DanielRavenNest Noe

Actually, what Maxwell was describing was the physics shape (also sometimes referred to as the collision proxy). The "bounding box" is a box with sides parallel to the X, Y, and Z axes just large enough for the entire model to fit inside. I will have to check, but I believe the XYZ dimensions shown on the Edit window are for the bounding box of the model. Besides limiting how large you can scale the model once in SL (64x64x64m), the center of the bounding box is what determines the XYZ position of the model in the region, and the diagonal is used to calculate the Prim Equivalent (PE) streaming cost.

Turbosquid specifically addresses Second Life in their License FAQ: "I want to buy a product from TurboSquid and convert it into an object I resell in a virtual world, like Second Life. Is this allowed? Answer The creators of a virtual world can include TurboSquid products as part of the virtual world or game, but users cannot purchase TurboSquid products to re-sell in those worlds." And yes, the tutorial is to cover Linden Lab's liability against being sued by copyright holders. It shows they are trying to deal with copyright issues rather than ignoring them, and errs on the safe side *for them*. That means if there is any question about legality, they will say no, you can't. That's actually the safe position for anyone dealing with copyright. In general, you have no rights to make copies of anything you didn't create unless specifically granted those rights.

I think Linden Lab needs to do a major education campaign as mesh gets released. Variable prim count for objects is a huge change from the past 9 years of SL's existence where a prim is a prim and each of them counts as 1.000 always and forever. What was a constant in the past is now a variable. We need a standard disclaimer for mesh items. Something like: WARNING: Prim count for mesh items varies with use. Resizing or linking can cause you to exceed your parcel limits.

Linden Lab already links accounts deep in the system when the same payment is used or the same IP address is used. If you do something really bad, they can shut off all of them at once. The benefit of linking at a higher level is simplicity in updating things like your payment info, but there are several downsides: - Some of us use an alternate account as a financial reserve, separating the bulk of our funds from the public merchant or landlord account. That makes it harder for a hacker to guess where the money is. If linking the accounts means hacking the public account reveals the private alt, it would defeat the purpose. - Similarly, many people use alternates for various purposes, and want to keep their friends and contacts unaware of the alts, or have been harrassed or stalked on one account and made another. So any path that exposes the link between accounts defeats the purpose for which they exist. - Any change to existing permissions about transfer of items between linked alts would be damaging in my opinion. Items set to "no transfer" were made that way for a reason, and allowing alts to transfer items despite that setting would be bad.

Sorry, but I have to partly disagree with you on that. Builder items where proper notice is given that they only work on test regions should not cause a problem. General items like clothing, yes, those are not ready until full grid release, and even then, a warning should be provided that they are not viewable unless you have a mesh-enabled viewer. That warning will be required for quite a while after you go grid-wide.

One more thing - Upload cost is not the same as the object cost after it is uploaded and you change parameters like size or physics type. For small objects (a few meters in size) I have been getting values of 300-500 triangles per download PE on the high LOD, but it depends on the file size of the Collada .dae, which in turn depends on how many surfaces (different textures) have UV maps, and whether the model has skin weights to use as an avatar attachment. It also depends strongly on the lower LOD complexity. For larger objects you get much fewer triangles / PE because the higher LOD models are seen at longer distances.

Cannot select skin weights with Mesh viewer 2.8.2 (236321). Was able to upload without weights on Mesh Sandbox 5 on Main Grid. I did the tutorial, and it shows me as having passed, but back on Aditi with the same viewer it says "You are not ready to upload - see this tutorial", which takes me to the one I have already passed. Is anyone else seeing these problems? EDIT: Need to pass the tutorial separately for Aditi, but skin weights are not working there either. EDIT2: Need to delete any .slm files created with earlier versions (in the same folder as your .dae model file)

Cannot select skin weight with latest Mesh Viewer (2.8.2 build 236321) on main grid Mesh Sandbox 5. I finished the tutorial, and was able to upload *without* weights. Meanwhile on Aditi it tells me I am not ready to upload because of the tutorial, even though I have done it. Is anyone else seing these issues?

Despite the fact that a wall can be made from 4 triangles in mesh and needs 12-108 for a box prim, mesh has a higher prim cost when it's large. For typical buildings, the best use for mesh will be for complex objects like windows and fireplaces. Windows can reduce to a flat plane at the lowest LOD, and indoor items like a fireplace will never be seen at the lowest LOD, so you can drastically reduce the triangle count and get a reasonable cost. And items like that which are only a couple of meters in size will not get penalized too much for size.

No, mesh is a single sided texture. If you want double sided, you have to copy the geometry and flip the triangles so the normals point the other way. How many triangles are your models? It's helpful to know that when commenting on your items. Oh, I realized there is a parcel use for very high triangle count, high detail models - that is for photography on Aditi (or an empty sandbox or region if you can find one on the main grid). Very high prim cost objects are not something most people would use for the long term, but for temporary use they are fine.

