Firestorm Update, Jelly Dolls, and Graphics Settings

Yesterday Firestorm released a long-awaited update.  I downloaded and installed it immediately.  I love Firestorm, and I am always sad when I am forced to use the LL official viewer.  (Yes, I know there are some who love the official viewer, and that’s great.  Use whatever makes you happy.  Me, I’m sticking with Firestorm.)

First, let me just say that I am so appreciative of the Firestorm team and all the volunteer work they do to keep tech-illiterate peeps like me swimming in all the gorgeousness of SL.  If you are in the Firestorm support group, a thank you might be appreciated.  In fact, one sec while I go do that myself. 🙂

Ok, that’s done.  Now, the two biggest things with this latest update are the Jelly Dolls and the Quick Graphics preferences.  I have been awaiting both with great anticipation.

Jelly Dolls

I’ve talked in many posts before about ARC/Render Weight.  This is now called ‘Avatar Complexity.’ (How this number is calculated I don’t know exactly.)  You can now set your ‘Maximum Complexity’ how you wish, in order to avoid being lagged out at busy events, for example.  If you use Firestorm, it’s in the Quick Prefs window:

In the pic above, you can see the Max Complexity Slider under the Max Bandwith slider.  You can set it to 0 (which will make pretty much everyone Jelly Dolls) or move it all the way up (which will make everyone render fully).

I went to a busy club last night just to test out how it worked and how people appeared.  With a setting of around 30,000, most people in the club were Jelly Dolls.  Interestingly, if they were Jelly Dolls, their animations appeared to be slow-motion (everyone was dancing at this club).  I moved up the slider to around 70K and more people rendered.  However, there were a few avatars (including the hostess at the venue) who did not render fully until I set the complexity to above 250K.

You can also see your own complexity.  Under the Advanced menu > Performance Tools > Show Avatar Complexity.  In the pic above, you can see that my complexity is 165,374.  Not great, but I was wearing a mesh head for some photos, which makes my complexity larger than usual.  The ‘rank listing’ has something to do with how distant from you others are, so your rank is always 1 (I think).  The green 229m^2 – not a clue what that means.

Also, when you tp somewhere, you may get a message telling you that people around you may not render you fully because of your avatar complexity.  I’m already seeing people who are annoyed about the complexity issue.  A lot of people are afraid it will harken back to the days when ARC/RW was used as a tool to berate and belittle noobs and others who were ‘causing’ lag.

While this is probably going to happen, I am happy about the new information and settings offered.  I have been paying attention to my own ARC/RW/ACI for some time now.  For example, I no longer wear any jewelry when I go to dance shows.  After doing some testing on my own, jewelry was often the culprit of my high complexity.  I don’t routinely run around in a mesh head that I know may cause others to lag.  And I have experience myself crashing when someone with an extremely high complexity renders.  This way, I can control not only my own complexity, but how the complexity of others affects (or doesn’t) my own SL experience.

I’m also hoping that clothing/jewelry designers will become more aware (as residents do) of how complexity affects things and design items with lower complexity – as most home decor/landscape designers are already doing.  Clothing/jewelry designers have not had to pay attention to it, because worn items don’t affect land impact/prim count the way that rezzed items do.  However, since a large portion of residents are in SL to be SEEN, not rendered as a colored body, supply and demand may change that.

For those of you who are dancers, there is a way to make certain people (like others in your troupe) ALWAYS render for you.  Simply click on their name or avatar and there should be a menu option to ‘always render’ so that they will show for you, regardless of your maximum complexity settings.  This should also work when you go to a dance show and want to make sure the performers render.  I believe I read that these settings will persist between log-ins for Firestorm, though not for the official viewer.

So for Firestorm users, you should be able to do this once and then have no worries when performing or going to a show. 😀

Quick Graphic Preferences

The other big item in the update is something I have been waiting for – the Quick Graphics Setting option.  When I perform in a dance show, I turn down my draw distance, change certain items to not render, turn off shadows, and a myriad of other things.  When I take photos, I bump up many settings so that I can take a very high-resolution picture.  When I go to a crowded shopping event, I turn many settings down low, so that I don’t lag out or crash before I’m done shopping.  Now I can create a quick graphics setting by doing all these things only once, and then loading that setting quickly whenever I need to.

