Sunday, September 11, 2011

Mismesh

Written 11 September, 2011

Mishmesh

Mesh is live on the grid, and most of the majority of avatars who aren't using Viewer 3 (which is viewer 2 with a a new name because it's mesh-enabled) can't see it.

Phoenix doesn't support mesh and won't ever unless some enterprising soul takes it on as a project. That's because the Phoenix people have been working months and months, developing Firestorm, their mesh viewer.

Except until a few days ago Firestorm didn't support mesh.

Good news, there's now a beta-beta (Firestorm has not yet been officially released) mesh-enabled version. You'll find it here.

In the meantime, you can expect mesh to look like this (must-see photos follow):



Note the missing middle section of the avatar. In a mesh-enabled viewer, that's where the mesh would go.

Some avatars at Help Island Public have taken to wearing signs to show everyone how fabulous they look.




2 comments:

Mairenn said...

What is the advantage of a mesh over a prim or sculptie?

Cheyenne Palisades said...

I'm not an expert, but to the best of my knowledge, here are the advantages of mesh:

1.It has form more complex shapes and sculpts, and can have holes in it.

2. Textures can be more evenly applied, which should get rid of that stretched look that a lot of sculpts have.

3. There's a huge library of objects already made, for mesh is used in many video games and MMORPGs.

4. When worn, mesh bends with the avatar, so no more shirttails that go all out of wumpus when your AO makes your avatar stand with hips akimbo.

5. It will be possible to have entire avatars made of mesh, just as some are now entirely prims or sculpts.

The biggest disadvantage seems to be that as now implemented worn mesh requires avatars to have specific shapes. This means that full mesh avatars will look exactly the same-- a shame, since avatars tend to be like snowflakes-- no two the same.

A second advantage, of course, is that Viewer 1 based clients won't see mesh-- or, rather, they will see mesh, but as disks or tin can shapes.

I'm wondering if mesh objects on the land will have the same sorts of boundary issues as sculpts, requiring them to be set phantom. I find it annoying to walk through apparently solid rocks or sink into apparently solid ground.