That little baby girl grew up into the cutest DOLL… that is sort of what has happened with Second Life™ Jelly Babies. Earlier I wrote about the name Jelly Babies being trademarked. So, the Lab is not going to use that term for muted avatars. And I certainly am not going to call muted avatars muted avatars… ugh. That give no one an intuitive sense of what is being talked about.
JellyDoll and Fully Rendered Avatar.
I follow Mesh Body Addicts, a blog by LilDaria resident, Daria for short, which is all about mesh bodies and clothes. Love it. Daria is using the term JellyDolls in place of the trademarked Jelly Babies, which I like. So, we may have a new name for them.
Daria mentions my blog, thanks for that, in her article: Jellydolls are coming to SL… She gives a good explanation of the new feature found in the Quick Graphics viewer. She leaves out some of the details. I suspect because they are not yet working. Until everyone is using a viewer that is reporting whether you are rendering an avatar or not, the server can’t tell the person how many people are refusing to render them. So, she hasn’t seen that part of the feature at work.
I think one of the commenters missed the point. They were going to disable the feature because they wanted people to see them… no. Your setting is only about who you see, not who sees you.
Also, we don’t have control over what color JellyDoll we are. I’m not sure how the viewer decides which color to use for which JellyDoll. I think it is just an ordered list and colors are drawn from it as avatars are encountered. But, I expect a feature request for that choice. I doubt that will ever happen.
But, we have JellyDolls… They will be appearing on the main grid real soon now.
Just to give you an idea of how mesh is working for me, check this outfit that comes in at 53,652 in the Linden Quick Graphics Viewer 4.0.4.313948.
My 53k Outfit
- Slink AvEnhance Female High feet Base – 0.0k
- Slink Physique Alpha (for Default SL head) -0.6k
- Remover System Lashes *REDGRAVE* – 0.0k
- Eyelashes -35- Corner Pointed *REDGRAVE* – 0.4k
- Phoneix – Physics – 0.0k
- #Firestorm LSL Bridge v2.20 – ?k
- Eudora 3D Kiania Heels left – 7k
- Eudora 3D Kiania Heels right
- Izzie’s – *resize* Braid Bracelet brown right – 16k
- MINA Hair – Mientje (no materials) – 2.2k
- Nose Ring Silver – Bonia – 0.2k
- icielli – LOTUS Dress for Slink Physique – 1k
- Slink Avatar Enhancement Feet High Left V2.1 – 5k
- Slink Avatar Enhancement Feet High Right V2.1
- Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands V2.1 – L – Relaxed – 4k
- Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands V2.1 – R – Relaxed
- Slink Physique Mesh Body V2.8 – 7k
- Triquetra Earring left ear – 2.8k
- Triquetra Earring right ear
- Body Slink 150922 5-10 – Shape – 0k
- *YS & YS* Viola 01 Nude – Tone05 – ?k
- ++LALA Moon+ Bald Head – ?k
- Eyes – Dark Brown – ?k
I’ve listed the item description and where I can I’ve listed the ACI for that item. I rounded off so, it doesn’t add up. Also you’ll see some things that don’t make sense or have a ?k showing. For instance taking off the Slink Alpha Layer increases the ACI. Taking off… increases… seems backward. Without the alpha layer the viewer works harder to render what it was hiding, so the ACI goes up when the alpha is removed.
Then there is shape. There is some cost for a shape, but all shapes have to have a cost and the difference between shapes, if any, is minimal and we have no choice about wearing a shape. So, whether it is added in or not, I can’t tell and its not like I could do anything about it anyway.
Also, the physics layer has to have a cost. The viewer has to do extra work to bounce those boobies. But, adding or removing the Avatar Physics layer has no effect on the ACI value. From the days of the Mesh Deformer we know the additional physics behavior cost is small. So, it probably doesn’t matter.
Then there is the Firestorm Bridge. It is never rendered, but it is a scripted thing and causes the viewer some work, so it has a cost. But, I didn’t check to see if it has an ACI cost. And what would we do about it anyway?
So, this nice outfit has a really low ACI. Notice the color of the ACI numbers (I have Advanced->Performance->Show Avatar Complexity enabled). They start to turn yellow around 130k. Orangish around 250k and red a bit above that. I don’t know that these colors will be the final set or change points. Or that after a time they won’t change. But, I don’t see the values as restricting what we wear.
I did notice that this version of the viewer set ACI limit at ‘Unlimited’ by default. I changed mine to 150k and wondered why I wasn’t seeing JellyDolls. Jumping to a Linden landing hub, I saw lots of JellyDolls at that setting. So, the calculation process and the meaning of the ACI numbers seems to have changed. But, I did notice the ACI numbers I’ve started adding to my outfit names is still pretty much right on. So… I’m not sure whats up.
Right now the Firestorm and Linden ACI values are not the same. That really doesn’t matter right now. Bigger is worse and lower is better regardless which viewer you use or what the number is.
But, isn’t it interesting that my heaviest ACI item is a bracelet?
Jelly dolls, the big nightmare for secondlife. As long the give them different colors. it break the already not so good immersive feeling. The need to keep the jelly dolls at least one color, or your forced to turn the whole jelly doll functionality off.
Not happy with the jelly babies from day on.
OK. But, I like the performance improvement and the creative incentive for designers in SL to make clothing and avatar accessories render efficient. I’m not crazy about Jelly Dolls when it comes to taking pictures… But, the time I spend snapping pics is a small percentage of the time I’m in SL.
As someone who built boats for a long time in Second Life, it always annoyed the hell out of me that I was limited to 31 prims (in the old days), while I’d see people walking around with 500 prim shoes.
Has there been any discussion of the marketplace team adding a new field so clothes makers can show the ACI cost of an item?
Not that I know of. But, ACI does popup in a viewer message when you add an attachment to the Avatar. So, merchant’s may leave it off and rely on the demo to pop that info in the viewer.
This is a great point. Demo products often don’t show the full texture or same texture as the full priced item, and that makes a difference in ACI. I’d really love to see a marketplace field for this!
Nalates, thanks for all the hard work you do to keep us informed about all things SL. I am using Firestorm and just turned on Show Avatar Complexity. I see the complexity shows textured_and_downloaded as 31,454. It is displayed in orange. Is this the same as ACI and is it a good number?
Thanks,
StephanieMichelle
Thanks for the kind words.
Colors now run a smooth spectrum from green to red; green, green-green-yellow, yellow, yellow-orange… It gradually changes. add 1,000 ACI and the green goes a bit more yellow from green. I only see the color shifting out of green near 80k. Your seeing it at 31k surprises me. I wonder if colors depend on our graphics cards?
But, the values in Firestorm and Linden viewers are different and I suspect the colors even more so. I haven’t checked lately.
I personally think 31k is a very low ACI and indication of a minimal lag producer.
I believe the feature will be a minimal annoyance to most of us.
Singularity alpha already have that complexity display option but is only showing it on objects not on avatars and tbh hope it stays that way because there will always be lag this will not end it , only another shananigan LL made up that will break another 20 features
No one said and especially not the Lab that Jelly Dolls will end lag. If you have been reading the Jelly Dolls articles you should realize the point is to get designers to build more efficient mesh avatars and clothes. More efficient mesh will reduce lag.