The Big Prim Problem

I too use these prims, sometimes even when I wish I didnt have to. Usually I stick to prims no bigger then 50m in any direction, with exception of a phantom 100m sphere to fake a galaxy view, with aproval of neighbours because, like lindenlabs says, they tend to "hang over".

The ones I wish I didnt have to use however, are one side skytexture, one side invisible phantom 100x100x0.01 panels to block out those obnoxious bright red "for sale" signs and other various annoying crap. For some reason rotating fullbright 10m boxes with a random face on it kinda ruin the idea of walking through a quiet park. >_< so yeah...

Ive asked a linden about these things once while messing with them in a sandbox. She didnt seem to mind me using a 40m hollow sphere to mimmic some scenery, she even told me the physics engine can handle anything in between 0.01m and 100m just fine, phantom ones seemed to have even less limitations. "Just use common sence and try to remember what others might think." was her advice to me.



My Suggestion: Limit prims by volume.
For example a 10x10x10m box has a volume of 1000. A box of 20x10x5m also has a volume of 1000. So I guess the biggest you could get out of it is 99.999 by 99.999 by 0.01m. hollows and cuts not deducting anything ofcourse. Its a bit of a crude idea, but you see where you can go with this.

Yes, I too think Gene is a big problem and should be nerfed at once. First he tries to enable terrorism and now he tries to stop Havok4 from working - I have a feeling he has been behind us not getting Havok for years now!

Obviously, if use use of big prims is being abused then something needs to be done to address the problem, however. prohibiting their use then penalises those who use them in a responsible manner. In my particular case, I want to build a pyramid 60m x 60m. The maximun prim limit forces me to use 10m x 10m triangles. I will therefore have to use 180 prims to create four sides and a base (plus lots of work). If i could have a 60m x 60m prim, it would use 4 prims and be immeasurably easier.

Hello, this is my two cents:

- we are reliable builders and we use only the smaller ones wisely (not bigger than 50x50, mostly 20x20 and 20x10) to be 1) faster in building 2) spare some prims. We never use the real huge ones.

- especially for building streets and huge walls its very useful to have them. We never exxagerate the use of those prims for we avoid anything causing instability. The huge prims who are causing problems are the bigger ones, beginning with 100x100 - which we never use. Scaling of textures gets redicoulus and ppl tend to create giant textures: this overloads the grafics card memory and causes huge lag. Textures are the main problem in here for newbies dont know how to use them properly.

- small prims cost more problems because the more small prims you use, the more vertices have to be computed by the engine. Plus the newbie who waste a 1024x1024 texture on the small side of a prim with 10x0,5. Those are the problems who cause lag, not the prims.

- if Linden decides to take the huge prims away I will close down all my sims for the work of months would be gone. And I would not be able to reconstruct for I run out of prims.
This would disencourage me to work anymore in Second Life. There has to be an end with restrictions.

Greetings - Laurina Hawks, Sub Lupina

Good things: large prims are great for floors, walls, and sky platforms. I'm using a single 40x40x1 large prim for the base of a sky platform, which saves me 15 prims that I would otherwise need just to make the floor.

Bad things: I haven't encountered any of the griefing or other abuse that others have mentioned.

Ideas: At least consider keeping large prims up to 50x50 or so, for floors etc.

If big prims are to be banned, maybe a small compromise would be to be able to apply textures to areas of the ground?

Gomez

First of all, I agree that those 65000 m huges make no sense and yes the graphics limitation is 256, sim border. I mean if they were as bad as some people think here - which in my opinion have no idea what they are talking about, grief can be done with other prims too- why are they still available. LL allowed the use and didn't care much before so they are now widespreadly used.

I use some in my sim, even a 256x256m and i never have problems - only the feet in ground problem. For some builds i did, there is no other choice than huge prims. If they get removed, i can close my region, because the concept had to be redone and i won't do that. LL allowed them before and they are used simworld wide as I saw. In case of removal you will get some devastation in sims here. And don't forget that f.e. a lot of trees from heart garden center use huge prims, too.

