Jagged Edge

I'm running the latest regular viewer with an nVidia 9800 GT graphics card, which I updated with the latest driver I could find (191.07). My viewer settings are High/Ultra - they should just be 'High' but I whack Object detail all the way up and I also have 'Avatar cloth' checked.

The thing is I began to notice earlier this year that the mesh was looking somewhat cruder than it used to be. First there was this for instance with an odd little pixel on the inside of the foot, like a mini-bunion: . That's gone now because I checked for it over the summer and I checked again just today.

Still, I became increasingly convinced that the mesh hasn't been looking as smooth as it used to and I've mentioned that several times on these forums. Like back in May, for instance: . I recall someone saying around that time (in another post I can't find) that old graphics cards needed to be updated - something to do with vertex buffers or whatever - so I let it go. I didn't have a very good system at all back then.

But even after updating my graphics set up and more or less upgrading my entire PC system back in September, I failed to notice any improvement in the rendering of the mesh. Still I let it go because lately I've read more than a few suggestions that avatar shapes deteriorate over time and it's maybe a good idea to review the 'Appearance' sliders and give them a tweak. I was thinking that thes was a chore I should take a look into soon.

Now today I noticed the planes of my av were looking noticeably more flat with pronounced corners jutting out all over. Even the neck has two mighty pyramidal knuckles sticking out either side, which I am certain sure were not there back in August when I spent a few hours fitting the prims in a simple chain around that area. I always thought the neck looks pretty weak on this mesh and I tend to spend a good deal of time balancing sliders to get it looking reasonably when I work on a shape.

Nevertheless I was ready to accept that I'd perhaps overdone the sliders when I created the shape back in 2008 and that today I was gifted with an objective second look at the thing. This happens. So just to check, I tried on the male test avatar shape for comparison and it turns out that skinny little guy has the same problems. A reasonably close look will show the joints and limbs are a mush of bad origami.

You could sit a tiny on some of the f@ckin ledges around that mesh, break ice with his cheekbones. So I just want to ask have I finally lost it? Has my sense of proportion gone to Hell in a handcart altogether? Please tell me my graphics card is a big fat dud? Or has anyone else taken a good look at the mesh of their av lately and said to themselves: This isn't as bad as it used to be.

This is far, far worse.

Have you tried enabling antialising in the hardware options? I find 4x works well to reduce jaggedness. 2x is not worth the effort, and 8x really taxes the video card (I think our hardware is about equivalent, so you should be able to handle it). Not sure if this will help your issue, but worth a try.

Pixplzkthxbye

My hardware options are set to 4x with anisotropic filtering on although I have bumped it up to 8x and 16x for control purposes but I don't think that would help anyway: the jagged look isn't to do with hard pixel edges but the mesh itself. My apologies, the problem would have been clearer if I had uploaded images with the OP.

I'm seeing very hard planes and edges that distort just about any line I care to look at, and the flaws never used to be as remarkable as this.


These give some idea of what I'm talking about.

The knees on my avatar shape:


A view of the right thigh on my shape from behind the leg:


A view of the same area while wearing the male test avatar shape:


Unfortunately I don't have similar pics from a year or two back but the shape was much more smoothed out as far as I recall or at least I cannot believe I missed this since I've been studying av shapes and clothing and skin textures more or less from the hour I rezzed. Every av shape I look at closely is really clunky now. Female shapes look especially bad: kind of scary with all these hard edges.

Is this a bona fide technical issue?

Or is it just a technicality of having my head examined?

Note: It's beside the point, Veritable, but you aren't related to Indeterminate Schism by any chance?