Nalates Urriah

You will need to talk to your classmates or the university's IT support group. Some universities block ports that Second Life needs. In your case it sounds like they have used DNS to block access to SL virtual world servers: sim####.agni.lindenlab.com (#### = number). The public access servers for signup, forum, blogs, wiki, and etc. use: something.secondlife.com. If it is just a DNS thing the university imposes then it is possible to override the DNS server specification the university is assigning when you connect. You can switch over and use Google's DNS servers. Then your compuer should be able to find the domain lindenlab.com. However, if the university has a bandwidth problem, which is why they would block in the first place, and the IT department is on their toes, they will notice your bandwidth consumption. So, make sure your not doing something that will get you in trouble. You can test the idea using NSLOOKUP on Windows. I don't know what the equivalent is for Mac.

The long answer is here: I Can’t Login

We need to know what computer operating system and what browser you are using.

A number of things can prevent you logging on. See: I Can’t Login

In several articles I have tried to explain the thinking behind the cost increase a script incurs. The article Second Life Mesh Update Week 31 is the latest attempt. In the simplest terms, for years the Lindens have just not charged for scripts. They now think that was and is a mistake. Now they are trying to make costs equitable based on resources used. In connection with mesh they are placing a system in place to charge for scripts. Seeing some script counters in popular places I have come across some that show the top two high counts. I was astounded that some avatars were wearing 800 to 900 scripts. None of the logic regarding 'why' or 'how' the Lindens are changing the costs means anything. We as residents are buying a service from a provider/vendor. If it costs too much, we simply won't buy it. If we perceive an equitable value in the item or service, we will. A free market will bring things to what residents and Lindens think is an equitable result. All the arguments made to influence Linden thinking and change the cost of mesh is just special interest groups maneuvering for their best advantage, which seldom works well for the majority. So, far the smaller things (avatar to beach-ball size) I'm experimenting with have lower prim and texture costs, upload and tier, than the non-mesh objects would. Once the L$150 upload cost goes into effect that changes for the simpler items but still leaves some advantage for the more complex items.

Hear, hear!. Thanks. You may want to consider a sign in the meeting location that simply restates the rules. Of the meetings I'm attending I find the Mesh Upload Group the most intersting and well facilitated. Especially when one considers how empassioned some are about Mesh Costs.

Knowing your operating system (Windows or Mac) and which viewer you are using helps us get you good answers. For any tech question open Help -> About and copy/paste the info in your post. The packet loss is the likely problem. Visit SpeedTest.net and test your connection. Use that info to complain to your ISP. Understanding what is happening may help you understand how to solve the problem. When you change skin, clothes, tats, and Alpha Layers the viewer composites all those images and creates (bakes) a new image. The image uploaded is all those layers baked into a single texture. That composite texture is then uploaded to SL. Every one that sees your avatar downloads the composite image from SL rather than all your clothes, skin, tats, and Alpha layer textures. If something goes wrong with your upload, then you see something different than everyone else. You'll see your avatar become clear and crisp then go blurry and easy back to clear and sharp. That second blurry is your viewer downloading the composite image form SL... or may be decoding the image in your cache. I'm not sure. Fixing the problem is a matter of being sure you have a good connection and that the region you are in is not lagging. You can try finding a deserted region and rebake your avatar there. Ctrl-Alt-R. Wait 5 minutes and rebake again. You may need to do this 3 times. A friend helps as they can tell you if the change has taken affect.

It depends on where you are starting from... If it is the SL web site... you should be able to see the visit location button. Clicking it should open the viewer. Of course if your new and have not downlaoded the viewer and installed it, that won't work. Others covered how to do it in viewer Basic or Advanced mode. In Advanced Mode you can also: There is also a World Map accessed in the bottom menu. You can search for region names. Once found you can double click the map or click the teleport button. Of you can just browse the map and pick places. You can use Search, also found in the bottom menu. There are destination in search that you can click and tp to. If search or world map is not in your bottom menu right click an empty space in the menu and select those buttons. Then there are landmarks (LM). These are sort of like browser favorites or bookmarks. People can send them to you. You can create them from the top menu World->Landmark this Place. These are automatically saved in your inventory in the Landmarks folder. You can double click an LM in inventory to initiate a tp. Stores hand out LM's to their store. The sidebar has a Places tab. You will find LM's there also. Plus there is a Favorites section at the top. Drag LM's you often visit to that section to have them appear in the top menu area. If you have lots of time, you can walk...

