Category Archives: Mesh

Mesh Deformer Update 2013-9

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Last week on the Metareality podcast there was some discussion about the Mesh Deformer. I was annoyed because of the lack of information Lexi Zelin of AngelRED Couture had. Since she is building Deformable Mesh Clothes, meaning clothes made for Karl’s Mesh Deformer, I am a bit pessimistic about ever getting Second Life™ users to understand what is happening. It seems if you are not reading Inara or my blog, you are basically clueless.

Open Source Meeting 2013-9

Open Source Meeting 2013-9

Lexi is talking about using the Deformer for months and not having a problem. OK… she is a designer, an artist… So, I can forgive her not thinking about what happens when we start something like a million people using Deformable Mesh verses her and her team and customers using it. I really don’t expect there to be problems. But, that is a BIG consideration for the Lab.

I know it is hard to think beyond ourselves when we are frustrated, but I think we could enjoy life more if we did.  Continue reading →

Second Life News 2013-9

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Server Side Avatar Baking – Nyx Linden gave us a bit of information about the results of the Thursday pile-on test at the Content & Mesh meeting today. The Linden goal was to collect data and that they did. The outcome is that when SSAB works, it works really well. But, it doesn’t always work.

Content & Mesh Meeting 2013-9

Content & Mesh Meeting 2013-9

The pile on test gave them new data on the known bugs and revealed a couple of new ones. Friday was spent analyzing the data. Now they are moving forward on fixing the problems. There will be another pile-on test, may be this week. But, we will have to wait and see how things go.  Continue reading →

Second Life Mesh – Double Materials

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With avatars we can have texture layers. A jacket is on top of shirt, which is on top of an undershirt, which is on top of the skin with a tattoo layer in there somewhere. But, we cannot do that with prims. We have one texture on one surface/face. At some point we will have normal and specular maps. Those are not really texture layers. Those are more like effects. I doubt this process will be affected by the Materials System. So, this offers some interesting possibilities.

Back in May 2012 Kitsune Shan posted this YouTube video showing textures layered over the same polygons in a mesh object.

[youtube kdYv0R6CG8s]

A couple of days ago Tommy Rampal asked in the SL forum, how did Kitsune do that? A discussion followed. See the thread: Assigning multiple materials to a polygon.

Continue reading →

Building w/Mesh in Second Life

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Penny Patton has a new article out on building with mesh. See: Mesh Content Creators, You’re Doing It Wrong! She is so subtle.

Penny has a region named Milk and Cream (Adult NSFW). She has been rebuilding this area and replacing sculpties and prims with mesh objects. She is finding the general FPS rate has in general increased from 15 to 30. Her prim cost (Land Impact Cost now) has been cut in half; allowing her to add more stuff. Plus mesh things can be much more detailed. When the Materials System goes live the amount of detail will increase enormously.

Penny has a thing about building to scale in Second Life. I’ve written about her articles several times. Her point is that if one builds to scale they can have more stuff in a region. Also having things properly scaled can reduce the Land Impact Cost. The LIC of mesh goes up as the scale is increased.

The main thrust of her article is about how people are scaling mesh objects up to work with the over sized avatars many SL users wear. That is significantly costing them additional tier and reducing the amount of content they can have in a region.

Check out the article and then visit Milk & Cream. See if Milk & Cream provides better performance than other areas of the same complexity.

RedPoly and Mesh Upload

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Redpoly has a new tutorial video out. It is for the people buying mesh clothing kits that plan to sell the clothes made from the kit. Check it out and then I’ll explain why the kits are sold in such a complex way.

[youtube epaA9AmD81w]

Creators making mesh clothes and uploading their model are shown as the creator in the objects’ properties in-world. But, if you buy a mesh kit, usually a mesh object and template files, the creator that uploaded the mesh object shows as the creator. This kit misnaming creates problems for everyone.

Continue reading →

Mesh Deformer 2013-5

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There is really no new news on this project. There is an updated Deformer Project Viewer. But the update is just blending all the other viewer changes into the Deformer Project. The Deformer has not changed, as best I can tell.

In the Metareality podcast this week Karl talked about lag from the Deformer and mesh clothes. Yes, there is lag caused by both. How much depends on how the mesh is made. Just as with other mesh objects we are finding out they can reduce lag compared to prims or increase it.

Mesh clothes are always going to increase an avatars polygon count. So, they will always add some lag. How much is dependent on how well the mesh is designed. Since there is little cost difference between poorly made and well made mesh clothes there is little incentive to make well made clothes, at least from a cost perspective.

Continue reading →

CCIIUG Informally Closed

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Content Creation Improvement Informal User Group (CCIIUG) is informally disbanded… or temporarily just not meeting. Geenz Spad was facilitating the meetings. When asked directly on Wednesday at the Open Source UG Geenz said, “Informally, for the time being. Sadly, not much was actually getting done there and sadly I don’t have as much time as I used to for the group.”

I’ve written about the group several times. Click CCIIUG in tags (to the right) to get a list of the articles.

This is a group that had excellent potential. Geenz is the primary doer in the Materials project. I am not clear on whether Geenz is bound by an NDA or his personal desire to get things finessed before going public. I think it is a combination. Without his being able or willing to talk about progress on the Materials System there is very little fresh meat for this group. Thus interest in it has died.  Continue reading →

Mesh Building 2013-3

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Drongle McMahon is into mesh and does lots of experimenting. When I see his posts in the SL Forum I usually check them out to see what he has to say. I learn a bunch. The more I learn the more I cut from the cost of my mesh objects. So, while this article may get geeky it can save you Lindens.

Second Life Mesh Physics Problem

Aquila Kytori’s Illustration of Drongle’s Experiment

Recently he has been seeing oddities in the physics model’s cost affect on items using prim type physics, which you may need to use for some objects like walls with doors. There is a thread titled: Triangle physics weight – Cautionary tales, episode 2.

His post points out some problems with physics models and how one of his went from a Land Impact (LI) of 7,671 to 0.5… why is worth knowing and understanding.  Continue reading →