The test trees that I imported, I needed to replace leaves with "alpha planes" which contained several twigs and leaves as a texture, and to simplify the trunk and branch mesh by quite a bit. That brings the triangle count down to something approaching reasonable. Unfortunately the size penalty for mesh items means for things like trees, you are generally better off making it as several sculpts.

Loki, I think you correctly summarized the basics that someone has to learn. Fortunately for the first 5 items there are extensive tutorials online for any popular 3D program. For example these videos on Blender 2.5 Fundamentals at 3D Buzz: Tutorials 1-11 Tutorials 12-25 So what I think we need is a wiki page on "How to learn mesh" that points people to the specific things they need to learn, and where to find it. Like for the above set of tutorials, tell people "For Second Life, watch videos 1 to X, and export your model with these settings"

Mesh doesn't have to be equal to sculpts in cost. It does have better features - eaier modeling, higher maximum detail, custom UV maps on up to 8 surfaces, custom physics shape, and ability to rig to avatars to wear. But it does need to be in a reasonable range compared to sculpts. By that I mean perhaps twice the cost in ordinary cases, going up to maybe 4 times higher for extreme cases. Not ten or a hundred times higher. Meanwhile, for clothes, meshes can be more complex than sculpts per linked item, so it is quite possible to have higher total triangle count.

If you are talking about skin layer clothes for the default avatar body, look in your inventory > Library > Textures > Default avatar templates. If it is prim, sculpt, or mesh clothing items, those get textures applied either for the default UV map (prim and sculpt), or your own custom UV map (mesh).

The first PC I used for Second Life (5 years ago), had a Geforce 3 Ti 200, which is a notch faster than the 6100. It was barely capable of running SL on the lowest settings, and that was in the days before flexi and sculpt objects. From experience helping newbies with intel 945 chips, that was completely inadequate to run SL properly. You simply cannot run SL on computers made of plywood :matte-motes-evil-grin:, and the system requirements should be adjusted to realistic minimums. Also, how many of those low-end systems are being used as bots, shop assistants, or IM receptacles, and not really trying to render or move around? Catering to the lowest of the low systems logged in only ensures Second Life will continue to look bad for people with computers that can actually use the higher quality settings.

Falcon Linden wrote: I truly believe that most reasonable builds should not be limited by their physics weight. In general, I expect the other PE factors to almost always exceed physics weight for well-optimized, legitimate objects (i.e., "useful objects" rather than pathological cases). That's because the other costs are unfairly weighted too high. Your co-worker Runitai has stated that they are designing for graphics chips *below* the stated SL system requirements. Also the 250K triangle budget is based on a region full of mesh objects. A PC on the low setting has a draw distance of 64m, and can only actually see 20% of a region at a time. The combined effect of these penalties ensures that parcel costs of mesh range from high to absurd relative to sculpts. Another way to put what you stated above is "don't worry about physics cost, because we made the other costs so high". That may sound a bit nasty, but that is how it looks from my perspective.

Runitai Linden wrote: 2. Nvidia GeForce 6100 I don't think you should be catering to systems that are below your own systems requirements page for SL. That calls for a Geforce 6600 minimum: SL System Requirements I also think it is an error to base a triangle count of 250,000 for slow systems on a full region, when people on the low graphics setting have a default draw distance of 64m, and therefore only actually see 20% of a region at one time. In simple terms that is charging mesh for things the slower PCs cannot see or render.

Yes, there will be 4 models. With prims the LOD versions are pre-defined in the software, because every box prim is the same as every other box prim in terms of geometry. With scuplts, my understanding is the LODs are done by discarding every other row and column in the sculpt texture. I'm not sure about that since I never learned to make sculpts. I don't know about getting a certtification, but knowing how to make 3D models is a useful skill outside Second Life, just like knowing Photoshop.

