Medhue Simoni

Well, it's hard to say if it is mesh or not. It could be your cache. If your cache is too small, the system could be redownloading the items over and over, which could be the lag you are seeing. Generally speaking, mesh doesn't really cause lag, unless it is highly scripted, and switching visibility between a number of meshes. I'm sure there is some way to see total polygon counts in your view, but I'm not sure how useful this will be for you. If you look at the wireframe of a mesh, and it is dense, and hard to see through, then that is a very badly designed mesh. Most items made for a game will not have a very dense mesh. There is no need to. Only things like very curvy forms need denser meshes to create that geometry. You can also look at an item's Display Weight. The display weight combines a number of factors, like the mesh density, and textures used to come up with a score. You just need to click the MORE INFO option in the object editor to see the display cost.

Drongle McMahon wrote: I would look at it as a result of an extremely bad prim/land impact system, which forces creators to adjust LODs to get land impacts to a reasonable level. It doesn't force anybody to do anything. What it does is penalise those who don't pay attention to making things efficient for real-time use. The intended penalty was incresed LI. Unfortunately, it also allowed the alternative of terrible LOD behaviour, and many took that way out as it was easier and/or more lucrative. Allowing that was the mistake. The original intent, reflected in the size-related calculations, was that the LI cost would reflect the burden of data downloading, which uses both server and clients bandwidth. Later, the developers shifted emphasis toward the rendering strain on the gpu, but retained the calculations as the two factors were (claimed to be) highly corellated. If I remember correctly, the LI calculation was based on a scene budget (excluding avatars) of triangles for a viewer with vertain low graphics settings (effectively RenderVolumeLODFactor=1 and FarClip=188). I can't remember the figure, but it was well below a million and over 100,000; maybe 150,000 or 250,000*. In fact, the calculation was rather generous. It effectively assumed that content was uniformly distributed in two domensions. In fact, cameras and objects are spatially correlated, and distributed in three dimensions (albeit less spread verically). Accounting for either of these effects more accurately would have increased LI and made it even more drastically dependent on size. I thought originally that the LI calculation it was overly drastic. However, having seen the extent to which every opportunity to avoid the effort of making efficient content gets exploited by at least a few, I can appreciate that some for of control was absolutely necessary. Without it the world would be unuseable for anyone without the fastest broadband and the latest gpu (even with it, for some - almost there now for my 1.75Mb/s connection). The system adopted was at least based on reasonably rational quantitative criteria. Of course it's not ideal, but I don't think it's worthy of "extremely bad". *the figure is hidden in the old content meeting minutes somewhere. Maybe I am a bit harsh toward LL's system, as we know there must be some kind of system. That said tho, I doubt any of us would totally agree on any system. I created lots of different kind of things. Some of them, were highly detailed and very realistic. Other items, I've used just the bare minimum. I've made just about every kind of item possible, and I have yet to see the genius of LL's system, where the benefits of efficiency seriously outway the benefits of detail. You add in a marketplace, where the consumer is comparing detail to prims, and you get what we have here. People are going to ignore good LODs for lower land impact and higher detail in the original models. For the most part, the consumer doesn't care if the item looks good from that far away, or they don't understand enough to know it can be different. Chosen and I had this same discussion. He is a great modeler, but like I told him, if he was an SL merchant, he would not sell much because he'd be competing with items that are highly detailed. That is what people want. If something is supposed to be round, they don't want to see the hard edges, and you will sell less because of that. Plus, LL completely ignored the real culprits. It's not really the items on the sims that are going to be problematic, but the avatars that play there. None of LL's system does anything at all to address this.

