Prim Control
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Steely Carver
The dreamer or the dream?
Join date: 10 Nov 2007
Posts: 515
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03-08-2008 10:26
We are in the process of remodeling. Of course, the more stuff you add the higher your prim count, but there is so much cool stuff.
Anyway, is there a way to get more bang for your tier by controlling prims, effectively being able to add more stuff without adding too rapidly to your prim count?
Thanks.
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Damien1 Thorne
Registered User
Join date: 26 Aug 2007
Posts: 4,877
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03-08-2008 15:04
*bump*
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Dekka Raymaker
thinking very hard
Join date: 4 Feb 2007
Posts: 3,898
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03-08-2008 15:21
learn how prims can be manipulated, use the cube to make 4, 3 and 2 walls, floor & ceilings instead using 4 to 6 prims. learn how to make a spiral staircase from one prim, use very good textures, learn how to use the same texture on a cube but make the 6 sides look different. its really just a big learning curve.
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Rhaorth Antonelli
Registered User
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 7,425
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03-08-2008 15:24
also sculpts help a lot on prim control,and always check for stray prims that other might leave on your land (even if it is no build, sometimes those things sneak in)
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From: someone Morpheus Linden: But then I change avs pretty often too, so often, I look nothing like my avatar.  They are taking away the forums... it could be worse, they could be taking away the forums AND Second Life...
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Steely Carver
The dreamer or the dream?
Join date: 10 Nov 2007
Posts: 515
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03-10-2008 07:29
Ah, I see. Thank you very much for the help. We'll see if we can cut down on how we build things. Have a good week. |
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Nina Stepford
was lied to by LL
Join date: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 3,373
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03-10-2008 07:31
megaprims!
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Fand Aeon
Registered User
Join date: 17 Nov 2007
Posts: 258
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03-10-2008 09:59
We live on Mainland andI love to landscape, it got to the point where we had to buy extra "prim" land so there would be enough prims on our lot.
*** edited cause I can't spell
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Lindal Kidd
Dances With Noobs
Join date: 26 Jun 2007
Posts: 8,371
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03-10-2008 11:20
There are all kinds of ways to save prims. A prim-efficient build is one of the things that distinguishes a master builder from the crowd.
I'm still learning, but here are a couple of examples:
A basic room is usually constructed with 6 prims...4 walls, a ceiling and a floor. You can do it with as few as two prims. Rez a 10x10x10 box. Now hollow it out. Next, use path cut to make it have a "C" cross section. Copy it. Rotate the copy so that it mates with the original piece, making a box. Shorten the legs on one of the boxes a bit to make two openings that can be doors or windows.
A framed picture is usually two prims...a hollow box for the frame, plus a flattish box for the picture itself. You can do it with one, if you download the picture to your hard drive, and paint a frame around it in Photoshop. Upload the framed image and use it to texture a box.
Ever notice how modern furniture looks like the designer tried to make it look as if it was floating in the air? In SL, your furniture CAN float in the air. Why waste prims on table and chair legs?
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Cunundrum Alcott
A Sardonic Pessimist
Join date: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 773
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03-10-2008 11:25
Alot can be done by cutting the path of a box or sphere to create what you want instead of using more prims. Using mega or sculpties can increase lag greatly so keep that in mind.
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Amaranthim Talon
Voyager, Seeker, Curious
Join date: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 12,032
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03-10-2008 11:36
Lindy, the thing I see about the tables and chairs needing no legs is the lack of "reality" - I mean, one doesn't really need tables and chairs but the space looks rather gray with out them ~~~~~~~~ The biggest problem for me personally, is not so much the actual build (I generally buy stuff) - as is the landscaping and decorating of the spaces. Prim rezzers sort of help, but there is plenty of talk about how that lags things and I for one have had problems with them. Not to mention the fact that a lot of things are no copy so the rezzers won't work with them anyway. I think the trick is control - something I personally lack in great amounts . A |
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Cunundrum Alcott
A Sardonic Pessimist
Join date: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 773
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03-10-2008 11:38
I've seen some nice chairs made out of spheres with a path cut. Or pillows with a pose are also nice.
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Gabriele Graves
Always and Forever, FULL
Join date: 23 Apr 2007
Posts: 6,205
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03-10-2008 14:58
I try to buy only things that can be modified then when I need to save prims - I go looking for bits to take out of the item that don't really change it much. It is sometimes quite amazing how many savings can be made this way - especially to buildings. Some items have lots of unnecesary prims in their construction. Of course it is harder with scripted items but scriptless furniture and buildings are relatively easy.
