Kyrah Abattoir

This post is intended to explain a bit of technical data related to mesh micro-optimization, and how models are rendered. What is a vertex? A vertex is a point in a 3D space. Vertices typically carry more data that their mere position, such as: An UV coordinate for texture mapping, a normal direction for lighting. Within the program, vertices are typically stored in a big list/array called a vertex buffer. What are triangles? A triangle is essentially a collection of 3 vertices that will be connected together by the rendering engine. Triangles typically do not carry any extra data. In practice, it is often a little more complicated as there are many "primitives" that a rendering engine uses to speed up reading and drawing triangles, such as triangle strips. What are edge splits and why are they somewhat important? In an ideal 3D model, most vertices end up shared by several triangles, this allows the object to be represented with very long triangle strips and as few vertices as possible, speeding up the rendering and minimizing the CPU <-> GPU bandwidth. An edge split occurs when an objects requires multiple vertices to be "duplicated" (for reasons I will explain later). This forces an explicit "break" in the model, requiring more vertices and polystrips to represent it. Now on modern hardware it is typically imperceptible (because this isn't the eighties anymore), however you can create objects that can be considered "worst case scenarios" that will significantly impact rendering. It's never a bad thing to check that you haven't done a mistake. What causes edge splits? Using a different material/texture: This is hardly an issue but it is important to know that each material you use has a cost associated to it from a rendering standpoint (and not just due to edge splitting), each material is effectively a separate mesh for the rendering engine. Sharp edges (smoothing groups in max): A sharp edge is created by duplicating all the vertices along it and using different normal directions on each side. It is STILL more efficient than adding more geometry to create a hard crease in the model, so don't see that as a solution, but a classic blender beginner error is to forget using "shade smooth" on most of their models, and those models absolutely render slower than a smoothed model. UV breaks: The same way sharp edges duplicate vertices to change the lighting normal, UV seams duplicate vertices to change UV coordinates. Again, it's more about avoiding a worst case scenario than avoiding edge splits alltogether. Note that vertices are only duplicated as much as required, if you have an UV seam along a sharp edge, it's not going to split the edge twice.

Yes Yes No, they have to do what every business has always had to do to be in compliance with the tax system, and if you aren't operating as a company, you have to identify yourself personally. After a certain amount of money, yes, because otherwise it is called fraud. No, it's called doing what it is being told to do to comply with US regulation. You expect Linden Lab to commit fraud for your own comfort?

We all do.

So people shouldn't correct you when you are wrong?

Yes I'm very well aware since I am a steam partner. And guess what paperwork I had to send to the steam? You can read all about it in their knowledge base https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/onboarding but I can tell you that it was more intrusive than Linden Lab.

Is someone trying to rewrite history?

So because the paypal account is verified means the SL account sending money to it is? *shakes her head* How many companies are paying you money that was acquired from other users? SL is a pretty special case where Linden Lab is not so much paying you as it is shifting money between SL users, that's a pretty specific case that raises a lot of alarms in the money laundering department. Don't shoot the messenger. Fraud is never a solution.

Exactly! Which is why US/Euro laws are typically designed to still allow international transactions to be possible.

I think i've been gradually losing brain cells reading this topic. The level of ignorance is absolutely staggering. Linden Lab is a company established in the united states, which means they have to abid to US federal law, plus whatever laws the state they are in requires. If their state requires them to have documentation on hand about anyone they transfer funds to? They have to abid to those laws. To the people claiming that this or that is illegal in their country, it doesn't matter! If Linden Lab does not follow US tax requirements Linden Lab cannot do business with you!

Do we really need a new topic everytime?

Goodbye! We don't need people who cannot read.

After re-reading the answers, What is it with people who are so eager to commit tax fraud?

I believe this is a bookkeeping measure, every 12 months they have the opportunity of "closing" your record and erasing financial data they have on you. This essentially reducing risks.

As i said higher my theory is Tilia trying to distance itself from being used as a saving account.

The idle fee to me seem like Linden Labs/Tilia doesn't want to be accused of running a "banking" service. To discourage users from leaving $ sitting in their account and reduce their potential liability I assume. As for those who claim that they can't identify themselves, I'm sorry but most companies don't do business with anonymous parties. You are bound to have some sort of official document that identifies you. I'm never going anywhere without my ID card for instance. How do you prove you are who you say you are, at the bank, or for any administrative purpose?

It is also a beautiful ponzi scheme -_-.

Well you're also supposed to declare anything you pull out of SL. this is just fraud prevention as per usual.

What's the incentive in shaping the future of SL? I do wonder myself.

That the bone cleanup causes the rig to shift enough to create this issue (or did i misunderstand?)

You could in theory use a BOM layer to blend normal/specular maps especially since BOM ads more texture layers than the system avatar used to have. but i'm not sure of what the result would look like.

It doesn't work in the sense that BOM doesn't support full material mixing, only texture mixing. you could possibly mix normal maps with it but specular maps already use their alpha channel for something.

I probably was doing the griefing :3

Gotta teach fam not to open mail that's not addressed to them

This was a thing you know. https://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/06/the_dreadnought.html (Collaboratively built by about 5 people, I only really made the center section)

That makes a lot of sense @OptimoMaximo yet makes me facepalm.