Explorations in Mesh

I've been a reluctant starter in mesh building. Normal prims I'm quite good at and I've even had build commissions. Sculpts I've had difficulty with. I bought Prim Oven which is a handy conversion tool but it's a little tedious and requires lots of back and forth to get the end result. I bought Sculpt Studio which was supposed to allow you to create sculpts inworld but I found the learning curve extremely steep and haven't really used it much.

However Mesh became the Next-Big-Thing. Initially Mesh looked like it was going to be another tool that you required specialised graphics knowledge to use. However Black Box, the people who made Sculpt Studio, soon came out with Mesh Studio, which converts regular prims into mesh. Unlike Prim Oven you can cut, twist, taper or use prims in any way you feel, and you can use all types of prims too.

So I began my experimentation after a few of New Babbage's builders began rebuilding their prim dwellings in mesh.

My first attempt was this front to the Apothecary's Shop in Clockwork Close. 90 prims down to a land impact of 4. The thing to remember is that each mesh piece may have a maximum of 8 texture faces. That includes shading. If you need more you'll need to make a second piece.

After attending a class on mesh put on by Victor and Tenk, I decided to up my goals a little and see what I could do.

Originally I was just going to do the bottom of the Automaton Service Centre in mesh and leave the rest as textures.

But I decided I could try and redo the texture in mesh and see how I go.

The middle roof section is a Sculpt from a building Rip Wirefly made. The date clock is one from the RFL build from earlier this year. The total prim impact of the build is 85. The ground floor, the first floor window and the top clockroom are all mesh pieces. I've also learned NOT to link the mesh pieces to the sculpt section. This produces a significant prim count blowout. I'm sure if I worked on it I could reduce the prim impact further (redoing the roof would help) but I think I can live with that for now.