ChinRey wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: There are? Oh yes. Here are some: Optimized LOD models. The uploader generates the LOD models simply by removing triangles from the original. Unfortunately it's horribly bad at it and starts removing important ones long before it's done getting rid of the ones not really needed for that particular model. By making those models yourself, deciding which tris to remove and which to keep for each one, you can save huge loads of LI with only minor LOD reduction. Balancing the weights. Generally a linkset made from few, relatively large, meshes will have a lower server weight but a higher download weight than one made from more and smaller ones. Since only the highest of those two weights can count as LI, it's a good idea to find the sweet spot where the two are just about the same. Advanced weight balancing is a lot more than that of course - we have to decide which parts to include in which mesh, we have to take physics weight into account and so on. But even the basic, crude, equalize-download-and-server-weight aproach will usually save loads of LI. Smooth normals. Can greatly reduce the number of tris needed for smoothly curved surfaces. (Smooth normals can also make a complete mess of your build so better be a bit careful and test on beta before uploading to main when you're in doubt.) Smooth normals will affect LI in other ways too but only to a very limited degree and the effect can go both ways, sometimes you gain a tiny bit of LI with them, sometime you loose a tiny bit. Equal tris. I mentioned that download weight depends on the object's size and complexity. If you combine small details and large low poly surfaces in a single mesh, you get the worst of both worlds. The details add complexity and the large tris add size. Unless you really, really know what you're doing, it's probably better to mesh them separately. Efficient building. Be strict with yourself: which details does your build really need and which can it do without? It's always tempting to try to emulate Real Life but that's simply not possilbe. Real Life builders seem to have unlimited LI so they can spend lots of it on even the most minute details (anybody figured out how they do that btw?) In SL we are always on limited budgets and have to find ways to use our resources as effectively as possible. There's an old C&W song, called "The Builder". Second verse starts with "Every builder knows that the secret to survival / is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep." (Actually the commercially released version was renamed "The Gambler" but those lines make no sense in that context and we all know the true story, don't we?) Textures. Well chosen, well applied textures can add a lot of quality to a build, reducing the need for overcomplicated mesh. Textures can be quite laggy though so you better be a bit careful. To quote texture master Sea Warcliffe: "Use your texturing powers for good, not for evil!" Effect maps. The old bumpiness and shininess maps and the more recent normal and specular ones are all seriously buggy and should be aproached with extreme caution. But if you're fast and if you're lucky (errr... I mean if you're good and if you're lucky) you can save quite a bit of LI by using these for some of the finer details. We have quite a few other simple and cool surface effects to improve our builds too but you don't expect me to give away all my secrets here, do you? :matte-motes-wink: ) The WOW factor. A while ago Charlotte Holmeforth reminded me of one of the essential principles for decorating on a budget and it has helped me building ever since: Use the WOW factor for all it's worth! Make it all cheap and simple and then add one or two really outstanding features! Actually, you don't really want too many stars in your show even if you can afford them - they just start fighting each other for attention. Work with you materials and surroundings, not against them. One of the most fundamental principles of all good art and craftmanship. Use all available means. I was lucky enough to run into Aley just when I was starting as a builder and she taught me this important lesson. Mesh is not always the best solution. There are jobs that prims can do better, that sculpts can do better and that particles can do better. Only by selecting the most suitable material for each specific job, can you build truly efficiently. Oh btw, if somebody says you can't link sculpts with mesh, take a look at #2 on this list and tell them you know better. Compressibility. The server doesn't transfer raw data to the client, it's compressed. You can shave off a tiny bit of download weight making the mesh as easy as possible for the compressing algorithm to deal with. Not much and usually not worth the bother but sometimes a few quick and simple tweaks are just enough to flip the LI down by a point. Umm... Seems I've forgotten what #12 was supposed to be right now. I'm sure it'll come back to me though and besides, I have to stop at some point anyway. This list could go on forever... (Edits: just correcting tyops really) These are all nice examples, but they are the basics that everyone will or should eventually learn. I assumed that all of this has already been done, and you are just uploading that model. At this point, if your model is outside the bounds of what would be exceptable on the market for such an item, then you have no choice but to change you LODs to fit the land impact you are going for. I think the marketplace is the big difference here. The market creates an environment of competition, which generally leads to better products. The question is, what is better? Is less prims better than models with LODs you can see from a 500 meters away? For many, they don't care if the LOD is perfect at that level. Yeah, we can disagree on the importance, but the customer is the final judge, and the sales you get from them.

I really hope they do not use this same system, or anything similar, in the new world LL is making.

ChinRey wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote Well, that is 1 way to look at it. I would look at it as a result of an extremely bad prim/land impact system, which forces creators to adjust LODs to get land impacts to a reasonable level. Yes but again, reducing LOD isn't really a very efficient way of reducing LI. There are so many far more effective and less destructive ways to do that. There are? Maybe if you are building a house or a tree. If you are making anything else, then besides making an efficient mesh, there is nothing else you can do.ChinRey wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: So, if you want rats running around an area, each will cost you 15 prims. You don't really want to use pathfinding anyway. Even beside the LI issue, pathfinding is nearly always way too laggy to be useful and there are always other better options. My experience is that pathfinding works much better than anything any coder could ever do, hence why the system was implemented. I actually helped develop an npc movement system before we had pathfinding. They work good, but they also produce some lag. To be able to make them do what can be done with pathfinding, now you are talking alot of code, and waypoints to place around the sim, hundreds of them. Plus, even if you didn't use pathfinding, the npc would still be physical, and still subject to the extra land impact costs. IMHO, pathfinding is great, except for the land impact costs, and the fact that we don't have custom skeletons.

