Reduceing Land Impact on Mesh Uploads in Second Life

I have been asked several times if I could give tips on what I exercise to reduce land impact when uploading my mesh. Equally a result, I figured I'd jot downwards a few tips and tricks I use when I want my mesh to await skillful, merely non bog down Second Life servers, cost me an arm and a leg to upload, also equally not look like something that comes from your worst nightmare. Please go on in mind, most of this tutorial covers all aspects of mesh cosmos that I could call up of, including just exporting a mesh out of Mesh Studio or your viewer and optimizing it in Blender.

This is a work in progress so please comport with me.

* Size DOES matter hither...it really does!

So when y'all upload a model you lot carefully and painstakingly created, you need to call up size matters. The bigger your model is, the more it is going to cost in land impact. While this is not necessarily true for all mesh, ie: you take a large wall but the LI is only 5 and a nice earring you made has a country impact of 15. What I exercise mean is that if you make that wall or earring bigger or smaller, it will change the LI for the servers .

Beneath is an example of a happy Holidays Sign I fabricated for my Christmas Snow Globe I give away:

Uploading this mesh costs the servers 6 in land impact merely when it is sized down:

The size is at present 1.5 meters and costs the servers vi in Land impact. I know this is basic and y'all probably all know this, only it is important to go along this in mind when you are uploading your meshes considering the detail and size of your mesh is going to influence the land impact. BUT there are ways we can upload y'all mesh and non simply keep the mesh'south details, but keep your mesh from going crazy in high land impact as you lot volition see later in this article.

* Proceed in mind the 4 degrees of Level of Detail or LOD

Retrieve you accept four levels of detail that you demand to consider when uploading your model. The first one is from your model's file that y'all are uploading, the second is medium, then depression followed by the lowest setting. These settings are important when yous consider how people are going to meet you lot mesh in-world.

This  is what a shelf looks similar without messing with the LOD the land impact is .529.  While this might not seem much, changing the the medium, low and lowest to this:

Y'all volition now go a land bear upon of .500.  The shelf alone will annals as 1 prim/LI, but when yous link it to another shelf in-earth, yous will get a lower state impact overall:

Unlinked:

Linked:

As you can run into, the shelves linked equal only one LI.  If we had kept the setting we had when we uploaded, we probably would have had 2 or more than.

Another though on uploading yous mesh and messing with the LOD aka Level of Detail, is when y'all upload, keep in listen how people will see your finished product.  For this project, nosotros don' demand to worry about people seein these shelves from a very far away, so the distortion at the lowest and low levels is not an result.  If you making a building however, you lot would want to play with the setting more than to get the proper balance between low distortion and low country impact.

* Remove all sides of your builds you don't see

When I build objects in 2d life, information technology is mainly because I want to make certain I have my dimensions perfect for my potential users. Nigh of the fourth dimension it would exist easier for most people to just build it in Blender and import into 2nd Life, but not me. I am a chip OCD in this respect so I merely utilize either Mesh Studio, PrimGenerator or only build so export out of my viewer.

When I save my items for export, I go to all edges that will not be seen and set them to 100% transparency like this:

I then export out of my viewer and make sure that transparent faces are skipped, like this:

That manner, when I go into blender I see this:

This style, I don't need to become in and delete hidden faces 1 past one in blender. All I need to do is join the mesh and exercise whatever I need to for finalizing my mesh.

If I take the fourth dimension I volition just model my mesh in Blender, that way I know I take gotten rid of all hidden and unwanted vertices and merely have a lean. Mean, well designed mesh for my users and customers.

* When you import into Blender, remove all double vertices.

I cannot stress this plenty. This will build you state count up faster than you lot can say "Bob's your uncle."

To practise this:

Go into Edit style and click on the "Tools" tab in the toolbar and go downwardly to the "Remove Doubles" button and click it:

Yous should and then come across your vertices and edges in the pinnacle of the Blender window decrease:

This can save you a lot of fourth dimension and effort besides as cutting downward on your land impact for your object. This is besides of import when using tools sucj as Mesh Stuio, Prim Generator, or the export from a viewer.

* If your take sculpties or a mesh that has to many polys, consider using a re-topology tool.

I will sometimes convert my sculpts to mesh or even have a mesh that just has way to many polys and I need to reduces them. CGcookie has a WONDERFUL re-topology tool that can be found here. This tin exist used for cylindrical objects and they will soon take polystrips to take care of the rest. What these tools do is to remake meshes such as your old sculpties and create new meshes with less vertices and more manageability. While these products come with a price tag ($35), you tin still employ the old standby and re-topologize your meshes by hand in Blender then by using the shrink-wrap modifier or Bsurface and another tools included in Blender. To see how it's done, there is a good tutorial here, although it is a bit old. (I might have to create a new tutorial on how to practise this in 2.73) :-)

* Use your Decimate modifier, it is your friend.

I employ the decimate modifier as often as I can. I will yet, warn yous to use information technology as your last step just before y'all are gear up to upload your model and also relieve a copy of your model before y'all use the modifier as it can sometimes break your mesh. Also, be enlightened that you will probably have to re-bake your ambient apoplexy map as decimate can besides pause this as well.

With that in mind here is how I use it:

When I am done with my mesh and I become fix to export information technology I click on the modifier button and add decimate:

 As you tin can see, the ratio right now is at 1.000, nosotros will want to lower information technology to at least 50%. This is but where I outset and go lower until I see distortions. At that point, I will get up nearly 10 to 15 percentages higher just to make sure I look good in world:

* Make sure your physics fit the model. Aka....Don't become crazy with a physics model your build doesn't demand.

Physics are and then hard to bargain with, well, I gauge they aren't merely at outset, it tin be a lot to get your head around. One thing to remember that physics can be your friend, and in the aforementioned breath your enemy. Physics an either lower or enhance your state touch on depending on how you use them, and uploading them properly into Second Life tin can sometimes end up being a headache.

In this case, simple is e'er better. For that matter, so is lower. I try to keep my physics shapes equally unproblematic as possible and apply the everyman setting that is appropriate for my build. In this case, I am using a window

There are a few good tutorials out there that cover this field of study in more depth. I by Elenora Newell that can be establish here on youtube or one by Elout De Kok/Cel Edman here and you should take a expect at them as they volition go into more particular than I did.  I may add a tutorial and mesh physics after, but for now, I hope this commodity helps with your mesh projects.

Happy meshing

Kit

sledgeanonton.blogspot.com

Source: https://castawayparadise.com/index.php/tutorials/25-mesh-land-impact-reduction-tips

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