Loki Eliot wrote: I appreciate all your advice and encouragement. Is their a tutorial that explains LOD and how to prepare for it when uploading a Mesh to SL? it seems a real vital part of Mesh, yet i don't really understand it and im sure others just starting out never even heard of it. Rez a prim cube, and zoom your view close to it. Type Ctrl-Shift-R to go to "wireframe" mode, which shows only the edges of a shape and not the textures. (you might need to turn off lighting and shadows to see it). You will see it has 3x3 squares on each side, or 18 triangles per side. Now zoom out, and it will reduce to 2x2 squares, then 1x1 square. Most graphics engines, including SL, reduce the detail of an object when it gets small on the screen. That lets them avoid rendering details that are too small to see and run faster on any given computer. These are called "levels of detail", and have always happened for prims, textures, and sculpts. With a mesh, you have the option of defining custom versions of the model for each of the 4 available levels (High, Med, Low, and very low). If you choose not to make custom ones, the upload window will take your model, and simplify it for the lower levels by some automatic method. Usually you can get a better looking and lower PE cost result making the different levels by hand. Most better 3D programs have a function like "Optimize" (3ds Max), or "Decimate" (I think, for Blender), which will take a model and simplify it. So one method to make the LODs, is to save your highest detail version, then apply the simplify function, followed by hand cleanup in places the automatic process didn't do what you wanted. The standard reduction assumes a factor of 4 in triangle count per level, but you can do it differently, or use the same model for more than one level. That will affect the PE cost, but it's up to you. Save the simplified model as your medium level, and repeat to make the low and very low versions. In the upload window you can point to each of your LOD files, so you would be uploading up to 4 versions of the model to create 1 mesh asset with 4 LODs. One thing to note is all the versions of the model need the same number of texture surfaces, although they can be mapped differently. For example the Small Palm Tree I made has three textures. One is the leaves and stalks seen at close range. The other two are alpha images of the model seen from two sides (rendered in Max). That is placed on simple triangles that intersect for the lowest level of detail. Replacing a model with a picture of the model on a flat surface is called a "billboard", and it is a way to get a very low triangle count. Since I need all 3 textures at all levels of detail, I have two triangles buried under the stalks to hold the alpha images on the higher levels, and at the lowest level put the leaves and stalks texture on a spare triangle that is hidden. For some types of models, the auto-LOD in the upload window is good enough. It's easy enough to start with the high detail model, and see how it looks, and only make custom levels if it needs it.

If you make a full body mesh avatar, like I did: Avatar Photo Then you can define your own UV templates. I used 8 texture maps, with separate parts for each limb and areas to color finger and toenails. If you are good at both modeling and doing skin textures, you can provide it as a complete package. In my case, I am not so good at painting humans, so I plan to release the avatar and UV templates, and let other people provide the textures for it. By the way, the dress is another mesh, with the same "bone rigging" as the avatar, so they move in sync properly. You would have to get permission from Daz or other model creators to use their items in SL or to sell them here. What I did is use the SL avatar as a reference in 3ds Max, and shaped my avatar based on that and human reference photos. It takes quite a bit of time to have the shape correct, and especially the rigging so it animates decently.

They are the same geometry at the highest level of detail. How they are reduced with distance is different. With sculpts, my understanding it is by deleting every other row and column to get a map half the size. With mesh it is whatever you design if you make custom LODs. If you use the auto-LOD in the uploader it is whatever it generates. In general a poor physics shape will impact the cost a lot. It is costly for the simulator to calculate collisions between objects with detailed shapes, so that is penalized heavily. What you discovered with the balloon is the prim cost for mesh is weighted for size at approx the square of the object's diagonal. So beyond a certain size, they get very expensive. Large objects get seen at higher detail at longer distances, so the cost of mesh reflects that. The cost of prims and sculpts *do not*, so they tend to win the larger you make stuff.

Its not a bug. You have one inventory asset with one set of textures associated, and it needs to load the same set of textures at whatever LOD you first see it at. This would often be the lowest LOD when you are walking around and it comes into draw distance. The asset server and region server don't know the internal details of the model, so they need to fetch all the textures to make sure you get the ones visible at the initial view distance.

OK, following items are now lower prim count: 5 meter palm (900 triangles) which used to be 9 prims is now 3, Grand piano (7200 triangles) which used to be 25 prims is now 19, 32x32m terrain segment (625 triangles) which used to be 15 prims is now 12. I can link a box prim to it for no added cost, while linking a torus gives an absurd PE cost. Single mesh items still have a factor of 5 penalty for medium items relative to sculpts, when counting triangles/prim, and worse at larger sizes. When linked to a box prim root and suitably sized you can get the penalty down to 2, which would make them barely competitive: a higher prim cost, but better UV map, physics, texture count, and vertex accuracy. If I was doing something medium to large, I would look at using sculpts for the visible details, and a mesh purely for the physics, with a low triangle count for the LODs. That might give an interesting result.

What you can hope is a good set of avatars gets released under an open source license, then anyone can use them.

I don't know about LL doing it, but I made a mesh avatar with all the toes and separate UV maps for each limb (even individually texturable finger and toenails). Facial morphs and skin layers are not part of the mesh release. I have one clothing item imported so far, and more now that the problem with texture maps not showing has been fixed. Avatar Photo You will not be stuck wearing one designer's clothing (or skin). I plan to release this avatar geometry & UV Maps for skin designers to use and make their own skin textures. There are people way better than me in doing skinss. Any clothing attachments will work (prim, sculpt, mesh, or a combination) as long as the clothing maker has an example of the avatar to test against. As long as they do a reasonable job of vertex weighting the clothing it will adapt to the avatar motions. Mesh avatars and mesh clothes both use the same bone system as the existing default avatars do, so they don't have to be made by the same person.