Drongle McMahon wrote: This sort of thing happens mostly/worst when people try to cheat the LI system, not caring about those who can't afford or don't know how to set high RenderVolumeLODFactor. Well, that is 1 way to look at it. I would look at it as a result of an extremely bad prim/land impact system, which forces creators to adjust LODs to get land impacts to a reasonable level. Now, personally, on builds that I don't plan on selling, I don't care at all what the land impact is, but that is because I own the sim. Just the fact that size changes the land impact is kind of crazy. It's not more for my computer to render. Of course you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I suspect that size changes the land impact because of LL's servers, which is kind of ridiculous. The cost of servers, and their capacity goes up every single year, besides the extra efficiency LL got from fixing bugs and changing things to be more efficient. On top of all this, if the mesh is physical, there is more land impact added. If you have a mesh use pathfinding, it automatically is physical, and is a minimum of 15 prims. So, if you want rats running around an area, each will cost you 15 prims. LL handcuffed us. When I make items for other game engines, I just make the LODs. They come out to be whatever they come out to be. People buy the models and they optimize their games however they want. Yeah, there are some rough guides, but in the end, it's up to the developer to decide how to do things. When I do stuff for a developer, they tell me how they want it. SL is totally different and unique, and LL set the limits. IMHO, that image is completely predictable considering the system we have.

What are you looking to create?

Seems kind of neat. Similar to a free tool, I think was called Flopps, or something like that. I took a quick look at it, and it exports OBJ files also. That is all you need. Not a Dae. The OBJ will have everything you need. It might be different if the mesh was rigged and all, but they aren't.

I would play around with my lighting and shading. It could very well be a shader issue with your video card.

Perrie Juran wrote: Maybe we are reading what he said differently. I'm looking at where he said, "...Lagg isnt usually the persons computer it's the servers...." Servers don't render the textures, hence how could a texture lag the server? (Though I'm not sure exactly how server side appearance works). The lag occurs when the client slows down rendering all the textures. If he had said "Lag isn't always" I would have concurred. It's been a very rare SIM that I've seen SIM FPS, Time dilation, etc, drop when there were no other Ava's present. ETA: I am always open to learning more on this topic. Well, you are probably right. I either missed or blocked out that passage in my brain. I don't know enough about how it all works to say what exactly is causing the bottleneck. I can only say what I see when it happens. For a long time, it seemed as if the system was not caching items correctly, and constantly having to redownload stuff that should already be there. Like your cache was full, and could only hold whatever you were just looking at. I'm just a 3D artist tho, and know pretty much nothing about how this all works, especially now that it is changed.

I feel for you, as I'm kind of in the same situation. Tomorrow, I will actually be waiting for 4 payouts, as I'll intiate another tonight. LL actually creates more work for themselves by not holding to their 3 day said policy. Because I know it takes forever, I cashout way more often. Why not? It only costs an extra dollar or so, and it ensures that I always have a payment coming. Before, when Xstreet existed, I never cashouted this much. I only cashed out when I needed it. Now, if I have any significant amount, I just cashout again, and again, and again. Like I said, they are making more work for themselves. 3 days is fine, but hold to that, because 5 business days is actually 7 days, and if you throw in a holiday, and people that don't give a crap, and now we are going on 10 days, which reaches into the ridiculous field, if you even get it then. I remember hearing a Linden say that most of the office had the whole week off, or something like that. So, they all left, and nobody gave a crap about the people that actually pay them. Let's hope they aren't soooo backed up now that we don't see the money tomorrow. Personally, I think it is ridiculous. I run a company, and I'm the only employee, and there is no such thing as business days. Every day is a business day. How a company can do all their business on the net, and then make excuses because of what day it is, is completely and totally ridiculous. No, I don't expect the place to be fully staffed, but I do expect them to be able to move money around. They can curtainly accept money. The fact that we never get the money in 3 days should tell everyone how important it is to LL. This is also why I've only released a half dozen new products this year for SL. Why make stuff for SL, which is still massively buggy, and have to deal with LL's arbitrary BS, when I can sell on my own website, and get the money right away. With a credit card, I have to wait 3 days, but it's always 3 days, and never 5 days. Like I said before, 3 days is fine, if it's 3 days, not 5, 7, 10, or more.

