The Big Prim Problem

I am not saying I don't want larger prims... I am saying that I don't want unsupported hacks. I would love to see LL increase prim counts and prim sizes officially, and release them as part of their development.

We use them for our clients for large sky-platforms and for large horizon-like walls that have a texture that looks like a landscape.

On KaDeWe we used Megaprims to display a whole part of the city of Berlin and on another sim we used them to display a forest like surrounding.

Please do not remove them or give us the possibility to use larger prims than 10x10m.

Regards
Christian

www.liventura.com

NN Dezigns rents estate land.

See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Andrew_Linden/Office_Hours/2007_10_16.

In particular:

[16:40] Andrew Linden: Here's the deal...
[16:40] Andrew Linden: Most of the people at LL think megaprim content is cool.
[16:41] Andrew Linden: Breaking content is Very Bad
[16:41] Andrew Linden: Currently there are a bunch of big estate owners who use megaprims to make cool content (IBM, greenies, Electric Sheep, etc)
[16:41] Andrew Linden: There is no way anyone is going to be able to nerf megaprims.
[16:42] Andrew Linden: I know because I tried several months ago.

I'm with those who are requesting a larger size to be allowed, such as 20x20. I lose many hours chopping up images into tiles to be used on a grid of 10x10 prims, and the results always look unrealistic due to inevitable bordering effects.

I currently built a large skybox for a concept i'm working on out of 64 20x20 prims and 2 50x50. building the same thing out of 10x10 prims would have been impossible due to the time involved getting all the angles right (scripted building tools didnt work well for this case) and chopping the images all down to tiles. it would have taken over 300 10x10 prims.

Please don't delete megaprims. Much of the creativity within SL would be gone.

(I also wish linking could involve more than a 30m distance)

-Court

Ahhh... so if enough people exploit a hack and make something with it... it becomes legal?

Interesting concept.

There was plenty of creativity before megaprims. Don't discount the work many people did before they were around.

Should there be larger prims? Yes... but let LL develop and support them. Especially since there are reports from users who have noted improved performace upon the removal of megaprims from their sim.

The Land My store is on would be very hard to use without megaprims... I would be forced to just have things sticking out with no visable means of support.... I only have on but it is the foundation to my store...

Remove the sim sized prims please... make a way to create the rest easier

Those quotes do it for me Mr Surface. Thread closed.

Burnman:

Let's call it "lateral thinking" or "creative problem solving" and not "exploiting." Most inventions have been the result of lateral thinking.

And just where do you think those variables are stored? How do you think they get to the user? Magic?

Are you serious with this question? They are stored in the database and keyed to the region.

There is ONE cube. It is "called" wherever it is needed with text-only information that is stored in the various tables of the database and changed as neccesary.

WE have some on ny estate
I have a large pirate ship used as a club there,. and we have it surrounded by a large prim box. The purpose is to keep the club goers from entering the estate..they cant get out of the box easily. It goes transparent and phantom when we want it to, however the main thing here is the textures..we have stars and fog textures moving inside the box. This wouldnt work well with dozens of small prims even if they could all be linked. The box is also 100 meters long and tall, and 50 meters wide, and is only 6 prims.

Without it I would have to put up ban lines, which I dont want to do as they go all the way up to the limits of space. It seems to work fine as is. And a lot less trouble for me.

Actualy the problem with banlines is the oposite, they only go up to 72 meters.
I had to put up a box in the corner of my sim with 4 100x100 prims to keep my private skybox private.

Ok if 72m is the case...How come I keep coming across then above 150 metres when out in my helicopter Have even hit them up near 400m +

Not sure, could be related to groundlevel, in my case the ground level was 22 meter so it stands to reason that if the parcel border is at 120 meter the ban lines go to 170 meter.
Doesn't explain why you would run into them above 400 meter though, doubt there are many mountains going upto 350+ meter.

Time to hit the wiki I guess.

Many won't like my proposal but here goes.

I think it should be opened up on basis like this.

Estate owners get to rez/create prims up to 256x256 (typically a legit use exists only for estate owners)

Premium Members could be gauged by the maximum land plot they own.

