SLUniverse Forums

Walker Moore

“…Who me? Yes you! Couldn’t be! Then who?…” INTRODUCING AVATAR RENDERING COST « Official Second Life Blog

Finally, after two years, I find some male hair I really like and whaddayaknow? It adds over five hundred points to my avatar rendering cost. And those really cool new boots from Abyss? They add TWO THOUSAND AND SIXTY SEVEN POINTS!

Is it a genuine social experiment or a cop-out on the part of the developers?

What will be its costs in social terms?

Visual muting of avatars for now perhaps, with the possibility of automatically banning anybody with a score above a certain threshold from your land?

On one hand it's very useful for content creators interested in creating more efficient products, but on the other, it seems some of us have bought a lot of expensive shit over the years. Expensive in a way we hadn't before realised. (And although I do try to have an efficient avatar, I have apparently seriously underestimated the rendering cost of some things I own.)

It also strikes me that this score shouldn't be limited to avatar. What about making the score visible for any linked object (without having to wear it)? And what about introducing a parcel rendering cost limit? Wouldn't that be fairer to land-owners than a prim limit? After all, if I texture all the prims on my land with different 1024x1024 texture, they are going to be far more expensive than if you textured the same amount of prims with the same 128x128 texture, but under the current system, the rendering score would be the same.

Surely a different score should apply to different texture sizes too? Hypatia also makes a point about tori rendering cost in the comments.

I'm thinking aloud having just read the blog entry. Feel free to annihilate my thoughts. I'm just interested in how rendering cost awareness will evolve. I can see the good in this. But I don't think the score assigned to certain features has been thought through well enough.

ZATZAi

They say on the blog that the numbers are calcuated client side, and thus it could slow down your system if you leave it running. If that is indeed the case, outside of bots, I don't see how one could automatically ban people over a certain threshold.

That said it is very useful for running an event and finding the laggy users, if only the RC client wasn't so damn crashy.

__________________
- ZATZAi

ZATZAi

I agree different size textures should have different costs. It would be nice to be able to see the costs of all selected prims or all prims on a parcel, or all prims in a sim. Though if its client side as they say, you'll be limited to what you can see and you can't always see everything with occlusion culling.

Siyu Suen

This one makes an awful lot of sense to me, I try to use textures over and over again, consolidate when I want certain effects, and use the smallest texture possible for the best effect, and I'd like to worry less about prims with those same textures than about how many unique vendor photos I can put up (oh, limited to 15000 unique 512 textures? Can deal)

__________________

I make masks and other things that I think are pretty.
They're over here -> at my masky shop thing

Briana Dawson

I am glad this is here actually. Everyone used to gripe about my 1000+ prim head but now with ARC i can see that i only cost 1100 when primmed out and 3900 if i put some crazy textured 211 prim necklace.

I'm actually high prim on a budget by ARC standards.

Walker Moore

Oh so my 1901 score probably reads much higher to somebody on a lower spec system. And all those 5000s I just saw at Ahern? More ouch than I thought.

Vaelissa Cortes

Avatar rendering cost is my favorite feature they've added to Second Life at the moment, right up there with sculpted prims. I've always tried to optimize my avatar and anything I can on an obsessive level, so this is a wonderfully fun thing for me.

I really hope they make different texture sizes add to the cost, it only makes sense!

Aminom Marvin

I think it's a great idea. I don't think we'll see anything as drastic as bans. Most likely requests (hopefully polite) of the runners of popular places for people with very high ARC avatars to trim their AVs down.

Social pressure will make low ARC attachments have higher demand. This will force attachment designers to create new content with low ARC. Know how we see entire stores based on low prim content for parcels? The same thing, except for attachments

This could even be integrated into RP. "Please sir, allow me to take your hat." "That armor must be uncomfortable, allow me to check it for you madam" or "Sir, I must request that I hold your weapon for you, for your own safety in case of intoxication."


I also really want to see this for builds in general. Maybe BRC or Build Rendering Cost. As sculpts are fixed (assuming they actually are) and made so that anyone can create them, parcel prim limits will become irrelevant anyways, and BRC much more important.

Miriel Enfield

While I'm glad they finally explained this, the fact that it doesn't take into account polygon count makes it only somewhat useful. Two avatars with the same listed rendering costs may have very different actual rendering costs, depending on the prims they're wearing. 10 transparent, glowing, bumpy boxes are not the same as 10 transparent, glowing, bumpy hollowed tori, no matter what the little floating numbers say.

