Thursday, March 1, 2012

What a mesh

A few days back we were talking boats at Tradewinds, when Rene sailed by in her latest creation. While it is not exactly a classic sleek racer such as the 10m, it is still a very beautiful boat, and the details... so many details. It's really, truly breath taking.
Left to right: Ahab, Liv, me and Rene
In SL, the first boats were built using basic shapes such as boxes, cones & spheres. They would then be glued together to form a hull. Such a boat is the Tako. Then came the sculpts, which are shapes made out of plastic. Heat them up and they can be changed into any shape. A hull can be a single sculpt. The Flying Fizz is (almost) a single sculpt. Still, there are limits to complexity on sculpts, and so they invented Mesh.
Sailing the zeeschouw
I am absolutely no expert on building, but mesh seems to have few limits on the details. Rene seems to know just how to take advantage of that. Right after casting off and raising sails I was (naturally) looking at the beautiful sails. I think Rene saw that, and she asked me to look inside the boat.
The lamp is rocking
Not a bad idea. Loads of fantastic details. The lamp is even rocking as it is hanging from the ceiling. Here's another shots from the inside:
3, 2, 1, beeeeep and smile
... and another one:
Cooker, shelfs, books, table, sitting, - it's all there
Here's the view from the lookout:
Sailing is great too
Yes, the sailing is great too. Even though this boat does not appear as a classy racer, ReneMarine has made it sail really well. It is definately worth sailing, but it's hard to keep concentrating on the sailtrim, when there are so many things to look at. 
Luxury sailing 
So. If this is what mesh can do, I'll say what a mesh. This boat is absolutely beautiful. The details are fantastic, and the illusion of being on board a real boat takes a huge step forward. Everywhere you look, it looks real.
What a mesh
If this is the future of virtual boatbuilding, then I can't wait to see the future. ReneMarine is already there. First they had the Fries Yacht, and now there is this... bigger sister. Hopefully more boatbuilders will follow and take mesh to the max.

4 comments:

  1. Looks very cool! Just wondering, how many "prims" does it take...

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  2. Hi Timo,
    Mesh is counted in socalled PE, prim equivalents. No clue what that means, but I think Rene said something around 72 of those. The interesting thing is, the boat sails very well, - even though it looks to be way over the old 32 prim limit.

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  3. My dear friend Rene,
    she's always far away in design concept and details.
    She loves vehicles and special wooden sailboats,
    as well she has good approach to sport and dinghy classes.
    a long list with full manual or auto modes, and more than you can spect.
    J-Class Hanuman (JK-6), The Meteor, VCC, Skiff 18Footer, RM8, RM20 … and now in mesh world plus new animations the Tjalk, and that melting pleasure of Schocker…

    ReneMarine adult delight sailing yacht…
    ;)

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  4. Yeah, the RM20 is a beauty. She has an 18 foot skiff? Really?

    ReplyDelete

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