Tarius Auxarmes
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Posts posted by Tarius Auxarmes
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In regards to the original post I am somewhat suprised I havent seen very many blobby AVs. Mesh uptake has been a bit slower than I thought it would be, or I am not in the right places.
I will switch to firestorm once they come out with their next viewer though.
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Ishtara Rothschild wrote:Ceera Murakami wrote:I'm using the Firestorm Mesh Beta or Viewer 3 from LL,but NOT because of Mesh!I'm using them to be able to make up to 64 Meter prims, which is FAR more important to me than Mesh, which many people still can't see properly.
I can do that in Phoenix 1.5.2. I was really surprised when I accidentally stretched a cube beyond 10 meters
It seems that this is server side, not client side.You and me both. I was in Sandbox Wanderton when I went to stretch a prim to 10m and it flew past up to 21. I was quite suprised and found it to be hilarious.
Actually the ability to stretch the prims to sizes larger than 10 seems to be a combo of server and viewer code(tho mostly server). I had a friend who was unable to make larger prims for a while while using V2 while at the same time I could go all the way to 64m(using phoenix). After a while she was able to stretch them to 40 something meters and finally now she can make them the full 64m. Perhaps they simply put a block on V2 from doing it at first. Whatever the case, if it indeed had something to do with viewers, it doesnt really matter much now because everyone can do it.
As for mesh use. It will take a couple months before it starts truely becoming widespread because of the lag in the 3rd party viewer development; this isnt that unapparent. Mesh will eventually be in use everywhere and theres likely nothing to stop it. Anyone who has been around a while knows that once LL decides to push something, its a rare thing that they will take it back/admit they were wrong.
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I am sorry you are so misinformed. You make me sad.
I would be willing to bet that you never bothered looking into what exactly a copyright violation is. I have. Dont worry, I doubt you can find something that says making something generic from scratch is illegal. Just to be clear, I never advocated making an exact model from scratch and uploading it to SL, although you apparently have that impression. I am sure I could have worded things more clearly, but that wont stop you from being misinformed.
Go educate yourself some: http://www.bannerwitcoff.com/_docs/library/articles/Katz%20and%20Cardy%20Innovation%20article.pdf
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Well you certainly have no idea what you are talking about. I had to laugh at your post. Not that I think you will, but, go look up Morrowind modding if you think I am somehow going to get sued.
There is nothing wrong with making stuff from scratch. You seem to think however that if someone makes something it has to be completely different from anything out there which many people will tell you is simply not true. Oh, and Linden Lab has policies in place for this stuff and will do whats needed so they are not held accountable. I would like to see you try and sue an ISP because someone is using it to destribute stolen content. I will wait for your results on that.
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Yes people copy content. No, there is no way at this point in time to completely stop it. This will always be fact for the foreseeable future regardless what it is, whether mesh, sculpty, whatever.
In the end, I dont think the companies care that much if someone copies their content as long as said person isnt making money and as long as they arnt doing widespread distribution. Depends on the company, and depends on how said copy is used really, so dont go thinking I am saying its ok.
Let me tell you a little story. I am involved with making models(for mods) for a certain game. The company who made said game has ruled that we cant import models or textures from the more recent sequal to said game for any of these mods(in other words, copy). Guess what though, I can make something from scratch that looks practically identical to the original models and its completely ok to do so. I get no trouble about it at all and I post in their official forums with pictures and all. From what I understand, its usually ok if you make stuff from scratch, its a definite no-no to just copy something; but of course most people agree with that.
Oh, and one time I contacted Games Workshop legal department about people selling space marine models in SL.(this was a couple years ago and the owner of said sim was generally cosidered an idiot) Guess what happened? Nothing, they didnt do anything at all and anyone who knows what they are like, knows they are quite lawyer happy when they want to be.(heck, they forbid a fan film from being distributed because of a quirk of german copyright law that allows artists to retain some rights to what they make regardless)
It also helps that SL is a small environment with money amounts being tossed around of only millions(couple hundred million for all SL). If I was owner of a company and I saw people copying some content from one of my games to SL, I would likely find out that chasing these people and bringing them to court would probably cost more than its worth. A single good game can bring in more money than all that exists in SL so its hardly worth spending any to stop this sort of thing when the impact is quite small(as opposed to torrents but thats another story). Plus, it makes for good free advertising anyway. I am sure not all companies would feel this way, but you should get the point.