I am guessing that you tried on the demo before buying the skin. So... as the others suggest clear your cache. Me->Preferences->Advanced->Clear Cache. It requires the viewer be closed and restarted to actually clear the cache. The Cache in WIndows Vista/7 is in C:\Users\windows_login_name]\AppData\Local\Secondlife\ If you want to do a manual cache clear, delete everything in that folder while the viewer is closed. I suggest you log into a deserted region. Pooley is a decent choice. One of regions around it may be less populated. In Me->Preferences->General is a setting to allow you to select the login location. Be sure that is checked. Once you are there, open your inventory and let it load. Type a letter in the search window and you can see if things are still loading. Once loaded rebake your avatar appearance. Ctrl-Alt-R. You may want to take a friend with you so they can watch your skin to see if the demo note leaves. You may have to repeat this several times. If so give it 5 minues between rebakes. What is happening is your viewer is building a composite image of your avatar. Your skin, clothes, and tats are rendered and made into a single texture that your avatar wears. That is why you see your avatar go blurry when you change clothes. The viewer makes the texture and uploads it to SL and that is the texture other avatars see. If there is a problem with the upload of this new compsite texture, people do not see your avatar as you do. Oddly skin some how seems to always get uploaded even if not the clothes. There is often a problem of you seeeing your avatar dressed and others seeing you as nude. That problem is fixed but occassionaly returns. You are likely experincng something like that. But, in your case the demo skin made to SL at some point so when your upload fails, that is what others see. I did no take time to look up your age, so if your not new... sorry, no offence intended. But, when you bought the skin you should have gotten a new copy of the skin. That skin has to be unpacked and WORN not added. So, you might open Outfits and look at Worn and take off everything you can take off. Even put on a different skin. Wear the different skin for an hour or two. Then visit a deserted region and re-do your avatar. There is some problem with your upload of the avatar appearance. To get any farther help we will need to know if your Windows or Mac and which version. Also, we need to know which viewer and version and if you use more than one viewer.

There has been some discussion that the problem may be from a web browser incompatibility. Changing browsers may get you through the questionnaire.

To get good answers you need to let us know which operating system you are using, Apple or Windows. We need to know the version too, XP, Vista, or Win7. Also, we need to know which viewer and version. You can easily get all that information by opening the viewer and clicking Help -> About. There is a setting in the viewers for floating panel transparency. In SLV 2.8 it is in Me -> Preferences -> Color (tab). If the transparency setting has been changed, that could be the problem. Occassionaly the user settings file will get corrupted. One can delete it. The viewer will rebuild the file on the next start up. If your in Windows Vista/Win 7 the file is in: C:\Users\[windows_login_name]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings\settings.xml Replacing the single settings file is usually the point of a clean install. Give both of those a try. For Photography in SL you will probably want to check out Kirsten's S21 viewer. It is very popular with photograhers and has some additional handy features for them.

Does this version replace the version of the viewer on the Mesh Volunteers' Page? The one on the Mesh Volunteer pages is 236285 and the link here is to one that is 237157... so the one here is a later build. There are lots of possibilities for those of that want to play with mesh on the main. Let us know which you prefer us to be testing with.

