[sldev] P2P/Squid Web Textures: Enabling Greater Quality Images - draft 2

[Dzonatas]

dale at daleglass.net wrote:
> But scuplties use really tiny textures. You could simply get LL to make
> an exception for 64x64 textures. At 16 bit color, uncompressed, that's
> just 8K. You could not compress it at all.
>   
Internally (in the viewer), all images are converted to 32 bit.  
Uncompressed, that would be at least 130k. Sculpties use the full 8 bit 
RGB values, and there is discussion on how to use the alpha channel as well.

There are artist that have asked for lossless detail on their images. It 
sounds as if that is how they want to do their business. It is beyond 
just scuplties.

Nevertheless, there is the overhead to transfer images (even at 8k) 
through the sim network with UDP or TCP. All of that can be moved 
externally to reduce server lag. More images added to the sim network 
mean more chances of lag. Consider that another continent is now under 
way, there will be more textures on the network even if they are just 
64x64 sculpties. We can reduce this traffic.

There is no magic to distinguish a sculptie image from another texture 
image, as it doesn't exist. While we could just enable lossless uploads 
right now with a flick of a switch, that would mean there is no 
immediate way to stop people from uploading lossless 1024x1024 images. I 
rather not have this implementation be the cause as for why everybody's 
tier rate would increase. Even though it is possible right now directly 
with the sim, a cache that is external to the sim is more practical.

-- 
Power to Change the Void