Mega prims for building - do I dare?

I seen the floating upwards happen to me without a megaprim in sight

IIRC it happens when you manually lower a hollowed mega over an av... or when rezzing a huge mega at an avs location

I think some of it may be caused by cuts, but i never seem to have an issue if I center the cut (for dimples)

on a side note, megas are LESS prone to the camera snap bug that throws your camera outside of the prims surface when viewing the interior surface ( a real pain in low prim houses that use hollowed prims for rooms

Somethings add to SL ....somethings detract from it, I feel that Megaprims are a bennefit to SL in many respects but if we look at what most people are saying EVERYONE would be happy to have larger prims as a standard..... slightly less would be happy if everything BUT the 20x20 went.

Things such as lag are often brought to the table but I should imagine the assett server has far more difficulty tracking 200 prim flexy hair than a single megaprim. Yes megaprims ARE a hack and I personally feel the reason LL allowed them is due to the need for them and the fact that it sorted a problem out for them over prim size. Now they have a situation where the Havok engine has problems with REALLLLY massive prims but I guess these will proberly have to go due to they cause the most problems and little reap the bennefit.

I think maybe the Tao of Linden needs a team to fix the 10x10x10 prim boundry to something more realistic that will fit the paltry 117 prim limit per 512.

we KNOW sims can hold more prims becasue the assett server sees all that flexy hair etc in the parcel ..... so lets ban flexyhair and prim attachments and give more prims to the builders. J/K

yes, especially when the hammer eventually falls.

Oh?


Followed a line or two later by:


And followed by:

Burnman, it might be a good idea to lie down in a darkened room for a while and get a grip.

Then please write the following fifty times: Saying that sticking to the rules will not save you from getting trashed by an update is NOT advocating violating TOS.

And if you still feel you absolutely must keep up your quarrel you have picked with Desmond Shang, please take it to PMs. This is a thread about megaprims, not Desmond, and your quibbling is getting old.

Thank you for your concern.

lol very cute

I don't have a quarrel with anyone, truly. I am participating in a discussion. I am sorry if you don't believe my contributions to be up to your standards, but what can one do?

This sort of exchange is just moving further from the discussion, so let us get back on topic, shall we?

I would love to see... from a reputable source... some data as to the effect of megaprims on sim performace including physics. I have to say though, even if megaprims are found to be relatively harmless, until they are released in the official viewer... they shouldn't be allowed. I personally don't like the idea of alternative viewers being developed. There is no guarantee that they are secure and free of adware/malware.

This was what I was guessing would be happening. But this happens if you find yourself inside a normal prim as well. Does it somehow happen even when you're not inside the megaprim?

There isn't any. Andrew Linden hasn't done the tests yet.

Why? You seem to be treating the use of only officially recommended techniques as a virtue in of itself, but I don't see your argument for that position.

All the more reason to avoid using them. There has not been any official statement as to their potential for server instability, and there are reports of negative effects coming in from a variety of users. So far the only people defending them are those profiting from their use?

I personally do not like the fact that alternative viewers are allowed at all. There is no guarantee that they are secure, or that they do not contain adware/malware. If it isn't developed by Linden Labs, then I would not use it to access Second Life.

It sounds like a case of "I don't approve, so it's wrong" to me.

"Don't like it? Don't use it."

Don't like seeing them? Well, it's not against TOS. So you seem to like advocating for people to buy more land as a result of needing more prim space. Here's a suggestion, take your own advice, get an island of your own far, far away from our dastardly big prims, and we can all be happy.

No worries, I'm sure he'll be after Anim Overrides next, because since LL hasn't done this themselves. then we have no right to use scripts to 'force' people to use animations not sanctioned for use by LL, it's *clearly* a TOS violation, and people complain that they cause lag too! And let's not forget those evil, evil invisiprims.... People were not meant to hack a non-publically-available texture with a UUID script to have invisible parts!

I don't think LL is gonna remove the smaller, certainly more useful ones. 20x20x.5 is almost as universal as the torus nowadays. 20x20x60 is not as widespread, but know a lot of lighthouses and castles using them.

While your reply was an interesting read... it was far off the mark.

I do not approve because there is great potential for abuse which can effect other users of the service. But you can spin my opinion to fit what you would rather I be saying again if you like.

Let's keep the conversation on topic, without running off with goofy assumptions of each other's personalities, shall we?

Yes, let's do that.

For the record, no, I do not profit from the use of megaprims. I use very few of them (some 20x20x0.5s for a few platforms, and a couple of 100x1x1s for a structural feature).

There has been no official tests giving information either way. However, many many people have used them, apparently without any ill effects. Apparently some others have had bad experiences. It is however difficult to say if those observed bad effects are due to the use of megaprims or something else in the environment.

I don't see the relevance of alternative viewers to this conversation. We are talking about megaprims. Again, why should they "not be allowed" until officially sanctioned? Ignoring for a moment the problems of actually implementing such a ban, as Psyra says, many of the innovations that have come to SL are a result of people finding interesting ways to do things, that were not envisioned by LL.

Yes, it is better if such interesting things can be made sure to be stable and efficient by LL, but if everything had to go through LL for checking first, nothing would get done.

I've heard rumours that there are some interesting effects possible, much like the way the mass of tortured prims used to sometimes go negative, and so forth.

I believe much of that code has been 'fixed' ages ago, which is a little sad because there used to be some neat things possible.

But in all my playing around (months ago) I was never able to get a megaprim to create anything resembling strong gravity.