See the little TV/monitor in the upper right corner?  If you click on it, it will open a window where you can choose one of your quick graphics settings or open the graphics window to create one.

I set up two different options last night – one for everything on ultra/high for taking pictures and one with settings lowered for crowded events.  So now, with just one click, I can be ready to go.

The graphics setting window looks like this:

At the bottom, there are now buttons for saving, loading, and deleting your presets.  If you are using a preset, it will tell you which one you are using (or not) at the top of the window.

I can’t wait to try out these new options!

I see jelly people… Walking around just like regular people | Serendipidy Haven’s Blog

Image/dessertgirl.blogspot.com

An interesting perspective on the new Jelly Babies/Jelly Dolls/whatever that are now in the LL “Quick Graphics” release viewer.  I have been looking forward to these hitting Firestorm, particularly the quick graphics settings.

However, the post brings up some points I hadn’t considered.  I do think that many creators need to do more to ‘optimize’ their content. Jewelry and hair items have been some of the mostly highly complex items in my inventory. I’ve stopped wearing jewelry when I go to crowded places and I’ve stopped frequenting several stores because the cost (lag-wise) of the jewelry just isn’t worth it to me.

That said, I completely agree that many creators in SL are hobbyists or people who learn to create because they are in SL.  So making that steep learning curve even higher is not a great thing.  There are tons of people who have stopped creating since the advent of mesh, because the mentality of many seems to be that mesh=better.

I would, however, love to be able to control whether a 1 million RW (or ARC or ACI or whatever) avi makes me crash when they appear on my screen.  (And for the record, yes, I have seen an avatar with a RW that high – mesh body, mesh head (animated), mesh clothes, and God knows what else.) I did try tweaking my settings in FS as Pussycat Catnap detailed, but it resulted in me not seeing certain avatars at all, which was frustrating as we were working together at the time.  I tried tweaking the settings again, but ended up going back to the defaults, because I couldn’t figure what wasn’t working (some of the invisible-to-me avatars were below my complexity threshold, so I couldn’t make sense of it).

I know that many dancers are curious to see how these settings will affect the viewing of performances once they become more widely used (ie – available in TPV’s). It will be interesting to see how it works in practice!

Read more here:

Those of you who shy away from the official Linden Viewer and do not follow the current techie trends in SL may well be completely unaware of the jelly folk that will have started appearing with t…

Source: I see jelly people… Walking around just like regular people | Serendipidy Haven’s Blog

What’s your ACI? – Mesh Body Addicts

An interesting post from Daria over at MeshBodyAddicts about the new/coming soon JellyDolls.

I found her numbers interesting – I’ve tested the ARC of my Lelutka head previously, and it wasn’t that high, so I’m wondering how the math is different with ACI vs. ARC.

I am anxiously awaiting both this capability and the quick graphics preferences, which I hope make their way into the Firestorm viewer.

Mesh Body Addicts is Second Life’s premier mesh body and mesh head blog

Source: What’s your ACI? – Mesh Body Addicts

The truth about events… [NSFW] – Mesh Body Addicts

Events

This is an interesting post from Daria over at Mesh Body Addicts.

Some of the pics are NSFW, so be careful before you click over to the full post.

I have to say, as someone who has frequented many of these shopping events, I’ve become much more selective about where I shop.

I do sometimes get early access to events through my blogging group, which is fabulous, because the lag is generally pretty low.

My computer is fairly high-end, however, so I don’t experience many of the issues mentioned here.

I do agree with the issue of people who seem to get into an event and then just ‘park’ there.  I’ve also often wondered why most events are ‘full’ at 35-40 avatars, when I’ve been to many shows where there are double that amount of people.

When I shop, I do try to be a polite shopper – I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, I don’t wear a lot of attachments (soo many people walking around with pets attached – very annoying), and I often don’t even wear my mesh body.

I confess, I don’t demo a lot of things.  I can’t think of something I’ve bought that I couldn’t make work.  I know there have probably been a couple of things, but it’s few and far between for me.

I look at the event catalogues (or on Seraphim) to see what I might want before I go to the event, so I can get in, buy, and leave.

If there’s nothing I really want, then I’ve saved myself a trip, a lot of hassle, and probably a lot of L$. 😛

I haven’t event tried to get into Collabor88 yet, and I’m still seeing notices all over that people can’t get in.

