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Lex Neva added a comment - 10/Jun/07 03:05 PM
We need at least some way of getting a "handle" on sculpted prims even if their sculpt texture has not loaded. Perhaps the sphere could be visible only if "hilight transparent" is enabled?
Added this info to the main SL internal JIRA: SL-44452.
This is a cleaner form of the problem than The root issue is that the sculpty is displayed before the sculpt texture has loaded. I see visual benefits on both points where either you have something seen before the sculpt is fully rez or that you won't see anything until it is fully rezzed. Some things look just weird without it being fully rezzed. Other time, it is helpful to see that something is there and not ready to be seen.
Do sculpties render when their textures are partially-loaded at a low resolution? If not, I'd think that should happen... In any case, a sphere/ellipsoid probably isn't a great "not quite ready" indicator, and there's the already-mentioned inconsistency in that regular prims just don't show until something about they are ready.
It would be better if they were at least distinguishable from actual ellipsoids, so I would know if I should wait for this to become something more interesting or if it is just going to stay a blob. Maybe a distinctive default texture (probably a bad move; what if the texture comes in before the sculpt texture?), or a distinctive proto-shape, like a mushroom or something.
honestly - i feel this is a problem with expectation. once sculpties become more commonplace, and once users begin to associated spheres with partially loaded shapes, there won't be a problem.
consider the fact that for regular prims, the prim is shown even before it's surface texture is loaded, often appearing "white" instead of say "polkadot". one could make the same argument here - but we don't - because (probably) we've become accustomed to seeing partially loaded textures in our web-browsers. Hi Qarl, I have to respectfully disagree on the thought that this is an expectation issue. Using the "white prim" argument, prims only appear that way on the first load of their textures, and after a couple minutes everything in the sim appears normal. On the other hand, the same sculpted prim using a shape loaded a couple of minutes ago will often show the default shape on a llSetPrimitiveParams call. For animations this behavior can appear quite disruptive.
I was wondering if this was caused by re-defining the PRIM_TYPE (where the viewer sets the prim type, then re-loads the shape) and if a LL command to define just the sculpted prim shape texture would be a possible solution? If so, one would expect the prim to seamlessly convert to the new shape texture. Sculpted prims are imho one of the best advancements of the past year, I think they will continue to be embraced by the community however this issue will need to be addressed as more and more residents make use of them in animations. I'll send you an example of why I think more of us would like to see this resolved.
Ok, I take back my previous comment, lol. JIRA can be a bit difficult sometimes, I found the MISC-333 after posting here that better describes the problems with animation. As for the initial display (when first entering a sim for example) I don't see a problem with the sphere display. In that instance the white prim example you cite is appropriate. Sorry for cross posting - I'll TP to Purgatory for 20mins as punishment
 Personally I think sculpties should not load until their correct shape can be loaded, or at least a 'progressive' load - so nothing, then a low res sculpt appears, then high-res.
The reason is it looks just plain silly. It's one thing when something is modeled close to a sphere shape, but as content creators get more adventurous with more complex sculpts, this behavior devalues these more complex forms. I have tons of examples, but the latest is a triple palm tree - which is great to fill beaches etc on a low-prim budget (3 palms in 1 prim), however on laggy sims it looks nuts to see these large 10m spheres all over. Even worse is that often the texture loads and is painted over these big spheres for some time before the shape loads. Yes, cloud does have a point. When changing to a different sculpt, the prim converts to a sphere in the meantime. It would be best for it to keep it's former shape, until the new one is at least partially loaded.
As to sculpts loading when one enters an area, it's fine to have something to show they're there, but spheres are, well, spheres. I think it would be best to come up with some other shape that isn't a basic prim, to use as a placeholder.. Maybe an icosphere or something ? Actually, on second thought. I'm not sure that we DO need something to show that sculpts are there. We don't get that for normal prims.
I can be standing on a platform that hasn't rezzed yet. And I don't see a sphere, or similar placeholder. I see nothing there at all, until the square platform appears. Why do sculpts need to be different ? I think there are two issues at hand here
1. Sculpts reverting to a sphere while changing to another sculpt. 2. Sculpts showing as spheres when not loaded. 2 is obviously the cause of 1, but the solutions are different, I think. As stated, I'd say for the first problem, when a sculpted prim's map is changing, it should keep the current shape until the new shape is loaded. ie, no sphere stage in between. 2 needs some debate, but my solution is to simply remove the whole sphere thing and make them not visible until loaded. Qarl: we used to have partially loaded prims showing up with a distinctive semi-transparent texture, that made it clear that they were not fully there. This was changed twice, for somewhat obscure reasons, and while the current grey is better than the boxes the original smoke texture was far better. It really does help to have unloaded content being really distinctive.
Replacing Ruth with a cloud was a good move. Perhaps unloaded sculpts could be rendered as sprites? And I definitely approve of Warkirby's suggestion for updating sculpt textures, but it looks like that won't happen, so I'm linking to VWR-2276. Hi guys - the fabulous Qarl updated the internal JIRA, and I thought I would get some feedback from y'all:
"we should see if people still think this is a problem. since it was originally reported, we fixed a number of bugs which made sculpties stay as spheres way too long. and then we also DID mess with the texture pipeline to get the shape texture before the surface texture. So what do you say? Are sculpties loading better? http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3798
 (currently 100 votes) would seem to say no. Should this be re-opened? Qarl said "honestly - i feel this is a problem with expectation. once sculpties become more commonplace, and once users begin to associated spheres with partially loaded shapes, there won't be a problem."
I disagree. Now sculptie attachments are commonplace, the problem is worse than ever. This is why I submitted http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-13609 Erica: sculpties were loading better for about one release, then they were deliberately broken again. I don't get it.
Geometry simply needs to load before texture. It's better to have the right shapes, even if they're grey, than "properly textured" spheres... because the textured sphere tells you very little about what you're looking at. the question about this is: will this extend to meshes once they are imported? Because this obviously is not something they really want to fix. Please someone prove me wrong/
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Bug
Reopened
Normal
Sculpted prims show before their shape is known