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I am sure this is like those people who screamed that sculpties would be the end of the grid, and then after that, voice would be the end. Look how far that got them.
I really dont know what the big deal is. LL offers a mesh enabled viewer, whether people decide to use it or not isnt their fault(ok, it is, haha, but thats not the point). I havent decided if I should wait for firestorm or go ahead and use the LL viewer. I am fine with waiting because I know that mesh isnt going to take over the grid all that fast because there are people waiting just as I am.
Mesh is an important new part of SL. The time LL takes to roll out bump maps will be used by the third party teams to get mesh working on their viewers. I am hoping they have that out before the teams get their viewers up to date so that way once mesh really starts spreading, it starts spreading with bump maps.
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Actually I think they may still work. I believe just a couple days ago I saw a new person with a first ad last name.
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I am not implying everyone is an idiot although I suppose I should have made my statement more specific in that its the people who dont bother seeking help on whats good and instead barrel forward thinking they are great for having done something when in reality its terrible. Sure, try stuff out and learn things, but not taking the time to at least take a look into things is just lazy.
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Baloo Uriza wrote:As with every other building tool so far, it's not the tool that creates the lag. It's idiot builders who think "efficiency" was taken out of the dictionary and don't understand why fewer polygons is better. I imagine these are people who go golfing and try for the high score for basically the same reason.
This exactly. Its not mesh thats the problem, its the idiots who dont know any better and in alot of cases, load stuff down way beyond whats needed.
Just like the person who was using over 9000 polys for like a 20 step spiral stair mesh and over half of those were all in the railing. That thread is on the second page now and has like 6 pages if you wanna go read it.
Mesh can be far more efficiant than prims or sculpties, but it requires the person who makes it to know some basics.
As for drawbacks, it will take bandwidth just like you say, but not as much as you want to think.
So, whats the drawback if I take a single tylenol for a headache? Thats usually all I need and as far as I know, there is only benefit and no drawback.
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WADE1 Jya wrote:I would just like to see something (which to my nontechnical mind) seems like it would be simple to implement. More materials allowed per mesh than 8. Somebody else earlier was asking for this & I disagreed it was useful at the time, but now I'm thinking it would be highly beneficial.Maybe it is just set this way because parametric prims ever only had 8 faces max (and mesh co-opts this), or maybe there is a very very good reason not to implement this, but to me it seems like a good idea now :matte-motes-impatient:I'd also like to see a fuller materials system so we can do things like make realistic ice, snow, frosted glass, diamonds etc (whatever the technical jargon for that part of materials might be). Oh and lava too. I wanna make elemental fantasy animals.Sorry I can't explain what I want better in proper terms... the way I work software I am like one of those weird musicians who can play the song but can't read the music.
While limiting to 8 faces is...well...limiting, that many is enough for even moderatly complex things that might be created. Even the professionals dont use tons of textures per object and in many cases, they shove a bunch of stuff into one texture to optimize the amount of memory used.
With the materials like ice and frosting, you mean overlays which is basically a texture layer. Yes, it would be nice to have something like this rather than needing to use another prim.(although, thinking about using one of the mesh faces here...) I supposed you could think of clothing as the closest thing to this.
I understand the logic of software, but dont ask me to write code.
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DanielRavenNest Noe wrote:If they want to limit the number of render passes (to maintain performance) just having a second map, and a selection dropdown to use it as Ambient occlusion, additive detail, normal, or specular would be a big step forward. Additive detail means you add the two texture maps, possibly with different UV tiling ratios.And low shiny is still too shiny for many items, make that a number entry (% shine)
I was just thinking the other day how shinyness needs to be a value and not restricted to a mere 3.