If they cause trouble now with the physics engine, then find a better solution to replace them or the reason why they cause trouble and enhance/mod the implementation of the physics engine.

Here are some places and builds relying on huge prims:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Devils%20Dare%20Isle/34/91/302

this build is impossible to do with standard prims:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Devils%20Dare%20Isle/220/70/302

But i don't understand LL now. We always get asked as residents here and in the end LL do it like they want or think what is easiest and best from their point of view. Just as example the voice integration. If it continues like that SL is more dead than alive, like a world after a nuclear strike, destroyed by it's own creator.

I almost dont understand the probably noobs problem of "invisible barriers" - an "invisible barrier" may be done with "normal" prims as well - just takes more prim, and therefore more simulator work, to make them. And where is anything on SL "invisible" ??? View transparent or right click, thats all.

Huge prims are really GREAT, and an absolute necessity for builders, and specially for those who, like me, love landscaping and creation of private universes. If huge prims disappear, I will feel like going back into a Middle Age jail. Huge prims are, fast & simply said, what makes the difference between a real complete 3D simulator and a poor amateur one.

I LOVE huge spheres - 2 prims (one for floor) and you build your entire world and its atmosphere background. AND from the simulator point of view (dont forget this poor overwhelmed simulator) its 2 prims, and 2 textures to load. Now lets imagine I have to do something that will (poorly) simulate a huge sphere with 10x10x10 prims. And a landscaping texture cutten and positioned for each of these 10x10x10 prims. Did not do the exact calculus (& dont want to have to do it any day) lets say for a 50x50x50 half sphere will need at least 50 prims. Builder will have to calculate each prim position, then for each prim, repeats per face (horizontal, vertical) and offset (horizontal, vertical) - so not only the poor builder will have to calculate all that mess, and spend 50 prims (more - with the floor will be 75) but the poor sim will have to calculate it too - is not ENOUGH LAG on SL??? and for what benefit???

It would be a much nicer idea - and better for the whole grid too and its almost permanent lag - to allow new huge prims building, with some limits maybe - and maybe less ppl would be sometimes angry with Linden Labs (sorry lol).

So I ask for the huge prims generalization, not only for myself and my artistic/builder needs, but even for the grid I live in and its health. I think that all builders & ppl active here think the same; will you delete one of the best tools here cause some **** see "invisible barriers" ??? Does not make any sense...

The place where megaprims are really irreplaceable is for non-rectilinear build shapes. How many 10m-max prims will it take to acceptably replace a tapered twisted arc segment of radius 100m? Right: more than a sim can hold, so such a build is simply impossible without megaprims.

I would gladly swap the megaprims above 256m^3 for some special Editor feature for creating any dimension up to 256. But less than that is simply unacceptable.

(And nobody, but nobody, is buying the notion that something about Havok 4 inherently makes megaprims more unstable. Rather--and quite obviously--the difficulties with megaprims on Aditi are clues to what's wrong with the physics integration itself. Sweeping it under the rug is just guaranteed to lead to a disastrous roll-out of Havok 4 to the Main Grid. So just watch: If megaprims aren't supported with Havok 4, that deployment will be a fiasco for non-megaprims, too.)

As a builder and developer I find some mega prims very useful. I agree that abuse should be stopped. I have some wonderful builds such as the Twilight Cultural Plaza that make use of the 20X20X.5 Big Prim. This substantial reduces the number prims required for the builds. Leaving more prims available for content in the Art Museum. We also use them as a platform for our Sandbox. It would be a pitty to destroy some wonderful builds because other people abuse the use of Big Prims. If we were to remove everything that can be abused in SL, It would be a barren and boring place. It makes more sense to ban the abusers not the tools.

I am:
-A prem acount holder
-A landowner in 2 sims
-not a noob, but no veteran either(march 2007)
-A builder and scripter

Honestly, what do we need them for except to make trouble, or save prim counts? As for the former, it's well documented that griefers can use these to make like intolerable, and at least one well-meaning resident I know used a 100x100 monstrosity as a screen on a sim border, lagging both sims horribly.

