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Download weight for sculpts


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Under the new LI calculation method a sculpt usually has download weight slightly higher than 2 but i've seen some considerably lower, some as low as 1.5. Does anybody know what makes the difference?

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Under new accounting, an unlinked sculpty has its download weight capped at 2. It's physics weigh is 1.8 and is independent of size*. So it shouldn't ever have LI less than 1.8, however small it is (except where it uses the old accounting, no normal of spec map, physics type Prim) when it will be 1. If it is linked to another prim and is not the root, then its physics shape can be set to None. In that case the download weight or the server weight will set the LI.

The "Prim" shape is actually a convex hull.

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

So it shouldn't ever have LI less than 1.8, however small it is

Yes, I know but...

Don't tell anybody but I managed to sneak into one of the most secret places in Second Life. I can't reveal it's location at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inner%20Harbor/61/34/25 but I found this there:

 



The linkset is made from six prims for the crates and shadows and six sculpts for the content. The land impact is listed as 12 since is uses the old accounting but look at the download weight, just 8.9. The six prims contributes 0.36 to this and that means each sculpt has a download weight less than 1.42 - low enough they would actually count a 1 LI with modern accounting if it wasn't for the physics weight.

 

And before somebody starts speculating in whether the Moles have some sercret weight reductin pills they feed their sculpts: no, they don't and besides, I have seen similar low weight sculpts by other builders too.

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Yes. Sculpty download weights are size-dependent, like mesh. Although capped, they can be a small as 1.3. Then they increase as they are stretched, but stop at 2.0. That can reduce their contribution to linksets, but they can never be less than 2 LI on their own because of the physics weight, as you say.

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

Yes. Sculpty download weights are size-dependent, like mesh. Although capped, they can be a small as 1.3.

That explains it then, thank you! Makes sense but I thought they had to be really small for that. The sculpted Kitteh heads at the sacret location are about 0.5 m cubes, I didn't know you got lower download weight as early as that. But I did some tests and sculpt download weight starts to drop as soon as you go below 2 m size. Sculpt suddenly became far more interesting as a building material. :)


Drongle McMahon wrote:

but they can never be less than 2 LI on their own because of the physics weight, as you say.

Yes and no. In a mixed linkset you'd usually want no phsyics for the sculpts anyway and that eliminates their physics weight completely.

On their own... Add an invisible root prim to a 1.4 DW no-physics sculpt and suddenly you can add all kinds of modern effects to it whilst keeping the LI down to 1.

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

Yes and no.

Hmm. I think you are stretching the meaning a bit there. I'd still call it a linkset even if one member is invisible.

Yes but an option for a 1 LI sculpt with a normal map it is, no matter what you call it. ;)

Of course, some people may question the sensibility of a system where you have to add extra data to reduce the calculated load...

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arton Rotaru wrote:

Count me in to those some people.


Sorry, way too many of them to count!

 

Btw, the reason I asked was that I've been making these 64x64 m single sculpt plant fields of different kinds. In theory that means I can cover a sim using only 16 prims. But the fields are so dense I just have to use alpha masking to keep the plants from beain eaten by alpha bugs. That doubles the prim count though and I hate to see all that LI go to waste. I had some hope there was a solution hidden in this but if it's all about size, I guess not.

Still some very interesting and informative replies here, I can see some real potential uses for sculpts I never thought of before. Thank you Arton and Drongle! ^_^

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These plant fields on alpha blending are one of the worst offenders performance wise IMO. These should be alpha masking anyway, not just because of the sorting glitches.

32 doesn't sound too bad for an entire region. Considering that the download weight is capped, which wasn't the case initially, you are still saving on land impact with them compared to mesh, or normal prims.

Though, I still have my old 2 sculpty trees set to alpha blending, :matte-motes-confused: although I know it's one of the worst things to do, having all this overdraw. So yeah, I hear ya. :matte-motes-whistle:

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