Perrie Juran wrote: rockerX0X0X wrote: No matter how fast your comp is you can never fully escape lagg you could have a $10,000 gaming pc if that's even possible but still have lag because lagg isnt usually the persons computer it's the servers and if they have stuff like sculpted rocks, mesh stone walls, mesh roads, and them huge tropicle islands sculpted rocks water falls type things that create epic lagg Oh really now? Yep, I concur. I'd add in textures also. Unlike a real game, textures in SL are accessive. 1 simple object could be dozens of textures, where as, in a game, that item would be 1 texture, or a combo of diffuse, bump, and speculars, to save data, instead of doing it with geometry. It's been awhile since I really tested anything like that tho, and things have changed. I'm jealious of the video card tho. I run a gtx560 on my main rig, and I think a gtx560 TI on my rending rig.

Pretty cool stuff! Nice AO!

Perrie Juran wrote: I feel like you are comparing apples and oranges here. And we may also be using the word "platform" a little differently. Aren't Unity, Cry Engine, etc, etc, just tools for game development? So when you develop content for them you are primarily developing content for people who are building games. They are not Virtual Worlds which is what I am thinking when I say "platform." Also you talk of building content for LL. But that is only an indirect thing. In Second Life you are building content for the people who use SL. We are your customers, not Linden Lab. This all depends on who you are asking. To me, as a creator, there is no diffence at all between the platforms from a creative standpoint. Unity, CryEngine, Unreal, and SL, are all just game engines. All of them could be made into virtual worlds. Again, from a creators stand point, even down to our own business models, is all the same. Perrie Juran wrote: Also you talk of building content for LL. But that is only an indirect thing. In Second Life you are building content for the people who use SL. We are your customers, not Linden Lab. Yes, but LL benefits from it, and they make the rules. I meant building content for LL's worlds. Perrie Juran wrote: Your comparisons appear to me to be about as bad as comparing SL to WOW. They are just completely different things. The financial model for development software is going to be very, very different than the model for a Virtual World. Granted, SL does have tools for content development and you can even build for free. But why should you get a free ride when you sell that content in SL? That sounds like a one sided business deal to me. OK, yes, LL could change the business model. Charge me a Prim Tax when I buy rather than charging you a commission fee. That might even be a good thing. It could raise awareness about poorly made content that adds insane rendering costs to the experience. You can't sell content for WOW. Actually, the creators would not be getting a "free ride". We are working, and generating wealth within the economy. There is no "free ride" at all. Besides, any tax on goods is a tax on the consumer, not the creator. If LL or whomever tries to put a tax on the creator or merchant, that tax will be passed onto the consumer. So, like I said, all taxes, even in real life, is a tax on the consumer, not the business. In RL, every single tax, fee, license, or whatever, that is placed on every industry, is eventually paid by the consumer. It can't work any other way. They can use fancy words to hide the reality of who is paying the tax, but any logical anyalisis of any tax, will show you that it is always the consumers that pays the taxes. Hence why I don't sell products on Unity's Marketplace. They charge a 30% commission. If I don't sell on their Marketplace, then I can charge 30% less on my own website, still make the same, and massively undercut their merchants. Plus, I think I posted 4 new products for Unity last week. If I sold on their website, I'd still be waiting for 1 product to get approved.

Theresa Tennyson wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Of course, the SL forums has always been unusually spammy, but this has more to do with software and programming than spamming actually being a problem in most forums. I'll refrain from expanding on this more. lol As you probably know, I sell products on every platform that allows for it. But, being that I refuse to submit to their commission fees, I'm not actually allowed to post products on their forums. For those that do submit to the commissions, and sell products on the platform's marketplaces, they are very much encouraged to post their products in the forums. Although, someone was looking for zombie animations, and of course got the standard big time creators that everyone knows, so I posted mine. The mods did not remove it. So, what you're saying is merchants should be able to post free advertising on the SL forum because "every single platform that sells 3D objects has a forum, and they all allow their merchants to post their products in the forums", when actually those other forums don't allow free posting? Those other platforms aren't exactly like SL. I can sell items for those other platforms without engaging in any contract at all with those platforms. So, they only allow people who agree to contracts with them to post freely on their forums. In SL, we are all engaging with LL under contracts, and we are all subject to all of them. So, it is impossible to sell items in SL, without being under any of those contracts. This being the case, it is exactly the same. The only difference is that I choose not to contract with the others. I'm still part of their forums tho, and get a decent amount of traffic from them.