I’d much rather shop an event like Mix, where you get a HUD with LM’s to all the stores and you’re not fighting every fashionista in SL to get in.

The post is an interesting read – make sure you read through the comments as well. 🙂

Source: The truth about events… [NSFW] – Mesh Body Addicts

Mesh Mess – A Lesson in Frustration

I’m a big fan of mesh.

I wear pretty much all mesh clothes, I own a mesh body, I have mesh hands and feet, and I own about 4 or 5 mesh heads.

I love how much prettier mesh is when I’m taking photos.

Since the advent of mesh, the question of whether or not to use it when dancing has been debated.

I’ve danced in mesh clothing before.

I’ve danced with mesh hands and feet before.

I have never danced with a mesh head or a mesh body.

I’ve heard complaints from others about watching shows where headless bodies were dancing, costumes didn’t rez, set pieces didn’t rez, etc.

Never having experienced these problems (other than the occasional SL glitch), I realized I kind of dismissed the issue.

*I* could see everything fine, so what’s the big deal?

It must be their computers, or their preferences, or whatever.

After a recent fiasco at a performance, I’m re-thinking my approach.

Preferences

I attended a dance show where I knew it would be crowded.

I arrived about 30 minutes early to give myself (and my computer) time to cache everything prior to showtime.

When I arrived, I was immediately hit by a small bout of lag.

I began to make adjustments.

I lowered my graphics preferences (I usually run on Ultra).

I lowered my draw distance and particles.

I went into the advanced menu and began disabling things like sky, water, clouds, etc., that I wouldn’t need to render for the show.

The first number went okay, with only one dancer being sans hands for the entire routine.

I figured I had acted in time, and I would be able to enjoy the rest of the show.

Act Two

The second act hit the stage, and out of 8 dancers, two of them remained stubbornly bald, naked, and without hands or feet.

I wish I understood why this happened – all 8 dancers were wearing the same costume.

6 rezzed, 2 did not.  ???

Feeling frustrated, I was going to try either tp’ing out and back, or relogging, to see if that would clear up whatever issue I was having.

Unfortunately for me, just as I was contemplating this, it was announced that access had been closed, and that if anyone left or crashed, you would be unable to get back in.

So that option was no longer available. 😦

I decided to try and tough it out, hoping that things would somehow fix themselves and I would be able to see.

Third Time’s a Charm?

Sadly, no, it wasn’t.

Again, out of 8 or 10 dancers, the two main dancers appeared naked, bald, and missing appendages.

I don’t know if it was the same issue as the previous act, where everyone was wearing the same costume, or not.

But it’s very hard to enjoy a dance performance when literally half (or more) of the performer is missing/invisible.

Now, I know this issue is NOT the fault of the performers.

Most of them were simply wearing the costumes they were given and doing their jobs.

(Note – some of the pictures may appear a bit pixellated due to their small size.  I tried to crop out as much extraneous information as possible in the pictures, because I am not trying to blame the dancers or the venue.)

In desperation, I de-rendered the entire audience, hoping that would help.

At this point, I was soooo frustrated.

I decided to stay for one more act.

It had already been almost an hour, and I knew that if the next act didn’t go well, there was no point in staying for the rest of the show.

What I saw (or rather, didn’t see) next, is what made me re-think my attitude towards mesh.

As the curtain slooowly opened, I sighed.

Rather than getting better, it appeared my problems were getting worse.

The main dancer was nothing but a floating head.

I’m assuming she was wearing a mesh body.

I don’t know, because I couldn’t see it.

The gentlemen next to her had hands, thankfully, but no hair, and no lower half.

Argghhhhhh!

Time to call it a night. 😦

Reflections

After having some time to reflect on things, my attitude towards mesh has changed a bit.

For photography, I will continue to wear mesh so I don’t have to spend hours faffing with photos to get rid of jagged edges and such.

For dancing – I’m still not sure, but I know that I will at least put more thought into how I create my routines after my experience.

Yes, mesh looks fabulous.

But does that matter if many in the audience can’t see it anyway?

I have seen dancers who wore mesh bodies and clothing and I had no issues.

However, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk, even if it’s only one or two people who have problems.

It’s easy to blame the audience members, or their computers, or their ISPs, or whatever.