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Not even LL is so dumb as to allow something that would terribly lag the entire grid and yes, they have the PE value to help stop people from making overly complicated things. So its no wonder people are ignoring you when you sound like you have no idea what you are talking about.
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Basic meshes dont really require tons of technical knowledge to make. Sure you have to learn something like Blender or 3ds Max, but its not really terribly difficult to learn. Ok, mabe I think its easier then it is because I dont have much trouble teaching myself how to use any sort of software I wish to mess around with. Still, lots of people have learned to use Blender to make things.
If there is one thing that can be said about mesh, its that it is easier to make meshes than it is sculpties. You have to take alot of special things into account with sculpties, but with mesh, you can basically do almost anything(lets be honest, if you are bumping against the vertex limit here for mesh, what you are making is probably alot more complex than needed)
The thing with script weight is that they are counting all things equally when all meshes are certainly not equal. If you have a mesh that counts as only say like 10 prims, why should the script penalty for that be the same as one that costs like 50? This is why I think they need a sliding scale of some sort rather than just a flat penalty. They say they cant predict the complexity of a mesh and thats the reason for this, but thats not entirely true. If it costs more, than its likely more complex regardless and this is true in most cases. In fact, this is the entire reason for the PE system, to account for the cost of having it inworld according to how complex it is and how many resources it takes to be there.
The one thing I would like to know is what the difference is between a script in a prim and one in a mesh. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that with basic prims less info is sent to everyone since how they should look is built into the viewers while with meshes, alot more info is needed. Otherwise I am not sure here.
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Well you arnt the only one against it, but LL has a history of bad decisions to up-hold. Yes, I realize they want to get a proper accounting of the resources that meshes will take, but as usual, instead of taking a smarter or more measured approach, they simply heavy hand things and do a flat doubling across the board when a script is added.
There is one thing not many people are saying and thats that they are making mesh harder to use on purpose. See, the one thing about mesh is the fact that it has potential to replace everything on the grid and be more efficiant in doing so in many cases. They dont want it to replace everything so they are trying to limit it some by tacking on penalties and such..
Eitherway, I think they have made up their mind on it for the most part and probably wont change it much if any. Although, while they are against changing anything after its out all the way, changing the formula to result in reduced counts would be possible without breaking stuff.(since its only going lower, not higher)
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Ya know, it might be nice if this thread were to get stickied because it contains a ton of information. Or perhaps someone condense the info into another thread. I know there is the wiki, but alot of people still come by the forums to ask things.
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Oh how I have wanted for quite some time for there to be texture maps(aside from those god awful basic ones). Something like that would allow so much more detail without the need for alot more work. Making texture maps is usually easy as well. I foresee that once mapping is introduced, it will quickly make many textures obsolete until they have maps to go with them.
Like mentioned, it would increase bandwidth usage as more textures would need to be used. However, texture maps dont have to be the same size as the texture itself, they can be smaller if you arnt looking to add tons of surface imperfections.
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Actually, someone did make something for 3ds max(it may have just been the importer, Im not sure, could have been exporter too) and it was posted on the forum here either early 2010 or early 2009, on the old form I think. I had been searching around for one and managed to find the link the guy had put to download it, but I was like 1 month too late, the link was dead.
In any case, bvh for max does exist, so if you are able to get in contact with the guy who made this porter, that would be great. Now that I think of it, I am wondering why I didnt look around for this person's name. Well, I dont have the link, or the guy's name, but if you do find it through a search, please post it.
Edit: Actually, now that I think of it, I think it was an import/export.
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Honehe Loudwater wrote:Griffin Ceawlin wrote:I've hear rumor of some pre-paid cards that actually do work. But, to ask the obvious... Why not just open a bank account and get an actual debit card that will be accepted?
