Prims, only "basic"?

BEFORE READING! READ THIS FIRST, IT MAY ADD SOME CLARIFICATION In this thread I am refering to prims as baisic shapes how the system reads it, not how the user percives it. Alot of you may already know this but I wanted to avoid any unnessiary confusion.

I have been toying with the idea for more prims for several days now and it was revealed to me that the prims in SL don't have to just be "basic" prims, (how I mean basic is a cube, a sphere, etc. the basic geometric shapes) but why couldn't SL have complex prims like a car, or a stair case, or even a simple house? Like all the prims we currently possess they would be modifiable, but they could signifcantly reduce the amount of prims we use. Another beautiful about this is that if you would rather not use them you don't have to, you could still use the current prims we have now. You can use complex prims in conjunction with the basic ones we have now and create phenomanal things with realitvly low prim counts. This I feel could make SL have an even richer collection of builds. Sims could be many more times complex in terms of there enviroment. It would add a new layer of beauty to SL.

ADD ON
READ THE WHOLE THING, AND READ MY REPLYS TO SOME PEOPLE'S COMMENTS BEFORE YOU POST

I think you're missing the point of the term "prim" (short for "primitive."

P2

The more complex the prim, the more pressure it puts on the server. Thats why we have the limits.

If you have pre-made shapes that are the equivilent of however many prims, it would NEED to take up that many prims, so as to make sure not too much pressure was put on the server.

hrm, no choice for "original poster doesn't understand" so I'll abstain.

I disagree, I feel you are missing the point.
PLEASE DO NOT SKIP OVER NOTES AT THE BEGGINING OF THE THREAD READ THE WHOLE THING I POINTED THIS OUT HOW I WAS USING THE WORD PRIM. If you would rather have me haved used system percived object I could of, but I thought I might of been easier to layout how I was going to use it and be on my merry way




The thing about premade shapes is that no matter how complex the are, if the system (second life) sees them as a single shape it should not bog down the system any noticable amount, think of it as a regular geometric primitive carved out, but not quite

I'd like a prim option with bevels and fillets and limited-poly rounding based on I guess the Phong model (not sure if SL does that already and I'm just throwing around cleverclever terms I know from other 3D apps).

But complex shapes? Prims are building blocks, no? If a 'house' or car could make other things, fine. But all-in-one, why? You have basic free houses, huts, etc all over if you want them.

The prim shape I'd like to see would be a capsule, and options to cut out more shapes from squares to achieve different arches than merely rounded.

Even better than this, to throw it wiiide open? Deformers. But look at how I've gone out into the field with the nutter field trip picnic and danced a jig.

No, 'fraid not. Havok physics is a surface physics. The more complex the shape - the more it bogs the system becasue of the greater work Havok has to do to detect collisions.

Plus, the more surfaces a shape has the longer the render time. It's bad enough whn there's a room full of twisted, cut torus hair attachment - I don't even want to think about a room full of twisted, cut "cars".

I mean, we've been asking for rounded edges on box prims. The argument now being examined is, is it worth all the extra polygons? And that's just rounding a few edges.

ok this is the kind of stuff negetive stuff i would rather here, let me give you an example. A stair case. a simple stair case that you could modify in the build options to increase frequency of steps to spiral, yada yada yada. ok lets say you were going for realism, the standard distance between steps is .20 meters (20 centimeters) most extreme case you would have these winding up for ten meters, to make this stair case you would need...50 prims at least dor these steps not to metion the task of turning each one.

now interms of the house, i meant it as only a template for people wanting to make communties or mmorpgs, or anything, as for cars, i meant that by the frame of the car and instead of worring about that, you could focus the few prims you have to make a car on detail. instead of worring about the frame. As i said those who don't want to use it, don't use it. I am sure thought there would be many people in SL who would find this a useful too

And again all objects would be modifable

I would be dancing with you if we had deformers

how many surfaces does a sphere have?

*cracks nuckles* This isn't entirely a bad idea, more basic primitive shapes would be a good thing; that said this idea is nieve.

The idea of primitives are that they are generic, a house isn't generic in the same sense. A house will always be a house, a sphere can be anything from a ball to a frisbee. A sphere can be used to make other more complex objects; a house cannot be used the same way.

I don't think its worth LL's dev time to make generic objects like this. The level of complexity that the userbase would request for such objects would be never ending. Eventualy the complexity would require greater bandwidth then the same object made of basic prims.

Special Interest prim shapes would lead to people wanting more Special Interest prim shapes. It would become a visious cycle LL wouldn't be able to escape.

I think the means meshes. I was looking at a car made of meshes for a 3d app. It had 700000 triangles (GO PRIMS! )

How smooth do you want it?

Five. Maybe more if I can figure out a better way to cut it.

And "Car" prims? What would a "car" prim look like? 'Tis a silly idea, unless they make a car prim for all types of cars.

But something that might work? The ability to "primify" an object, meaning instead of having full physics done a collison cage is defined, and the other prims are ignored for all physics calculations. It would still use teh same number of prims, but the massively reduces physics load should make higher-prim vechiles possible.

Linden build mode trees count as one 'prim' although they are made out of several.

Just thought I'd throw that into the mix.

I like the idea of preformed 'staircases' and suchlike as "one prim" items because I know that's something I have missed from Sims Online.

Lewis

Thats not actualy true, trees & grass are also parametric, except the attributes are stored in a specific settings files. Its a moot point. They are as complex, or more complex then normal prims. They are absent from the physics engine because the wind causes them to sway.