The big thing with the new version of the SL Viewer and the new release of Firestorm is Avatar Complexity. Linden Labs have an article and video on it. I thought I’d find out just how complex some of the usual items I wear are.
A naked avatar (and I mean completely naked with no hair, no nothing, gawd I look weird bald!) has a render weight of 1000.
System layer clothing, and foot shapers seem to have no effect on render weight. I added multiple layers and the render weight didn’t change. Alphas, as you would expect, drop render weight (but they seem to have to be a big alpha to much affect the number. Wearing the Slink hands and feet alpha has no effect. A full body alpha drops you to zero, but I suppose hands and feet on a standard systems avi are so simplified… *grin*).
Now, to get to my “base” naked avatar that I use to build outfits that force me to use system layers (by which I mean, I can’t use Maitreya Lara), we have:
- Mayfly Deep Sky mesh eyes x 2: 2350
- Slink Casual hands 2.5 x 2: 4552
- WoW Skins Lashes: 3046
- Alli & Ali Serafine Hair Fire: 34231
- Slink High Feet 3.1 x 2: 5136
- Slink Flat Feet 3.1 x 2: 4752
So, if I am wearing Slink Highs, my render weight is 50315 or 49931 for Slink Flat feet.
*Gulp* now for Maitreya Lara:
- Maitreya Lara Alpha: -400
- Maitreya Lara 3.5 body: 7338
Adding all this up, Lara in addition to the above, we have 57253 in Slink Highs and 56869 in Slink Flats. Whew!
So, the really big contributor is my hair. Serafine is a short bob, so let’s see what a rigged mesh short bob (very similar to Serafine) weighs.
- ICONIC COCO: 44351
!!!!
And let’s see what a long rigged mesh hair is:
- Exile Stone Cold Seduction: 1277
!!!!
This last number makes it abundantly clear that it doesn’t matter how complex the object appears to be, but in reality the software is directly measuring how well designers are making their meshes (be it prim or imported mesh via DAE).
I predict that we will see serious designers start to list the render weight on their market place listings to try and differentiate themselves from others with similar products. We sure live in interesting (Second Life) times!