Life changes. Not for discussion on a public forum.And I shouldn't have to. Money is money. Period.While I usually dont question much on why people decide to do one thing or another, I have to agree with this question. Even people who live from paycheck to paycheck have a bank account they can use, whether they just put a specific amount of money in it for purchases or all the money they own. So I too have to wonder what "life changes" would prevent you or someone who can represent you from owning a bank account. In the case of simply not liking banks because they like screwing people over, yea I can understand that.
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York Jessop wrote:I noticed your railings are probably taking up the majority of your poly count, it is possible to create a cylinderical appearance with a radius of 6 segments, just use soft edges. You could probably drop the poly count by 60% by doing that whilst keeping an acceptable visual look, Also I would consider squaring off the ends of your steps, its not ideal but again you could shave off another 2/3rd from the steps poly count.
I agree with this. The railings are definitely whats taking all the polys. The steps themselves look completely fine - if you want and like the rounded look, however the middle column could be simplified a bit to chop another chunk off the poly count.
wrote:I seem to remember Charlar or Nyx saying the typical scene in SL has something like 250,000 to 350,000 polygons visible to an avatar. Draw distance is a controlling factor in the count.The Avatar has 7,000+ polygons. I consider an extremely complex mesh.But just polygon counting is not an answer.
Yea, that number seems about right.
The AV mesh I suppose you could consider complicated. However, when you go about making a body like that, you typically start out with basic shapes and "mold" them into a body. The end result is alot of vertices and polys and edges like anything else. Bodies like the AV mesh are about as complicated as you will get however. They all start out simple though.
Like I said in my post, poly counts can only serve as a guide. Obviously more than poly counts matter here, but trying to use as few as possible is usually a good thing regardless of what its for.
wrote:Reply to Tarius Auxarmes - view message 08-14-2011 03:08 AM - last edited on 08-14-2011 03:10 AMit realy depends on what type of object you build:•When you have lots of sharp edges and flat surfaces, mesh will be unbeatable in vertex efficiency.•When you have rounded edges and curved surfaces, you will have to tweek your meshes a LOT to get low face count AND good look and feel.I am learning to optimize a shoe roight now and it took me over a day to locate all edge loops which i can safely remove before the model gets severely distorted.For example : from back to front: 5400 triangles 1200 triangles 276 trianglesI am convinced that i can make the model with about 600-800 triangles without looking blocky.But it takes a lot of time (for me at least) to get such an optimization done and also add all levels of detail meshes with correct UV-layouts... But i am learning now ;-)
Yes, this shoe is a perfect example of why you dont need to stuff something with polys. Between the back and the middle shoe, there is hardly any visual difference at all despite the fact that one has almost 5x less polys.
I suppose I have experience with how many sides and such to start out with when I make something, but typically I try and plan what sides and how many are going to be used for what; I then predict approximately how many I should start out with when I create a basic shape. Its alot easier for me to use just a few more than I need and reduce that amount then it is to use too few and end up having to add more.
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arton Rotaru wrote:I also don't know how complex your staircase is, so I have to say, it depends on that, how many polys it should have.That said, comparing SL with other games isn't really a fair comparison, because most of those games use a lot more bells and wistles to spice their models up, like normal maps. We don't have those yet, so we probably end up with more triangles than it could be with normal maps.Yes, its true that SL doesnt have normal maps or even bump maps(other then those god awful basic ones). That is something I have wanted for the longest time that could have made alot of difference even without mesh.Well, like I say in my post, it can only be used as a guide. If anything, prims are alot more inefficiant than mesh can be and even if you were to go about adding just a little more detail than normal, you would still get good results anyway.Yes, SL is different compared to other games, but there is still plenty of room for detail without maps and without going overboard. I just hope mapping gets here soon.arton Rotaru wrote:To give an example, here are a few pics of a mesh house I made. It's nothing fancy, just a mesh re-build of a similar looking prim house I made last year. To compare the prim count mesh vs. prims/sculpts.The mesh version is 52 PE, 5096 Triangles in highest LODs.