Because of the left half of the image I disagree with Nyll. Still, you could check your video driver and change versions to see if that makes a differnce. Video artifacts usually do not create spikes like the one on the left. Video problems usually ignores the virtual world based triangles and render odd screen based triangles creating patterns on screen. The missing face in the right side might be an artifact. But, I think it looks more like a reversed normal. I suggest trying another mesh region and seeing if you get the same results. If it is region independnet, try another release of the Mesh Project Viewer. Or visit the region with Kirsten's viewer, it renders and uploads mesh but has a custom render pipline. Using Kirsten should tell you if it is a region or viewer problem. If you see the problem in both veiwers and a driver change does not help, file a JIRA report with your image and several more examples.

I have traded some sculpty books with friends and provided the template used so they could retexture the books. That seemed to work well. I suspect there will be a number of people that will want Mesh Objects without the 3D model. Texture templates will probably work for them. For those that want the 3D model to work with, there are a number of sites that allow poeple to sell their models. Perhaps selling the templates in SL and refering them to a model site or having a site of your own would work. Some have considered placing the DAE file in a note card as a way to sell the 3D Model. Since the DAE file is an XML file that is possible. The limit is the size of a note card, 64k. That is a significant restriction. Only small and not too complex models can be defined by a 64k file. As to how many people will want the 3D model and template or just the in-world object and a template... I would assume that a majority of your sculpty customers will also be interested in the in-world mesh objects with UV templates. I have no idea how you wll get predictive market data for what people will want. I susppose you'll just have try it and see what works.

If you have not found Machinimatrix.org, check it out.Gaia Clary makes some geat tutorials and tools. Most are sculpty oriented. But, new mesh tutorials are appearing.

A couple of things may make your tats crisp. If you upload large files SL will compress them using JPEG2000. Anything over a 64x64pixel image (about 4k) will be compressed. But the bigger the image the more it is compressed. So, getting close to the SL size or one size larger seems to give good results. If you uplad a JPG file you have already compressed it once. SL will compress it a second time and likely make it fuzzy. TGA files have halo issues when used with transparency. There are numerious SL tutorials on how to work around the halo problem. Google Second Life TGA halo tutorial to find them. They are crisper than uploading JPG files. PNG files are probably the best chance for getting a sharp image into SL. I suggset you try different image sizes and see what works best. Designing at a large size as Rolig suggests and then down sizing in Photoshop gives the best images. Avoid the Web Image optimization. Save your image then use IMAGE -> Image Size to reduce the image. Bicubic Sharper is probly the best and certainly better than the Web Optimazation. Once sized then use the Web Optimzation using the largest image size to export an image. THEN REMEMBER to hit FILE -> REVERT to get your large image back.

Rolig and Nyil's answers are pretty much right on. To have a relevant idea of what the exact problem may be we need to know which viewer and version of it you are using. SLViewers 2.8 and up have inventory delay and are slow loading and stall while loading. Once you see the inventory load slow down, move out of RECENT to just inventory. Type a letter in the inventory search window. Change to a different letter each time it slows. This slowing was fixed once. It seems to be back because of: VWR-25940 – “HTTP communication with grid capabilities router is unreliable at times affecting HTTP Textures” TPV's like Kirsten's that are based on the latest code have similar problems. The inventory delay problem where a click in the inventory panel does nothing for 2 or 3 seconds is fixed by clearing the viewer's settings (how to do that without a clean install is in clean install article linked to below). If you want to use multiple viewers there are additional problems, as Rolig points out sharing caches is a bad idea. But, most new Third Party Viewers now use their own cache and settings files. But, there are DLL conflicts (DLL are support programs for the viewers and other programs) and other issues to deal with. Because of the DLL issues the install order of viewers is important. As a last resort, keyword being LAST, you can try a Clean Install. This version of the instructions are for those that want to use multiple viewers. For messed up inventory fixes with an orientation toward a user with multiple viewers read through the fixes in: Lost Inventory and Missing Inventory Fix – Help.

The problem probably is not your viewer. There is a problem with the SL support services. See: VWR-25940 – “HTTP communication with grid capabilities router is unreliable at times affecting HTTP Textures” I've seen this lag in textures loading and avatars rendering. In any busy area with 15 or more avatars it is horrendious. A fix should move into the Release Channels next Wednesday. Then roll the main grid the Tuesday after. However, if the JIRA gets enough WATCHES they may push for faster delivery. You may be able to work-a-round the problem by turning off HTTP Texture Get. I forget where in Preferences that setting lives.

