Avatar Impostors
This article is part of the Extended Second Life Knowledge Base that includes advanced and specialized information. This information was originally provided by Linden Lab, but is not actively maintained nor guaranteed to be accurate. Linden Lab does not certify nor assume any responsibility for this information.
See the official Second Life Knowledge Base for the most current information.
You may notice that some far-away avatars now seem to animate a little more jerkily than you remember; that's because they have been replaced by Avatar Impostors! Avatar Impostors are two-dimensional renderings of avatars, designed to improve the performance of your Second Life® client when there are many avatars on your screen at the same time. Even though the Impostors are two-dimensional animated textures, they do not look any different than the 3D avatars they represent- with the exception of your improved framerate, you may not even notice their presence!
You can control how aggressively Second Life uses Impostors by adjusting the Avatar Mesh Detail slider in the Graphics Preferences tab. If you move the slider to the left, avatars become Impostors at closer distances; if you move the slider to the right, avatars remain fully 3D at greater distances. You can access the Graphics Preferences tab by selecting Edit > Preferences and clicking the Graphics tab.