Slink Developer Update is Out – Bento Hands

I like Slink and I’m playing with making clothes for my Slink Body, attached mesh and applier type clothes. So, I’ve been hoping this update would provide a bit better help for the applier clothes. Nope.

Slink Blender File May 2017

This kit is for those making mesh clothes.

I received an email letting me know: 

This kit has been updated as of 19th May 2017 to include the newest options as well as bento for hands.

Included in this .zip is everything you need to get started.

If you do not have the latest auto alpha and deluxe scripts for shoes please contact Slink Resident. If your customers are wearing deluxe feet you can put the appropriate script inside of your shoes so that they will automatically change to the required height, saving them time.

At this time, Bento for hands is only available in the blender files, Maya will be included once we have finalized them.

The email is telling me these are the Blender files with Bento hands. Seems that is what they are. But, the file name includes Maya in the name. I don’t know what is with that.

The email includes the link to this video: Slink New Mesh Kits Tutorial HD. I’ve mentioned it before: Second Life – Slink Update?

There are some changes in this update. Of course, the model has the Bento skeleton. It is delivered as an AvaStar version 2.0.30 file. The current AvaStar beta is 2.0.45. So, you will need to update the armature before using it. No problem getting from 2.0.30 to 2.0.45.

Slink Bento Hand May 2017

If you have to update older models or you are updating from AvaStar 1.7.4 – the current AvaStar retail release, see AvaStar Tutorial: Adding the Slink Model to AvaStar.

The new files have only either the male or female (HG & Phy) body. I like that. Makes a smaller file and there is less stuff in the OUTLINER to deal with.

The body is locked in place and unselectable by default. You can override those settings as they are just Blender settings. However, having them as delivered makes working with mesh clothes easier.

The big difference is having hands now weighted to the new Bento Hand bones. The first thing I notice about the hands is they each have about 23,000 polygons. The body has about 13,000 polygons. A foot has 745 polygons. So, one hand has more polygons than the body and both feet. The complete system avatar has a bit over 7,000 polygons.

However, the foot included in the Dev Kit is a stocking model and has no toes. Toes and toenails would push that count a bit higher.

There are two skirts that come with the model. One for Hourglass and one for Physique.

The UV maps are a mess. I suppose they did this as some type of copy protection. After all, they aren’t needed for making your own mesh clothes, which will have their own UV Maps.

Thinking about ACI, the classic avatar comes in at ACI 1,000+.  My nude Slink body, hands, and feet with no hair comes in at 19,000. That is a significant difference. However, consider. Most of my Classic outfits come in at over 100,000. Most of my Mesh outfits come in less than 100,000. So, even with a way higher body-polygon-count, my clothed mesh avatar has a lower ACI.

Actually, the 19,000 ACI is showing there isn’t a lot of sensitivity to increased polygon count. The Skink body is an onion skin style body, meaning there are copies of the body for skin, tats, underwear, and clothes layers. So, we are somewhere in the 100,000 polygon count.

My GTX 1060 theoretically can render 16 billion polygons per second. The sort of standard SL frame length is 22ms (1,000ms/45FPS = 22.2ms) in which my card should be able to render 355,555,555.6 polygons. So, if all this were just a matter of rendering polygons, we could render 3,555 mesh avatars before the viewer started slowing. We know we don’t even come close. But, this should make the point it isn’t so much “polygons” as it is the other stuff.

The Lindens are reviewing the calculations that generate the ACI values. I haven’t heard if they are considering changing Land Impact Cost (LIC) too. But, if not now soon. At least in some measure, LIC will be looked at because of the coming animated mesh. The Lindens will have to decide how to set its Land Impact Cost. They may take the opportunity to change LIC.

I’ll point out that in recent times restrictions from LIC have relaxed. So, LIC may not increase but decrease… and it certainly could increase. We just don’t know. As hardware has gotten more powerful, faster, the cost of rendering has come down. So, my hope is LIC comes down. It wasn’t that long ago we were given higher prim-counts per region/parcel.

I won’t be making 100,000 polygon skirts. But, I also won’t be fanatical about attaining the lowest possible poly count. It will be a goal.

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