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Weston Graves
Werebeagle
Join date: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,059
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03-10-2008 16:05
One other suggestion. Some vendors are selling items that rez temporary prims. I have a cool set of jellyfish for my aquarium that do this. It's really only one prim that rezzes a whole bunch of jelly fish in different colors. They gradually fade out to be replaced by new ones.
I don't know what toll on the sim resources this is taking, but I have currently used only about half of my prims, so I figure it's cool.
Anything small and in motion might be handled this way.
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Mikal Compton
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jan 2008
Posts: 3
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03-10-2008 17:07
From: Lindal Kidd There are all kinds of ways to save prims. A prim-efficient build is one of the things that distinguishes a master builder from the crowd.
A framed picture is usually two prims...a hollow box for the frame, plus a flattish box for the picture itself. You can do it with one, if you download the picture to your hard drive, and paint a frame around it in Photoshop. Upload the framed image and use it to texture a box.
I'm far from a master builder but I've done the same and made the box slightly thicker than the wall, used a different texture on each side and positioned the box so that it shows on both sides of the wall. That way you get two pictures and only one prim. |
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Larrie Lane
Registered User
Join date: 9 Feb 2007
Posts: 667
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03-10-2008 17:11
From: Lindal Kidd A basic room is usually constructed with 6 prims...4 walls, a ceiling and a floor. You can do it with as few as two prims. Rez a 10x10x10 box. Now hollow it out. Next, use path cut to make it have a "C" cross section. Copy it. Rotate the copy so that it mates with the original piece, making a box. Shorten the legs on one of the boxes a bit to make two openings that can be doors or windows. Quite how would you then texture the inside of the hollowed prim? My purpose for asking is that there are very few people or texture artists that offer/sell those kind of textures. Desiging of these types of textures can be very complex depending on what rotation the prim is and what parts of the prim are going to represent walls, floors ceilings etc. Each part of the texture has to be rotated and this is done in the design process, it cannot be done using the repeats offsets etc in SL. Also, it is almost impossible to include on a hollowed prim a 32 bit texture for windows with transparency so unless the house is going to be a basic box it really is not worth trying to save the prims in the first place. Regarding the OP's question about saving prims there are a numbers of ways. This of course would depend on what you are designing and also your own experience with texture design. This is most probably the most easiest way to reduce prim count by intergrating textures and using various techniques in your external software to make them appear as if they were 2 or more prims but in actual fact it is only 1 prim with 1 texture. I recently did this with a Grass texture for half a sim covered in grass. I wanted to build areas with pathways and leave some areas just grass covered to be built on later. I planned where all the pathways would go and designed the paths, then using the grass as the background texture added the paths. In total there were 15 textures so the pathways would all intergrate with corners etc so all the bricks in the path would be seamless regardless of position. In total saving in excess of 300 plus prims. There are only so many ways you can torture a prim and save on prims, the biggest saving is in the design of textures and using scuplties but even scuplities have their limitations. |
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Rhaorth Antonelli
Registered User
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 7,425
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03-10-2008 17:46
sometimes too many textures can hurt too, for rez time
it is sometimes hard to balance both prims and textures...
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From: someone Morpheus Linden: But then I change avs pretty often too, so often, I look nothing like my avatar. They are taking away the forums... it could be worse, they could be taking away the forums AND Second Life...
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Larrie Lane
Registered User
Join date: 9 Feb 2007
Posts: 667
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03-10-2008 18:09
From: Rhaorth Antonelli sometimes too many textures can hurt too, for rez time
it is sometimes hard to balance both prims and textures... What do you mean Rhaorth? |
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Rhaorth Antonelli
Registered User
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 7,425
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03-10-2008 18:14
if a build uses a lot of different textures it can take longer to rez in the textures than if they work with a few textures (a good example of awesome texture use is arcadia's slum city stuff
here is an example... make a cube,,, 6 sides right... now put a texture on each side.... 6 textures to load...
now make a custom texture which has all of the 6 individual textures on one... and use offsets and repeats, etc, to position the portion of the texture on each side...
now only 1 texture to rez, yet same results on how the cube looks
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From: someone Morpheus Linden: But then I change avs pretty often too, so often, I look nothing like my avatar. They are taking away the forums... it could be worse, they could be taking away the forums AND Second Life...
