Penny Patton

I've been meaning to knock out a basic texturing tutorial, mainly demonstrating good habits in texturing for SL and why they're important. To put it simply; Keep texture use as low as possible while achieving the desired effect. In other words, don't use five 1024x1024 textures when using a single 512x512 will look pretty much the same unless you zoom in closer than anyone will. Also, don't use multiple slightly different textures when using a single texture will look more or less the same. Don't use wasteful textures that are mostly memory hogging empty space. Set up your UV maps so as much of the texture as possible is used. If you have a dozen textures for your model, each using a small amount of the overall canvas, combine them into a single texture, using all of that empty space. Remember, from a practical standpoint there is very little difference between SL and a videogame when it comes to how rendering content works. And in SL you don't have the benefit of a single art team working together to keep resource use in line, so it's good to compare SL content to art assets from games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 (the base games, not the framerate killing 4k texture mods) in terms of how you should be texturing. Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but these tips are important because every computer has a limited amount of memory for textures. That same memory is shared with other features, like shadow maps. What's more, SL won't even use all of your texture memory properly. Excessive texture use has become one of SL's more prominent performance issues.

Which takes longer to get told if your bandwidth is clogged with gigs of textures. I never knew it was even a problem until I started to see people complaining about it and tested it in some texture heavy sims. If you're trying to download a whole bunch all at once, everything takes longer to download.

Your computer has a limited amount of memory, even moreso since SL will not use all of your available memory. Textures are stored in that memory while being displayed on your screen. If that memory is filled, several things happen: Sharp decline in framerate Texture thrashing (when textures keep derezzing due to being shuffled in and out of memory) Stuttering (where SL freezes up as you try to move the camera around, because it's desperately trying to move textures in and out of memory) There are objects, from tiny attachments to larger environmental objects, that use hundreds of MB worth of textures. To the point where it's not uncommon to see avatars using a couple hundred MB to nearly a full GB of textures. In addition, textures need to be downloaded, and you have a limited amount of space dedicated to your SL texture cache. This means excessive amounts of bandwidth are used not just to download all these textures, but to repeatedly redownload them. This results in several issues: Excessive bandwidth use Excessively long rez times That problem where rigged mesh bodyparts appear floating around the space where your avatar should be for several minutes before finally snapping to your avatar Despite what some people think, there is no way we're going to see some magical software fix that allows for unlimited texture detail. Seriously, if anyone could figure how to pull that literal miracle off and patent it, they'd be rich. Every videogame developer in the world would be licensing it off of them. If there were an existing method to do this, then videogames would employ this miracle rather than carefully managing texture use (which is what they actually do). There are technologies employed to manage or reduce the memory use of textures where possible, but these technologies are always paired with efficient use of textures, not as a replacement for it.

With all of the talk lately about how any effort to get content creators to optimize their work might "force content creators out of SL" I thought I'd make some tutorials showing just how easy optimization can be. So for this first tutorial, I'm tackling LOD. Here is the link to the tutorial. I hope you find this information useful.

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When someone is clearly making stuff up, and making no attempt to even hide that that's what they're doing, it's pretty obvious that they're trolling.

I disagree, to a point. I understand what you're saying, and I even understand the concern among people who don't understand enough about content creators to see that trolls are just trying to deliberately muddy the issue because they enjoy stirring up trouble on forums. LL cannot rush out any changes to content creation that will immediately cause people to lose content. That would be a disaster. Some good roadmaps have been put forward on how LL could reign in the worst habits among content creators, again without disrupting the average SL user's enjoyment of the platform, avoiding the worst case scenarios people have raised concerns about. And it's been demonstrated in-world that it doesn't take a whole lot to see some shocking levels of improvement. Content creators don't have to be held to strict levels of professional quality optimization, they just need to be guided away from the worst habits. Sure, a lot of what LL should have done in the beginning, they can't do now, and to achieve what they should do they now have to take the long way around, but there is still plenty they could, and should, do. HARD disagree here. Correcting people on their misconceptions about content creation, what causes lag, etcetera will not cost them any users. Not a single one. And, in fact, I'd argue it's even more to their benefit to be up front and proactive about correcting these misconceptions precisely because they now have to take a longer, more careful approach to reigning in the lack of optimization we currently see. They should be chiming in on threads like these, just to drop in a point of fact now and then. Patch should have an official content creation blog, sharing best tips, explaining how to create better content, and showing how to get the most out of the tools LL provides. A big part of why the myths and misconceptions are so prevalent is due to LL's silence outside of office hour meetings that very few SL users attend or watch. There is absolutely no benefit in LL catering to it. It's also worth noting that LL has stated, multiple times, that changes are coming to LI calculations to make them more effective. If LL wants that change to go smoothly, they need to start educating people now, long before any such changes go into effect.

