Does the SL Community Care Enough to Clamor for Well-Optimized Mesh?

Pictured: Slink Redux body bundle, a rare example of popular SL mesh avatar content that's also well-optimized

Last Friday I wrote about the new Black Dragon viewer update which checks whether a mesh avatar is well-optimized or not. Reader "Down With Underboob" (LOL) tried it out in SL over the weekend, to see how much mesh content was poorly optimized, and came away shocked:

So I took Black Dragon out for a spin at a fairly busy club. There's only one avatar in the place who is "decently optimized" per the report. This guy is wearing a system avi and system clothes... I like what BD offers, but please get real. Nobody wants to go back to looking like an avatar from 2008. Photographers like to use BD's capabilities, but again, they're not going to use system avatars to pass these complexity tests.

Show me some mesh bodies, heads, and clothes that pass these tests and don't look like they're from 2008, and I'll consider trying them. Does he think we're all going to run around bald? I don't want Warcraft hair in SL. Until then, I'll stick with what I have. I'm satisfied with the 15-20 fps I get at this club and I can get upwards of 100 FPS when I'm hanging out on my platform at home in Bellisseria.

I'd also point out that he's tilting at windmills if he thinks designers are going to start posting complexity/triangle counts in their vendor ads.

I'd say it's the responsibility of the many SL bloggers and YouTubers to report on the complexity/triangle counts of the content they feature, warning them that high poly items will likely cause lag. Failing to do so would be like a real life fashion reporter failing to mention the clothing items they're recommending are made of toxic materials.

As to her request for optimized mesh to try out, Slink is among the few mesh body creators well-known for optimization.

But is there a market for good optimization in general? Reader "Seph" thinks not so:

There is no 'optimizing'. Second Life's material system is en par with what was available in the late 90s/early 00s, except it's worse due to a bunch of other reasons like the barely existent lighting system to take advantage of the sparse materials there are.

When you say 'optimize' you take 'look good' out of the equation because more polygons is the only way to get desired detail in Second Life. 'Optimize' for games usually means 'ok stay looking as good but better performance', often accomplishable by transferring mesh detail to material textures. Either not possible in Second Life often, or not worth it because of bad lighting or people not having materials even on.

The way to get reduced poly counts in Second Life is for Linden Lab to develop a better material and lighting system. 'til then mesh IS optimized; to look good and satisfy customers.

Trust me if low poly and uglier was a selling point everyone would be making it and buying it.

Again, this is why I called Slink the Tesla of mesh bodies --not just sleek and stylish, but energy efficient and good for the environment. After all, the Second Life community faces a very similar challenge with mesh content as the real world community does with climate change: Anyone who knows how virtual worlds work knows that poorly optimized mesh directly contributes to a poor, laggy social experience -- the same way that anyone who believes in science acknowledges the reality of human-caused climate change. The challenge is turning that knowledge into a collective will to make the systemic changes needed to create a better virtual world.

Tesla created new interest and excitement in electric cars and next generation batteries, shifting the automotive industry in that direction. But are there enough SL brands that are the Teslas of mesh to create new interest and excitement in optimized mesh? And does the community have the will to advocate for them?

Comments

[Taylor]

I can kinda agree with the Slink/Tesla analogy... but not for the same reason as you. From a distance they both look pretty nice, but up close you see the corner-cutting (lack of detail for Slink, poor fit/finish/build quality for Tesla).

[BBPen]

Slink is not well optimized AT ALL. However, the correct statement is, it's better optimized than the terrible Maitreya and similar brands.

It is time Linden Lab brought out not Ruth 2, but a properly optimized, weighted body that all creators can creator for. If Linden Lab set the bar, other content can then move to better standards. People will always want "different" so this doesn't compete with creators, it simply guides them.

It also helps new players coming into SL, to have a better experience.

[irihapeti]

what BBPen said

is way past time that Linden put out a standard BOM mesh avatar. It doesn't have to be amazing. Just needs to have toes and tidy up the hands, crotch/inner thighs and ankles

doesn't need nipples for female avatar, plain lady bumps are ok. People will make fitted mesh parts for this and other parts male and female

[irihapeti]

agree with seph

SL optimize means looking fabulous

[Nadeja]

Adding triangles helps only to some extent, but then it becomes wasted resources.
Optimization means to find the right trade between visual and resources, to get the best look at the smallest cost.
Here is a quick video with a few comparisons:
https://youtu.be/7iuLV7AKan0
In this other video, I try out a top from Asteroidbox with a ripped bottom part. They went high with the texture memory, but let's look at the 3D model. The simple mini-top in the first video was 46k triangles. This one is plenty of fine 3D details and the triangles are 20k.
https://youtu.be/9pxr7KW2qoc

[Adeon Writer]

I say this over and over again but I don’t think people ever remember it.

There is more than one way you can min-max and still make a game look good.

1.) You can have optimized models but amazing shaders.

2.) You can have absolutely terrible shaders but insanely highpoly models.

Obviously both makes for the best visuals but in SecondLife you do not have control over the shaders at all. You use Linden’s one single shader they give you and that’s all you get for the entire world. So you only have the latter option to use triangle spam.

And for many people second life is the only platform they’ve ever developed on so they don’t understand the box that Linden has put them in.

So yes, super unoptimized models and textures that are way higher resolution than they should be that lag you to death are the only way to look good in SecondLife.

[Adeon Writer]

As short as possible:

Optimized models require and rely on pixel shaders to look good in other games. SecondLife does not support custom pixel shaders.

[Nadeja]

In the video above I have showed a pair of shoes that doesn't look any better than the other one next to it, despite so many more triangles and textures. Also a plain mini-top that looks nearly solid in wireframe mode.
Now here is its twin, side by side:
https://youtu.be/fZw-dtUQ9is
less than half of the triangles and it even has wrinkes.