Example: If a premium member owns 1/4 of a sim they can rez large prims up to 100x100

Basic accounts: Since they cannot own land on the mainland I think large prims should be at the descretion of estate owners who may house them. That is, to say there is another section available to estate owners for max prim size.

Additionally since there are issues with Havok and large prims prims over XX meters are forced phantom, just like flexi prims.

Large prims are lovely and all but they can come with bad side effects, I think gauging them based on their account type etc is a useful approach. Additionally should you gauge them it would be nice if we could actually create them when this issue is settled.

Just my opinion though

I have a neighbour with a 4x4 meter plot that hosts a 10x10 meter UFO. It sticks onto my land and looks awful. It's encroaching on four or more neighbours, and it's just a normal prim.

I think someone already mentioned the REAL fix....

ALL objects should be checked to see if ANY part of the object encroaches on someone elses parcel.

This would not only solve most cases of griefing using megaprims, it would also solve cases of encroachment that just use normal prims.

Increase the size limit on normal prims to something on the order of 50 meters, and I could live without them. Heck.. if I could actually create them to spec, I would LOVE to live without them since they can't be modified in their current form.

Take them away without providing an alternative, and my neighbours UFO would be a constant reminder that LL can and would throw the baby out with the bath water.

Thanks for the free advertising... yes i rent land. i give 3x more prims than mainland, and i do not allow megaprims on my sim.

Creative problem solving is one thing. Negatively effecting sim performance and throwing the physics off to suit one's own personal interests is exploitation. Until an official release including megaprims as a feature which will not cause same issues the current hacks do, then I say they are exploits.

edit - I am not against larger prims... I am against unsupported hacks/exploits.

Just because something can be abused isn't a reason to take them away from everyone. many of the complaints of bad things could be done without the large prims as well. take a way the big prims and alot of the bad stuff could still be done.

Big prims are used by alot of builders since they are very useful in building. Builders have shown that they are needed, so LL should take that as a sign and try and figure out what to do with the graphics engines given the fact builders want/need large prims.

I am also upset that alot of the buildings on my SIM might need to be redone if you eliminate these prims.

Keep the large prims.

Dealey Plaza Dallas SIM

I'd just like to know how, exactly, megaprims make the new havok changes difficult. One could argue that they're just a prim. Why do they make them difficult, and twisted torii don't?

'The presence of megaprims will interfere with the improvements planned for the physics engine. The bigger the megaprims, the more trouble they will cause for physics simulation in a Region.'

I'm sorry, this just seems too general an answer. Which part of the improvements? What trouble?

And what's next on the list for removal? Invisiprims? llSit* functions?Why not just use the 'There' business model, requiring everyone's creations to be submitted to a committee that either accepts or denies its creation and inclusion in the world? "Bob is creating a cube, accept or deny." "All in favor of said cube say 'Aye'."

Hooray for our unsupported hacks!

That's the risk one takes when using an unsupported hack.

I can see banning mega-prims, anything over 128m, or even 64. I think that large prims are important to building, such as large cylinders, seamless constructions, prim reduction, etc. It would be nice if standard prims could easily be made larger with the editor. Thanks!

I agree... it would be absolutely wonderful to have supported and performance friendly large prims which can be created/edited using LL's standard SL viewer. No hacks, no exploits. Then, no worries!

I'm a builder and graphic artist. I also happen to own a few bits of land in SL on diff sims.
I have been experimenting with mega-prims for almost a month and know several
other professional builders who use them. I don't see a huge problem with having
them in SL so long as they are used in a responsible manner. I only see a problem
with the largest of the mega-prims, those that are more than 100x100 in dimension.
They are fairly useless when building for most parcels. They can only be used if the
property they are being used on covers a half a region or more. On the plus side,
the use of these smaller mega-prims can greatly enhance what can be built in SL,
while making it possible to use fewer prims in large construction projects. Thus
allowing for a greater variety of structures. for some projects, the use of mega-prims
is essential and without them, many things being built in SL would not be possible.
I have used these prims on my own properties and have not noticed any problems so
far with them affecting the physics in those regions. I have also used them whendoing
construction for others, without complaint. So I am for keeping them in SL.