As for the latter, well that's SL. If your build is broken by elimination of these things, well sorry Charlie, be more creative.. I can texture any SL prim thats not a sculptie using the LL tools, for the most part, and if your 20x20 megaprim needs to become 4 10x10's it aint the end of the world. Get rid of somethign else. I was able to build a 5 story building without any megaprims (not a prefab, I created it from scratch). And had 400 prims left at the end.

Any vehicle builders and scripters know that the physics engine is beyond outdated, its nearly prehistoric. LL promised an upgrade to 2.0 ...... in 2003!... I have seen the blog post. If, as on the beta grid, ll plans to roll out ugpraded physics, you can kiss your megaprim a** g'bye. =D

Don't forget that casino operators lost millions of L$ in the gambling ban, and IIRC the pointed and nearly unanimous opinion of the community was to leave gambling alone. So I am sure that if the continued use of these things interferes with any software upgrades, they will disapppear overnight like thousands of slot machines and roulette tables did.

And call it a hunch, but I get the funny feeling that some performance problems in some sims will also disappear overnight with the mgaprims. Thats just my gut instinct. I was amazed at how my neighbor's "screeen" hosed performance in the sim i was in - as well as her own, which is why she got rid of it lol.

I use a couple different mega prims for build on Aden. I use the 32x32x40 for building a skyscraper... I use the 20x20x60 cylinder in a sculpty to build a full size ship in a bottle.... I use the 50x50x50 sphere as a very large and very close moon next to the dance floor. Aden is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aden/105/128/120 and Aden is still a Class 3 (old) processor but I have had 60 avatars at events with this setup and prims.

It would be "nice" if instead of saying "mega prims cause lag" the linden labs would give us sim owners some "lag cause detection" tools. Right now using the sim tools under debug and the (very) few commands available in LSL I really have no way of attributing "who" or "what" is causing the lag.

If you start using "something can be abused" as a criteria to ban it, then you will ban all scripts, all particles, all avatars, and all second life.

How about starting to actually boot and ban from second life those avatars/people causing the problem and do not blame the things griefer's "use" to cause problems for the problems. All you need to do to fix the griefer is ban the griefer (yes I know that free accounts make it harder to keep them out).

Now I think that the real reason we are seeing this discussion is because Havok4 met a mega prim and fell on it's face?????? is that a close guess? and this discussion is to see if they are going to spend the time to fix their physics code to handle mega prims or are they going to ban them.

Once again, I would HOPE they fix their code to handle the mega prims, but I haven't seen much in the way of that. Come to Aden and see what they are useful for.

Fix the problem..... not the symptom.... the problem is code not handling mega prims, not the mega prims.

Hey guess what.. Scripting is being used to Grief people lets get rid of that next.. Oh and textures.. people are using textures to grief.. oh.. also All prims are being used to grief.. flexis in peticular.. I got an idea lets just SHUT DOWN SL.. that will stop the griefing.. I mean really guys .. Griefing is not the main focus here..

You want to get rid of Mega prims.. well your going to piss off IBM who uses ALOT Of them.. you guys want to tell them your getting rid of them.. I bet when they find out what your planning they will stop it. Way to piss off your largest Corporate account.

Look I have been using mega prims for a year.. I have found very little to support all of the claims of problems. If used properly Mega prims can and do help you out alot.. I have had these discussions many times on these forums and quite frankly i am tired of it. In case you guys didnt know there are two camps at linden.. One camp is to get rid of the mega prims.. the other is to let them stay.. The problem is.. the camp to get rid of them is more vocal so in essence it gets more steam. How about you guys put out your personal beefs.. and work on problems that are important.. oh i dont know.. disappearing inventories. Oh wait.. grid stabelization, oh wait.. I know one.. how bout updating the physics engine.. (wait your doing that already) how bout turning more attention to that.. and hey.. how about making it so we can create objects larger than 10m. It wouldnt be that hard at this phase in the creation process of the new engine)

I wish to continue their use because they allow larger structures with lower numbers against the prim limits. For instance, I have build a few Gorean arenas that use 4 twenty by twenty prims. They cost me 4 prims against the prim limit as opposed to 16 prims using 10x10 prims. This allows grander buildings with increased functionality. Admittedly, they have all been on private estates and I had to be careful not to violate estate limits but that was done with little trouble. If their use becomes a problem, then take action against the offenders rather than limit the creativity of everyone.

