Second Life Mesh Stats, January 2012: 22% Sims Have Some Mesh From 240 Daily Uploaders for 140K+ Total Objects

The growth of mesh across the Second Life grid has reached an adoption rate of 22%, according to Linden Lab. That's up from 16% last month, when CEO Rod Humble reported those stats. By "adoption", Linden spokesman Peter Gray tells me, the company means "the percentage of regions on the grid with at least one mesh object rezzed on them, which now is actually above 22%." So if you're to walk around SL at random, there's nearly a 1 and 4 chance you would see at least one mesh object in every region you encounter -- such as this mesh parka Iris wrote about last year.

How many SL content creators are making this mesh? Pete also has stats there: "We average more than 240 unique uploaders every day, who in total have uploaded almost 140,000 models to the main grid." No word on how many of those unique uploaders do so regularly, but I think it's fair to estimate there's less than 2000, all told. And while 140,000 is a large number, the number of prim-based objects in SL probably runs into the hundreds of millions. Notwithstanding calls to make mesh-enabled viewers mandatory, my take is that mesh is still very much a niche product type, and may take a couple more years to predominate the economy of SL.

Comments

[Tateru Nino]

"So if you're to walk around SL at random, there's nearly a 1 and 4 chance you would see at least one mesh object in every region you encounter -- such as this mesh parka Iris wrote about last year."

Umm, no, because clothing objects aren't "rezzed on a sim", technically. I would interpret it referring to things which are *not* attached to an avatar.

[Pussycat Catnap]

You can't note that its in 22% of all sims, and growing, and then call is niche that will take years to take off.

Especially when only a few weeks ago these numbers were a tiny fraction of what they are now.

I'd wager that by end of 2012, being on a no-mesh viewer will be about as uncomfortable looking as if one were to enter with a no-sculpty viewer right now.

This number is actually higher than I would expect it to be, given that its items on the sim, not on the people. That would mean a rezzed item.

Since a -lot- of the mesh items are overly prim-costing (sometimes a simple change can cost a lot of prims, I shaved 10% of the prim cost of an item yesterday, on accident, by scaling it down by 20% - ie: mesh items that are smaller, even if only to scale them, can end up lower cost... Not sure if making an item bigger can cut its cost. Ie: is that a scale thing or about being closer to 'rounding points')...

Since a lot of items are high prim-costing, I expected rezzed mesh to take longer to take off. I do expect it to take off once makers figure out those 'rounding points' and ideal ways to group polygons that will give it low prim costs...

But right now, half or more of them haven't figured that out...

But people are -still- adopting it...

All it will take is a small handful of builders getting it right, and we'll see a tipping point get hit when word of their works gets out.

[Adeon Writer]

I'm crazy about mesh, but I don't have a single one rezzed.

[Hamlet Au]

"You can't note that its in 22% of all sims, and growing, and then call is niche"

I think I can when it's only *one* mesh item to count as adoption, and there's only 140K total mesh items uploads. I know many SLers who have tens of thousands of items (prim-based) in just their inventory alone.

[J]

For me, mesh furniture makes more sense than anything else, (kid avs and mesh don't get along well, and I would go so far as to say that the adoption rate among makers of content for that community is below the rest of the grid by a long shot,) but if I have a couch, I'm not really likely to buy a new one.

I've tried mesh viewers on and off for a while now, since Kirstin's (sp) adopted it, and there's still a LOT of bugs in the mesh viewer code for lower-end machines. If I have to choose between my friend wearing a blimp in a non-mesh viewer vs. not rezzing at ALL in ANY mesh viewer (and yes, I've tried the entire TPV directory except RLV,) I'll stay in meshless land. It's kind of hard to immerse yourself in a roleplay scene when the ground is grey and all you see of other roleplayers is their LookAt crosshairs...on a good day... Or your avatar won't move and it's because there's a wall there that SL decided you didn't really want to see since it's not mesh or whatever.

[Nica Pennell]

"140,000 models uploaded" doesn't say anything about the total number of mesh-based objects that are actually rezzed in world. A lot of those models probably haven't been put anywhere - they're failed uploads, or attachments, or what have you. And a lot of them have probably been rezzed many dozens or hundreds of times - furniture, fixtures, etc.

[Hamlet Au]

Hmm, that's a good point. Though even a multiple of that number would be relatively small in relation to 8 years of assloads of prims.

