Avatar stuck at reduced animation rate at close range (fixed by zooming the camera)

sky_line commented

2026-10-12 15:26:43 +00:00

Owner

Seen (owner, 1.3.0 Beta 7+): one avatar about 10-15 m from the camera animates at a visibly reduced rate (choppy) while two others nearby animate at full rate. Zooming the camera in or out fixes it.

Context: GPU-animated avatars get a screen-size based animation rate (03d6fa21da "screen-size animation rate for GPU-animated avatars"): small on-screen avatars update less often, and their frames are held in between (held animation frames, #632; the renderer's vkAnimRateLimited() path). The reduced-tier controller (LLVOAvatar::cullAvatarsByPixelArea, VKAvLOD "reduced tier") is a separate cap on fully rendered avatars.

Symptom points to stale classification: an avatar at a near distance stays in the slow group until something (a camera zoom) re-evaluates it. Suspects:

the screen-size measure used for the rate (bounds / pixel area) is stale or wrong for this avatar (e.g. computed from an old position, a seated / animesh root, an avatar whose bounds didn't update, or before its mesh loaded);
hysteresis that only re-evaluates on a camera change, not on the avatar's own movement or load state;
the rate tier mixed up with the reduced (impostor-ish) tier or a held-frame flag that isn't cleared.

Wanted:

Fix the classification so an avatar this close is never rate-limited, re-evaluated on avatar movement / load / bounds change, not only on camera change.
A debug display (avatar tag or log on change) showing each avatar's animation rate tier and the screen size it was decided from.

**Seen (owner, 1.3.0 Beta 7+):** one avatar about 10-15 m from the camera animates at a visibly reduced rate (choppy) while two others nearby animate at full rate. Zooming the camera in or out fixes it. **Context:** GPU-animated avatars get a screen-size based animation rate (03d6fa21da "screen-size animation rate for GPU-animated avatars"): small on-screen avatars update less often, and their frames are held in between (held animation frames, #632; the renderer's `vkAnimRateLimited()` path). The reduced-tier controller (`LLVOAvatar::cullAvatarsByPixelArea`, VKAvLOD "reduced tier") is a separate cap on fully rendered avatars. **Symptom points to stale classification:** an avatar at a near distance stays in the slow group until something (a camera zoom) re-evaluates it. Suspects: - the screen-size measure used for the rate (bounds / pixel area) is stale or wrong for this avatar (e.g. computed from an old position, a seated / animesh root, an avatar whose bounds didn't update, or before its mesh loaded); - hysteresis that only re-evaluates on a camera change, not on the avatar's own movement or load state; - the rate tier mixed up with the reduced (impostor-ish) tier or a held-frame flag that isn't cleared. **Wanted:** - Fix the classification so an avatar this close is never rate-limited, re-evaluated on avatar movement / load / bounds change, not only on camera change. - A debug display (avatar tag or log on change) showing each avatar's animation rate tier and the screen size it was decided from.

sky_line added the

bug

triage

avatars

labels

2026-10-12 15:26:43 +00:00

sky_line added this to the Slipstream project

2026-10-12 15:26:43 +00:00

sky_line commented

2026-10-12 15:32:22 +00:00

Author

Owner

Being investigated.

sky_line added

status

in-progress

and removed

triage

labels

2026-10-12 15:32:22 +00:00

sky_line referenced this issue from a commit

2026-10-12 16:50:36 +00:00

Close avatars animate at full rate; reduced-tier latch released (#725)

sky_line referenced this issue from a commit

2026-10-12 16:50:36 +00:00

Reduced tier: rank band + symmetric hysteresis; drop vkReducedSkipAnim (#725)

sky_line referenced this issue from a commit

2026-10-12 16:50:36 +00:00

Merge #725: close avatars animate at full rate; reduced-tier latch released

sky_line commented

2026-10-12 16:51:53 +00:00

Author

Owner

Fix pushed to main: close or large avatars animate at full rate whatever their rank, and the reduced-tier latch is released. Confirmed working by the owner; closes when the next beta ships.

sky_line added

and removed

labels

2026-10-12 16:51:53 +00:00

sky_line commented

2026-10-13 00:26:16 +00:00

Author

Owner