Luna Lunaria^✦ @lunalunaria

Thanks Marianna for the great article! Sketchfab is my go-to website, for both free and paid items, when I'm looking for mesh components to add to my primarily prim builds. After trying multiple download file types, I find that I prefer GLTF 2.0 when available. And as Marianna noted, taking the time to truly assess your mesh will prevent issues uploading.

I mostly use Blender 4.0, and the primary tools I use are Merge Distance, Decimate, and Smart UV Maps. If a mesh comes with textures and uv mapping, I use only merge and decimate to preserve the original map. If there are no textures, I will join all the pieces into one object, merge distance, decimate, then create a new uv map. I also use Blender 2.79 for baking normals on highly detailed mesh objects, like statues. here's a good video on that process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r-cGjVKvGw

The key step I use when exporting to collada is to uncheck the Triangulate box in the popup menu under Operator Presets / Geom, otherwise you might get the dreaded 'Vertex number more than 65534' error. If I get a physics is missing error, I will try other LOD levels before going back to the drawing board in Blender. If I get a 'Dae Parsing' error, I go back to Blender and make sure all faces are facing out and not flipped. Here's a good video tutorial on identifying and correcting those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT_ozJW8v50&list=PLIyBt3CA...

As for physics, I use the latest Firestorm viewer and tend to use a variety of approaches, depending on how the user will interact with the mesh. If it's just to be seen, I'll select a low or medium level LOD then select 'cube' or make a similar basic object in Blender to encompass the mesh. If it has a high vertex number and it's something that will be up close and interacted with, especially furniture, I will select at least the medium physics option then apply the analyze tab. If the upload already has a very low vertex number to begin with, I will change all the LOD's to match the high setting and skip the analyze step altogether.

These of course are just my preferences and are not being promoted as the only way or best way to approach some meshes. Other creators will have their tips and tricks and preferred ways of handling mesh. Hopefully, some of this will be helpful.

Have some well-deserved fun!

Very cool gun

Thank you Jared

It was great seeing you and giving you a personal tour :-)

I loved Europa. Wonderful work :-)

I sent mine in :-)

I love textures

My 20-something son, along with his fiance and their friends, run both. They like the retro because they grew up with that, and they like coming into SL on odd occasion for the social aspects, but they also have PS5's, Xboxes, and higher-end PC's running all the latest high-end games, especially mmorpgs where they can all be online together. I see the appeal for older SL graphics within our community here, which is fine for those who prefer it, but I myself am always trying to push the boundaries of what can be rendered in Opensim and I look forward to using PBR here to see what's possible.

Proud to call WTG home for two years. It was small back then but I could see his vision and wanted to be a part of that.

Thank you Talia for your kind words :-)

:-D

Thank you all for the positive comments

Marianna's complaint was not that Lone stole her texture (she admitted that the dance floor she saw was a different texture but similar) but that he had stolen her idea of an arcane texture on a floor and used it on the dance floor for the social the day of the event. None of which was true. The picture in my original post was from the Gala I had at my club on Luxor 6 months ago, a club I built long before the idea of having a social on WTG was even born. My whole point in posting this picture was to show that I had been using arcane textures on all kinds of surfaces for years, and the idea did not come from anything she had created. Lone got caught in someone's terribly wrong assumption.

The texture above I purchased from Bigstock back in 2014 or earlier (my earliest use of it) when you could still buy single images. It came royalty free and I could do anything I liked with it, including using it on an item I sell, as long as I did not resell or distribute the texture by itself. I don't sell any of my textures. The only item I sell that includes it is a rune circle that has a menu to select multiple textures, so it is not the primary part of the build, and it is not a fast-moving item since I only sell one or two a year maybe. But now if someone wants this texture, it is only available through Dreamstime or any of the Shutterstock companies that operate on a subscription-only basis.

I've discussed my process and licensing multiple times on this forum, but I'll mention it again here since someone asked about it. Since I am a creator, I always try to respect creators' rights. I create about 80% of my own textures and those I don't create I buy in royalty-free / cco bundles. A very few that I can't buy I source from reputable sites like Textures.com with the correct licensing. Any mesh I do not create myself, especially historic statues, I buy or obtain from reputable sources and make sure those all have a commercial license, a copy of which I embed inside the mesh.

And yes, anyone can do exactly what I have done without buying my items, but not everyone has the time, inclination, or patience to do that. I personally am not interested in searching Opensim for anyone who may have duplicated one of my ideas. I am so very thankful to those patrons who regularly support my work. You enable and encourage me to keep creating.

You're so very welcome :-)

That was a lot of fun! Everyone on voice and dancing or playing greedy. Made a lot of new friends on the grid :-)

Thanks Joe :-)

Thank you Safine :-)

You have a lovely region, Govega, and the ballroom was nicely done

As an Opensim merchant who makes original content, what little money I make from my Kitely Market store and my Gloebit store go to pay for the tier on my regions with only a little left over for tipping my favorite musical artists and DJs. That enables me to keep creating on the scale I like without having to worry about maintaining a grid of my own. I am deeply grateful for a special group of patrons in Opensim who love my work and support what I do. I couldn't do it without you. I also have an SL Marketplace store and an inworld SL store that also pay the bills there and leaves me a little left over. I try to always remain aware that some are not able to buy my products so I try to keep prices as low as I can and I regularly donate items when things reach me through the grapevine.

As for copybotting, I made a decision back in 2017 when I opened my first OS store that I wasn't going to go down a dark path consumed by the possibility. I don't go searching freebie stores and the like looking for my items unless someone messages me about one of my items they saw somewhere for free or for sale. Even then, I don't assume the worst and try to be polite with people.

As for God-moding, that's just something I have no control over, as Jupiter pointed out, so I don't lose sleep over it. if my stuff ends up everywhere for free then it will be time to close shop and stop creating and move on to any of the other projects I love to work on outside of Opensim, but until that happens I can continue to happily create :-)