You optimize for the platform you have. You did that in the 90s and early '00s as well
Better shaders would allow more for sure, but that doesn't mean that you can't do a better job, nor that you "take the look good out". The evidence with similar models shows otherwise.
Maybe in another video I'll show a couple of shirts that are 3-7k triangles.

[Alicia]

Actually BBPen, Slink is way more optimized than most because Siddean completely did away with alpha cuts for the BOM bodies. It was the alpha/onion cut bodies that were a huge part of the problem as people demanded more and more cuts be put onto each of the mesh bodies. In short, more cuts... more verts/faces/triangles.

The other half of the problem was the fact that creators had stopped making alpha layers for their clothing because of the alpha/onion cut bodies that were out before BOM was released.

Now that BOM has been out for just over a year now, alpha layers actually work way better now. Also, if people weren't so lazy, they could simply learn how to make their own custom alpha layers as they know that clothing creators are simply too lazy to include them with their clothing.

[NiranV]

I disagree with a lot of what's being said here.

I do not expect people to run around bald, neither does my performance report. To be optimized or even just "Ok" in the performance report, it is solely required to be fine in most of the categories. Even if one or two categories would be so incredibly bad that the Viewer starts spitting at you, you will still end up with a good overall rating. Though i will obviously change this at a later date depending on how much each category affects performance.

An avatar that has a good rating is actually pretty easy to show. I can probably show you at least 3 avatars of mine that are neither bald nor empty and will have a good if not perfect rating. They use the materials system very intelligently and well.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/487540359925334028/781810081809039390/unknown.png

Further i've already pushed one of the best avatars into Unity Engine to see how it would look like with proper PBR shaders. Needless to say that SL was incredibly close to what Unity produced.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/487540359925334028/781811341684899850/Snapshot_156.png

Without any extra fancy post processing in the game itself or some extremely super fancy shaders there's nothing to be done here really, which just shows that SL if done right is not far away from what modern engines look like. The Avatar is far below 40.000 polygons, uses only a couple 1024x1024 textures and is overall extremely well optimized. All clothing made for it inherits this optimization automatically in 99% of all cases. Clothing or extras on it will rarely push you above 100.000 polygons which is decent for the clusterfuck that is Second Life.

Second Life's Material system may be a dumbed down PBR-wannabe and very limited but it does get the job mostly done and can make things look incredibly amazing without adding too much cost. The reason LL hasn't updated or enhanced this system or graphics in general is because A) they didn't have people to do it (now they do, two even) and B) because the number one reason: They didn't worsen the performance even more when its already this bad. And while i disagree with basically every single excuse LL has ever brought, including this one, they do bring up a point. People keep complaining about the bad performance, but they themselves are the reason for it. People complain about the bad graphics, but they themselves (or in this case the bad performance they are causing) are the reason LL isn't going to add more because it would only worsen the experience. I'm sure my Viewer has shown that graphics can be massively enhanced without these "concerns" of LL ever coming true but my Viewer doesn't change the fact that the performance is simply bad due to bad content making bad usage of a badly implemented system that requires some extra work to look properly which is sadly substituted with more polygons which will snowball in render cost down the line.

The constant excuse that everything needs to hold up perfectly when zooming your camera up someone's ass so close that you can see their insides is just bad and should die already. The amount of extra polygons required to get rid of barely visible "edges" rivals that of an entire scene. Bloggers should stop wanting to have a perfectly super smooth extra round everything when zooming that close. Users should stop wanting super smooth avatars, smooth is enough, it is enough that the avatar looks good at 1.5-2m distance. I don't know how often i have to keep saying this but i'm a total graphics fanatic, i love graphics, i love even better graphics, i mod my games to look even better all the time... and not even i want that many polygons, or even more polygons than necessary.

People. Seriously. You are by no means better than Linden Labs, you are even worse, at least LL only brings stupid excuses for their, what i can only describe as laziness (or safety due to being scared to break SL) but you outright spread so much bullshit all around and make it look like optimization is some kind of secret magic trick, impossible to achieve in SL. I've seen quite a few Avatars, clothes and regions being well optimized already and they all looked incredible for a cheap price, just because human content creators can't get their head out of their asses doesn't mean its impossible, THEY are just not capable. Yea, yea "but thats furry stuff, no one cares for that". I know, i know.

I'm at a point where i'm questioning my decision to further care about humans. They like to be ripped off, if you tell them, they hate you. They like to be laggy, if you tell them, they hate you. They like it the way it is but complain in the same breath, if you tell them, they hate you. No matter what i've tried, i've just gotten hate and i kinda feel like it is time to let go. No advice, no tool and no guide will help this broken community to wake up. I hope we reach a point that the Viewer will simply outright refuse to run for more than 10 seconds the moment you log in because of all the junk you throw at it and expect it to run and i hope when this happens, there won't be a fix for it, only an ultimatum, either cut down on the shit or bye bye SL.

[Nadeja]

Here we go: full dressed human avatar with less than 80K triangles and not bald at all :D
https://youtu.be/Xk5kKc7ukSk
The head is modifiable, so I was able strip it down to reduce the triangle count. And I'm pretty sure it's possible to do even better. Utilizator's Normie head, for example, would save further 25K, but the style tends towards the anime look. By the way anime avatars are often low poly, also Kemono, and yes, Snorka is awesome.
Another way to save triangles would be to update the old multi-pose feet, that are multiple copies, to bento feet. Here is a video from the Rebirth avatar:
https://youtu.be/H_bwtXGeYqE?t=8