Are you sure you're not confusing the lag and unoptimized content with some positive aspect of SL you might believe those drawbacks are intrinsically a part of? Remember, these problems are not some unavoidable consequence of creative freedom or the freedom every SL user has to personalize their appearance or build on their own land or any other positive part of SL you might be attributing them to. You can have all that without the lag, low FPS, etc.

It doesn't get more clear than that. You claim the accusations of straw man arguments are untrue. All you had to do to prove was find any post that proves anyone made those arguments and quote it. But you knew that. And you knew you couldn't. Instead you did exactly what I said you'd do. Ignore that direct challenge and try to change the subject. Troll it is.

The difference is, your choices affect everyone else, every day. If LL reigned in unoptimized content in the ways that have been suggested in this thread, then if you were effected at all it would be minimal and short lived. Every fear you've brought up is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts. Your problem is you only see the extremes. Total anarchy or overwhelming restrictions. There's a huge gap inbetween that you're ignoring. A few reasonable restrictions that wouldn't affect the average SL user at all (beyond the higher FPS and less lag they would eventually enjoy) would make a world of difference. And you'll note that it's not only restrictions that are being suggested, also better tools and features. And let's look at this from a practical standpoint: SL is lacking features that cannot currently be implemented due to the existing performance issues brought on by the complete lack of optimization in most SL content. Here are some of the things you are trying to prevent every SL user from having with your arguments: Larger texture size options More people able to run SL with ALM and shadows More people able to run SL, period. People able to enjoy SL with more advanced graphics features like motion blur, volumetric lighting/godrays, etc VR in SL (a big part of why LL eventually gave up on this was their inability to get reasonable FPS in SL in VR mode) fully featured SL on mobile devices If people were smarter about optimization you probably could have more LI for your land Less lag faster rez times More avatars in a sim with less of a performance hit Being able to render every avatar, avatars that look just as good if not better than the best SL has to offer right now, with no jelly dolls and no performance hit. You are against all of that. You might not realize it, but this is precisely what your arguments are against. It looks like you've already been called out on this, but shame on you. Shame. You know you are fabricating an argument no one has made. We've all been clear in how much better SL can look if people optimize. It is precisely your "no rules" ideas of content creation that hold SL back in the graphics department. A straw man argument is when someone refutes an argument that no one made, trying to make it look like they have a point when in fact they have not addressed anyone else's arguments. Like steeljane42 refuting the idea that SL should be held to mid 2000's hardware requirements, when absolutely no one has made that argument. Or you pretending I thought one texture used on multiple faces uses more memory when I never said any such thing. These are easily pointed out for the falsehoods they are. If you disagree, quote an example where I claim one texture uses more memory when used on multiple faces. I can link you to an example where I say the exact opposite in this very thread. So, Fineline, go ahead and quote any statements Kyrah or I have made that show these examples aren't the straw men we claim them to be. Oh and still waiting for you to address the post where I offered you a chance to make a coherent argument. With all of these direct challenges to your "arguments" that you keep failing to counter, it's beginning to look like you're not even trying to make a coherent argument. I'm thinking that you're just trolling. You know you're talking nonsense. Prove me wrong. I've given you a way to do it. Any example of me claiming one texture used on multiple faces uses more memory Any example where Kyrah (or anyone else for that matter) has claimed SL should be restricted to mid 2000's graphics standards. But we all know you're just going to say some unrelated nonsense and pretend it's an argument. Just like every other post you've made.

In this example you give, yes, using multiple faces to display different colour variants of the same texture is an issue, but not a terribly bad one as long as you don't get too excessive with it and the textures themselves are well optimized. As I've repeatedly said, I'm not expecting SL content to be up to professional game artist standards. I just think LL should do what they can to curb the worst habits. But you haven't answered any of my questions, or addressed the example I gave. You claimed that content creators who know how to work with mesh creation tools will not know how to work with mesh creation tools if any restrictions, whatsoever, are placed on content resource use. You've yet to explain any reasoning behind this. We're waiting. No one claimed any such thing. You're creating yet another straw man. I gave you an example you could use to explain your argument about how any sort of optimization is too much for mesh content creators. You have yet to offer any reasoning. Where is your argument? You keep telling all of us that know what we're talking about that we're "wrong" but have yet to offer a single explanation as to why that wasn't a straw man like this. We've explained our points in detail. All you've done in return is offer baseless accusations, straw men, and nonsensical rants, laced with petty insults and hyperbole, and repeating the same, tired old lines that have been debunked every single time. Even when given a specific example directly to the point of your argument you could not respond with a rational point to explain yourself, instead trying to change the subject. We are still waiting for you to give us anything resembling a coherent argument to back up your claims.