I have a good computer, a high-speed direct cable connection, and I did a ton of things to reduce lag issues, some of which most casual users wouldn’t even know to do.

It’s also easy to blame SL, though I’m not certain that’s the issue either.

Could I have arrived earlier and avoided issues?

Possibly.

But 30 minutes has generally been a good window, and quite frankly, unless the show is a one-time event, it’s just not worth sitting somewhere for an hour waiting for the show to start.

I think perhaps it just boils down to your own personal approach.

While it would be amazing to put on a show where 100+ people came, if the end result is even one person having my experience, to me, it’s not worth it.

I would much rather limit the amount of people to ensure that everyone has a good experience.

I will probably continue to use mesh props and wear mesh costume pieces, but I doubt that I will ever dance in my mesh head and/or body.

Previous to this experience, I had been considering it.

Now, I’m not sure it’s worth the possible problems.

Where Do You Shop?

I’ve been reading with interest a new series of blog posts from Auryn Beorn regarding resources for new merchants.

She’s only written a couple of posts so far, but I’m finding it fascinating reading.

After reading her latest article, I was scanning through recent blog posts in my reader.

I saw yet another notice of a store moving to Marketplace only.

It got me to wondering – is Marketplace replacing mainstores in SL?

I know that cost is almost certainly a factor, given the price of land/rentals.

It also seems that events (where there are lots of different merchants in one location) are much more popular than mainstore shopping.

There have been a few events that have attempted to get shoppers back in stores (The Mix, currently running its July round, is one of them).

However, the general consensus from what I’ve read in various places (forums, social media networks, etc.) seems to be that events work and mainstores are just a money drain.

I am a little surprised by this, but clearly I am in the minority.

Given that the most popular complaint about SL besides land cost is lag, I don’t understand why shopping at a large event where the lag is generally horrible is preferable to shopping at a mainstore.

Some of the more popular events (like Uber, Collabor88, FaMESHed, etc.) are so jam-packed that it’s often several days before I can even get in.

When I first heard about Mix, I thought it was a great idea.

I loved the thought of not having to fight horrible crowds and laggy conditions just to do a bit of shopping (especially considering that sometimes I don’t even make a purchase at the event).

Plus, I had the ability to look around the store and see other items the creator had for sale.

If I like one item, I’ll probably like two or three.

I use Marketplace quite a bit, but generally only when I am looking for something specific – like a certain costume for a routine, or a certain accessory, etc.

Which isn’t always that easy (or successful), given the horrible search functions on Marketplace.

So, I thought I’d do a quick survey and see if I’m (as usual) standing over in left field by myself. 🙂

Where do you prefer to shop and why?

Please share the poll – the more responses the better!

The End of 21 Shoe

21Shoe is closing?! *sobs*
With all the frustration and lag that accompanies the many events in SL (like C88 or FaMESHed), I wonder why mainstore shopping isn’t more of a thing? Would you rather shop at an event (with many designers in one place) or at a mainstore? Why?

Moni's World

It is with a sad shoe-loving’ heart that I tell you all that 21 Shoe is closing. According to the website:

Dear 21Shoe Fans,

We are sorry to announce the closing of the 21Shoe Event. We have loved every minute of bringing you some of the best SL designers in all their exclusive goodness. We hope you’ll continue to support SL designers at their main store locations and continue to spoil your toes with all the grid has to offer.

As a farewell, some of our designers will be putting up one last 21Shoe offering for July, but we will not be able to offer a catalog of those offerings. Please watch group notices for more information directly from these vendors!(read more here)

So one of the designers that is offering something for a final farewell is Essenz.

Hi all,

I’m happy that Essenz could have been a…

View original post 94 more words

Starlite Theater Show

Last night I attended Starlite Theater’s last summer show.

The theater will be dark for a few months while some remodeling takes place.

I arrived about 30 minutes early for the show and was surprised at how quickly it filled up.

With just a few minutes to showtime, there were 99 people on sim.

Unfortunately, with that many people, lag is inevitable.

The first number started about 15 minutes late as we waited for the lag to subside.

I tried to take pictures, but was afraid to cam around too much for fear of crashing.

I did manage to snap a few of the first number, a trio of short vaudeville numbers.

There were still a few issues, as some of the costumes and body parts weren’t rezzing for everyone.