I'll skip all the obvious objections everyone has already put forward, they are all right.

Griefers would LOVE to think they caused every sim owner in SL the grief of losing 100's of their valuable prims because they were banned instead of enforcing the TOS. Think of it as top tier griefing, just look for a really useful tool and abuse it until it gets banned!

If I find a way to grief you with clothing prims, would you remove all prim based clothing or just remove me? I hope the latter

That's my 2 cents!

Duncan

I recently started selling a Tornado Summoning HUD that uses a 40x40x40 sculptie for the funnel of the tornado. I have used the strange gravity effect that occurs when it is set to non-phantom for the "suction" feature, however, this is only activated when turned on by the owner, plus it switches rapidly between phantom and non-phantom so people can still move through it, and it gives instructions on how to set "always run" mode to anyone caught in it, which makes it easy to move through. It even includes the name of the owner in the message so that if it is abused, even new players know who's name to put in their abuse reports.

I have made every effort to make this a fun object and reduce potential grief, and thanks to my efforts, everyone I have ever had in my tornado has responded by shouting "Weeeee!!" or "WooHoo!!" or something along those lines. I have given ample warnings to those that buy it, that like many other things in SL, they must use it responsibly or face the risk of being banned, and due to all this, I consider even this potentially abusive gravity effect to have genuine use in SL.

I also have a sky dome that uses a phantom 50x50x50 for the glass dome... sure, you fall off if you walk through the walls, but it looks great, and would have cost me thousands of prims to make otherwise. It fits nicely on my 4096 plot, and has never caused any problems for anyone.

My point is that as a responsible builder and scripter I have found many genuine uses for these objects, even when utilising their more potentially abusive behaviours! I tend to echo the thoughts of others that perhaps a 100 meter cut off would be reasonable, but even then I can't help but think of Galactica, where they used to use a sim sized prim to show an image of the earth rotating, and made a surprisingly effective "view from space" which was just excellent! I can't think of any other way they could have achieved something like this, so even the truly massive prims have genuine worth and potential.

There are a million things in SL that can cause abuse, and the people that use giant prims to do so will only pull out their next annoying toy if you take that one away from them. The problem is the player, not the tools they use. In my opinion, the frequent use of particles to display vulgar images over many sims at a time is FAR worse than giant prims, but would we ever even dream or removing particles from SL? No, of course not. You remove the source of the problem, the griefers themselves.

Tryptofaa Sands

If you'd like to see my use of giant prims and try the tornado to see how fun it really is, visit my plot here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dejavu/43/61/21/

I use them for my sky port. Whenever I buy a piece of property I put up one large slab at 300 m where I have my workshop. They help me minimize on the prim count for the land. If you do away with them, you should raise max allowable prim on parcels to compensate.

I can see a use for many of the smaller mega prims, I intended to see about getting some made for a border of my land (block out the view of the neighbors). Mainly due to the fact to build a similar sized one I would need 9 prims per side which is too many for my prim limits (which are already close to maxed)


Mega prims can be abused just like anything in the game, some are meant to be abused with their size... others like regular prims, attachments, scripts, etc can be abused by those that don't care.

heyas;

i agree that megaprims, to a limited large size, have valuable uses.

is not using one 20x20 floor/wall more conservative than using four 10x10 cubes? it must be, because prims are weighed by number, not by volume. if i make my prims smaller, that doesn't allow me to put more on my land ;)

i can have 117 prims on my 512 lot. i had to use six cubes to create a square floor/cave to cover that space. if i could have used two large prims, i would have more prims left over for decorating, etc.


perhaps it would be possible to restrict mega sizes to, say, an overall volume. a 10x10x10 cube is what, 1000 cubic meters? 20x20x.01 only = 4. or 20x20x0.1 = 40. so that would be reasonable. a 20x20x20 would not.