Ok people! THIS HERE!! Now THIS is what im talkin' bout! This is a perfect example of what can be done with mesh over prims and its done properly too. You definitely know what you are doing and I wish more people could see this sort of example and follow it. I would be willing to say that this unfortunately will not be the case and I hope for too much.
Limited use of curved surfaces is a good thing as well as its the curves that will suck up polys. I suppose this is another good thing to mention, favor use rectangular or angled shapes over use of curved surfaces; thats one way to help limit poly use.
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This list may come in handy in seeing how many polys are used in a typical game. I wish more people could look at this. Please dont take this as an absolute set of figures, poly counts, like I mention below, can only serve as a guide.
PolycountsFrom cgsociety forum:****************************************************************************************************************************************************1997Mortal Kombat 4, Zeus Arcade Board-Peak number of polygons per second - 1.2 million quad patches******************************************************************************************************************************************************1998Half-Life, PC-Zombie - 844 polygons-High Definition pack Zombie- 1700 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2001Half-Life, Dreamcast, (2000-2001) (Canned)-Zombie - 1649 polygonsHalf-Life, PS2-Zombie - 2822 (Highest LOD)Halo, Xbox-Masterchief - 2,000 polygonsMorrowind, PC-Frost Atronach - ~1,600 polygons - plus bones, etc-Tavern - 1188 polygons - plus 120 polygon collision mesh-Dwarven Claymore - 400 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2002Canned Boss Game Studios game, Xbox-Cars - 25000 polygons (highest LOD) - 4 textures/poly, Base texture, Reflection map, a texture used to computea fresnel term, Shadow map, Specular highlight (encoded in the alpha channel of the reflection map)-Backgrounds - 2 or in some cases 3 textures/poly-Peak number of polygons per second - 30M polygons**Deathrow, Xbox-Characters - up to 7,000 polygons - 55 bones - 1024x1024 textures on the bodies and 512x512 on the facesMedal of Honour: Allied Assault, PC-Character - 4096 polygonsMortal Kombat Deadly Alliance, PS2/Xbox/GC-Characters - ~7,000-10,000Super Mario Sunshine, GC-Mario - 1500 polygons-Levels - ~ 60,000 polygonsThe Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, GC-Link - 2800 polygonsV-Rally 3, PS2-Vehicles - 15,000-16,000 polygons (Might count multi-passes)-Stages - 500,000 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2004GTA San Andreas, PS2-Characters - 2,000 polygons with 1 256×256 8bit texture-NPCs - 1,200 polygons with 1 256×128 8bit texture-Gant bridge - 16,000 polygons, includes LODHalflife 2, PC-Alyx Vance - 8323 polygons-Barney - 5922 polygons-Combine Soldier - 4682 polygons-Classic Headcrab - 1690 polygons-SMG - 2854 polygons (with arms)-Pistol - 2268 polygons (with arms)Kingdom Under Fire : The Crusaders, Xbox-Main characters - 10,000 polygons-Characters - 3,000–4,000 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2005Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, PS2-Snake - 4,000 polygonsProject Gotham Racing 3, X360-Cars - 80,000-100,000 polygons (interior + exterior), damages add between 10,000 and 20,000 more polygons per car-Brooklyn Bridge - 600,000 polygons (LOD might be included)-Manhattan Bridge - 1 million polygons (LOD might be included)Resident Evil 4, Gamecube-Leon - 10,000 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2006Dead Rising, X360-Peak number of polygons per frame - ~ 4 million**Gears of War, Xbox 360-Wretch - 10,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps-Boomer - 11,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps-Marcus - 15,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal mapsThe Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, GC/Wii-Link - 6900 polygonsVitua Fighter 5, Arcade/PS3/X360-Character - ~40,000 with diffuse, specular and normal maps-Background - 100,000 - 300,000 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************2007Crysis, PC-Nano-suit character - 67,000 polygons (uncertain whether it's an in-game model or not)*-Characters' heads - ~2500-3000 polygons-Characters' bodies - ~5000 polygons__________________Mass Effect, X360-Sheppard + armor + weapons - ~20,000-25,000 polygonsLair, PS3-Main dragon plus its rider - 150,000 polygons-16x16KM scene - 134M polygons (streamed into memory, not loaded at run time)Lost planet, X360/PC-Wayne - 12392 polygons (but finally 17765 polygons for compatibility with motion blur effect)-VS robot - 30-40,000 polygons-Background - ~500,000 polygons-Peak number of polygons per frame - ~ 3 million**Midnight Club, Xbox360/PS3-Cars - 100,000 polygonsUncharted: Drake's Fortune, PS3-Main characters - ~20,000-30,000 polygons-Drake - ~30,000 polygons-Pirates - ~12,000-15,000 polygons****************************************************************************************************************************************************Axel Impact/DTRacer, PS2, 2003/2005-Cars - Base mesh ~12,000 polygons (max LOD)-Volume Shadow mesh - 4,000-5,000 Vert (dynamic shadows are not stored as actual polygons, hence vertex count)-Stages - ~200k polygons*************************************************Dead or Alive series, Xbox, 2001-2004-Character - ~10,000-15,000*************************************************Gran Turismo 3, PS2, 2001-Cars - ~2,000-4,000 polygonsGran Turismo 4, PS2, 2004-Cars - ~2,000-5,000 polygonsGran Turismo 5: Prologue, PS3, 2007-Cars - 200,000 polygons (probably interior + exterior)*************************************************Jak & Daxter, PS2, 2001-Jak - 4000 polygonsJak II, PS2, 2003-Jak - 10,000 polygons**************************************************Virtua Fighter 4, Naomi 2, 2001-Jacky - 14,000 polygonsVirtua Fighter 4, PS2, 2002-Jacky - 7,000 polygons
Ok, so what does this list mean for you? Well it should serve as a guide. However, the difference between these games and SL is that the game files are all already on your computer when you are playing the game. With SL, they all have to be streamed to you. With sculpties, something based off a sphere(probably the most comon shape used) can have 1988polys(triangles) while something based on a plane can have 1024 polys; both will likely have 1089 verticies however. Ok, so you know how much lag you experience in a place with lots of sculpties? Well, this should give you an idea how much lag you could get with mesh by using the same number of polys etc.
One of the key things to take into account with the number of polys that the Master Chief has or the number that Shepard has is that they are both main characters for the game they are in. They are more detailed then most other things in the game because you see them the most. Other non-main characters could be said on average today to have something like 10000 polys but characters with only a few thousand are definitely still around. I wouldnt advocate cramming 20-30k polys or more into a mesh meant for an AV on SL though, unless there is no other choice but thats unlikely.
Ok, aside from that, I havent said much about actual objects. In the case of your stairs, I dont know how complex you made them. Perhaps they have rounded lips and include railings and lots of different features. However, my first reaction is to recoil in horror at the number of polys they contain. I do model work for another game and I have to make sure my models are are not overly complex and make efficiant use of polys. I would make a basic building mesh(exterior, no interior and lacking windows but those are separate) and the entire thing would have no more than 2-3k polys at the very most - this is an entire building mind you.
As for if your stairs really are too many polys, my first reaction is probably yes, even though like I said above, I dont know how large and/or complex you made them. The thing is, and this is something everyone who decides to make a mesh for SL should be forced to learn, is that you shouldnt make a mesh replicate every single detail on a surface, not only is that unefficiant and in many cases time consuming and unrealistic, it requires a heck of alot more computing power to do, and in the case of SL, bandwidth. You need to let textures do alot of the work, they fill in most of the detail you need.
