Kwakkelde Kwak

What do you mean by "place the uv map in 2d" ? If you mean "is your geometry with a specific ID unwrapped automatically", the answer is no. All this does is allow you to select one ID, the unwrapping you still need to do afterwards. You can select the individual polygons(, verts or edges) in your viewport, or you can drag a box around everything in the UV editor. That will select only the polygons with the material ID selected in the box in my first picture. Ctrl-A doesn't work, that will select everything.

Shoe shapes deform your feet and raise the avatar a little. When you use flat shoes the deformation is marginal at most, with high heels the deformation is very obvious. When the deformation is small, the (flat) shoe will cover your entire foot, with a high heel your feet will stick out of your shoe as you noticed. Pretty much all shoe merchants offer an alpha mask to use with their items. Those will make your feet invisible. In the past so-called invisiprims were used, but with the currents viewers they look like big blobs on your feet.

exactly

You can do two things. You can build your objects with a single ID first, UV map them individually, then attach all objects. Or you can take the complete model with all materials and ID's applied and UV map each ID seperately. To select one ID out of your five, use the button highlighted in the picture below. To make your life easier, name your ID's like highlighted below, they will then show in the Edit UVW window.

Icarus Lytton wrote: I also did quite a few tests with my friend and we found out the following: It's not about how complex the mesh is. It's a problem with how it caches it. I spawned about (and I'm not kidding) 500 mesh items with each item having over 30k polygons. that's 15 million polygons and I got 45fps I'd say this would indicate it IS a polygon issue, assuming you rezzed 500 duplicate items. If LL isn't completely insane, the raw data is only read from cache once for the 30k object, not 500 times. The full 15M polygons do have to be rendered of course. For prims or sculpts, which use a different format before they reach your graphics card (or even a few steps before, I don't exactly know how that works), the data would also be read once. Compared to the render time, the converting time from either "prim text", "sculpt colour" or "mesh text" to geometry should be very short. After the converting the data should be a bunch of vertices, faces etc for all objects. It would be interesting if you could expand your test, as it's not very complete yet. Without a good comparison with prims and sculpts, nothing can be concluded other than "this set of mesh items lowers my fps this much". - Try the same with prims, 15M polys is possible. I managed to get a deformed torus to 19.758 triangles on the highest LoD, so 759 of them would add up to 15M. Settings are: Path Cut 0.000-1.000 Hollow 95.0 Hollow shape Square Twist 360/-360 Profile Cut 0.020-1.000 Revolutions 4 - Try the same with sculpties, 15M triangles translates into 7324 of them. One thing to keep in mind, as has been said, is the LoD. You can see how many triangles are actually processed through the development menu. Develop -> Show Info -> Show render info. With nothing selected you will see the number of (K)tris three lines from the bottom. If you select an object, you can see the individual number of (K)tris. Also keep in mind that opening this console will lower your fps drastically, I estimate it about halves the fps. They will go back up as soon as you close the console. I didn't try, but I think if you set your RenderVolumeLoDFactor to 4 (or maybe a bit higher?), you'll only see the highest LoD.

Eh yes didn't I suggest SLAV? You should be able to download your own avatar and import it into 3ds max.

Isn't that what the commercial version of SLAV does? You might want to look at that.

RangiUtu wrote: A secret you'll never hear on this forum or any other forum inhabited by "creators" and those who bring it up are generally ganged by the mob and shut down. MESH LAGS. And yes it can nearly freeze you if you're close to it with an older PC especially. Mesh aircraft..you know the ones uploaded fropm turbosquid and resold here as original work... (not all mind you but at least one "popular" jet builder has been caught at it) with rotating mesh blades are the worst. If you don't know what mesh is, it would be the right thing to do not to comment. You are misinforming a lot of people here. Every object you see on your screen in SL is mesh as far as your graphics card is concerned. That includes a legacy (prim) box and that includes sculpties. And it of course includes "mesh". So if you say mesh lags then you are saying all objects in SL lag. You're kind of right if you say that, but your fps won't drop more from a 2048 faced mesh than from a sculpty. The problem with some "mesh" items is people uploading models ment for single frame or movie renders, not real time renders. Another problem is some builders are focussing on landimpact rather than common sense let alone some responsible behaviour. Make a model that is insanely detailed and the LI is too high. Oh wait, we can set LoD med, low and lowest to 3 verts and 1 face. Oh it looks distorted now, let's advice people to dial up the RenderVolumeLoDFactor. That is not the way to do it but is unfortunately the way many residents think and work. So this is where you need to look for "lag". Not the "system", but the user. Not mesh, but the creator. It doesn't take a lot of efford to lag any sim using a handful of prims, sculpties OR mesh. I rebuilt a good part of my sim in mesh and the polycount on the objects done is in the region of 10-100 times smaller than the old prim/sculpt mix. Performance obviously went up, not down. Unless you desire some odd shape that only LLMesh can provide, then try using legacy prims/scuplts since everyone can see those. Many can not even see mesh still because the mesh viewer LAGS and not everyone is wealthy enough to go buy a new computer everytime the mob here tells them to. This goes double for clothing. If you want to be seen by everyone in SL, instead of as a half-naked blob by many, the wear legacy prims. Mesh looks no better than any other clothing or build. You don't need to be wealthy, my SL business partner uses a Pentium 4 and reasonable graphics settings and gets about 20 fps on our sim. Pricerange of that setup? I don't know...fifty bucks if you can find such an old computer? Ever tried to rig prims or sculpties? That's the big visual difference mesh brings. If you compare non rigged clothing, it's mainly the performance that benefits from mesh, as long as it is built right. My best advice would be to look at demo models before you buy any mesh item. Then again I'd advice the same for prim and sculpt builds. It..is...not...."better".......except for the "builder" (Uploader). Please explain.

