Mesh FAQ

What is mesh?

Mesh is a new building feature in Second Life™, much like sculpties were in 2007. Mesh allows builders to model objects in third-party modeling software, then upload the file directly into Second Life™ without having to convert it into a sculptie. It offers a vast array of benefits over traditional building, and content creators are already creating fantastic new mesh products. However, some old third-party viewers do not support mesh, and mesh objects are rendered incorrectly in these viewers, resulting in complaints to us.

Which viewer should I use?

The most secure, up-to-date client with mesh capabilities is Linden Lab's Second Life™ Viewer 3.

Does Firestorm support mesh?

Yes, Firestorm Viewer supports mesh rendering. We highly recommend it over the somewhat-deprecated Phoenix Viewer, if you don't want to use the original viewer.

I don't like the new interface and, therefore, I am a lazy old fart that doesn't like change.

There are many clients based on the "old" interface (Viewer 1) that support mesh. While Phoenix Viewer has mesh capabilities, it is only sparsely updated and uses a very outdated graphics engine, so we don't recommend it.

Which viewers don't support mesh?

While we can't provide a list of all viewers and whether or not they support mesh, you can visit our store in the Prototype sim and look around. If you see objects that appear to not have loaded correctly (they are just spheres or boxes with texture maps on them), your viewer probably does not support mesh.