Perrie Juran wrote I've no experience with Forums for other platforms, only with this one. So my statements are based solely on what I see go on here. I also understand how difficult it is for Merchants to get their products into the public eye. So I could be wrong. I'll admit, I don't know an alternative solution. Of course, the SL forums has always been unusually spammy, but this has more to do with software and programming than spamming actually being a problem in most forums. I'll refrain from expanding on this more. lol As you probably know, I sell products on every platform that allows for it. But, being that I refuse to submit to their commission fees, I'm not actually allowed to post products on their forums. For those that do submit to the commissions, and sell products on the platform's marketplaces, they are very much encouraged to post their products in the forums. Although, someone was looking for zombie animations, and of course got the standard big time creators that everyone knows, so I posted mine. The mods did not remove it. (tangent)My problem is that I see how the merchants help all of the platforms massively, and see the commissions and fees as restricting the market, and not helping it. If they limit their market, they are hurting themselves, because it will limit their growth. Plus, most of these other platforms require an approval process, which adds costs to the merchants, as time is money. 1 major thing that SL has really proven to me, is that this kind of approval process massively slows the rate at which the marketplace will grow. SL's marketplace grows by leaps and bounds, everyday. These other platforms grow by a dozen or so a day. The approval process is supposed to promote quality, but this all depends on having educated approvers, and these people are also a cost to the platform. The benefits don't outweight the costs. Currently, there is a very big battle going on in the world of game creating platforms, such as Unity3D. It's really just kicking off. Unity was the big player, but Unreal Engine was always looming in the background, and there is CryEngine. Unreal and CryEngine had catered to small to medium size teams of developers, and Unity was basically for everyone. Now, Unreal and CryEngine have opened themselves up to the public, and are far more reasonably priced than Unity3D, but Unity has a free version. I'm not actually selling anything for Unreal or CryEngine yet, but I've been seriously checking them out, and they both accept FBX. What is interesting here, is that Unreal is not charging any commission on Merchants, and I'm not sure about CryEngine yet. Unreal is only charging a commission on sales derived from the selling of games, or profits from those game's economy, which is 5%. They understand that they want as many merchants selling products for their engine as possible. It's going to be a bloody WAR.(tangent end) I guess I brought that up because of LL's new world, which could rival Unity3d, Unreal, and the CryEngine. This very much makes me laugh, because I came to SL from the original CryEngine, and I thought when I found SL, that it was just like CryEngine, only online all the time. The other reason I bring this up, is because if LL thinks they are going to charge the merchants more, they better not go much higher than we are already at, cause then, why even create for LL, if we can create for others, for free? I just think that a spot in the forums would be a very simple improvement that many people would like, and it would help the forums and traffic here.

Pamela Galli wrote: Even better would be the kind of advertising opportunities they had on Xstreet / SL Exchange. SO much better than what the Marketplace offers. PLUS we had sales and views data so we could see exactly how well the ads were working! Now, we really have no idea. I still long for the Xstreet days.

I really don't care if it is a spam fest. Those take effort, and because they do take effort, nobody is going to keep doing it unless they see a huge reward. Plus, SL is not something that is new, and neither is posting products in the forums. Every single platform that sells 3D objects has a forum, and they all allow their merchants to post their products in the forums. Let me repeat, EVERY SINGLE PLATFORM, except SL. We are the enomally. Oh, and none of them are spam fests.

That's too bad, cause the quads looked really nice. It probably wouldn't be much to just take out a few loops, and each 1 removed would probably lower the total considerably. I just like dealing with quads better. Oh, and after seeing the model and what you are doing with textures, I would seriously think about breaking up those colored sections into different materials. Why not use up your materials? Plus, then your customers can easily make the suit any color combination they want, and you won't have to texture all the options.

