Nyx Linden has created a new tool that allows one to examine render complexity. When the tool is activated it colors objects in the area Blue, Green, or Red for low, moderate, and high complexity. The lower the complexity the faster things render.

This tool is based on the newest render complexity algorithm. According to Nyx the algorithm is not yet built into the Mesh Project Viewer. So, we may see differences in the values given in the mesh upload dialog and the Render Complexity Tool.

Nyx says there are a number of caveats one should consider and remember. So, we can ignore and forget those… er… wait… may be some of us could be smart this time around and remember this is all beta stuff and it will change, which is what Nyx is saying. So, don’t plan your tier savings based on the values you get from this tool.

Meshes, prims with animated textures, texture resolution, number of triangles, prims with media textures, prims with full bright faces, and some other things Nyx may have forgotten are likely to change value in future releases.

The Complexity Tool is alpha level in a beta version viewer. If you think it is going to work perfectly, please check to see if the words ‘silly rabbit’ are written on your forehead.

There are several setting you can control via Debug Settings.

RenderComplexityColorMax – color of the most expensive objects (default: red)

RenderComplexityColorMin – color of the least expensive objects (default:blue)

RenderComplexityColorMid – color of a mid-range complex object (default: green)

RenderComplexityStaticMax – set a static value for what render complexity equates to “max”. Any objects at or over this value will have a highlight of the color RenderComplexityColorMax. If this value is -1, the scale will be recalculated each frame to color the objects based on the current view. (default: -1)

RenderComplexityThreshold: objects less than this threshold will not be colored. This does not have any impact on the color scale’s minimum.

If you run into problems with the tool, contact Nyx Linden. Ask questions in the Mesh section of the forum.

Getting the Tool

To get a copy of the tool one must use the Test Viewer. The link is to the download page. The viewer is a version of SLV 2.6.2-225046 Mesh Project. Once things progress the feature will be part of the Mesh Project viewer.

The control to turn the tool on is: Top Menu->Develop->Render Metadata->Render Complexity see the image.

The settings are above.

Experience

The install places the viewer in its own folder: SecondLifeDeveloper. The viewer opens in Basic Mode… annoying that a developer’s viewer starts in BASIC…

The second restart put me in slow motion mode. The viewer even before login was taking 5 to 10 seconds to respond to the mouse. A reboot of the computer and I was ok and running.

I expected the viewer to take me into ADITI by default. It did not. So, one must select ADITI if that is where you are headed.

The image shows the tool in action. Most of the world is red… Notice the numbers. One can use the Debug Settings to tweak the color ranges to make the tool more useful.

The viewer itself is medium performance, 25 FPS in my little cottage.

Summary

The tool is incomplete and sort of a first draft. But, I think it is going to be helpful for content creators.

This tool will appear in viewers once the render cost algorithms for mesh are finalized. Documentation is in progress now.

WARNING: On the main grid I have not been able to use Group Chat. I can listen but, not chat. I get a connect fail.

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