[roblem hogarth]

I don't know where you are getting the "...may take a couple more years to predominate the economy..." numbers from. Mesh is great at somethings, less at others just like everything else. If anything we are in the "Hype" period where some things sell just because they are Mesh and different. It will all be mixed in with prims, sculpts, textures in a few months.

So you think sculpts are niche just because there are more "prims" in inventory too right? I'm sure pixel clothing puts them all to shame in most big inventories.

[insanity]

Very professional, I like.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I take it you haven't noticed that LL quietly dropped Viewer 1.23 from the list of supported viewers and the alternate viewers list yesterday, Hamlet.

[Connie Arida]

I agree with pussycat catnap and think that by the end of 2012, using a no mesh viewer will be anachronistic.

[foneco zuzu]

It just needs 1 thing to make all this post redundant!
Linden Lab sorting out the problems that make mesh viewers so unstable or not being able to be used by many!
As soon as that is sorted out, for sure all, even those who prefer v1 viewers, will be able to enjoy it!

[Ajax Manatiso]

When I first downloaded Singularity w mesh support, I immediately searched for mesh in search and went to see what the big deal was about. The first place I went to had mesh t-shirts, all single-colored (yawn). I went to several other places and saw 2nd-rate jeans and other clothing not-as-nice as my standard clothing. I did see some nice cars and boats in one place, but I didn't have any use for them. There were a couple of mesh human avatars but they looked very plastic and the textures could not compare with most of the standard avi textures out there. Yes, it will take a few years for mesh to be fully adopted -- and for mesh-makers to make items that can compete with the current stuff.

[Rin Tae]

A few years? A strange assumption given that sculpties dominated the market almsot isntantly after they appeared despite people then also telling how they will stick with prims and declare them all superior to the new strange stuff.
Of course mesh needs the deformer but there is already some very nice thigns out there rigged and unrigged alike.

And all TPV viewers support mesh too and with LL dopping thier v.1 viewer the last one that was not mesh capable is gone. People would not have put so much work into the viewers to adopt the code if there would be no demand for it.

I expect non mesh viewers to be anachronistic by summer with mesh clothing appearing in larger numbers once the problems with the deformer are fixed.

In the meantime I am off to test if the mesh dresses I put my eyes on recently will fit like the one I got already and .. btw ... a few months of mesh uploads are hardly comparable to many years of prims. A good number for the adoption might be the upload of sculpties in the same ammount of time after release but I guess such a number would be hard to get .. and sculpties did not had issues that needed the deformer to be develoepd but then .. mesh items are easier and faster to create and offer more possibilties so who knows .. anyway, mesh is a thig that SL might very much need to revitalise the appeal of the economy and drive all the talented creators outthere to make more nice stuff ^_^

[Daniel Voyager]

Hearing about the rise of mesh adoption of 22% is good news and hopefully the this trend will go up higher in 2012/2013+.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I think I can when it's only *one* mesh item to count as adoption, and there's only 140K total mesh items uploads. I know many SLers who have tens of thousands of items (prim-based) in just their inventory alone."

We can interpret statistics in a variety of ways to suit pre-drawn conclusions. Mine would be to say that in the short span, that's an impressive surge in both portion of sims with a -minimum- of one item rezzed, and that's a very impressive number of uploads. I would have expected only a few thousand by this point.

When most sims are going unused, even when the land is owned, that means a notable portion of active land use is getting hit with something mesh.

Given that mesh makers haven't yet mastered prim efficiency, its a major 'loyalty check' to put out a mesh item on your land right now, yet even with that, there is this much of it. 22% is the kind of figure I'd expect from something widely accepted, like 'sexbeds'; not something still being perfected by the content creators.

While most of us have vast inventories, that's not the best way to count what's active.

I'm probably not uncommon in having half or more of my inventory devoted to old freebies the exact nature of which I do not know, combined with thousands of copies of things in lost and found, objects, and trash that just never got their love - and the notecards and landmarks each probably total 5k+...

The 'active' side of what I have includes maybe 10-20 mesh items, but that already makes them significant - I tend to hover around with about half of what I'm regularly using being new stuff and the other half old favorites.

I look at your data, and see something taking off way faster than even I was thinking it was.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"For me, mesh furniture makes more sense than anything else, (kid avs and mesh don't get along well, and I would go so far as to say that the adoption rate among makers of content for that community is below the rest of the grid by a long shot,) but if I have a couch, I'm not really likely to buy a new one."

