Nalates Urriah

You can get a quick take on SL Mesh by checking out Gaia's blog, Machinimatrix.org. The viewer and server code that supports mesh is still changing. One big change has been the removal of the Mesh Asset from inventory. See: Second Life Mesh Status Week 16 You need to use the Mesh Viewer Snapshot (nightly) to play with the latest changes. The ambiguity between whether updates and news appears in the Forums or the Wiki is confusing and updates seem haphazard. So, the information in the Wiki is mix of current and out of date. The viewer provided for download at: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh is an old one. It is ok for viewing mesh on the Preview Grid, but it does ot have the latest mesh uploader, AFAIK. You'll see the Dev Snapshot at the bottom of viewers download list. The current speculation is we may see mesh go on the Release Channels in June... but, that is total speculation. Lindens are not saying. The Mesh Status article has some more info.

Post a wire frame screen capture of the blike. We can give yu and idea if it is too complex or if there is a problem. If you do have 65k vertices for a bike, it may be too complex.

Once an SL Viewer crashes you may have to reboot the computer to clear problems. A crash may also corupt the viewer's settings file. C:\users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings\settings.xml Rename or delete the file. The viewer will make a new one with the default settings. A texture download can also corrupt and cause problems. So, try clearing the cache. C:\users\[user_name]\AppData\Local\SecondLife\ You can delete everything in the folder. It is important to know if you use only one viewer or whether you use 2 or more different viewers. If you use Phoenix, Imprudence, or others you need to make separate caches for each viewer. They do not play well together. I did not see your video card listed. If it is ATI, you may have a video driver problem.

Here is the LONG list of possible solutions: I Can’t Login As someone wrote (I can't see other posts once I start writng) this is the community forum NOT a direct line to the Lindens. If they were to see your request, the Lindens in general are not support staff and I suspect most lack the access to customer accounts needed to make fixes. THe chance of a support person having time to read the forum to find someone needing help is about zero. Many login problems are related to failed avatar logout. Those tend to get corrected by the Tuesday and Wednesday rolling restarts. Depending on when and where you get locked out the restarts can save you before support responds. I do hear support is getting better. But, until they are instant I'm too spoiled to wait. So, the Long List of fixes. It also helps to include the Error Message you get or describe what is happening. It helps us give you better answers. You can avoid waiting for an answer by searching the forum. This problem is common and the forum is full of answers. You can also post in ANSWERS where many people monitor the section for people in trouble. Plus, if you search from within Answers, you get suggested possible answers... which sometimes is right on.

Do you know if this version has the latest Collada updates from Notwory? Any information on how well it's Collada export works with SL?

We need to know which version of the viewer and which operating system you are using. If you got the 'prominent' viewer from http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh you got version 2.6.0 and it probably will give the error you are getting. Get the development snapshot viewer. It is here: Mesh Development viewer build The current version is 2.6.3. The Alternate Viewers Mesh Setup page is also misleading. They do not tell you that you MUST use a development version. There are warnings telling you to avoid that version, but it is the only version that works. At least there is a link to the latest version. Also once the viewer hangs, reboot your computer before trying again. Also, they are putting new servers into the mesh section of ADITI. So, you may be catching the system while it is down.

You are right, you are in the forum. The best place for your question is probably the Beta Server Group. Viewers are already able to handle prims larger than 10m. The size limit is enforced by the server. See: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Server_Beta_User_Group

I just came across your post... If you are interested in an answer to your questions, add them to the Server Group Agenda and attend the Office Hours Meeting of the group. The information on how to do that and the meeting times are in the wiki: Server Beta User Group If the meeting is at a bad time for you note that in email to the meeting facilitator. Let them know you'll watch for the answer in the meeting minutes, which are linked to from the wiki page link above. Palidin is right that things have changed. If you ask those that are having the most TP problems which viewer and version they are using you may start to see a pattern.

Notice at the bottom of the version download pages are links to older versions. Not all are listed. I don't understand how to navigate the various viewer branches to find specific versions. But, I am told it is possible. For instance finding the April 1 release 2.6.3-255638 with avatar physics was nearly impossible for me. Fortunately someone helped me.

The ADITI grid has had problems the last few days. If you login to Last Location, try logging into HOME. It will land you some place that is up and running. I've seen several regions down and been dropped into some odd locations using Last Location. You screen would seem to indicate you started logging in and then the region crashed... something went wrong. Give it some time and try again. It is hard to know if a specific region is down. However, you can test via ping, tracert, and http://www.speedtest.net/ to get an idea. Taget sim7016.aditi.lindenlab.com (216.82.40.112:13002) for areas outside the mesh region and sim9001.aditi.lindenlab.com (216.82.40.149:13007) for Mesh Sandbox 14. I don't know how often the names and IP address may change but these are good today as of 2:30 Pm SLT.

