Second Life Image Types Can Be Uploaded
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Note: This is a bones walkthrough of how to upload a model. For full details on the parameters available for uploading a model, come across Model Upload UI reference.
Update: Viewer version three.8.one.303230 modified the mesh importer to (optionally) improve debug output, perform proper noun-based LOD association, and handle models with many materials. For additional information on this update, encounter the official Second Life Viewer release notes.
Prerequisites
Before you tin can upload mesh objects, you must:
- Have payment information on file. You tin add payment data by visiting the Billing Information section of your 2d Life account page.
- Have accepted the IP terms on your account page. If you are planning to use the beta grid (Aditi), you must also take the IP terms at that place, but do non need payment information on file.
- Have at least one compatible COLLADA (.dae) file on your estimator. You can create your own by using well-nigh popular 3D software packages, or, if yous accept the appropriate rights, yous can download models created by other 3D artists from online repositories. Try our sample content page for a gratuitous model if you lot're only getting started.
Yous may check your mesh upload status at any fourth dimension by visiting your business relationship page on the 2nd Life website.
Cost to upload
There is a Linden dollar fee to upload a model; the fee depends on the model's complexity.
GETTING STARTED: Uploading your first model
If you're new to uploading mesh models to 2d Life, hither's a quick and like shooting fish in a barrel gear up of instructions to get you started. Don't worry about the myriad of controls in the upload window for now; they're for Residents who want fine control over their model'southward appearance and physics. For a more detailed breakdown of the upload process, keep reading below.
To upload a mesh model:
- Choose a .dae file stored on your computer by choosing Build > Upload > Model. If you don't have any models on your computer, you may download some from the sample content page.
- Preview your model's automatically generated levels of particular on the Level of Particular tab by clicking High, Medium, Low, and Lowest. Observe how the object's complication is reduced at each level.
- Click the Physics tab and choose Lowest from the dropdown menu in Stride 1: Level of Detail. Step ii and Footstep 3 are non required.
- Click the Upload options tab and cheque the boxes for any boosted features on your model, such every bit textures.
- Click Calculate weights & fee, and then review the resource weights, country impact, and Linden dollar upload price of your model.
- Click Upload to upload your model to Second Life.
Tip: To avoid spending Linden dollars while experimenting with uploading models, you may wish to utilize the Second Life Beta Grid (Aditi). The Beta Grid allows you to test new features and experiment with potentially costly designs in a safety environment, using a copy of your 2d Life business relationship. Deportment taken on the preview grid cannot bear upon your inventory or 50$ balance on Second Life's main grid.
Footstep 1: Choose a model to upload
Second Life accepts COLLADA (.dae) models, which can be edited and created in many popular 3D modeling packages. If you exercise not currently take any COLLADA models on your estimator, you may download some from the sample content page.
To begin uploading a model:
- Choose Build > Upload > Model...
- Select the .dae file on your reckoner and click Open up.
- In the Upload Model window, enter a suitable name for your model in the Model proper noun field.
- If your model includes textures, check the Textures box underneath the Preview pane to make sure the textures are displayed properly.
Stride 2: Define visual levels of item
Levels of detail determine what your model looks like from various distances. As yous become farther away from a model, it renders in less item to boost visual performance. Second Life generates these lower detail models by default, merely yous may use this step to tweak each level or even upload your own lower detail models. Y'all tin can preview your model at whatever level of detail by clicking High, Medium, Depression, or Everyman.
While previewing your model at each level of detail, y'all may change the parameters used for simplifying information technology from your original model if you choseGenerate from one of the Source dropdown menus. For full details on Triangle Limit and Error Threshold, see Upload Model UI reference.
Uploading your own LOD files
You may upload your own simplified models by choosing Load from file from the Source dropdown menus. You lot may wish to create your own lower-item models in society to preserve disquisitional details that may be lost during the automatic simplification process.
