When we talk about mesh coming to Second Life (which is already here in early Beta, and should become standard through the grid very soon), we usually talk about it in terms of standalone objects. Veteran content creator Damien Fate, however, has created a very cool illustrated guide show how mesh will alter virtual fashion, and all the ways it is superior to prim-based fashion. For instance, mesh-based clothing can bend with the avatar body, and details can be physically modeled (as opposed to being simulated them via textures.) But wait, there's more!
Courtesy Mr. Fate, who has a very good content creator blog worth reading.
Update, 12:35PM: Damien also made a demo video of this mesh tech:
Of course, scripting mesh will make the prim count explode. Not such a big deal with a rigged avatar attachment, unless you want to take it off, rez it in-world, and edit it, but worth remembering anyway.
Sign me up for a glowy hoody.
Posted by: Rusalka Writer | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 11:27 AM
Thanks for sharing!
Here is a video of the hoodie in motion, for those that are curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMcEeboUPCs
Posted by: Damien Fate | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 11:41 AM
I can see the jacket revolution coming now :)))
Posted by: Shug Maitland | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 11:42 AM
The shiny example makes me think that armor for RPing is going to see some really amazing changes.
Posted by: MIstletoe | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 12:36 PM
The current news out is the closed beta testers that have been under NDA, are now released from the NDA as part of the Lab’s new open door policy. They have started talking and posting videos. The Lab has a page up on their YouTube.com channel. See Second Life Channel Meshes – This is a play list, so you can see a bunch of videos.
http://www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com/
Posted by: discounted computers and laptops | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 12:40 PM
Yeah, it looks good, but look at all those wasted vertices. The SL mesh is efficiently made, while that hoody is wildly inefficient. While it is good to have a few more verts to make the hoody smoother for rigging, this example has probably more than 100 completely unneeded verts. I sincerely hope that all clothing creators are not going to go this far overboard, as mesh clothing does not have any reasonable limits, like rezzed mesh does. 1 of the main points about mesh is that it should be way more efficient graphically compared to most sculpty and prim objects and will vastly reduce lag. This jacket is not terribly over the top, but it is not much different, graphically, then just wearing a sculpt. I sincerely hope this creator gets more efficient than this.
Posted by: Medhue | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Gimme.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 01:05 PM
Actually, on the creators site, they have examples that seem to be alot more efficient, so maybe they just think that they need this many verts to get the look of that kind of jacket. So, maybe i was a bit harsh.
Posted by: Medhue | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 01:27 PM
@Medhue: Yes, I suspect what they were trying to do here was demo the capabilities of the technology, not provide an example of efficient design or best practices.
Posted by: Galatea Gynoid | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 01:44 PM
The bouncing breasts and butts are going to look great poking out of mesh clothes. Not. Oh yea that is a feature LL should have taken out right? Right after they put it in? To make their limited mesh implementation not look bad?
Oh and since so many will not change to v2/v3 viewers then what do mesh clothes look like to v1.x viewers? Naked avatars in G regions?
Mesh will not be acceptable until full mesh is available including technology like normal and bump maps. Needed that from the start. Also dynamic cloth was needed from the outset of mesh.
Historically with LL, once a project is rolled in, it goes into stasis and further improvements are years away. This pattern would be a tragedy for mesh. To leave it at a minimal and very partial implementation while breaking existing content via render cost clamping could have serious ramifications for the entire SL economy and experience.
Posted by: Ann Otoole InSL | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 02:13 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a mesh like this that deforms along with the avatar's bones is not editable at all, once it has been made? So what this means is that to wear clothes like this, you either need to wear a shape designed to match the item, or content creators will need to start selling bespoke mesh clothes.
If this is correct and I'm not misinformed, it strikes me as a pretty major stumbling block. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really think there's a place for mesh in fashion. Likely a major place, as an alternative for how sculptmaps are used now. But with these limitations, I'm not sure fully mesh clothing will be able to move much beyond curiosity.
Posted by: Myf McMahon | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 06:23 PM
@Myf McMahon - You're partially correct. You can rig the mesh in your modeling environment and that will conform to your length and position sliders with your in world avatar. What mesh won't do is scale with your morph sliders such as muscle, breast, belly and butt sizes. This means that there's a very good chance that what will fit perfectly with one character will cause clipping on another. What we can currently do to get around this is take advantage of the avatar alpha layers and hide the areas most prone to clipping.
This means that mesh built for an 'average' avatar should fit all but the extremes on those avatar sliders. For those, the work around would be to create a separate shape for that particular outfit. Arguably, some people may be unwilling to do this - then again that isn't a new problem.
Posted by: Robert Kohut | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 07:05 PM
Wow, I had already seen some of the things people were creating over in the mesh beta areas. A quick Google search on the subject brought me to Vivienne Daguerre's Second Life blog: http://www.myblackrose.net/
There she's been experimenting with weighted mesh attachments. While it's obviously not Crysis engine improvements, it looks like a huge step up from what we've had for year. I haven't seen an avatar with a dress on for years - for what I assume to be purely because of clipping while running certain animations. I can't wait until all of the major SL designers start using this.
Posted by: Robert Kohut | Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 07:19 PM
I want mesh, sooner rather than later.
But it's GOT to render right on 100% of the approved client list. That's a deal breaker if it can't.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 06:21 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_OFRbObC9A
Another mesh video to whet your appetites!
Posted by: Damien Fate | Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 07:37 AM
Wow I'm excited about this. I LOVE SL and this will make it become even MORE real to me. SMILES and groans at the same time. There goes my inventory again.
Posted by: Cellandra zon | Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 07:09 PM