March Mesh Madness kicked off on March 1st, and has caused some upset / confusion. The event “brings together unique mesh designs from 20 established Second Life”, and is open until March 15th, and has been organised by Damien Fate, himself a mesh designer, and is hosted on Fate Island.
Part of the confusion seems to be that people mistakenly took this to be an LL-sponsored event as it is currently appearing on the splash screens for those Viewers using the official splash / MotD notifications. As has been pointed out in the thread linked-to above, such MotD links aren’t that uncommon – they are pulled from the Destination Guide (wherein Mesh Madness is listed), and so seeing it linked their isn’t necessarily a sign of any LL collusion.
Anyway, I decided to jump over and take a look. The sim itself is nicely designed in a modern, minimalistic look, comprising a central arrival plaza with a display kiosk in each corner, surrounded by 16 more kiosks, four to a side to form a square, all linked by walkways over water. The majority of the build appears to be mesh (or at least partial mesh) and as such, one would expect it to be relatively low-lag.
Sadly, this is far from the case. With just 12 avatars in the region, Fate Island exhibited more-or-less the same amount of lag experienced elsewhere with a similar number of avatars combined with the likes of multiple textures, vendors, etc. Rubber-banding was the order of the day.
In terms of the content on display, I’d have to say that things are – disappointing in some respects. Around twelve of the kiosks are devoted to clothing / footwear / accessories, with another three devoted to mesh hair and the remaining five offering up such items as furnishings, trees, and so on. There is little imagination shown with the various kiosks; most of which resemble mall-like slots, rather than attempts to showcase mesh. The one real exception to this is the Rustica kiosk, where Max Graf has (as ever) demonstrated his talent by producing a first-rate display of his mesh creations.
Of course, one might argue that it’s easier perhaps for Max to produce such a display than others – his items are very much touch / feel, whereas clothing is more look / try. Even so, his kiosk and that of Organica, situated almost exactly opposite in the region, are the eye-catching units that tend to draw one to them.
As mentioned, the majority of the creations being displayed here are of the looks / try variety – clothing, accessories, hair, etc., and most of the vendor boards offer demo versions of items so you can try before you buy – and this is strongly recommended.
It would have been nice to see a more varied selection of mesh on offer here – whether the final selection was down to a matter of whosoever applied for a slot, or whether the event was specifically more geared towards the fashion / accessory side of things, I’ve no idea. Until Pamela Galli made mention of the event, I wasn’t even aware it existed, and only saw the MotD as I happened to fire-up Dolphin this morning while running my weekly Viewer version checks (I use Firestorm as a rule, so don’t get the MotD otherwise).
Obviously, a single-region exhibition doesn’t allow for large-scale displays such as buildings, but it would have been nice to see more in the way of furniture and perhaps vehicles, etc.
That said, if you’ve not tried mesh clothing / footwear / hair, this is a place to visit if you want to grab a handful of demos and give things a try before you plunge deeper into the world of mesh.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
I think the events I’m really anticipating are the Fantasy Faire and the Home and Garden Expo – thinking of the level of creativity there last year, I’m waiting with baited breath to see what the designers will do with mesh this year.
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Having said that, I was delighted to discover Cold Logic at MMM. I’d heard about their work, saw it at MMM and now have a oacked Rustica wardrobe full of their clothes.
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Agreed.
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I wonder if it may still be a bit too soon for Fantasy Faire to embrace Mesh, Fantasy Faire is an awesome event.
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Scripts, object entry, and rezzing all on in places – thus some of the lag.
Too many sellers using delivery vendors rather than just ‘click to buy’ didn’t help either.
A set landing point, and nowhere to sit causing folks to rez on top of each other yet further hurts things – you land on some AFK person, can’t move, can’t locally TP away, and can’t click anything nearby to sit on and thereby get moved off of the head you’ve been glued to.
– And then some poor sod TPs in on top of your head… and it gets worse…
Rustica’s work looks nice, but is all no-mod. Making it absolutely to worst mesh to buy – no-mod on rezzed items means you can’t do anything about its prim cost. And mesh items at the popular sizes for prim and sculpty items in SL end up costing a good 50% to 100% more than they could is tweaked just a little.
JANE has the best clothes there in my opinion. Some of the other folks were nice too. Some need improvement – but then mesh is new so I guess folks are learning. The template clothes seemed nice, but didn’t fit me very well, and my shape is very close to one of those ‘standard sizes’ shapes.
Did find a few new mesh folks to remember, but noticed that LAQ Decor which has some very nice buildings was absent. The mesh community is so small right now that seeing any multi-offering shop missing is visible.
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The arrivals area is a problem if there is heavy traffic, but that’s par for the course in a lot of places. When it happens to me, I simply ask them to move or – more frequently – just hit PAGE UP and move out of the way.
I’d normally agree on no-mod products….but with mesh, and given the way that LI can be adversely affected by re-sizing in-world objects, I think it a sensible move.
I’d like to have seen more variety as to what was on offer – but I have no idea, as mentioned, whether the selection on offer was down to the respondents, by choice, or simply that the word didn’t spread far enough.
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Mesh is near a requirement for no mod.
LI -always- goes down when you scale a mesh item down. LI is based on size rezzed.
Users of mesh products therefore have amazing control over the prim cost of items, simply by scaling an item down or up.
To make an item no-mod, locks a person in, to an item that will be too primmy more often than not for the land its recommended for.
I’d warn anyone very strongly against ever buying a no-mod item that is meant to be rezzed rather than worn. Its just asking for a hassle.
http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/mesh-scaling-to-reduce-prim-cost-smaller-scale-in-sl-really-is-better-now/
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Re: No-mod items, while I generally don’t offer many mod options, some of my items at the MMM event actually are mod. The ones that aren’t tend to be between 2 and 4 prims of land impact, so scaling them down isn’t going to give you very much of a savings. If the items were 12 or 20 prims, I could understand the reluctance, but saying that if an item is no mod it should not be purchased is an unwarranted opinion. Look before you buy would be a better suggestion.
Mesh items do not -always- go down when scaled smaller, though they do in many cases. LI is not based on rezzed size, it is based on a calculation combining several factors, among them size, geometry complexity, physical complexity. The larger of these factors comprises the largest percentage of the resulting final land impact, though all contribute to it. Generally, the complexity of the physics is what has the largest influence, which is why L.I. tends to ramp up considerably as items get beyond a certain physical size, even with a simple geometry.
While I understand the desire to have a mod inventory, it is a choice which is available to the designer, and that choice should not invalidate an item from consideration. They key here, again, is to look before you buy, not “don’t ever buy a no-mod item,” which is a harsh generalization. The hassle lies in getting a better understanding of what you are purchasing after you get it, not beforehand. Look before you buy, the information is there. THEN make a purchase decision.
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