There is also a login issue depending on when you last or ever logged into the ADITI, beta/preview, grid. If you have never logged in it could take 24 hours, but that was supposed to be fixed. If you have not changed your password since a login some months age (there is a date but I've forgotten it) then you need to change your password and try logging in. That change is supposed to register quickly to the ADITI grid but can take some time. Clearing the install folder as mentioned by another is a good move. There is some problem with a file labeled winmm.dll (or somthing close to that). Removing it fixes the problem.

In the last couple of months a lot has changed. There are a number of mesh and viewer changes that make older meshes a problem. Also, depending on how you are building the meshes you may have some problems. Blender Collada has received a lot of attention over the last 2 or 3 weeks. See http://www.letworyinteractive.com/ I haven't done anything with weighted mesh, so you might want to search and read through posts here regarding weighted to see what has changed since you started.

Charlotte brought up a point that is important. When you use more than just the Second Life Viewer (SLV) you often have problems with cache corruption. But, rather than uninstall the TPV change the TPV's cache location and avoid to problem. In Preferences->Setup (SLV) and in Preferences->Network (Phoenix) are the controls for setting a new cache location. I suggest you leave your SLV's location unchanged. Change the Phoenix or other TPV's location. New versions of Phoenix and several other viewers, i.e., Kirsten's S21 for one, create their own cache without your needing to do anything extra. So, check where your TPV has placed the cache. If your TPV is using a cache in the SecondLife folder, create a new folder and point the viewer to it. You can do that from within the viewer in Preferences.

If you are just starting with Blender, there is a lot to learn. It will give you the most power in building. To get an idea of what you can do, visit Machinimatrix.org and watch Gaia's video tutorials. Most of the tutorials are for sculpties. Making mesh and sculpties is very similar, with mesh having better control and more possibilities.

The best fix is to wait 24 hours and get a new build of the viewer. After a viewer crashes the computer should be rebooted. Then try the viewer again. If it still crashes, look through the crash log for a hint of what is happening. You can also look in the settings folder and delete the settings file to force a reset to the default values. Each viewer has its own XML file for settings. You'll recognize the name for the Mesh Project viewer. Just the one file needs to go. Delete the cache at the same time. As an alternative you can try Nyx's viewer with the Render Complexity tool. Nyx linked to it from the forum in a post earlier today. Test Viewer Good luck.

I've found that my viewers work better if I just reinstall my primary viewer last. In another post in this thread I point out the problem of copying the older settings folder over a new install's folder. I think copying the folder over the new folder would probably be somewhat safer if one did not allow file over writes. Just restore the missing files. That would fix the problems with other installed viewers and not break the new install. Lots of stuff is changing in the Mesh and Snowstorm projects. I believe one should expect changes to these files with each update. I see no reason to assume they will always be compatible and work from version to version. There is a reason that the uninstall program wipes out all the files. Whether it is for compatibility reasons, I can't say. However, for a REALLY SERIOUS clean install most people recommend removal of all the viewers and all their associated and hidden files to get rid of incompatible settings and files. Since that approach works well, saving and restoring files to new installs would seem to be risky. The best reason for saving the files is, if one wants to save their chat logs. I would not recommend that you try to mix older versions of the chat log files with newer versions as even their format has changed in some viewer versions.

Changing the chat log and settings folders via Preferences is only possible in a few TPV's. One might find a control buried in the various XML files in the viewer installation and be able to change them. But, in general, there is no easy way. Also several TPV's use the SL settings folder to store their settings. A few create their own folders for settings and chat logs. Kirstens creates completely seperate sets of folders. Phoenix uses the SL Settings folder but its own cache folder. Firestorm creates it own seperate set. All the complexities come from many SL and TPV programmers assuming everyone uses just their viewer. Over the past year that assumption seems to be changing. Kirsten's and Firestorm seem to be ahead of SL and others. Until they all get together, backing up the AppData\Roaming\SecondLife folder is a must. Also, hoping to bring an old settings file back to a new install to save the effort of redoing the settings or writing an older SL Settings folder over an install's newly created one, is a dangerious idea. The information kept in those files changes over time. The reviews I write on viewers and the tutorials for installing, clean installs, and problem solving typically have to cover how to deal with all these messy problems. There is no simple easy solution for those using multiple viewers. The programmers have enough of a problem just getting the viewer to work well. Time for getting the install and uninstall working well is limited and seems a low priority for all programmers. Don't expect the issues to be fixed anytime soon. Most of us are pushing for mesh and better chat, which are where LL is putting their effort.

The Collada Expoerter in Blender is changing too. (See Letwory Interactive) If you use JASS or Primstar for sculpties, the Gaia Clary site Machinimatrix.org gives you a fix for the older Collada scripts in Blender to make them easier to use with SL. With Blender 2.49 a meter in SL is 100 units in Blender, which is very awkward to work with. With the patch the scaling on export to Collada changes the scale to +100 and makes it 1 unit to one meter, which is easier to work with. I haven't done 2.5x exports recently so I'm not sure what the new changes from Letwory have done. You can have both 2.49 and 2.5x installed. The easy install is to down load the 2.5 as the zip file and expand the content to a folder. The result is a stand alone Blender install that runs. If you use the install program things get... well... easier in some ways and more complicated in others. One of the 'others' is when you want to run multiple versions.