One factor that few ever play with is 'material' - material of a prim matters a lot in some circumstances. I once made a set of 1m spheres and ran a series of material tests - steel vs wood bounces differently, for example, and glass is slidey - there might be enhanced properties if such were applied to megaprims.

But the only application I can think of is perhaps 'ice rink' or 'bowling alley'.

Scriptwise, there might be some interesting buoyancy properties that can be set, but I've never been able to get anything unusual. I didn't try very hard, though.

If you have less land due to a lack of need for extra prims because you are using megaprims, then you are profiting from their use in the form of reduced tier/rent.

Exactly why they should not be used. There are reports of adverse effects and there had been no research to determine if they actually do or do not negatively impact sim performance. Until they are proven to be safe, they should be off limits. I don't need my SL experience to be effected because someone else is to selfish to care what their activity may be doing to others.

Megaprims are a result of the research done by the hacks who managed to get the green light to reverse engineer the SL client. I strongly opposed any such activity back when it was forming up, and I strongly oppose any of it now. Alternative viewers (clients) and megaprims are related.

I hate to be the one to point out something so obvious... but LL runs Second Life. Anything that is prohibitted by the TOS/Community Standards, or could be potentially unstable, or that will effect other user's experience, should absolutely go through LL first. If that means that you don't get megaprims... too bad. That's my take on it.

Until LL gives the green light on megaprims, and they are released as part of the feature set of Second Life, they are nothing more than exploits with the potential to cause sim instability.

The fact that the Lindens are aware of megaprims and have not done... or at least have not discussed the results of... any testing regarding stability is gravely unfortunate.

My home sim, The Future, is a single parcel. The people who could conceivably be adversely affected by the use of megaprims are the other people in the Future group (who are involved in the same build as I am), and visitors to the sim (who can choose to go elsewhere if they have a bad experience). In neither case have I had any complaints. There are currently around 800 prims free in the sim, were megaprims to disappear overnight I could replace them at a cost of around 50 prims.

Anyway, I thought the point you made was to stick to the arguments rather than talking about the situations and motivations of the people involved?

To take a silly example, suppose someone wants to fill their own sim with horribly lagging massive textures, and a billion scripts, making it entirely impossible to do anything in the sim. Why shouldn't they be able to?
So why do we allow avatars with a hundred twisted tori on their heads? Or 500 prim avatars with a script in each?

Those are entirely within the standard uses of the tools that LL have given us, and you don't need official tests to know that they will drop your frame rate when they come into view. Would you disallow those?

We shouldn't use them because of where they came from? They're not tainted with badness you know.

Are megaprims against the TOS? I don't think so. 100 tori hair is known to adversely effect others' experience, but you don't see LL banning it, or vetting things. For one it would be entirely impractical.

They are very busy people, why should they spend time on something that has been on the grid for months, with no show-stopping adverse effects?

Scripts, prims, heck... all assets... effect the grid, regardless of originating sim. There isn't a separate asset server for each sim, so such a rediculous example would indeed be way over the top and probably be considered an attack.

Anything that reduces the level of service to the point where others are severely effected is a violation of the TOS.

Prove it. lol

The TOS was not the only thing I mentioned in that paragraph... focusing specifically on one part of a list of things to make a point is disingenuous.

Because it is their job? Grid stability and customer service are both aspects of being a Linden.

Seifert, Psyra... we're rebels, man, rebels.

Bad to the bone...

pooh! to anyone who doesnt like them!

so there!

maybe it's the hole avatar thing causing problems. the hole "imagination" system.

they should ban that. everything would be nice and peaceful and dead.

I can understand why my point of view may not be popular with some of you... but I think you are missing my point.

I do absolutely want larger than default prims. But I want them tested and released officially first. I have never been, and never will be, a supporter of 3rd party exploits or hacks.

If some of you think I am being an ass for supporting proper development and personal responsibility, I can't help that. I can say however, that until now, I have not openly mocked or personally attacked any of you. Nor do I hold anything against you. It appears that the same courtesy is not being returned, which is unfortunate. This could have been a relatively productive coversation. At the very least, perhaps we could have come to some sort of common ground.

If LL produces an acceptable suite of big prims that replace the useful megaprims, and are tested for effectiveness and harmlessness, it looks like everyone would be happy.

With everything else LL has to do on limited human resources, it seems more likely they will allow the megaprims to stay - hopefully up to but not larger than sim size - if they're really listening to the Residents.

Worst case is also all too possible - they take away the megaprims and replace them with nothing. Then everybody loses. Including LL, because SL would be diminished in its possibilities and attractiveness. And I don't think they'd really make more revenue off people buying more land to get more prims, because I suspect people already buy land up to their chosen budget allocations for SL, and would not go beyond those allocations to any significant degree.

Falling upwards is caused by excess collisions and excess strain on the physics engine. Have an estate manager (or a linden if you're on the mainland) look at the 'top collisions' box and investigate prim that have a collision score of >100 for an extended period of time.

This has happened numerous times in sims that I've managed, with or without megaprim.

What seems to happen, is your avatar interpenetrates an object for a second, the sim tries to resolve the interpenetration of the avatar and object by separating the two. however, the object that's causing the collisions elsewhere in the sim generates collisions that get transferred to the handling of your avatar.. so the sim thinks that your avatar is still interpenetrating and continues to exert force on your avatar to try to solve the non-existing interpenetration and you get sent off into space with a constant force that the collision solver applied to solve your initial interpenetration.

What do Megaprim have to do with this? Well, they tend to generate a higher collision score... where a 10x10 would generate a score of 2 for walking on it, a 20x20 might generate a 30 score.