When I use the stichting type 'sphere' for the sculpt the hole closes, but then the texturing is not ok anymore. 'The ugly point where all comes together' appears again. It is exactly at this point that I'm not able to close the sculpt completely.

Has any body else come across this problem? Is there a solution for it?