The Jellybaby Avatar problem - Penny Patton the the rescue

[ChinRey]

With all this talk about the new jellybaby feature, here is a blog post by Penny Patton - more than a year old but still very, very relevant:

http://pennycow.blogspot.no/2015/02/draw-weight.html

That first picture says more than a thousand words and the message is clear: getting a sensible avatar render weight and avoiding being "jellybabied" is not about how your avatar looks but how well it's put together.

I hope people still submit examples to The 80 000 Challenge thread here btw. Penny's got her really fancy avatar down even further since she posted that article on her blog. Can you match her achievement?

[Marianne Little]

There are a few things to comment here:

 

1. Time. How much will you sacrifice of your leisure time between work, sleep and other RL commitments? So you can try on all the content and mod it.
2. Frequent changes: Roleplayers does not swatch looks as often as common SL users. Correct me if I am wrong, but they keep the same look over a period of time, to fit the background and story. Changes to the avatar, like hair style, must be explained, So an user who is not committed to a role, changes hairstyles, tattoos and clothing several times a week. She has to repeat the game of numbers over and over.
3. Take off the functionality layers and you have to start with a new base avatar that you kept a copy of,  instead of using a HUD every time you want to change because you bought new lingerie.
4. Mod rights. Is it mod? How much of the great looking no mod stuff will you sacrifice?
5. Money. How can you replace "every prim"? (I can, because I am able to, and hate old stuff)
6. Textures: How do you get them? Legally? Ask every creator and get a "no"? Or rip them?
7. Make your own content? See pkt 1.

 

[Callum Meriman]

What Marriane says has a lot of validity. This is a problem that really needs to be solved by the creators.

And until it is, obnoxious scripts like that one at Fantasy Faire that threatened to kick you in 90 seconds unless you stripped naked need to be kept to a minimum.

 

Normal people can't (legally) take their mesh body and rip off the 2 or more onionskins - the clothing and tattoo layers, then take their skin texture into photoshop and apply the tattoo and clothing directly. Yes sure it is possible to do this if you use ripping tools, but the risk of a ban is pretty real.

Normal people also don't wish to sit down for 5 hours and meticulously retexture their hair (assuming it's mod) with non-blended-alpha 128x128 pixel, masked alpha textures.

Then you add all the rest, in my case Neko ears and tail which are no-mod and very low in other options.

I sit at 60K naked, no-mod on my body, on my ears, on my tail and on my hair. Impossible to optomise legally because the creators thought it better to "protect" their IP despite how trivial it is to rip most things, if you have no ethics.

Not much room for clothing. The only real optionals being jewellry and genitals (The Aeros Xerxes alone is 70K)

 

I've settled at 90-100K and fallen into the Meh camp. If someone on a 486 running XP can't see me, it's their problem not mine.

[Penny Patton]

 I do just want to mention that my article was meant to illustrate how content creators themselves could, and should, be reducing the draw weight of the content they sell and how doing so would not result in simplified, boring looking avatars as has always been the common belief.

 It's certainly understandable that most people don't have the necessary skills, or want to spend the kind of time and effort it takes to optimize their avatars.

 If you do like modding, I encourage you to give the tips and tricks demonstrated a try for yourself to get some of your favourite high-draw outfits rendering for everyone. If you're a content creator, I hope this article illustrates that you can easily reduce the draw weight of the content you're creating and selling, and even make the low-draw value a selling point when you put it in a vendor or on the marketplace.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Since the broader situation around Complexity has changed and it's now a mainstream concern, it might be time for a new, more mainstream-orientated version of that article.

The way I read it, Penny's article is about her experiments in what can be done to reduce rendering complexity and the main point is that it can be achieved without any loss of quality. I found the hows of it fascinating, but it seems some readers are getting lost in the details rather than seeing the bigger picture. (And to reiterate, the bigger picture is that quality can be maintained and even increased while significantly reducing rendering complexity.)

I think there's also the difficulty of consumers wanting simple solutions immediately (thus the popularity of turning it all off). A lot of them don't want to know how SL could have done it better, they just want to know how to get themselves sorted right now and carry on with whatever they're doing in SL. The simple solutions will take time to roll out, as they always do. Is there any point in suggesting patience?