I bought a great mesh kitchen recently and discovered some interesting things.

First the one I bought was insanely primmy at 76 prims. But it was also made for a 12-foot tall avatar, and I'm 5'5" - 5'8" depending on neko or furry worn. Honestly think it was too big even for the usual in SL. So I shrank it, as it was Mod.

- In only using the scaling feature to downsize (down to 81% of original size - to fit a 5'8" AV), it dropped to 68 prims. Not one other edit made. A 10% drop in prim cost, from an almost 20% size reduction.

Weird, will need to investigate that more. Going to try the same thing with a mesh building I have. And going to try the inverse, - scaling up.

Two theories:
1. Smaller items will cost less prims.
2. Items will cost less prims if they approach 'ideal spots on the curve, like a sine-wave.'

- Either way, it appears the popular scale of avatars in SL is -off- of the ideal point. Or... this is case by case dependent.

The other thing I discovered was that, apparently, according to its maker - if the scripts in an item are no-mod, the prims will go no-mod as well, and stay that way even if the scripts are removed. Not sure on this. As the scripts in the kitchen are no-mod but the kitchen is mod. However it rezzes no-mod fires on the stove... and that caused me to hit a problem, as I could not resize those to fit my new scale.
- That's not a mesh issue, but a separate issue. If its true, its a very new bug. As I've worked with mod prims that had a no-mod script in them many times in past.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I agree with pussycat catnap and think that by the end of 2012, using a no mesh viewer will be anachronistic."

Actually, as concerns viewers; this could occur by end of January. LLs is about to flip the off-switch on v1 inventory API. They 'killed' 1.2.3 yesterday - in removing from the list. A partial kill s it still works.

But the plan is that by end of month, logging into it will give 'unpredictable nudity results' and unknown inventory issues.

There are only 3 no-mesh viewers right now:
v1.2.3, Imprudence, and people who've refused to upgrade their phoenix to the latest phoenix.

1.2.3 is official dead now, Imprudence is 'moving on' from SL over to Open Sim - if they patch for the new inventory, they won't work in Open Sim, so they've made their choice. Old Phoenix people will all end up rezzing nude in a few days, and maybe missing half their inventories - so they'll get the more recent phoenix or move to Henry B's viewer or Firestorm.

I'm just assuming here that the phoenix people will add the inventory patch, since LLs released the code for the patch... We can safely Assume Henry B. will do so.

This is the 'natural order of things' we've all been expecting for a while - that LLs would change SL enough that eventually the old viewer wouldn't work right. They're not going to disable that old viewer, just make it obsolete by improving SL too much for the rest of the viewers.

By not actually 'banning it', they also allow those who prefer the v1 UI to stay 'in their comfort zone' via TPV devs like Henry B.

But that's just viewers. Adoption of mesh is really about people getting mesh items.

I actually expect to see the child AVs be a big push on this one - whoever makes the first full-mesh avatar of an 8-year old body will capture some serious market share.

[Ener Hax]

interesting stat! no doubt mesh will continue to grow =)

[sirhc desantis]

Interesting figure. I wonder if this includes the playing with box standard (couldn't resist) prims using the newer prim properties..been some discussion of this in the scripters forum/groups as a way to cut prim count and Pussycat above has a great post covering it. Done some fiddling myself (didn't even need a mesh viewer to see the impact). Do they count as rezzed mesh objects?
cheers

[Medhue]

I would not put too much into the 140k number, cause I've probably uploaded at least 1000 meshes on the main grid just testing different things. Only a couple dozen of those are actually products I'm selling. Yeah, I know, I waisted a ton of lindens, lol.

Now, the 22% number is extremely relevant, and I would agree with others that saying it will take 2 years is kind of nonsensical. I'd be willing to bet any1 just about any price that mesh will be on just about every single sim within the next year, at the very latest, and almost no1 will be without some mesh clothing.

As far as prim counts, which I continuously keep hearing people say mesh is more. This is completely and totally false. The item you chose has a high prim cost, because the creator made it that way. If the creator is sensible, they could very easily recreate any sim in SL at half the current prim usage, and look, at least twice as good. If you are buying meshes that are higher prim counts than normal prims or sculpts, then you should buy from a different creator that understands the system better.