on the other hand, this would be problematic for gigantic spheres.




now, as for the menace.... this occurs when someone who doesn't know better takes a megasphere out of their inventory to look at it. if you've never been priveledged to experience this, it is... interesting. apparently, the megasphere has not been set phantom, so when it is placed on the ground, all the avatars in its shadow start to float helplessly into the air. (you can see the same effect if you put a large cube through your body. stop editing it, and you will float up to the top to stand on it, if it is not phantom.)

the problem is, the megaprim is so big, it cannot be easily selected for the originator to delete it. EVEN if they did not mean to cause this havok, they may be unable to rectify it. (such an event occurred once, and i helped the poor guy figure out how to delete it and avoid a banning.)

now, a phantom sphere of this size (256x, i believe) would not cause this anti-gravity problem. so, the idea that they can only ever be phantom has merit. um... except for floors of malls. :( (besides that, it might be a cool attraction to have an anti-gravity ride! ;D )

but for heaven's sake, do NOT let them become physical. gawd, i can see a 65000 meter sphere rolling over the continent like some crazed scene from an indiana jones movie....!!!

I don't consider myself an "expert" builder but I've been in SL for over two years, and it goes to show that creativity can vary from one expert to the other. Of course 65,000x65,000 prims ARE useful, we at Avatrian use it to cover the surrounding water because we need to make our sim planetary looking, and thus we do not need to see estate water around our sim, so we block the water using the ultrahuge prim. Aside from the texture lag caused by tiling that texture over that huge prim, I don't see any technical problems because we're using it on OUR own sim, and thus we don't affect other sim. So before people make any general SWEEPING comments about how useful and not useful something is, always remember the ld saying--"One man's trash is another man's treasure." Sometimes you just need to think out of the box.

-RODION

Give the possibility to have more prims on a sim, than the people don't look for solutions like megaprims!!! it is sometimes not enough to create a natural looking housing area, with this less amount of prims/m unless u pay(!) the tiers for a over big place with a little full equipped house. seems this is the reason al about the discussion, money!

many of the oversized prims are very useful in making buildings. most buildings have walls larger than 10 X 10.. the super huge monster prims have very limited use. I might think that limiting them to private islands would be a logical work around.. I do know of the holodeck devices that use them.

First, I am assuming that it would be possible by searching the object definition strings to find individual mega-prims by their characteristics, and write them off the asset server.

With that in mind. I have not worked with them, but I have to say that smaller prims of greater than 10x10 seem very useful. Being able to make several sizes of larger wall for example. I have a moderate sized house that eats a ridiculous number of prims. We often see sims with "facade" buildings that could be made of megaprims.

I think it comes down to tech and speed. Nobody was told that these would work or has a "right" to have them. I think LL should run objective tests and define which ones cause problems in terms of slowing a sim or the physics engine, and eliminate them.

That said, I think many builders would be overjoyed to have a small collection of reasonable megaprims "blessed" by LL for permanent use. I don't know which sizes exist in the current collection, as I've been a bit unwilling to mess with rezzing them in a crowded sim to see. Certain sizes would just make sense. A 40x40x1 sheet (for larger wall surfaces). Perhaps even 40x60x1 and 80x40x1. Maybe even a few larger sheets for doing fake skywalls, etc. I'd gladly support deleting them all if ll issued a small collection of more "reasonable" sized larger prims for use, or blessed non-troubling examples among the current prims.

There's no question of the value of prims larger than 10x10, particularly for building. They have potentil problems, but so does everything. If there are some sensible larger prim options then I think it will encourage more creative use of the space. As is, what's the rationale for 10x10? Should it be 9x9 or really 10.24x10.24 I love to see a nice floating 50x50 in the middle of a large sim. But perhaps that's just me.

The megaprims have proved helpful in providing privacy in residential properties, by allowing large walls to be built, hiding unsightly neighbors, and saving valuable prim space. By making the object transparent on the neighbors side, i've been able to unobstruct their view, while enable us to look at a nice view, instead of the back of their house.