I think an article like Penny's is valuable to the general public by showing what CAN be done, that it is possible to have a visually complicated, well made avatar with low rendering complexity. Consumers can take things forward by asking questions of their favourite creators, encouraging those who build inefficiently to improve their work, and sharing information on who is already doing it.

[Chic Aeon]

Since getting the new Firestorm a week or so ago I have been seeing the numbers flash on and off now and then. I wasn't sure what the "good number" to aim for was, but my numbers have all been WAY WAY below the 80,000 mark. 

So this morning I found where you can turn that purposefully on (Avatar > Avatar Health > Show Complexity Information) and found I was 38237. I have seen number closer to 50000 but nothing over that.

 

I have a Maitreya mesh body which I read is one of the highest in number, but still ---   Part of this is that I don't naturally like a lot of frills. I DO however like lots of details and I can still get those. Since I am a very active blogger, I am typically wearing outfits that are both new and very well made. And of course I don't need tails and long ears and other role play attachments.

 

So one things that folks can do is of course check their outfits and deal with any large offending items. The other is to turn on their complexity meter when they are shopping and trying out demos so that they don't buy items that are very heavy.

 

I remember LONG ago a set of jeans and tank top (who would worry about those?) that I tried to wear on the Realms. I was unable to TURN MY AVATAR quickly enough and the rock monsters got me lickety split. It didn't take me too long to figure out that mesh was WAY too heavy to be of practical use. It's good to have a guage now.

 

I noted this morning that my "jellybaby" guage was maxed out (I have a very high end card) so that I haven't seen any rainbow folks. I turned that down to 120 and we'll see what I see now. Will be interesting.

Thanks for nudging me to look into this more. I added my complexity number on the photo for the upcoming blog post. I think it will be good to check that and post the number on the blog so that readers will get a sense of what CAN bee done.

 



[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Chic, I didn't know you're a blogger but I have a lot of respect for your contributions on the forum. Your input on all of this will be invaluable. Photo and fashion bloggers will surely be a vital link in encouraging both consumers and creators to improve their practices. That picture and caption is speaking their language. :matte-motes-smile:

[Rhonda Huntress]

---

Bitsy Buccaneer wrote:

Chic, I didn't know you're a blogger but I have a lot of respect for your contributions on the forum. Your input on all of this will be invaluable. Photo and fashion bloggers will surely be a vital link in encouraging both consumers and creators to improve their practices. That picture and caption is speaking their language. :matte-motes-smile:

---

/me nods.

It is nice to see complexity listed in blogs and I hope to see more of that plus seeing it on MP ads.  (incoming plug)  My Clover Jinx has been putting ARC in her post ever since she started blogging for Free Style.  It is a handy bit of information to have.

[Talligurl]

i think a lot of it is just being aware, and the new feature that guves you your render wieght helps ith awareness. I just discovered I have a paro fo shows that adds over 120000 to the wieght, and they are not even that fantastic of shoes. 

[Chic Aeon]

This post got me thinking more and I was wondering how the numbers would be in Opensim (not there much these days but was there a LOT over the last couple of years). So I did a little "come as you are" test (no clothes changing) and this is what I came up with.

 

I "think" this more or less shows that mesh bodies (and heads for me) are not the main issue.  Old sculpt items are likely (just guessing) culprits to high numbers and especially old sculpt jewelry (which actually would crash sims in Opensim ).

 

So thought I would paste this in here for the conversation. Posted it on the Opensim Google group also.

 



[Conall DeCuir]

I have, on the photo below 58192 and go rarely above 64000 if i do not wear my *bleep*. In the case i want to do sexy time, i going up to 140k but it is worth.

 



[Conall DeCuir]

I wanted to add, that the maximum complexity will only be recognised by the masses if it is forced. I remember the times when it was suddenly a big thing to stay below 50 scripts in some roleplay sims. It was forced, we were ejected off sim if were to script heavy. We had to fight quite a while and to IM constantly to get the creators to install "delete scripts" buttons to their creations.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Was it RPers who brought that about? Thank you then.