[Medhue]

The other day, I was looking at my testing area for combat, which has a bunch of single prim haybales everywhere. These are just obstacles and things to hide behind when testing out combat stuff, plus obstacles for the npcs to avoid. So, it annoyed me that they are square and the textures don't really line up right. I wasn't really worried about prim cost. I have tons of prims left on my land. Understanding LL's mesh system, I knew I'd save prims tho. Took me about 10 minutes to make a more rounded rolled up kind of haybale with mesh, texture it and upload it.

Here is the super cool part about mesh. Even though when I rez this mesh haybale it says 1 prim, or Land impact, it really is just over half a prim. So, all the spots where I had stacks of haybale, can now save prims by simply linking all the haybales together. Linking 3 works out to be 2 prims. Linking 5 is 3 prims, and this goes on and on. I save about 20 prims just in my combat area.

This is just an example of something simple and basic. The more complex the items gets, the more opportunities to save many more prims. You just need to understand how to make the mesh right, and how to use it.

[Medhue]

Sorry, last example. It is urks me to hear so many saying mesh is more prims.

Something much more complex that I made was an ammo shack. You have to break into in and then there is a rerezzing ammo pack and health pack inside. It has 4 windows, with breakable glass. Plus has 4 beer bottles that you can shoot and they rerez. The shack is about 8m long by 5m wide, by 8m tall, and has a land impact score of 29 prims.

A month ago, I sold a small mesh rope suspension bridge to a customer, which is only 14 prims at normal size. The customer contacted me the next day and told me he saved over 200 prims on his region just because of my bridge.

[foneco zuzu]

And Medhue you are using mesh as it was intend intended in 1st place! To help landscape.
But whatIguess a lot forgot is that mesh is everyhere, any can be done with it, and in fact any, even bad skilled ones can get them in world!
But that is the same as with prims (bit scared by Inara founds, that limitation is terrible to know).
Now, the truth is that a few are tyring to seel mesh items as if the are the holly grail, when in fact equivalent prim or sculpted ones, look best, feel better and cost much less.
Those are the ones that are a menace to all the good mesh creators, not the bulders that use sculpted prims, but the bad creators of mesh itens.
But again, what's new on this? Don't we have as well so many bad creators and terrible prim builds as well as some amazing ones?
So i still keep saying!
Fix the problems most are having when using mesh viewers and All will have no problem using them and then it will blend and soon it will be as natural as a prim!
But for me I just want to shout:
GIVE ME MY 32 AA and 16HQ AF via Nvidea control panel after disabling AA and AF in a mesh viewer!
WHY I CANT OVERRIDE THAT ON ANY MESH VIWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pussycat Catnap]

Yeah. Mesh used right is a prim saver. Even just taking old prims and convex hulling them is a saver.

Last night I went around a couple of builds I have and converted things to convex hull, getting back a hundred or two prims across 4 small lots.

Ciaran Laval blogged about this a bit ago, and I've taken the concept and broken it down into a how-to blog:
http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/meshify-your-world-from-inside-of-second-life-to-save-on-prim-cost-of-houses-and-other-objects/
- That's a way for people who are not 3D modellers to still take advantage of the changes brought about by mesh.

[Monsterheadphones]

Do better than me.

[Sparks Racecourse]

Is mesh a prim saver? Well, I had a creator back in October that built a mesh cave entrance and on the beta grid it was over 100 PE. On the main grid it was 15 PE. So expect your current mesh objects to change higher PE in the future. If Lindens adopt to the new mesh streaming cost formula. Also, Lindens are discussing in the mesh meetings to adopt the streaming cost formula for sculpts too. So you 1 prim sculpt might change to a 10 prim sculpt.

My sim was one of the first 100 that was mesh enabled back in July. I still have around 4 mesh creators in my group that were developing mesh objects.

Linden Labs needs to change their land model for mesh. Open Sims and Blue Mars offer 32 regions for the same price as 1 region in second life. If you notice that Linden Realms was built on 12 regions for the sim. As a former sim owner, I need a stable business model.

Linden Labs will have to block viewer 1, including third party viewers that is if you want the second life to adopt mesh. An unstable third party viewer will just cause more issues for the end user.

The users that are stuck with 8 year old computers, that can't use the new viewer. It is time to break open the piggy bank and buy a new computer or build a new computer.