I haven’t yet released much into the wild in terms of mesh and the reason for that is largely me being a fussy bugger. The trouble with mesh is also part of the beauty of mesh, you have extra control over mesh and this leads to me constantly deciding I can do this better and never actually finishing my build, ignoring the advice I was given years ago in Second Life that at some point you have to say to hell with it, that will do, or you’ll never finish your build.
Years ago that was with relation to the dotted lines that appear on builds when you have certain settings, I would try and find ways to avoid it, someone then said to me that you just have to roll with it. I’m back there now with mesh, not with regards to dotted lines, but with worrying that I could be more efficient, that I can make the inside a lower LOD than the outside, as the inside doesn’t need to be seen from so far away, whether I should worry about inside faces in the roof space that probably won’t be used …. but what if someone wants to use it? Arghhhh!
I can then build a very basic roof, with insides, all in a low land impact modular roof, but you can’t rez inside said roof, you can drag things inside and rez them that way but that means any scripted items that rez inventory won’t work. This constant second guessing of use cases becomes stifling in the creation process, but I realise it’s me whose stifling myself.
However I tear down my roof and decide to make an outer roof and inner roof, now I’m cooking on gas, I can have different LOD’s as they’re different objects, this also means they’re likely to have a higher land impact when combined, so now I’m trading one efficiency model, for another, which is more important, land impact or use of a space that probably won’t be used?
Then there are physics issues, two mesh prims set to convex hull don’t play nicely, the physics calculations are out, this is a known issue, will anyone notice if they rez an item? Heck maybe I should set the physics shape to prim, which will increase the land impact score but make the build more user friendly, I mean it’s only going to add a few points to the prim score overall.
Whilst I’m painfully pondering these issues, other people are releasing wonderful mesh builds, getting on with it and not finding themselves tied up in knots, but I’m concerned about not releasing a laggy build, I don’t want to contribute to a bad user experience, but wait a minute, all these other people are releasing builds, I’ve even purchased some and there’s no real big issue I’ve noticed, so I should just get on with it, but wait, if I I just tweak this then it might be better …. round and round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows.
The thing is, the advice I was given years ago was the correct advice, publish and be damned, you’ll only really learn better techniques and what’s acceptable by publishing your content, but it gnaws at me and I can’t be alone with this … can I?
LOL! I know just what you mean, Ciaran, as I know many others reading your post do. I think it’s the perfectionist element of a creative person, we just can’t help ourselves. When new tools present themselves we want to use them to the fullest. And we are forever battling the urge to tweak and tweak and tweak until kingdom come. It comes naturally!
I am not a builder but I’ve tried. With basic prims. I did at least get to the point where I could put them together properly even if I have no talent whatsoever when it comes to design. But I directly relate to your comment about those dotted lines in a build and taking extra steps to hide them. And your friend saying, oh just let it go. I’ll bet the friend had been through the same thing, the urge to reach perfection.
With me, it comes up all the time with writing. I’m a writer and I do a couple of blogs. Often I write and rewrite and edit and edit again and rewrite and edit and edit some more. Tweak and tweak and tweak and tweak… It could go on forever if I let it.
One day, way back, I told myself: Hell, it’s just a blog piece, you’re not going to submit it for a Pulitzer or Booker prize. Let it go! Otherwise it’ll never be done. Ever!
Now, I never really finish a piece. Not really. I just surrender at some point. And post the damn thing.
…now, let me go back and read this again and tweak it some…
Good points Danko, yes blog posts could be the same and you’re right, they never really finish, you just have to hit the point where you say enough is enough and publish it and even then you know you could have done it differently.
The problem with perfectionOne of the many issues with the need to beAttention to detail and the need for perfecI build, and I blog. I’ve never really been totally satisifed with anything I’ve built – even the latest iteration of Fallingwater over on Kitely, if I’m honest). There are always things which can be tweaked a changed.
Similarly, with blogging, and like Danko, I’m constantly tweaking and editing and revising. So much so that some posts take several weeks to gestate, going through re-writes, tweaks, etc, before they eventually appear in print. Even then, I’m afterwards thinking, “I should have left X in that piece,” or “I should have carried on and mentioned Y”.
But there does come a time when you have to say to yourself, “That’s it, enough!” and push it out for the world to see. Granted, if you shoving stuff out to sell, this can actually be tough, as the opportunity to update can be made more work intensive, but if you’re doing it for your own ends – your own sim build, for example, then I’d say push it out and see what people say. And even if what you have is intended for sale, why not slip it out on your own regions and see what people say before passing it on to market?
The alternative is to keep tweaking, fiddling trying, changing to the point where the work remaining forever incomplete, nagging at you to tinker with it every few months – or it simply gets abandoned in frustration – possibly taking other ideas / projects with it as well.
So, you’re not alone, but the answer is there in your final paragraph.
Yup you do need to publish at some point, warts and all!
YU either make stuff, make mistakes, learn from it and get better and better… or you don’t do anything but dream.
We’re all in the same situation really. Mesh has been on the grid for just over a year now and we’ve all had to figure it out by practicing, building, making mistakes, discovering the tricks, the advantages, the disadvantages because there was no rule book really 🙂
Also you should makes stuff for YOU first and others can have it if they want.
The only thing for making stuff for yourself first is that when you know how you’ve built it, you workaround that. So for example I have builds whereby I can’t rez in the upper floors or even resize efficiently, an end user may have different expectations but you’re right that practice makes perfect and the only way to improve it to actually finish those builds and learn.