I saw the first two dances with no problems, but one of the dancers in the last bit of the trio remained stubbornly bald. 😦

Sadly, I don’t remember which songs they danced to, but the number was cute and well-choreographed, as usual.

There was a showgirl dancing on stage between each piece of the trio.

However, by the time her corset rezzed for me, the number was over.

I really enjoyed the short little numbers.

The vintage vaudeville-type acts are one of Izzy’s strong suits. 🙂

The last number of the trio was my favorite, with the dancers dressed in plaid hobo suits.

The dancers were troopers through the whole number, despite the lag issues.

Unfortunately, there was apparently another lag spike and another delay after the opening number.

After waiting another 15 minutes for things to settle, the show continued.

Sadly, I didn’t get any pics of the second number.

The third act was a number by Deyna Broek to a song by the Pussycat Girls.

I’d tell you which song, but I can’t remember, darn it!

The lighting in the pic doesn’t do the number justice, as I didn’t spend my usual time fussing with the photos for fear I would crash and not get any.

I only had an hour free to attend the show.

As the next number hit the stage, RL was calling and I had to leave.

The few numbers I did see were well done, as usual.

After the theater reopens (in August, I believe), make sure you try to catch one of their shows.

Mark your calendars for Mondays at 7pm SLT.

Be sure to arrive early to allow time for everything to cache and rez!!

What’s Your AO?

Image Source: wiki.phoenixviewer.com

I’ve been following a couple of online threads recently about various viewer issues – things not rezzing, Winnie’s missing left eye, etc. 😛

Weird things catch my eye, and after seeing some screen shots of people’s issues, I saw several AO’s.

I use the Firestorm viewer and I also use the built-in AO.

I love it.

No attachments to fuss with and no remembering to put it in every outfit.

When I first heard about the built-in AO’s, I remember hearing that it would help cut down on lag.

I did a bit of searching around yesterday, but I can’t find any information on that.

The little I did find said that it might help a tad with lag, but that new scripts in newer AO’s are not a lag-inducing as they used to be.

I still see venues asking people to detach AO’s, so I wonder how lag-heavy AO’s are these days.

But then I started wondering – how many people use attached AO’s?

Are they better or worse than the built-in viewer AO’s?

Do people just use pre-built AO’s or do they modify them?

I personally have modified mine – removing stands and such that I didn’t care for (like the ones where you seem to be checking your shoes for something -.-).

I have changed the basic run into another one I like much better, etc.

Now if there was just a way to add an ankle lock animation into it – is that possible?

Does anyone have a home-grown AO – one that they cobbled together?

Attached or built-in?

What animation stores are favorites for AO animations?

If you use an attached AO, is there a reason you’ve made that choice over using a built-in AO?

I’m dying of curiosity over here!

Avatars, Lag, and ARC

This is an old pic, but the principle is still the same.
Image Source: nwn.blogs.com

One of the things you learn quickly and come to hate passionately in SL is lag.

As a performer, lag is inescapable.

You’re backstage, caching dances, and then WHAM!

Suddenly your computer freezes, your screen goes black, and you begin to pray that you won’t crash.

By some miracle, you don’t crash, but moving is now like slogging through molasses.

Dancers have traded tips and tricks for years on ways to reduce lag at performances – things like:

• turn down your draw distance
• lower your particles
• turn off render for stuff like trees, terrain, sky, etc, that aren’t needed indoors
• watch your scripts – remove unnecessary ones

Venues have tried to help by asking audiences to do various things –

• sit down as soon as they arrive
• no facelights
• remove AO’s
• watch their scripts

Many venues have even installed script counters to help police the worst offenders.

But we still have lag.

So I was curious when I saw a post from Penny Patton about draw weight (ARC, Avatar Render Cost – whatever you want to call it).

In her post, Penny talks about how she was able to reduce her ARC from 200K+ down to around 50K.

Now, Penny is much more technical than I am, and I wouldn’t even attempt some of the things she does to decrease her ARC.

I wouldn’t even know HOW to do some of them.

I, like many of us in SL, am at the mercy of the content creators, whom I expect to know much more about things like textures, specular maps, polygons, and LOD than I ever will.

So after reading Penny’s post, and coming across another post on the same issue by Nalates Urriah, I decided to do a bit of testing on my own.

