New Prim type - rounded corner boxes

Rounded corner boxes.

I'd like to see a new prim type - rounded corner boxes. The impetus for this request has to do with the limitations imposed by the 31-prim vehicle constraints.

Essentially this IS a complex prim design, however, I think the advantages would be huge in terms of the ability to better match adjacent prims without overlapping edges - which we know can cause a lot of textrue flicker).

In implementation, the rounded corners should functionally only extend 1-5% of the distance along any two axes/edges even while streteched/resized.

One possible implementation could be a check box in the current box shape - rounded or not, however, my gut feeling is that this is inherently a different coding issue than the current box prim(.....but I can't back up that gut feeling in any meaningful way).

Thoughts? Comments?

i think this is a great idea, and not just for vehicles. roundrects are everywhere in RL.

It sounds like a neat idea. But I think that perhaps you were too hasty to discard the idea of simply modifying a box to have their corner's rounded.

Perhaps, there could be a slider that changed the radius of an imaginary set of spheres that capped the eight corners of a box, the appropriate octant of the sphere cupping corner. In addition, there would be cylindrical parts that cup the 12 edges of the cube, making it look rounded all over. At radius zero, there would be no rounding. At radius 1 it would make the box look exactly like a sphere / ellipsoid.

The problems with this idea would be that now you have to edit a LOT of geometry of the box -- that's a lot of added polygons, and added in a weird way. You also have to redo a lot of the script regarding the enumeration of the prim properties, and anything that interacts w/ them. Furthermore, the biggest thing that's going to work against it is that it's already possible to create that sort of thing with the current system, despite how it requires a bunch of prims. I've noticed the Lindens tend twoards a sort of "perfect minimalism," such that they don't like having anything redunant in their work (I'm refering to primatives here, not the scripting language, though there are a few examples there too). So, it might be hard to convince them -- but, who knows. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Chamfered boxes are nice, but can be built with existing prims, which goes against the 'linden minmalism' design described above. I wouldn't mind having them, but it could lead to other things if they were ever implemented...and how in the world would you hollow/cut that with rounded edges correctly? hmm..

It's a "feature suggestion" and should be treated as such.

It's being asked for for a very specific reason - to provide a shape which is otherwise extremely prim-intensive to make. This makes it too "expensive" to use as a "basic building tool" in vehicles... yet it is a shape which has numerous real world and virtual/artistic uses.

With a vehicle-physics limit of 31 prims and Havok2 nowhere in sight - and no stated plans for an increase in the number of prims allowed for vehicles - I feel that this is a desirable shape to provide residents.

If others do not agree... fine. I can make use of it and I am sure that, if available to all, I would NOT be the only one who would use it.

If you think that this is already available via the current system of prims... show me a single shape that has these qualities in one prim - six sides and each pair of matching/adjacent sides is "joined" in a curve.

As for hollows, use the currently available hollow choices AND incorporate the new shape as an option. If you can make the exterior, then you can certainly calculat ethe same shape for an interior hollow.

I know this is not a "basic shape" in the same sense of "primitive" that a box, sphere or cylinder is.. however, neither is a ring or a torus.

Yeah, I know, just wondering how radial cuts would look. The hollow seems straightforward. No big deal, I just don't know if the lindens would go for it. I could think of some interesting uses for it if it does get implemented.

Capsules are another similar sort of shape: split a sphere in two halves and fill in the middle with a cylider. You can make it with three prims, but is becoming a more popular primitive in other 3D systems. For one, it makes a better bounding box for a human figure than an elongated cube. In Second Life, it would have the same vertex complexity as a sphere and could use all the same modification tools that cyliders and spheres have without issue.

i was just about to suggest this. good idea!

A fully-rounded box requires 23 prims. A rounded-box prim requires one prim.

i would love this. it was building day two that i started wanting this. but i think it would be a nightmare for opengl. i might be wrong. it is almost 2005 after all.

Badly needed feature. As are larger prim sizes.