When I first came to SL I was very disappointed to see that LL had chosen not to implement a more robust means of making mesh objects.Instead they provided the means tocreate wtih prims and sculpts which are really a small, special, LLspecificmesh subset.

It's really exciting now that mesh has been launched and it means a lot of change will come to SL. This is both beneficial and at the same time a bit daunting so I thought I would start this discussion in the hopes that it will aid us allduring this transition. Another good place to start is with Pamela Galli's The Truth about Mesh .

Here are a few basics to get us started.

Mesh-Enabled Viewer

The first thing you are going to need is a mesh-enabled viewer. Either the official Second Life Viewer or a third-party viewer that supports mesh. The latest statistics ( January 30, 2012 ) say that 70% of residents are now using a viewer that supports mesh.

Land Impact

Even if you don't want to upgrade your viewer at the moment, the introduction of mesh has already had an impact on you SL experience. Prior to mesh, Land Capacity wasmeasured by the Prim Count, i.e. the number of prims that piece of land could support. Land Capacity is now measuredby Land Impact.

No need to panic about your current objects costing more as the way LL has set up the accounting system takes this into consideration. If you had a Prim Count of 500 your Land Impact is also equal to 500 and will remain so as long as you don't make specific changes to the objects.

You can learn more about Land Impact at Prims, Prim Equivalent, Land Impact... a too-long guide .

Other Resources

Right now I find that the information regarding mesh is scattered all over the place. My two favourite spots to look are the official Second Life Forum-Mesh and Second Life Universe-Content Creation . I have asked questions in both spots and got a lot of good feedback.

So there's a bit of a start. Please feel free to post your favourite resources, tips and questions.

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 06 Oct 2016 06:11:18AM

Teehee, it is not a secret I love mesh. Not just about mesh, but about everything, I can always go with my questions to the Builders Brewery group. There are so many people in the group there is always someone to answer your questions in the group chat!

And if you are working on mesh furniture that needs script, be sure to put the scripts in a separate prim because of the prim count.

I just published in Royal Courts a video that could help you to understand what can you do using external mesh (this new thing) and the regular meshes (prims and sculptprims).

I think that in SL and Opensim the trick is know when is good use a mesh model and when is interesting use traditional prims.

Kind regards.

I can make mesh skirts but if try to make something more elaborate SL invariably refuses to let me upload. So at the moment I am quite desillusioned by it

But there are some great stuff out there.

Hi Sophia, I see the clothing is fairly basic, thoughalbeit contemporary, often a real pleasure to wear.I don't build as yet but I look forward to seeingmore elaborate clothing becoming available. It may not do justice to period designs, but we will see.

Thank you for this excellent explanation on mesh, Tat. For those of us still seeing avis enclosed in waltzing boxes at balls and frisbee home decorating, it helps take away some of the horror of the transition unfolding before us. Now to find the perfect new viewer for a Mac .. sigh so far an impossible dream yet to be realized.

hello,

Where did you post your video, I cant find it?

thank you

Ephe

From: Deploys for the week of 2012-08-06

Changed prim accounting for legacy prims which use the new accounting system

All legacy-style prims have their streaming cost capped at 1.0 (except for sculpts, which will be capped at 2.0). This provides the benefit of not penalizing prim-based creators for optimizing their content by opting into the new system and will make the streaming cost more reflective of the true network cost of the objects.

Server cost will be adjusted to MIN{ (0.5*num_prims) + (0.25 * num_scripts), num_prims }. This preserves the current value for unscripted linksets and reduce the cost for linksets containing fewer than 2*num_prims scripts. It provides the benefit of rewarding creators for reducing the number of scripts in their objects.

Though this is old news, I'm just catching up with it myself. This makes a huge difference when putting together objects that include meshso I thought it was worth posting.

I'm very excited about it!!

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Greetings,

My latest months was a continue fight with rigged mesh, I saw the posibilities and I need to do that, and make period clothes with them! Now I think that in few days I can launch to sale my first mesh outfit (a Regency one) that you can see in the following picture. And my advice about them are -: patience, patience and perseverance... (and Avastar with Blender if you use it... that could simplify your "mesh life a lot!!) Mesh period clothes are possible, with all the complexity that you like!

(Excuse me that little promotion of my new suit... but I think that the picture is exemplative of the discussion...)

Congratulations Trasgo!

I think it's wonderful that you will soon be able to show the world the fruits of your meshing efforts.

Seeing the possibilities of mesh and then actually creating something with it is certainly a daunting task especially when you have to deal with rigging as well! At least we can't complain that we are bored because there is nothing new to learn

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site