Another thing everyone should learn is that when you have a flat surface, you need to have as few polys as you can representing it(the flat surface) because additional polys dont provide anything yet still take computing resources. When you UV something, the texture isnt going to care whether a surface is made of 10 polys or 100 polys, the texture will still show up the way you UVed it.(I hate that I cant provide UV maps for sculpties, only bake textures for them)(there are certain caveates with trying to fit too many or too few pixels on a poly with some file formats, but you shouldnt worry about that)
Wow, I ended up typing alot, but the last thing I have to say is another thing everyone should learn: You do not need to add detail in the form of polys beyond a certain point because ultimately, unless people look at it very closely and carefully, they arnt going to notice or care. An example of this would be using a cylinder with something like 50 sides, versus using one that has 100 sides. They are both going to look the same to most people because unless you make the cylinder really huge, you arnt even going to notice the fact that one has less sides, the change is simply too small to see.
Summary is:
Let textures do alot of the work.
Cramming alot of polys onto flat surfaces isnt going to accomplish anything.
Only add detail up to a point because beyond that point, no one will notice anyway.
Well, I hope this helps people some.
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Well whatever the case, I think a scaling system would probably be better. Basically, the more a mesh costs, the more it would cost to add a script to it. Say something like a linear scale where adding a script to 1 PE mesh wouldnt cost anything up to like where something that costs 256 prims would be doubled by adding a script(to 512). This would mean that something that costs 128 would be increased by 50%(so 128 + 64) when a script is added. Something like this is what should be done rather than an across the board penalty. Heck, have a different sliding rule even, mabe exponential instead of linear, but either way, the more prims something cost, the more complex it is likely to be. I do realize they want to be cautious, but limiting things too much will also screw stuff up.
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HD Pomeray wrote: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 think they are trying to limit their usefulness on purpose without actually saying that they are. Mesh has the ability to be more useful at everything than prims or sculpties while having the ability to be optimized and less laggy(a basic cube has multiple polys per side when it could have less, as an example); so in otherwords, unless they limit how it can be used, they are faced with it making everything else obsolete.
That said, I think they are limiting it far too much while they would be fine having less severe cost penalties.
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Yep, I have been wondering what LL plans to do to stop this kind of griefing, because it becomes terribly easy with mesh.
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Copyright question....
in Mesh
Posted
Its because they don't. Yes, there is all this legal mumbo jumbo stuff, but what it comes down to is if whoever originally made/owns an object really cares about other people doing things with it or even hears about someone using it to begin with - and - cares enough to go after them.
Personal use can be considered a grey area, but typically no one cares if money or distribution isnt involved.
One of the most copyright obsessed companies around is probably Games Workshop. I once sent them an email about people making Warhammer 40k models in SL and got no response. This is the same company that stopped distribution of a fan film made in Germany because German law says that a creator always retains rights to something regardless of any contracts removing/abdicating/etc those rights. Essentially this would have meant that saying yes to this would allow anyone to circumvent their copyright. The SL is based in the US, not Germany though.
Then there is Nike(I think) or some other company that decided to stop people from making and selling items in SL and did it themselves instead. Would they have been able to track down someone who decided to make their own pair of shoes and keep it to themselves? No, likely not.
People mention about all this harm caused to people when you copy their stuff. Well, amount of harm caused is one of those grey areas when it intersects with personal use; obviously distribution and/or selling are generally considered bad here. If half the population decided to make their own copies of something from scratch then yes, that is definitely not a good thing and would provoke a response. If a single person decides to make a copy of something, will anyone even notice or even care? Is EA in SL selling replicas of their Marker? No, probably not.
So I typed out alot of stuff but in the end, it all comes down to whether you think someone will care enough to come after you if you make a replica of something or if anyone in SL will care enough to bother notifying anyone of it.
Also, nice work on the Marker, I wanted to get a model for myself because they look cool.
PS. on the moral stuff, its not morals that you can dictate or decide, its ethics; morals and ethics are not the same thing. The question here is: "Is it ethical to make a replica of an item from a game for personal use when there are currently no alternatives other than making said item yourself?" The question by extension to this is: "Will making this item for myself cause any harm, ie, will the company lose any money?"
Seeing as he got the response in the form of not caring, it doesnt matter for this case now.