question about mega prims

Hi everyone, and good morning.

I know this is a noobish question, but could someone take a moment to explain clearly to me what exactly a mega prim, and how to find and identify one in your sim? How big does an object need to be to be considered "mega"? Does prim size have anything to do with it? At what point is a mega prim abuse reportable?

Thanks so much guys.

/8/c0/208385/1.html

is a good place to start.....

Perfect...thanks!

I believe there's an article in the Wiki about them, too.

A megaprim is any prim that exceeds the 10 meter maximum size in at least one dimension.

Megaprims were created some time ago. They were an exploit that took advantage of the SL software available at that time. The code that allowed this exploit has since been changed, but that did not prohibit the use of the existing megaprims.

Megaprims are, therefore, only available in certain sizes and shapes, those that were created before the code "hole" was stopped up. They are not, in the normal way of things, editable. But there is a product available on SL Exchange which claims to allow you to edit megas. I haven't tried this myself, yet.

You can get a nice collection of megaprims free on SL Exchange, too.

Megaprims have some drawbacks. For one thing, they may or may not be supported in future SL versions. So if (like me) your build uses a lot of them, you may wake up one day to find large chunks of things have vanished overnight. They exhibit some strange behaviors, like throwing your camera viewpoint off if you use them to ALT+drag it around, or refusing to let you sit on them or rez objects on them. (I find that flipping them over and using the other side of them usually solves these problems.)

The larger megaprims (100m and up) have been said to cause sim lag and other problems. If someone ARs your megaprim, a Linden may pop on by and delete it without warning.

Megas should not be allowed to overlap your property line, not even the prim's bounding box. They should be set to phantom wherever possible, to reduce the chance of making problems for the SL physics engine.

With all their drawvbacks, megaprims continue to be used...because they are so darn useful for keeping the prim count on large objects low. They make great roads, dance floors, roofing slabs, foundations, and privacy walls.

Talking 'bout big prims. I been over at OLG testing the Rex viewer creating up to 100m prims in any form. It's fantastic.Put text straight onto it enable shadows and more. 100 meter prims. 100 meters! It's very alpha and has a long way to go and will break your computer if you try it. And these will be standard on open grids, not to mention mesh avatars and objects. Too bad SL doesn't support prims over 10m. But they may have to eventually to compete against the oppositions' feature set.