A tale of two clocks (AKA Mesh Studio is neat)

Very early on this year I had a very quick dabble with mesh. Nothing serious. In fact both dabbles were complete rubbish; just ways to get to know the upload process. A little later on in the year I had another go (using Hexagon) and that didn't go too well. While I managed to make what I wanted to make I found the whole process rather painful and there were still lots of issues with the end result.

One of the big frustrations for me was getting to grips with the way things are built in other tools. I'm so used to the build process in Second Life itself that I really wished there was something that was exactly like SL, in building terms, but produced mesh as the end result.

Fast forward to the time in the run up to The Femdom Hunt III, while I was working hard on the new range of Z&A vehicles, and I discovered Mesh Studio. This was exactly what I needed, exactly what I was looking for. I used it to great effect when making some of the vehicles and it continues to be useful for all sorts of building projects.

I think a recent one I did is a nice illustration of how handy it can be with old builds.

Regular readers will recall that, earlier this year, I built a clock for the Raven Park Mansion. The finished product is 7 prims (and, as it stood at the time, had a land impact of 7). Three hands, the central hub, the face, the glass and the surround. I was (and still am) really pleased with it.

Last week I decided to see what'd happen if I turned it into mesh using Mesh Studio. The result was spot on. You can't tell the difference:

On the right is the original prim version with a land impact of 7. On the left is the meshed version. This is four prims (the main body of the clock -- now a single mesh object -- and the three hands) with a land impact of just 2. The land impact of the mesh version was 4 to start with (three hands and the body) but setting the physics shape of the whole thing to convex hull brought it down to just 2.

This means that I can have four copies of the clock out for the cost of just one extra prim over a single copy of the original prim build (in case you're curious: setting the original prim version to convex hull brings it down from 7 to 4). That's neat.

While I'm finding that Mesh Studio is a great tool for complex original builds it's also turning out to be very handy for revamping older builds too.

Best L$5,000 I've spent in a while. No question.