I've literally seen content in SL where the creator used a bunch of identical but separate textures across a model. Where you could take just one of those textures, use it in place of all the others, and cut like 100MB from the item's memory use. Fionapplebum: Are you saying that the people who made those mesh models are unable to look at those textures and see that they're identical? Or are you saying that they know how to apply all of those textures to all of the difference faces, but would be paralyzed with confusion if challenged to apply just one texture to all of those faces?

You are now claiming that content creators who already create mesh content don't know how to create mesh content and so will be pushed out of SL. You are arguing that they don't know how to use the tools that they know how to use. That is what you are saying. This is what you have been reduced to. Fine. Here is a mockup of an unoptimized use of textures in SL: All of that black space is unused on the mesh object. Now, in Blender when you UV unwrap a mesh, you can grab the visible area and resize it, so it would take up the entire texture, then make the texture itself smaller so that the visible area is the same exact size, but the file is much, much smaller. To texture the model in the first place one needs to know how to create that UV map. So they already know everything they need to know to get rid of the unused space. They just don't because they don't know why it's important to do that. Alternately, to give an object multiple faces (ie: using different textures) actually requires more work than simply using a single face with one texture wrapped around the entire object as you have to create the additional faces and texture them separately. So, using the exact same skills described above one could simply place all of the details of the object into a single texture, like so: The only additional skills one might possibly need to learn is that they can select those texture faces and move them around the map. That's not hard to learn. If you already know how to select and move around pieces of a mesh model in Blender, then you know how to do the same in the UV window. That's only if they simply let the software do the unwrapping automatically. Beyond that, all one needs to know is that they should be conserving memory by using fewer/smaller textures. How to do that without losing detail becomes obvious. There's all that empty space in the texture, use it by combining them! No detail lost, much more efficient model. One texture instead of a dozen. Higher framerates for everyone and it loads much faster to boot! In other cases, one will need to know where they can sacrifice detail in ways that no one will notice, because the detail is hidden or too small to see anyway. All one needs to learn is a bit of judgement. There is some skill involved, but nothing really beyond what the creator already knows. You, without any explanation, are claiming all of the above is incorrect. I'm not certain if you are claiming that a need for optimization would suddenly cause content creators to spontaneously experience amnesia, or if you're implying there are secret steps, that only those chosen few in the cabal of optimization conspiracists you imagine us to be, hold the secret knowledge to unlocking. So, enlighten us. I've given you an example to work with. Explain where the additional excess of difficulty that will cause the doom of SL comes from. This is your chance to show that you are not completely making things up as you go along!

You're absolutely right. You don't know. If you read a little more carefully, the suggestions of a hard cap on complexity are paired with suggestions on how to do this without the disruption you're worried about. I'm not going to repeat it yet again, it's all right here in the thread. Once again, for those who have trouble keeping up: IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CREATE CONTENT, YOU HAVE ALL THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO OPTIMIZE THAT CONTENT. The only "content creators" who would be negatively affected by the types of limits being suggested are those who don't actually create the content they sell. The ones who rip, steal or purchase ready made 3D assets and then pawn them off in SL as their own work. THAT is who you're going to bat for here. Those who actually make content, whether if it's a business to them or just for fun, will be fine. Have you never looked outside the tiny bubble that is the SL userbase and seen what everyone else says about SL? Have you never talked to anyone who wouldn't give SL a chance? Or anyone who did try SL but wound up leaving it behind? If you truly believe that SL's poor performance and excessive hardware requirements to run at higher graphics settings have had no impact on it's ability to draw in and retain new users, you're beyond hopeless. And let's be absolutely clear, take a look at all of the arguments made against optimization. How many of them include statements like "I think SL is just fine" or "If you want higher framerates then you're acting entitled". These arguments can be boiled down to them saying "Your experience doesn't matter, I should be able to do whatever I want regardless of how it affects everyone else."

