Syle Devin

You could create a uv mesh and repeat the floor texture a couple of times. If your using blender there is also a way to repeat a texture without having it be a uv mesh. Though you would need to bake it as a uv mesh to have the shadow in sl of course. Unless it still then is blurry or low quality , such as my problem, then there is nothing I can say there. It is a give and take that you have to do with mesh so you can have the best of both worlds. Though you could split your floor mesh into different parts and have a seperate texture map for each section. That way you would have more than one texture covering your whole floor.

Do you make your building out of mesh? What do you use to make your meshes if so? The reason I ask is because you can bake shadows and lighting onto your textures usually, in Blender you can atleast.

Yes this is exactly what I have been trying to do. Thanks for the tutorial. I had gotten close to figuring it out but the tutorial helped. Though now I have a new problem. When I try and upload SL is telling me that the mesh failed to upload because "the texture is empty" I know none of the textures in Blender are empty so what does it mean for SL to tell me that?

Sorry about that, I thought I had said what I am using. I am working with blender 2.6. I think I understand using multiple materials but what about using multiple uv maps? I have not tested it out yet but I have searched and I don't think it can be done? Atleast I wouldn't think you can have multiple uv maps with different ratios because some faces would overlap? Here is what I am working with. The textures from the bowling floor spread out 25x5 meters in SL. I would normally repeat the same texture on a prim but I cannot do that if I want to keep it all on one uv instead of seperate textures on their own vertice groups.

I am having trouble working with UV maps and getting high quality textures.In my mesh build I have large meshes and then other meshes with many sectionst hat take up all the possible UV map space. Combined with the sl texture limit size of 1024, or was it 512, I cannot seem to manage high quality textures like I could with prim builds. Is there anyway to achieve what I am tryign to get at?

Ah yes, to say I messed around with it more before I saw your post and I did end up using 'project from view' option. It worked out pretty well. It was just frustrating to me when I saw someone else, in a tut video, unwrapping normally and the faces would unwrap to the right scale and ratio. I just don't understand if I have some option chosen that makes them unwrap the way they do. It seems to me they automatically unwrap to bounds which is a problem if I want to keep the ratio of the faces correct.

So I hope there is any easy fix for my problem but I am not sure if there is. I am have searched a lot to figure out the problem and I have not been able to find it. For some reason in blender I can't seem to unwrap flat faces without it messing them up. Is it not possible to do or am I missing something? This is how it turns out for me, where the faces aren't the correct size and sometimes the square faces, when unwrapped, don't even turn out square when I know there is not curve causing the problem. Any help would be nice, thank you. EDIT: Well for the model show above is using is it ok to use UV Smart project? That turns out fine compared to trying to create seams and such. I know on round objects custom seams help. I also, for some reason, had a feeling that it is not a good way to go about creating UV maps, by using smart project? Though while it turns out better, as everything in straight and nothing is curved, the lane section is still not to proportion. I am just trying to find out a good way of fixing it, even if it is involving.

that is good news, thank you.

So I have heard there is an 8 texture limit for meshes, is this true? I am pretty sure it is true. What I want to find out is if the 8 texture limit is for a single mesh in a scene or for the whole scene that is uploaded?

Well I am running windows 7 but I did find them in my app data. I wouldn't have evne checked there so thanks.

So I've been working on my huge mesh scene/build and I tried to upload recently. It told me that it could not upload and that I should check the log files to understand why. I found that if you press crtl+shirt+4 the log files are supposed to show up. I use the test viewer and no log files showed up. Is there a way to access them on my computer?

Can't believe I didn't think of that. I know that leaving the model the same for a different level gives it a longer view, distances or an unchanged one, but I did put it together with the whole scene.Also Drongle I was thinking if I had seperate LoDs for each object in the scene how would it know which object it is for but you answered that out for me and I didn't even ask. Thank you. I mainly didn't realise that I could have an unchanged mesh for a specific object so that it will have a longer view distance. I think now all my questioned are answered for a while. That is until I get to working on the physics mesh and then I will need to do what to do so that each physics mesh is linked to the appropriate object. Would that work the same was as LoDs would? Alphabetical order? I check out your build Maeve. It looks great, shows me what can be done with LoDs. I thought it would be annoying for it to change but from an avatar distance nothing changed drastically so it wasn't an issue. Not until I zoomed out did anything really change. That looked good, hopefully I can figure it out but your build gives me ideas of how I can do it. One question if you don't mind. I saw the building below the one you linked me to and you had a block on the ground with a shadow underneath. Did you do that with texture only or was it baked to show the shadow? I am just curious since I didn't really see any othr shadows. Also, drongle, is there a good way of going about naming object in blender? I mean a way that is faster than clicking on each object and changing the name, a list of sorts even? I've never been one to name my objects in blender, I have never needed to before, so I haven't learned much of a good way to name them.