I don't understand why you are setting the normals manually. There is generally a recalc normals item that faces all the normals to one side of a surface. There is also a feature to reverse normals to the other side of a surface. So, ... I cannot imagine a situation were some faces of a surface face one side and other faces the other, like a window in a wall. I think that would confuse most systems.

I am guessing... Gaia Clary, maker of the Machinimatric.org tutorials, explains how to connect the edges in sculpties. I barely understand the idea. But one less row or column of vertices is used. The idea is that in Blender one would wrap a plane into a cylindar so two columns of vertices overlap then remove doubles. Technically that throughs off the vertex count but it bakes correctly.

You can also contact Oskar Linden. Oskar is the owner of the Server Beta Group. He works with getting a representative set of regions into the release channels. If you need to do anything more than file a ticket or there is some special note to put in the ticket, he will know. You may get a faster answer by asking in-world in the Server Beta Group.

AFAIK, Kirsten's is the only TPV that has mesh render and upload. We will soon see more TPV with mesh render. It will likely take longer to see mesh upload in TPV's. The Phoenix Build Tools are mostly now in Firestorm, the Phoenix decendant that will replace it. If I remember correctly, Firestorm will handle mesh render in the next release. Imprudence, also with great build tools and my favorite building viewer, is evolving into Kokua. Kokua will have mesh render and eventually mesh upload. Imprudence is unlikely to have render or upload. The big complication is that Linden Lab uses Havok to help with creating the physics shape of uploaded mesh. Havok is a proprietary physics engine. LL bought rights to use it with SL. Havok does not allow LL to share the code with TPV Dev's. TPV's are not purchasing Havok and must come up with an open sourec replacement that works like Havok. Kirsten has done it. So, others will too. But, the TPV's are running some time behind LL. Will Kirsten add more building tools to KV? May be. But Kirsten's viewer is an advanced viewer that is more about render speed and quaility. Photographers and machininamists use KV. Builders tend to use Imrpudence and Phoenix.

If you want to hear a precise number given by a Linden see: Mesh Cost For now it appears the base upload cost of L$10 is going to L$150. Add to those the 'complexity' costs.

Marielle Caerndow's answer is very good, imo. Best, it is succinct. I would say the difference between mesh and sculpties is control. One has way more control with mesh. I doubt I will ever build another sculpty with sharp edges. Nor will I try to build scupties with detailed textures. I can make much better use of texture space using the custom UV Maps possible with mesh. DanielRavenNest points out that everything in SL is mesh. Prims and sculpties are simplified ways of working with mesh. With the addition of what we label Mesh we are free to work directly with the mesh vertices. In sculpties and prims we can only work with settings that influence the vertices. It is a big change.

Wow... lots of random answers. If you want to understand what the Mesh Loader is doing you need to read: Mesh Category in the Sl Wiki. More specific to your declaration is: Calculating prim equivalent weight. If you try to rationalize the costs based on Prim Equivalence, you are going to have problems making sense of things. The Lindens have come out and said existing prim costs have no basis in reality. As a business the Lab is trying to correct that. They can't change Prim Costs as there would be a major rebellion. But, they are not going to repeat their mistakes with Mesh. So, mesh costs are being adjusted to reflect actual resource usage and RL cost. I expect Mesh to be a complex balancing act between improved performance and quality with cost. If they hit the right balance, Mesh will be popular. In any event, business logic requires that they start with a price and see how the market accpets it. If acceptance is poor they may lower the costs. For those that have not followed the Mesh Developement process, you can catch up here: Mesh Stuff The real cost of mesh measured in resource use is complicated. If one ever wants to be able to figure how to make efficient use of mesh and get the lowest costs, upload and tier, they will have to understand why size and LoD are factors in design and cost.