#SL Content/Mesh News Week 7

In the Content and Mesh User Group some interesting things came up today.

Transparent Mesh

If a mesh object is transparent should that change its Land Impact cost? Should it even render? If it doesn’t render, doesn’t it use fewer resources? It seems the Lindens are looking at this special case and considering how to implement such a change.

Content-Mesh Meeting

Runitai says the code to NOT render 100% transparent objects is in the pipeline. The release of the code has been delayed because it broke highlight transparent. (SH-2963)

Dropping Mesh Things

If you have a mesh attachment, you cannot drop it as you would a prim or sculpty attachment. Mesh objects rigged or not, detach back into inventory.

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#SL Mesh Deformer Update

Qarl put out new Mesh Deformer code yesterday (2/13) about 3 PM. This release should handle the crumpling problem better. We will know as soon as someone gets the code into a viewer where we can use it. To see the crumpling problem see: #SL Bare Feet.

#SL Content/Mesh Creation Week 6

Mesh Physics – A question was asked about creating efficient physics for mesh houses. I’ve seen people having problems getting mesh objects they think are more efficient polygon-wise to actually produce less Land Impact (LI) cost. A few ideas came out in the discussion.

Runatai Linden Avatar - Way Cute

Nyx Linden says from Havok’s perspective, the physics engine, the simplest physics volume is a box. If you want to specify your own mesh, each triangle in the mesh is roughly as complex [physics-wise] to compute as a box. Ultimately using prims as physics shapes shouldn’t necessarily be problematic, though having a custom mesh can be better under certain circumstances.

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#SL Bare Feet

SL Mesh Feet
Mesh Feet w/Deformer On

I was asked to help a person get some bare feet working with their Xcite Feet. The person was about 6 months old. First we had to get past lots of confusion. She had ideas about what Xcite was going to do and what bare feet are. The problems I ran into trying to get things sorted out show several reasons people probably give up on Second Life. Whatever that case is, I learned a lot about bare feet, which is what this article is about.

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Status Update Mesh Deformer

Qarl posted a new video on his blog to update us on the Mesh Deformer. Qarl says thanks for your support. He points out that he does not have the time to answer everyone’s questions on all the forums he reads. He has noticed several problems with the Deformer being discussed and provided in the feedback.

Body Poking Through

All the cases he has seen these are problems of having used the wrong beginning avatar. If one designed over size clothes for an over sized avatar, then the deformer will make the clothes twice as big. The same problem happens going the other way toward tiny avatars, but twice as small.

Deformer Complcations

Base Avatar

The base avatar to use is the one you get when you create a new default female shape. Domino and Gaia both provide copies of that avatar.

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#SL Content-Mesh Creation News Wk4

Content/Mesh Meeting

Shape Height Slider

For humans we have a pretty nice set if shape editing tools. However, when we start making non-human avatars the values we can set with the shape sliders falls short of what we need. A JIRA is being opened to request an extended range of values. Basically, taller and fatter avatars will be possible if the feature is added.

Since this is likely an easy programming change, I would expect it to happen. If there is any interst, then it might happen quickly.

I can’t find the JIRA they were going to make for this, so I can’t link you to it. I suspect they have not gotten to it as I write this.

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