Back in the day, we were given a place on the forums to post products. It wasn't a huge impact on the market, but it was another place for residents to come and look for new exciting stuff. It was completely ridiculous what has happened to all this, most because of the change over to this forum format. On every single forums format we've had before, we had a place to post products. I would think that Ebbe being more into marketing, would be very open to the merchants using the forums again. There are ridiculously more benefits to it also. Forum posting also get seen in Google searches. We get more traffic in the forums. We get more engagement in the forums. We get more people teaching each other in the forums. We aren't just merchants. I think many of us are people that want to see everyone succed, not only ourselves. What are the affects of not using your forums for what could easily be considered the biggest aspect of your world? This is really unknowable, but more about showing how ingorant the whole thought of it is. Another reason why the forum section was closed was obviously because LL was trying to push their broken advertising systems onto us, and didn't want us to have a free place to post items. Sure, that might have been fine, if those Advertising products actually functioned, and were more reasonably priced. The fact is, that none of LL advertising schemes work even down to functioning correctly. Why would anyone pay for those things? Evaluate them yourself, LL! So, we are basically left with NOTHING! I've been focusing on other worlds and selling items through my website. I'm mentioning this to show just how ridicuous our SL situation is. I have a little website that I sell products through. I get almost no traffic currently, but it is building, and it is easy to see why. Everytime I post a new product on the website, within a couple of months, eventually I'll do a general search on google for any similar product, and mine will be on that front page, and I've checked this on other people's computers. Plus, it shows in my stats. So, this 1 little guy, with a little website, can some how, with almost no effort, other than posting the products, can be found on the world wide net, in a matter of months. But here, in our little tiny space on the net, it's almost impossible to find anything at all. What I proposed is to first bring back our own space on the forums to post products. 2nd, I'd open that up with categories too, almost matching the Marketplace. I would then propose doing a little more work on your little social network, and adding a section for images posted there for Commercial purposes. I love our little social network, mostly because of all the people that are telling their SL stories through the images posted there. They would get annoyed if we all messed up those beautiful images with our marketing. Our social network should be for both social, and business, but in those 2 distinct categories so that people see and find what they want. Beyond those few items, I'm hoping for better marketing systems in the other world being created.

Yeah, I didn't see anything wrong with it. It's definitely a nice suit. Maybe a bit over the top in triangles tho. You could just break the model into 2 parts, right at the belt line. Heck, you might even be able to import them together in 2 parts. Or, if you really want the suit 1 mesh, then separate some other part. Like maybe make the gloves separate. That might be enough to bring the suit under.

Another things I'll add, especially since you are a Blender user, is to learn the shortcut keys, or at least the ones you use all the time. I'm very much not into using shortcut keys, but in Blender, it is a must if you want to work quickly. In my tutorial videos, I try to show where the things are in the UI, but when I'm just creating, I'm using as many shortcuts as I can. Once you learn them, it's almost like modeling a block of clay with your hands. Sometimes, I just like to watch people speed model, just cause it is so awesome to watch. I'll also point out that speed is extremely important. Some of this I learned from traditional art. I actually would do charcoal drawings of people on a regular basis, just because when you are under that kind of pressure to do it quickly, you have less time to second guess yourself. Plus, when you get that speed up, it's actually more expressive, because you are doing as you are thinking, and not 3 steps behind. Even today tho, sometime, I'll look at a project and think, I'm gonna try and model this in a half hour. You are alway your worst enemy, and you can waste days 2nd guessing yourself. JUST DO IT!

Oh, and you might want to check your settings when you export an OBJ. I'm pretty sure there are setting to not save the material settings.

Well, no matter what, you won't have to redo the whole model. Maybe you need someone else to look at the file in Blender, and see if they see anything. If you want to send me the file, I'll take a look at it. It's definitely an interesting issue. You can contact me on Skype, medhue1, if you want to send me the file. To me, it looks like you have 2 set of faces overlapping, possible because of the rigging. Maybe if you rotate the joints in blender and turn on the feature to see thru the whole model, you'll see the extra stuff.

Everyone is different, but for just about every thing you'd make, you would use some reference material, whether those be images or drawings. I'd set up those image onto planes in my background, and then start modeling from the center, generally with the cube. Why the cube? Well, it really depends on what you are making and what platform it is for, but starting with a cube means that you will be modeling with QUADs and not triangles. This kind of modeling can be much more efficient, and if you need triangles, you can use them. When it comes to game modeling, you are always thinking of how you can create the object with as little geometry as possible. You are thinking about what you want as actual geometry, and what geometry you can fake using things like bump maps. As far as modeling goes, once you get good at it, you can almost model almost any game model is a hour or so. Texturing is really where the major time is consumed, at least for me. Again tho, it depend on the model, the creator, and what they specialize in.