The post by Nalates refers back to another post (which I did not read), and states that on an ’empirical basis Kay found that jewelry is a major culprit in high ARC.’

I was curious to see what the ARC of various items in my own inventory would be.

I logged in and turned on the ARC.

You can do this yourself under the Advanced Menu > Performance Tools > Show Render Weight for Avatars. (And that is about the extent of my technical knowledge when it comes to SL!)

You will now see a number above your head – this is your ‘ARC.’

I found an outfit in my inventory and put it on.

After removing each item separately to find its ARC, here is how my outfit broke down:

• Mesh Hair:  1450 ARC
• Mesh Dress:  2744 ARC
• Mesh Feet:  1736 ARC
• Mesh Hands: 1200 ARC each (2400 ARC total)
• Mesh Shoes:  10560 ARC
• Earrings: 4345 ARC each (8690 ARC total)
• Necklace: 14482 ARC

I was not wearing any other items, other than my eyeballs, skin, and shape (I have no idea how to find the ARC of these things, since SL does not allow you to NOT wear a skin or shape).

So, I just subtracted all the items listed above from my ARC total.

Eyeballs, skin, and shape apparently account for 6308 ARC.

I was pleasantly surprised at the relatively low ARC for my mesh hair, dress, and feet.

The hands seem a little high, but I was fairly shocked by the ARC of the jewelry I had on.

It was not big, flashy pieces, just a simple necklace and earrings.

Since the other posts mentioned that jewelry was a huge culprit, I wanted to do some more investigating.

I found a jewelry set that I really love from a fairly well-known jewelry maker in SL.

I added a piece at a time to find out the ARC for each piece.

Now, let me add that this is not necessarily a scientific experiment, because sometimes the ARC would change slightly if I took the piece off and put it on again.

I don’t know if that’s because the texture is already cached?

Again, technical is NOT my forte. 😀

Anyhoo, I put on the bracelet from this jewelry set.

The ARC of the bracelet was 13603.

Almost as much as the necklace I was wearing earlier.

Then I added the left earring from this set, assuming that both earrings would be the same ARC.

Now, for some reason, I didn’t get a stable ARC from the earrings.

I got a large initial ARC, then when I removed and re-attached the earrings, the ARC seemed to fluctuate.

After several add/removes, I got the same ARC several times in a row, so I am using that one.

The earrings had an ARC of 14375 each, so 28750 ARC total for both.

So now I am at 42353 ARC for the jewelry alone, which is almost equal to the starting ARC of my entire avatar + wardrobe at the beginning of this exercise.

Then I added the necklace of the set.

The necklace had an ARC of 24235.

So for 4 pieces of jewelry (bracelet, earrings, and necklace), the ARC of the set had a grand total of 66588.

66588.

Just for the jewelry!!

Ouch.

With the jewelry added, I currently have the number 173388 floating above my head.

Which doesn’t make any sense, because if I add up the items separately, my total should be 91786.

So it appears that ARC fluctuates (I’m sure for technical reasons I don’t understand).

However, even at 91786, that would mean that 2/3 of my ARC is jewelry alone!

That is ridiculous.

I decided to try jewelry from a different maker.

I had two bracelets.

Each bracelet had an ARC of 15539, so a total of 31078 just for the two bracelets.

Wow.

That means the two bracelets alone have a higher ARC than the rest of my entire avatar/items.

Jewelry does seem to be a huge culprit when it comes to high ARC’s.

I’m not sure what the ‘optimum’ ARC for an avatar is – I suppose it depends on your computer system.

However, I will be more conscious of my ARC when going to shows.

Wearing jewelry is nice, but not absolutely necessary, especially if I am unknowingly contributing to lag.

I have a fairly nice computer setup, so wearing all this jewelry hasn’t really affected me, as ARC (from what I’ve read and (hopefully) understood), is a factor in client-side lag, NOT server-side lag.

But I am there to see the performers, and if my beautiful jewelry is lagging them out (because perhaps their computer system is a tad older than mine), then I am ruining the show.

Do a little experimenting yourself next time before you go to a show.

Perhaps you can help avoid the lag monster as well by being more aware of not only your scripts, but your ARC.  😀

If you’re curious about how ARC is calculated, see here.  I didn’t understand all of it, but light-emitting prims have a high count.

So leave your facelights at home!!!!