Second Life Mesh Update Week 25

Mesh is being finalized for the main grid. So, not much new information is available. Costs are being refined, bugs are being stomped, and mesh uploads studied to better figure out what is a just cost for mesh. I’m seeing more information about mesh appearing in the forum. People are experimenting with mesh and figuring out how it works. The following is what was going on in this week’s meeting.

Some Mesh Avatars

Some Mesh Avatars

Bones

There is a desire by many to have avatar skeletons with adjustable proportions. Being able to adjust the bones size and rotation is part of being able to make custom avatars. We have been told that bone adjustments will not be part of the first mesh release. However, some have noticed the mesh previewer is handling and revealing bone information. I’ll suggest that indicates that Linden Lab is headed in that direction. Nyx tells us that feature is definitely NOT in the plans for first release.

Partial Avatars

When one is creating mesh clothing only information on part of the avatar is needed. Legs are not needed for a shirt. Most of the avatar is not needed for shoes. However, JIRA item CTS-590 points out the problem of partial avatar skeletons being blocked. You can’t currently upload them. That is being looked into and will likely change.

Script & Physical Affect on Cost

Scripts are somewhat a new development in the consideration of mesh cost. Scripts and physical objects place more load on a region. Those aspects of mesh are now part of the cost equation. Some people think this will make mesh too expensive and sculpties will continue to be dominant because of their low cost. In spite of being repeatedly told that costs will be adjusted the idea that mesh will be too expensive to use remains the speculation.

Known Bugs

There is a black screen problem with the Mesh Project Viewer when shadows are enabled. In some nVidia and ATI driver versions this is corrected by turning off anti-aliasing.

Linux versions are crashing. It has to do with the version of libxml2. Version 2.7.2 is supposed to have the problem fixed.

Temporary Rez Mesh

You may know that one way around the prim limits on a parcel is to use auto-rezzers and temporary prims. The question came up as to whether that could be done with mesh. The answer is yes, BUT… and this is a big BUT… they won’t be free like temporary prims are.

Temporary mesh will be charged against the region tier cost just as regular mesh would. Runitai says this is specifically to prevent use of auto-rezzers with mesh.

Avatar Render Cost

ARC will be upgraded to provide good values with mesh clothes. However, this change is unlikely to appear in viewer until after the mesh release.

Mesh Upload Settings

I’m fuzzy on this item. As I understand it, the mesh uploader builds a file that controls the actual upload. This is saved as an SLM file. It is not human readable. The idea has come up that this file could be generated by third party programs to assist in uploads. The Lindens are not against changing the SLM to XML. But, the change is a low priority for them.

The idea is also that upload settings could be reused.

Mesh Documentation

Some have asked for Mesh Documentation in laymen’s terms. Jeremy Linden is working on that documentation. I guess just for inconsistencies sake requests for documentation can be posted here: Mesh Documentation Requests. I have to wonder why the JIRA is abandoned with all its management tools for the chaos of the forum. But, don’t swim upstream put your requests in the thread.

Linden Priorities

Work is still focused on the framework for figuring Prim Equivalency or Resource Equivalency. The effort is to get the Build Tools and Viewer Tools to provide the same numbers. That requires viewer and server changes. The Mesh Prep release running in the Release Channel is part of that effort.

There is some cost tuning going on. Runitai Linden feels they are getting a better handle on costs and things are starting to work as they want.

Nyx says that they are considering how to better provide information on physics costs in the build dialog. Also they are considering what values to show in the mesh uploader.

How Residents Can Help

For those testing mesh and working to debug the viewer it is recommended to use the latest Mesh Project Viewer and to enable Debug GL (Develop -> Rendering -> Debug GL). You will probably crash more often with this setting enabled. But, the crash reports provide needed information to the Lindens.

Also, upload your mesh projects to ADITI. Leave them there. Bring problem mesh uploads to the Lindens’ attention by filing JIRA’s and including copies of the DAE file. You can secure the file uploads so only the Lindens can see them.

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