Tutorial: How to Optimize SL Mesh Objects Through Level of Detail

Penny Patton, a RL graphics designer who contributed to Second Life's acclaimed Wasteland and Doomed Ship regions, has a longtime commitment to improving SL visuals. Her latest tutorial post is on creating level of detail for mesh objects, so that they look good when seen from various distances without consuming unneeded computing resources. The problem, as she points out, is many or most SL creators don't bother using LoD:

Of course, in Second Life, Linden Lab provides the option to let the mesh uploader automatically generate LOD models Unfortunately it's not very good at this, leading people to try and use their highest detail model for High, Medium and sometimes even Low detail settings, while sacrificing Low and Lowest to offset the LI increase. The results are not pretty, worse yet content creators often tell customers to increase their object detail to compensate for the poor LOD of their creations.

Bad optimization leads to lag and bad graphics for everyone, when in fact SL can look as good as a AAA game like Fallout 4. As with other tutorials, Penny is pushing back against the idea that nudging creators to optimize is not fair for amateur creators:

"A lot of SL users are worried that if Linden Lab ever attempted to reign in unoptimized content, it might push content creators away," as she puts it. "So beginning today I want to start showing  you just how easy optimization is." Visit her blog for much more wisdom.

Comments

[Tankgirl]

So you are at. An evetn with you perfectly optimized 4 lod mesh, and it is double the land impacht of all the items around you. Because every other creator there deleted levels 3 and 4. The result is, they sell and I don’t. Becauae the customer wants low prim, not optimized. Penny can optimize her whole regions for all I care, but the customer is always right.

[sirhc deSantis]

Sort of agree with TankGirl (who would not and I am TG pre-Lori) and Patton is right but - we optimise all the way down and it makes f all difference.
So quit blaming we who make stuff. 'Use the SL uploader to make LOD' - I spit on your metaphoric slippers =^^=
Even on OS I offer both 'tris don't matter' and LOD tuned.