ZATZAi

I don't believe the value changes from system to system, going by how they described it works, its based on a simple arbitrary weighting scale (Not how hard it actually is on your system, think of it like you would weight). It's just calculated on the client, when it's actually rendered. So if you cant see an avatar your client wont render a cost for it, I don't know if Occlusion culling comes into play for avatars or not though (Like if you cant see some prims).

Eata

It's going to be crappy

I'm sure I am going to get a lot of complaints about older products and possibly in general because I am in the high detail business. Lots of people will be demanding lower arbritary number due to social gathering rules

I have an EXTREMELY texture efficient product which is 25 textures and 246 prims (With a dozen invisible prims and six particle emitters) and it comes to 5872

ZATZAi

Use it as an excuse to make lower detail products Eata, sell it as a different line, the LITE line. Or emphasize how your high detail items are more effecient than competitors high detail items.

Beebo Brink

That's a great idea!

I like this tool. It allows us to make informed choices.

I'm not going to stop wearing my favorite boots because of the high ARC count -- but I may think twice about putting on some other high-count accessories at the same time.

__________________

Ingrid

me too. i'm a trim 512 with hair, shoes and clothes.

Sometimes when we have an event (which is rare) we give people a "low impact" outfit to wear. If you're creative you can make the audience look pretty cool all dressed up in the same thing. It's like the audience becomes part of the performance. And most people seem to like the idea.

Dancien Graves

Mine is High, I'm not putting people with High ARC's on mute as I have actually bothered to upgrade my computer this decade.

__________________

Roxie Marten

Time to start going bald and naked?

__________________
"Don't worry, I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake. I have low esteem for everyone else"

WarKirby Magojiro

I think and hope it will force people to be a bit more efficient in creating content. I see a lot of high prim necklaces, rings, collars, bracelets, etc. hundreds of prims each. that I could easily do in far fewer sculpts.

It will also hopefully convince people to use texture atlases more, and perhaps even cause a reduction in my personal pet peeve, alpha switching

That's basically where you have an object in two states. Like a sword sheathed, and drawn. The avatar wears both at once, and one is simply invisible while the other is visible.

Under the ARC system, the alpha switching method adds (5*number of prims*number of faces on each prim) That grows exponentially fast.

The answer to it, is simply an alternate method. When hiding things, shrink them to a tiny size, and move them inside other prims. This takes FAR more work on the part of the content creator to implement though, especially with high prim things. Sculpts make it a lot easier though.

Eata, I presume that 245 prim gun is pre sculpt. I find it very hard to believe any reasonably well made gun could use more than 30 prims if it were made from sculpts, and I've seen high detail pistols in a SINGLE prim. I suggest doing some rebuilding, and avoid alpha completely, unless it's necessary

__________________

Charlemagne Allen

If you ask me to take off my Zero Style hair, or change my Silent Sparrow clothes, I will stab you in the face.

And then orbit you.

This is a public service announcement.

__________________
Charlemagne Allen: YOU'RE A RACIST!
Charlemagne Allen: I HAVE CHATLOGS!
smokergirl Lowenhar: HOMOPHOBE
smokergirl Lowenhar: CONTENT THIEF
Charlemagne Allen: RELIGION SUCKS DONKEY BALLS!
smokergirl Lowenhar: KISS MY ASS YOU CLOSE MINDED HYPOCRIT
Charlemagne Allen: YOU WERE AN ESCORT FOR BARN ANIMALS!
Charlemagne Allen: ZOMG BIG SIG!

Pretty things:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlemagneallen/

Eata

Your hiding approach seems like a huge amount of effort for something that is scored as 1 extra point, not five, unless you are only dealing with a dozen prims.

I most strongly disagree that a high detail pistol could be done in a single prim! Possibly you could make a detailed one depending on the type in thirty sculpts but I still question if it would be close to highly detailed.

The experience we had with people making sculpt replacements for parts has only worked out as having inadequacy to retain the hard edges required to mesh with prims making them a poor replacement for prim work in general use and only particularly applicable in special cases. We used some for the RPG grips saving around 10 prims per grip.

Joshua Nightshade

I have to agree with Eata, I tried playing around with sculpties for my avatars and the edge problem combined with the pathetic LOD (unless you do the megaprim trick, which is another level of pain-in-the-ass) made me give them up.

Some stuff sculpties will not be good for, for a long time.

Joshua Nightshade

But then again my most primmy avatar doesn't even use 100 prims as far as I remember. And that's the complete avatar.

Eata