What's YOUR Number?

Some of you may have seen the post in the official blog about the new Avatar Rendering Counter.It let's your know how hard the server is working to render (draw) your avatar. You can see the number floating above the heads on those near you as well as yourself. Handy.

So what does all this mean for the future? Presumably some clever script guys will make an "entry gate" that won't let people in with a number over -- say 500 (very good but 1 is best - wink). This got me wondering about my wardrobe which is naturally fairly simple except for my everyday OMGthatissogorgeouswheredidyougetit--CalicoCreations hair. I did a little test for curiosity sake and thought you might want to see what happened.

These are different versions of a VERY PLAIN outfit.
Click the photo for a larger view.

• The one on the far right is my normal attire. THE BIG RED NUMBER is BAD. BAD BAD NUMBER - LOL. It includes 25 prims per shoe, facelight and HAIR.
• The picture in the middle is the same but with simpler (ETD Sideswipe in this case) hair.
• The picture with the lowest number is the same but without hair. Something I would almost NEVER do.
• And, If I take off ALL attachments and just have on a top and pants (no prims), my magic number is ONE! How great is that?

The big offenders are obvious to many of us. Blinging jewelry (which seems to be out of fashion of late anyway - at least in the places I visit) and hair. Animation overrides don't figure in this number as they are not "rendered". They still cause lag of course. I was amazed how much my C G Facelight added to the mix (48 points) -- especially since windlight doesn't love us so much without it. HMMM.

Still, you can see by the center picture that you can look fairly well dressed in crowded places with a very low and happily green number. For me it was all about the hair.

So, I went through my personal hair inventory and picked out a few of the styles that are low numbers on the rendering scale. These are by NO MEANS the only low number styles, just ones I had in my inventory. And not too surprisingly many of the best ones for server strain are FREE. the more transparent and flexi prims and the more complex the design, the higher the number.

• *booN free hair NMR32
• *DH*Mysena Romance
• *TRUTH* Danny (VERY low number)
• Bewitched Rosa (VERY low number)
• Calla Lucerne
• Curl Up and Dye: Dani, Flying Nun, Geisha, Lara, Nyna, Rico
• ETD: Airy, Chandra, Sideswipe, Vixen, Casual, Lily, Jessica II, Jolleen, Bedded Attitude, Simply Sassy
• Gurl6: Babe, Abundance, Nikki, Impulse
• Philotic Energy: Beri, Boyd, Eliane
• WRONG: Style 1

If you want to check your own numbers, you need the latest release candidate (Second Life 1.20.5 (86279) Apr 30 2008 00:22:51) or later. You need to turn on your ADVANCED menu if it isn't showing. CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D will do it. Sorry, I don't know the MAC keys.




Here's the path you need to turn on Avatar Rendering Costs. Have fun and spend those rendering costs wisely if your in a crowd. Cinco De Mayo is coming up :)