It's been explained multiple times how this couldn't be further from the truth. Any suggestion of resource caps has been paired with an understanding that such caps cannot be implemented in such a way that they disrupt the userbase in the ways you describe. It has been demonstrated time and again that requiring optimization would not prevent any current content creators from continuing to create content. If you know how to make content, then you have all the skills you need to optimize that content. But you're not entitled to make up your own fiction and present it as fact.

No, you're absolutely right. I was just thinking that LL needed an Art Director for other reasons (SL's presentation is atrocious) and that someone with that experience could also help give them perspective on the tools and other SL issues. But LL falls so far short of what they should be doing, in terms of hiring as well as development. I suppose what they really need is a someone who realizes they're game studio and starts asking "Hey, why are we lacking all these typical game studio positions?" and who knows enough about SL's shortcomings to fire the first person to say "SL is not a game!" or "We make the tools, not the content!" Because they also seriously need the people to develop proper new user sims and experiences, and develop tutorials for various aspects of SL. At the same time I realize, in LL's mind at least, SL is on its way out, but they also need to fill these positions for any future products similar to SL, including Sansar or they're going to run into many of the same exact problems.

Point proven. What worries me is that, if no one at the Lab completely understands this topic, then it's entirely possible that they read this forum and see well reasoned thoughts from seasoned professionals and others with at least some grasp on realtime 3D rendering and content creation, people who understand how badly made content affects the entire SL experience for everyone and yet also understand that you can't simply remove years and years of content or start dropping in restrictive caps willy-nilly or it will blow up in your face, offering alternatives and suggestions meant to bring the best result with the least disruption with a long term view in mind nonsensical rants like the example Fionalein helpfully provides, people who either can't or won't understand the issues or the statements other people are making and just immediately assume the worst and can't distinguish between the two.

Try again, like an adult.

What strikes me is that all of this is obvious to anyone with any 3D design experience outside of SL. Whether you're a student, professional, or a hobbyist that has been involved in game modding. I'm not sure LL has anyone like that on staff, not that they let anywhere near development of the platform at least. It's people like Oz and Vir who make decisions regarding content creation tools, Land Impact calculations, etcetera. And while they may be skilled in their area of expertise, they obviously don't know squat about the content creation side of things, leaving SL development entirely blind to entirely obvious issues like this and how to deal with them. LL needs an Art Director. Someone who can tell the software engineers how to deal with these problems, and when they say something needs to be done it is taken as gospel. Not tossed on some back burner until it's forgotten, or dismissed out of hand because Oz or whoever doesn't understand why it's important or see the problems they're causing by ignoring it.

I guess my comment wasn't so unfair afterall. Oz just dismissed the bumped Jira out of hand.

I wonder if anyone who has to deal with VAT could chime in on this?

If Premium subscription is subject to VAT, and I believe it is, then according to these percentages, even in the countries with the lowest VAT added in, that's an additional $13 per account per year. Or, between about $1 up to $4.50 more per month. Again, Kanry, you should have lead with this, it's a really good point! Still, while that certainly reduces the savings I'm talking about, it doesn't eliminate them entirely. You're still saving between about $7 to $3.50 a month, which works out to $84 to $54 a year. Love brings up a good point about the exchange rate, which could potentially further reduce the savings (or increase them, if your exchange rate is in your favour). These are all important details to keep in mind.

That is a thing I did not know. Why didn't you lead with this? Ok, so without knowing exactly how much in taxes are added to your Premium subscription I do not know how much the math is affected. If the amount in tax is greater than the savings, then of course estate land would be cheaper. If the tax is less than the savings, then it is still possible to get mainland for cheaper, just not as much so as without the tax. So, do the taxes exceed more than $8/mo when applied to a yearly subscription?

The above is from my first response. Again acknowledging the higher up front fee in my second response to you. And again. There is a higher up front cost, both on the Premium accounts (which you can spread out if you don't want need all the land all at once) and for the initial purchase cost of the mainland parcels (which, again, can be spread out. Though this can be more difficult and requires more patience.) I've acknowledged this since the beginning. https://secondlife.com/premium/ The price of $72 for an annual membership is listed at the bottom of the page. You're absolutely right! I forgot all about that. However, don't you also pay those surcharges and taxes when purchasing the L$ you use both to pay for your land and your spending money? If there's some loophole here, please share it and I will amend my statements going forward. Anyone can use these features to enjoy the same savings that I continue to enjoy no matter how hard you believe it's not possible! Even you! It's just that most aren't aware of them, something I pointed out in my very first post to this thread.

And no matter how many times Solar hits the guffaw button, I'm still saving money! Funny how that works!