Since it does not seem file size does much to land impact, only mesh size, I uploaded my mesh to test view distance and I became annoyed deeply, only because I do not understand. I have heard that objects in a mesh are not viewed as different objects. The problem I have is that in my .dae scene the different objects in that scene are viewed as different objects in the SL viewer. Lets just say that I am working on a fully furnished bowling alley in blender which I wish to upload once it is done. The problem is when I upload it in SL each object has its own view distance. Having it be one upload while being multiple meshes seems to not work well in SL especially when trying to control LoDs for land weight. Will I have to upload each object in my building as a seperate mesh just so that each object can have it's own LoD options set? For ease I would hope I could upload it all as one, I know the limits of 8 textures and such, but it seems just for better control I should upload each object seperately. This is aside from cutting up the larger meshes, which might not need to be done, since the only large mesh with a large view distance too is the building itself, walls, floor, and cieling. No matter it being one upload, or what I set the LoDs to, the smaller meshes in the scene still have small view distances. If I was to upload each object seperately and create seperate LoD levels for each than would that be better? Could I essentially still create my LoDs using my whole scene even if it has seperate objects in it? I am not new to SL or to blender but the issue of detail levels and view distances has crippled my brain. On top of that I have been having trouble with patience and would like answers now so I am sorry if I am asking questions that only I can answer with some testing on my own time. I don't want to ask to much of anyone here. Once I have this whole build process figured out for myself and working I would love to compile what I have learned so others may not have to spend time asking questions that I have. Thank you to those who have answered any questions since I have been askign quiet a few. I think I am finally, slowly, understanding what I will need to do. I hesitate only because it seems like it will be a very long process of uploading once I even have the mesh done in blender.

So I have another question on mesh uploading. It seems that land weight is also figured out based on file size and not just how many triangles are in a mesh. Splitting up a mesh into multiple files seems to lower the weight but I do not understand why and would like to. While I may be wrong, right now, I understand the process to be like a puzzle. Even if I split up a mesh into multiple files it would all still fit together to end up with the same land weight. Am I correct to assume that or does mesh file size affect the land weight? This is not counting for levels of detail and only considering file size against land weight of a mesh.

I will delete it and try reuploading then. Just so I can make sense of why it might be that file, what does the slm file even do?

All of those tips are very good except I have issue with only one of them. In blender isn't changing size with dimension better than using scaling?

Ah, yes I made sure the physics shape was set to "load from file" and that the file I chose was a valid .dae. It still doesn't work. Though I wonder that I may need to resave my physics mesh as a new .dae because I already uploaded it. I found out, the hard way after I crashed a couple of times, that I couldn't upload the same .dae mesh file. I had to resave as a new .dae file. It may be the same way for my physics mesh and I will try again. I will try again I guess sinc eit seem like it is some kind of bug.

There was no option to set it to prim. I have no idea why the option is not there. I may be uploading it wrong but I don't think so.

So I tried it again and I can't tell what I am doing wrong. The physics model looked correct, this time, in the uploader but it still didn't turn out.. The physics for the model became a huge box keeping anyone from walking in the building. Any advice?

1. To say blender can be quiet confusing to learn only because of the interface. It by far is the best free 3d program out there and is used in the professional world by some people. If you are willing to put some time into it than it is well worth learning blender. http://www.blender.org/ To show you what has been made with blender blender, if you have not already seen. 2. This is a youtube series of tutorials. It isn't focused on making mesh for second life but instead it teachs you how to make a character in blender. It is very helpful when tryign to learn how to create a mesh because a character in blender is essentially a mesh. If you don't mind learning more than just how to create a simple mesh than follow this playlist tutorial someone created for blender. As I said he goes through how to create the model but also rig the character so it is a bit more informative than you might like. That being said, it is still a great series and well thought out. 3. from free such as blender to the thousands for a massive program. 4. Something with an average graphics card atleast and good amount of ram.

Thanks for that, I will test it out and report back. I dont think I did decompose before I uploaded but I will see. I know I just had it use the the file as the physics mesh and I didn't do any of the other steps since I didn't know I needed to. Also I checked and the physics mesh looks exactly as it should now in the uploader. I can't upload it right now but I will be able to later and see if it will turn out properly this time. To say also, since you saw the model I posted, I understand what you mean about the low lod. The model is so big and already pretty low lod for the size that there isn't so much to be cut. I'll have to get really creative on that. Though if I let second life calculate it out I can get it down to about 40 land weight, thoughts its 140 if I have all the LoD levels set to use the same as high. I am not worried just yet since I have it all set to high for the purpose of looking at it and I will not set the final product to all high. All chopping and gerating of high to low LoD will be done once my model is done, which it isn't. Though now, after looking at the build, I am thinking about taking your advice and chopping it down more in the end. I will test with that also to see what I can do. I would rather keep the room only a few meshes and not have to chop the wall sections up.

Yes I looked and it is set to convex hull. I think it has to do with the settings I set the physics model to or the physics model itself. I know in the upload the physics model it shows does not look the same as the one in blender. I head something about only using cubes for the physics model? I used a cube that I streched and such, maybe it is taking that as one object instead of a complicated object.

So I am working on a build and I tried to create my own physics mesh. While I created the mesh and uploaded it. Instead of the bounding box acting as I set it up it ends up as a giant cube that I cannot walk into. What setting do I need to set the physics mesh to so that it works as I made it and not just a cube? Any help is appreciated.

Aha, thanks for those details in distances. That is just what I needed to make sure I can properly have different views rendered. One thing though, does draw distance affect the physics model shape? Also I did think of having the high lod for the object be 32 sides but I changed it to 16 since I didn't see to much difference. Could just be me but does having a cirlce at 32 instead of 16 make enough of a difference in looks vs weight?

I'll have to look for that option to export selection than. I was sure blender could do it I just haven't seen a way yet. Also I was thinking of triangle faces since I know about the 8 texture limit. I already plan to export as more than 1 mesh so that shouldn't be a problem. Glad to know there is a high enough triangle limit that I don't have to worry to much. Even then I am uploading in more than 1 mesh so that's no problem either I think. Also I think I understand what your saying about scattering of the triangles. Just depends on how the UV is layed out for that to work well. That is one thing I still have to learn how to do well, layout UVs. Uv maps can be quiet confusing when everything looks the same.