Angles & Avatar Bodies

Ok....I had a little discussion with my fiance a while back about the graphics here....more of a disagreement...but I don't know if I was absolutely correct in my explanation of the odd angles that sometimes appear during certain poses and animations.

He insisted it was the graphics card...while I tried to explain it was just the way the body forms are rendered in SL..... I'm referring to elbows and knees looking like daggers or the ever appealing (not!) shoulder contortion that makes the arm look as tho it will separate itself at any moment.....

It isn't there in every pose...but it happens enough..... he insisted it was graphics card rendering and I insisted it was SL itself..... The graphics in SL look beautiful for me 99% of the time.....sky, landscape and textures all appear smooth and clear.... my card is the Nvidia GForce7600.... He pointed out the smoothness of the body forms in so many other games and I pointed out that SL has so many other changing variables with-in the graphics that some of that smoothness is sacrificed so that 'players' can have more control of their surroundings.

But...I'm curious...is he correct? Do these angles become smooth with a better g-card?

Im not sure - I rarely see these problems - and I have a pretty rubbish PC for SL standards. Im not sure of the exact specs, but it isn't as good as your card for sure.

No, he's not correct.

The avatar is made up of a mesh and when you are bent certain ways, the mesh just can not be smooth at all times.

You'll also see some avatars that are "tweaked" beyond normal proportions...you know..the guys with the 70 in chests and 20 inch waists?...they'll have more sharp jagged edges then the normal sized avatars.

If you'd like, you can turn on "view mesh" (I believe?) in the client drop down menu. Not sure where it is exactly, but it allows everything on your screen to be shown as mesh....and this will help explain it to your fiance.

Ati Radeon X1600

I don't think it's the card. I've also seen what you mean. I think it's just a matter of individual perception. Ask your fiancé to take a picture of you in a pose, save to his hard drive, then upload and send it to you. You will be able to 'see' like he 'sees'. If you are still able to see weird angles while he doesn't, it just might mean it doesn't bother him as much.

Well, it's true, our curves are somewhat blocky and that can be alleviated a bit by turning up the detail in the avatar mesh, but we are going to be a little blocky. Until they make the avatar mesh with more polygons to smooth it out, it's going to be a little blocky.

It sounds like you need to turn up the graphics slider for avatar detail in your preferences.

it's definitely SL, and the setting Arch mentions will help, but not cure the problem...

thing is, SL avatars aren't optimized like most game avatars, and not all people making animations in SL are pros who know how to avoid some of those things....other games have a very limited set of predefined movement, made by pros... SL... doesn't.

I hate to rat him out, but is he angling for a new graphics card? It's not a bad tactic - "Hey honey, our outdated graphics card is really making your Sl experience not so good. A couple 8800GTX's working together would really fix things up right..."

You don't need to improve the quality of your graphics card.
You need to improve the quality of your animations.

LOL

Thanks gang...first...he doesn't like SL at all.....he loathes it, actually. We both are into gaming, Call of Duty...FEAR...stuff like that, but he cannot relate in the slightest to the whole virtual world appeal. He was just observing and commenting as I was showing him some of the stuff in SL...... I tried explaining about the body forms but he wasn't buying it.....but the mesh explanation is perfect! That is exactly what I needed to show him to clarify what I meant....but he's in Iraq now...so, hardly matters.

And as for him pitching for a new G-card...not a chance! He bought me this PC for gaming and when he gets home he's going to just build himself one, LOL We're such big kids...I love it. hehe

Dang, I thought the gaming angle was a sure thing.

I can see installing the card. "Gee, Honey, SL looks the same. Go figure? But WOW! Check out Crysis!!"

What a diabolical plan.