Did you use the highest level of detail as your physics shape? In that case I don't know why a piece doesn't work, it's one object right? I'd advice to build a custom physics shape though and include that in your upload, something as basic as possible.

Did you change the physics shape from "convex hull" to "prim" after upload? SL uses the hull by default for some obscure reason.

Ciaran Laval wrote: The reason I was using Mesh was to try and avoid having faces that wouldn't show, so inside edges aren't required when another prim will be against them, but in terms of checking resources, it doesn't seem to make much difference when I make comparisons. The only fair comparison would be a sim full of the objects you are trying to compare. That is if you mean all real resources rather than the numbers SL shows you for the different weights. The weights are just an estimation, some common sense will probably do a far better job than the automated process. About the other remark, the physics engine might like boxes, but linking a box to a mesh as physical shape sounds just plain clumsy to me. Anyway, the simple fact you are thinking about all these things makes me believe you'll do a more responsible job than the average builder here in SL.

I use these: CameraOffsetRearview (-2.000 , 0.000 , -0.350) FocusOffsetRearview (1.000 , 0.000 , 0.200) No "over the shoulder" which I find very annoying when walking around. The horizon is at eyelevel by default. The camera drops slightly as I zoom out with the scroll wheel.

If I understand correctly, the object in SL is one mesh object, not a linkset, so by definition the "different parts" have the same texture and colour. What I think is going on is the smoothing groups being setup incorrectly. It looks like the edge between column and top of the base isn't sharp. Since you used some shininess, the effect is very visible.

Rahkis Andel wrote: Clearly the basic SL prim square is unforgivably dense for it's purposes as a visible object, so stick to mesh for everything except physics shapes. If you need a simple physics shape, choose the simplest prim object that suits the shape you need. If you need a complex one, use a mesh physics shape that is as optimal as possible while still retaining enough shape to satisfy it's purpose. I would even advice to use mesh for pretty much all simple physics shapes. I'm not 100% sure how the physics engine calculates a prim's shape, but I can't imagine a prim box is easier on the engine than one or two planes . A ground floor can be two triangles. Depending on its thickness, other floors can be either two or four triangles. Just make sure you don't analyze on upload, the resulting convex hull won't be usable for rezzing objects on, at least as far as I've experienced. Adding a prim as physical shape means it is there, simple as that. That means the viewer will have to render it, even if it's invisible. I do remember reading something about a change in the rendering process where objects set to 100% alpha won't be rendered, but I don't know if it is implemented yet or will be implemented at all. Also, adding a seperate physical object means you'll run into issues when scaling your objects.

Ciaran Laval wrote: Obviously I don't want to cause chaos by being wasteful with resources! In that case, you might want to forget on focussing on the highest weight. You might also want to forget about prims altogether. There's more to the weights than just the landimpact. A simple prim box in SL has 108 triangular faces (on the highest LoD), since it has 3x3 squares on all 6 sides. A box shouldn't have more than 6 squares (12 faces), one on each side. This is unless you want to divide one side into multiple textures, but then a prim won't work either. 108 faces might not sound like a lot, but it's almost 10 times more than needed. If you use a lot of boxes on a sim, let's say 5000, you can understand all the useless faces taking up rendertime, causing viewer side lag. The 12 : 108 faces (11%) could even be lower if you remove faces inside walls, on the bottom of objects, anywhere you do not see them. In all cases I encountered, the mesh object was superior in all weights over prims, often by a factor 10 or more. I would only use prims in situations where you need the extrusion or other mods not available for mesh. Something like a scripted bottle that you can fill or empty by changing the height of extrusion or taking a piece out of a pie by setting the cut to a certain amount is not possible with mesh objects. One other thing, regarding the physics cost. Like the visible geometry, the rule should be "if you don't need it, don't use it". So small objects which won't be used for collisions can be set to "None" for a physics shape. This will result in a physics weight of zero because the object will be excluded in the physics calculation by the server (for that particular object in the linkset). It can't be used for the root prim and there's a small risk, since people might unlink (making the linked object a root) or fiddle with the physics settings after buying them.