The mesh uploader uses very strict naming rules for these custom LOD files:
- File names ending with "_LOD2" must be used for Medium level of detail
- File names ending with "_LOD1" must be used for Low level of detail
- File names ending with "_LOD0" must be used for Lowest level of detail
- File names ending with "_PHYS" must be used for the model's physics shape
Additionally, material names must matchexactly betwixt each level of particular. Some 3D modeling programs such equally Blender automatically change material names to prevent duplication when multiple versions of a model are loaded into the aforementioned scene.
Material names are sorted alphabetically upon importing a model from the 3D modeling program of your choice, and may not retain the order they had in the original model. If cloth order is of import to your model, you must proper name them accordingly.
For more detailed information on uploading mesh models with multiple materials, see Uploading a multi-face mesh on the 2d Life Wiki.
Notation: If y'all demand to upload an former model that does not conform to these LOD naming rules, you lot may enable the debug setting calledImporterLegacyMatching in the Second Life Viewer. Access the Debug Settings window past choosingAdvanced > Debug Settings from the top menu bar.
Step 3: Define the model'southward physics shape
A model's physical shape, every bit interpreted by 2d Life's physics engine for computing collisions, can be unlike from its visual shape. For instance, you may wish to simplify a very complex vehicle into a square physical box shape, which allows you to accept a visually complex vehicle that requires comparatively little physics computation and does not overtax the region's ability to process moving concrete objects. Y'all may upload your own physics representation as a .dae file or you may use Second Life's analysis and simplification tools to generate a physics shape automatically.
The quickest way to generate a physics model for your object is to choose Use Level of Detail and select a level of detail from the dropdown carte du jour. This creates a physics model based on ane of your model'due south visual levels of detail. Remember that lower physics costs are desirable, so choose the everyman level of detail that reasonably represents the shape of your model.
You do not need to consummate Step 2: Clarify or Footstep 3: Simplifiy unless your physics model is extremely complex or shows red lines in the preview window. For avant-garde information on usage of the physics assay and simplification tools, meet Upload Model UI reference.
Step iv: Upload options
Before you upload, make sure to include whatsoever necessary optional parameters on the Modifiers tab:
- Scale: Changes the base size of your model. Increasing the scale increases the resource toll.
- Include Textures: Includes whatever textures applied to the COLLADA model. The textures are automatically practical to the Second Life version of the model when it is uploaded.
- Include Skin weight: Includes any pare weight data in the COLLADA model. This option only applies to models that are meant to move and flex with your avatar when worn equally avatar attachments.
- Include Joint positions: Includes articulation position information from the COLLADA file. This choice only applies to models that are meant to modify an avatar'southward joint positions when worn as an attachment.
- Pelvis Z Offset: Changes the vertical positioning of a rigged model.
Footstep five: Calculate weights & fee
When you click Calculate weights & fee, Second Life calculates the download, physics and server weights of your model in order to decide its land bear upon and Linden dollar upload cost. The base Linden dollar cost to upload is L$10 plus L$10 for each texture applied to the model, and an additional cost based on the complexity of the model.
For more information about weights and country impact, come across Calculcating state impact.
Step half dozen: Upload
When you upload a model, information technology appears in the Objects binder in your inventory. As with all objects in Second Life, you can then drag it from your inventory to the ground, or you tin wear it as an attachment.
Bonus section: Rigging options
Rigged models allow you lot to stand for your avatar skeleton every bit a mesh that conforms to your joints and motions. This means that you tin habiliment a rigged model that changes the length and orientation of your avatar's limbs and animates accordingly.
If your COLLADA model contains joint position and skin weight data, you can preview how it volition look with an avatar'south default idle blitheness past checking theSkin weights box underneath the Preview pane.
Wearing a model with rigging
You may wear a rigged model past right-clicking it in your inventory and selecting Clothing. Yous may often wish to pair a rigged model with an blastoff mask to hide your avatar's normal shape.
Source: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/uploading-a-mesh-model-r274/