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Nina Stepford
was lied to by LL
Join date: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 3,373
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03-10-2008 21:07
the smaller megas dont cause lag, and theyre the ones someone would be most likely to use when building a home. even the 256m megas wont cause lag if they are set to phantom. From: Cunundrum Alcott Alot can be done by cutting the path of a box or sphere to create what you want instead of using more prims. Using mega or sculpties can increase lag greatly so keep that in mind. in the edit menu, tick the 'select textures' radio button. then any prim face you click will show a white overlay indicating it is the face to be edited. holding shift will allow you to set multiple faces at one time. From: Larrie Lane Quite how would you then texture the inside of the hollowed prim? My purpose for asking is that there are very few people or texture artists that offer/sell those kind of textures. |
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Rhaorth Antonelli
Registered User
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 7,425
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03-10-2008 21:11
I think what they mean by the inside of the hollow prim, is that the inside is all one face, would need specific multi textures on one texture (for instance, if you used a hollowed cube for walls floor and ceiling, you would need a specific single texture that would fit the entire surface with the walls floor and ceiling on it
not hard to do, just time consuming, and it could be difficult for someone who is not used to doing textures
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From: someone Morpheus Linden: But then I change avs pretty often too, so often, I look nothing like my avatar. They are taking away the forums... it could be worse, they could be taking away the forums AND Second Life...
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Faithless Babii
Iam F.A.B
Join date: 5 Feb 2007
Posts: 1,079
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03-11-2008 00:51
From: Weston Graves One other suggestion. Some vendors are selling items that rez temporary prims. I have a cool set of jellyfish for my aquarium that do this. It's really only one prim that rezzes a whole bunch of jelly fish in different colors. They gradually fade out to be replaced by new ones.
I don't know what toll on the sim resources this is taking, but I have currently used only about half of my prims, so I figure it's cool.
Anything small and in motion might be handled this way. I got those jellyfish rezzers too...and a whole lot of other rezzers for my reef...and WOW..the collision rates are HIGH...and they seem , for some inexplicable reason take a lot of script space...causing lag...i took mine away  and my homes a lot less laggy...BUT...i have a large reef and id used LOTS lol maybe one or two isnt so bad
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Larrie Lane
Registered User
Join date: 9 Feb 2007
Posts: 667
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03-11-2008 07:10
From: Nina Stepford the smaller megas dont cause lag, and theyre the ones someone would be most likely to use when building a home. even the 256m megas wont cause lag if they are set to phantom. in the edit menu, tick the 'select textures' radio button. then any prim face you click will show a white overlay indicating it is the face to be edited. holding shift will allow you to set multiple faces at one time. From: Larrie Lane Quite how would you then texture the inside of the hollowed prim? My purpose for asking is that there are very few people or texture artists that offer/sell those kind of textures. Nina, Obvioulsy you misunderstood what I said, perhaps an example would help. Take a cube prim 10x10x10 hollow it to 95 and rotate it 90 degrees, you now have something that looks like 2 walls left and right with floor and ceiling. Apply a normal 512x512 texture (preferably a texture that has vertical or horizontal lines or patterns) and apply that to the inside. To even start with getting the texture repeats right you would need to set the Horizontal repeat to 4.000 (also select flip) and vertical to 1.000. To line it up, nearest you will get is setting the Horizontal offset to 0.425, you should see that the floor or base is lined up and is overlapping the sides/walls slightly but in actual fact the rest of the walls and ceilings are completely out. Not only are they out but the walls would need to be rotated 90 degrees to line up, you cannot achieve this with a standard texture. Thank you Rhaorth you was more or less right on your last post. To start the design process of a texture you would need to know the exact distance of the gap inside the hollowed prim. For example a 10x10x10 prim hollowed out to 95 the distance between all sides will be 9.5m so the texture would have to be designed using these measurements. This gap will change subject to the hollow size and prim size and one texture will only fit one size. So taking an 8x8x8 prim and hollowing it to 95 the distance between the sides would now be 9.6m. (even using repeats and offset with a texture of a different size you will not be able to line up all sides perfectly). The texture would have to be broken into 4 sections, so Wall, Roof, Wall Ceiling. (All four sections must be square). The walls would have to be vertical, the ceiling and roof horizontal or vice-versa. That is what I would consider the basics for designing a texture for hollowed prims. Edit, When choosing your four sections as in wall, floor and ceiling it may take one or 2 uploads to get the rotations right if you are not familiar with this technique. Also, using the above figures to design your texture at 9.5 wide your Horixontal Repeat would have to be approx 1.050 and the Horizontal offset approx 0.025. The Reason for the offset is the distance between the 2 sides is actually 9.4995 but most people will not know how to get precise measurements on a prim. So taking the 9.5 you will have a total texture that is actually 2cm to big so you will have to offset it. |
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Amaranthim Talon
Voyager, Seeker, Curious
Join date: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 12,032
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03-11-2008 07:21
I must say that although I don't do much actual building, the concepts expressed re texturing multiple sides have me very intrigued. Thanks for such detailed instructions.
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