It is also possible to export your avatar, one that is the shape you use. See: Second Life Mesh Tutorial

Are you thinking a mesh setting? If so, I doubt it. The LoD control is in the viewer. The control affects all objects the viewer renders. See Debug Settings RenderAvatarLODFactor RenderDynamicLOD RenderShaderLODThreshold RenderTerrainLODFactor RenderTreeLODFactor RenderUseShaderLOD RenderVolumeLODFactor - Controls level of detail of primitives (multiplier for current screen area when calculated level of detail) As you can see several LoD factors for different objects are built into the viewer rather than the objects.

Unless you are using the Mesh Project viewer, you cannot see meshes. THey simply do not render. Second Life Mesh Project Viewer Also the Kiesten S21(5) Viewer renders mesh. When a viewer cannot render mesh one usually sees a flat triangle shaped thing.

Your item #1 has some limits, but the viewer does launch from an HTTP link in a web page. If you use the SLV2 the install sets the SecondLife: protocol type just as the HTTP: protocol is set. Browsers will open the SL Viewer. Not all of them. Some like Firefox have to have the protocol set manually. But Chrome and IE8 will use the system default, which the install sets. The limits come from the fact that users can set their computers to use whichever program they want with any protocol. Also browser makers can chose to handle non-standard protocols however they want. Users can also set specific browsers to use specific viewers with the SL browser protocol. Item #2 might be cool. Skylight is a version of the SL viewer running in a browser. It primarily used OpenGL and required no viewer download or install. The Lab is advancing that idea but its priority is unclear. Item #3, why would one want to use up more screen real estate displaying pictures and videos within the viewer window? Facebook allows links to display in your browser. Why would one not use the viewer’s browser that we have now for those tasks? As to uploading images, within SL that costs L$10 per pic. I can use Photobucket or Facebook for free. They don’t have the terabytes of data that LL already stores. I can’t see LL offering free image storage nor image storage being a big incentive to use SL. Item 4 we seem to already have… I’m not sure that stuffing the viewer’s browser in a narrow vertical sidebar is a good idea. But, one can click on web links and TP to places. Or do you mean something else? Item #5 – With MOAP it is possible for region owners to build such applications. But, it sounds like you are trying to turn the viewer into a replacement for a browser… For now most of the new stuff related to your ideas happen in Web Profiles and is limited. Item #6 – everyone wants controls they already know… Give me WASD and mouse steering, which most games do, and I’m happy. I used WASD/Mouse-steer in Myst Online and I use it in SL. Most of the games I’ve played have those options. WoW uses the WASD keys too. So, SL seems to have a pretty basic standard control interface option. Myst, WoW, and SL all games use different keys for tasks special to their software. Item #7… were you around for the recent change in login ID’s? Item #8… the Lab and about 2 million users beat you to the ‘make it easier’ idea. I gues you weren’t around for Phillips 2010 speech about fun and easy? Item #9… rather than impost larger text on everyone, why not use your browser’s zoom? Typically Ctrl + or – to change text size.

Looks like you should be able to. See: http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/111/10/305748/1.html

Its hard to say. I've seen this happen with several different viewers old ones did it and those since 2.5.1. Sometimes one has to reboot the computer and clear the cache to clear things up.Often the problem is a texture that the viewer is having a problem with. As the viewer decompresses the texture it sometime gets caught in a loop. Also the texture may have corrupted in either the initial upload or your specefic download. In some cases the viewer never reads an end of file marker and keeps trying to download a new copy. Several things can go wrong. Often you can get FPS back by tirning 90 degrees left or right. If turning back slows you back down, it is probably a texture. If the problem repeats after a reboot and cache clear, reinstall the viewer over the top of the previous install. It should save your settings. Reboot after the install. If the problem still repeats, do a clean install of the viewer. Remove the viewer using the uninstall program. Manually clear all the program, cache, and settings folders. There are lots of steps, considerations, and file locations so read Second Life Clean Install, which is a blog post of mine. There is lots of additional information about the process. The SL WIki has a Clean Install set of instructions, with Mac file locations, but they mostly ignore the possibility you use more than one viewer. Sorry the posts are for Windows users... but the ideas are the same for the Mac. The file locations are different. Also, if you use an nVidia graphics card make sure you have turned off multithreading. That is done in the nVidia control panel under Manage 3D Settings. One makes a profile for each 3D program. There are two tabs; golbal and programs. Profiles are in Programs. You will probably need to add the viewer program. When you click ADD a file open dialog appears. In Program Files->[Viewer Name] will be the viewer folder. You are looking for the EXE file, i.e., for SL = secondlife.exe or basically [viewer_name].exe. Click it and OK. In the settings list look for Threaded Optimization. Set it to OFF. Having this on Auto or On can cause crashes and FPS slow downs. You can see the actual dialog and settings in Graphics Tweaking for Second Life plus there are other settings you may want to check.

When I try to post here in the forum the Chrome browser crashes. The site's editor seems to break Chrome. Anyone else running into this problem?