perfectslam wrote: You may change an object's permissions to modify and copy but it may not always take even though the viewer says those permissions were now set. I always give my items to either an alt or friend I can trust before putting it on sale. This way you don't only prevent your issue, but it also prevents the far more "dangerous" situation where you hand out scripts or other content, which took days, weeks or months to make, with full permissions by mistake.

Did you look at the SL log? it might contain some info why you crashed. It should be here: /Users/[YOUR USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/logs Do you monitor the temperatures of the graphics chip? Different people have been experiencing higher fps lately, higher fps means a warmer gpu. I'd expect your entire Macbook to crash if it overheats, not just the viewer, but who knows...

As I said, they were the only numbers I could find, well apart from the benchmarks, but those aren't exactly reliable either. One card being faster than the other doesn't automatically mean it meets the same standards on every little detail. So you can't say if one card meets the minimum requirements, all cards that are "faster" will as well. I didn't take the 6600 as a reference without a reason. Anyone who wants to dwell in a 3d environment should be willing to at least invest in some 3d capable hardware. That doesn't have to be top of the line of course, but an onboard like the HD4000 is on the low end and that I would call an understatement. Yes you'll be able to run a viewer, but that's it. You probably won't be able to run any other progams, visit busy sims without terrible lag or use some of the higher settings. Anyway, the problem was texture glitches after a driver update:) I hope the OP fixed that by now.

I was going by the lowest dedicated desktop card, the 6600. The graphics chipset for the 945, the GMA950, although older than the HD4000, is not all that slow in comparison. A couple of numbers: Clock speed 400 vs 650 MHz Buswidth 256 vs 128 bit Bandwidth 10.3 vs 21.3 GB/s Pixelfillrate 1.6 vs 1.3 GPixels/s Texturefillrate 1.6 vs 1.3 GTexels/s That's about everything I can find. I never said the HD4000 won't meet the minimum requirements btw, I said going by the benchmarks it doesn't. That might have been a bit confusing and since I took the 6600 as a reference maybe not even accurate.... People use the HD4000 for SL so that proves it works. Don't expect any real performance though. The ping times are determined by your internet connection.

I guess you just got me confused You are right, of course the sin cos or tan of something is an actual number, but the "something" isn't, since it by definition includes pi....

Drongle McMahon wrote: By the way, in Kwaks's diagram, DE is AB/(2*sin(pi/8)), approximately 1.2071*AB. I'd say it's (1/2 + 1/SQRT 2)*AB, but that's the same 1.2071 etc EDIT..ok you got me confused.... I know there are other ways to calculate DE, but the AB/(2*sin(pi/8)) you mention does not equal 1.2071*AB. I wish it did, since if that was the case we'd have defined the number PI and we would get a noble prize.

xigaro wrote: I'm glad the new calculation system highlighted the needless impact I was having on the server with physics. I'm not 100% sure, but I do really think the physics weight is more a "potential" physics cost. Unless the server does pre-calculations on collisions, buried prims, or prims never collided with can have a real high physics number but still not add any actual load. Anyway, if objects aren't ment to be collided with, I'd always set the shape to "none".

Shrouded Kytori wrote: .....plus having to upload various LODs is a waste of L$...... The better your LoDs are, the less it will cost you, so adding LoDs should save you money over the SL uploader automated LoD calculations. Your upload shouldn't cost more than L$11 I reckon.

If I understand you correctly, you want to know the distance between C and D. You have the distance between A and B, so you can figure out D to E (the 1:1: SQRT2 thing). C to E you determine yourself, it can be anything. So what is left is a simple pythagoras. Or if you want to use a fixed angle for the roof (between DE and CD), use a tangent formula. The fact you want to work in prims means you have to factor in the thickness of your objects also. You could make a longer formula, use a spreadsheet or if you do it the "builders way", you can dimple your prims so the pivot is on the outer plane. Even easier would be to build it in mesh then add some thickness. No need for any calculations at all then, but also no way to edit a whole lot by script.

Ah I wasn't aware of that. I don't think I'll ever hit that limit on any object. One million tris for an entire visible scene means 6 objects making up that scene:) I wonder what the landimpact would be on one of those objects. Bug or not, if it was up to me I'd keep the limit and even lower it.