Sculpties affect sim performance???

That's not necessarily true. If you use four prims instead of one, then during the broadphase collision detection step, especially using a structure like an Octree, you can trivially reject some collision tests. In the very narrowly focused example given of the dance floor, that would probably not provide any efficiencies, but in the general case it could provide huge efficiencies.

There are trade-offs to everything
No one way is most efficient for all cases.

Yes, because SL gives anybody the ability to create their own game environment, we can't expect everyone to teach themselves the fundamental rules of game design.

But if you are the type of person that cares about your craft enough to research, you'd quickly find that just because LL gives each sim a prim count, doesn't mean we should max it out.

If someone really wants to get into CGI, and become good at it, it is there responsibility to learn the finer points on the subject--and believe it or not, optimization isn't even a finer point...it's a fundamental starting point.

LOL...boy, was I misinformed! I'm glad I read this thread, learned a lot of new stuff

There isn't just one face on a sculptie--when rendered by the engine, there are a bunch of triangles.

And like I said above, just because we are given an alloted prim ceiling, does not mean we should use it--a practiced cg artist knows this first hand. You have to take all your assets into consideration...and optimize accordingly.

If a sim used up all it's alloted prims...and none of them were textured, everything would run smooth as a baby's butt...but start adding particles, textures and script...and you have to start thinking about optimization. These are fundamental rules any cg artist must take into consideration.

Most definitely! I can't count the number of places where small objects had 1024x1024 textures.

I find it easier (cheaper too!) to upload 1 file with multiple textures on it for a Sculptie or any other build.

I have zero idea what you're talking about.

Technically true, but in SL "face" appears to be more of a texturing term than a technical one. A solid sphere prim has more than one face if you are going by the technical 3D definition, but only one that you can apply a texture to in SL terms.

It's still true that a properly made texture intended for a sculpted prim will most likely only be used on that exact prim shape and not reused much.

Sculpted prims can dramatically impact the poly count, though, and I've noticed that Windlight has less of a problem with that FPS-wise than the main viewer.

Well, ya. I wasn't so much talking about face-count in relation to texture face...I was referring to optimization and performance.

I have even less of an idea what you're talking about.

Sorry - noob question. What do you mean, multiple textures in one file?

Sculpties CAN add a shitload of w-polys to a schene that not every graphic card can render as well, causing clients to lag.
So can any exzessive prim type usage, that is not a cube, and that is not a (non sculpted) prim, that is skewed around its z-axis.

Now, this is one thing I find just plain stupid and against all forms of logic. The sign doesn't say "Speed Limit 55, but we suggest 45 just to be safe" and my monthly tier doesn't come up as "$195 but we suggest you only pay $150 just so you have a cushion."

If the prim limit per sim is 15k, then it's 15k. If the prim limit is really 13k, then friggin' say it's 13k.

With judicious use of offsets you can use a single texture for different purposes. For example, I once made a HUD with a bunch of labeled buttons. I used a single texture that had all the button text on it in a grid, and just used offsets on the button prims to only show the text for a given button. There are many other applications for this technique.

I like cranky Isablan!

(Sorry you're sick tho.)

Yes, this has been known for some time, A short discussion was held here about sculpties and Physics lag:

/8/cf/225893/1.html

Speed limit can kill--prim counts don't. We obviously aren't responsible enough to set our own speed limits...Pris once said, 'then we're stupid, and we'll die'...which is true in a lot of cases.

It's not against logic. It's about game design. These are fundamental rules cg artists learn...game designers learn, programmers learn.

They set a cap for prims...because if used *properly* (ie. with optimization in mind) the sim will run at a reasonable level...but if you go off creating a sim without a care in the world...things will run like crap. LL sets prims limits for a reason.

Take video games for example--sure, a lot of games can be prettier, or have a higher poly count, level of detail, or higher distance cap...the hardware can run it...but do you see game developers pushing the poly counts to the hardware's absolute max? No, of course you don't, because that is a really bad idea in respects to performance.

It's the 'creators' responsibility to take all assets into consideration when optimizing their sim...and if their sims run like crap, they should research why. And the 'why' will answer some fundamental rules of game design--optimization.

LL sets a prim cap...at some magic number...where it's a balance of optimization, with a strong understanding most people will abuse every aspect of asset creation.

That's probably because I don't explain things well

I was mostly trying to explain that there can be a significant difference in the number of collision and physics calculations performed between megaprims and "normal" prims, but the very best resource for such explanations would come from http://www.realtimecollisiondetection.net/