The Big Prim Problem

I use 20x20x.5 blocks in my skyboxes but sparingly with normal ones, I really don't see a use for any larger than that, however the land i have isn't large enough to use bigger ones.

I've seen grief versions and i probably have some of the sim crossers, they I never use and one day probably will delete out of inventory.

I agree with most that anything 100m or larger isn't really needed, a sim sized one might be good for prim land though...

I'd be far more happy however if i could create 20x20 blocks normally. Megarims have issues that make them rather useless too me, I just use them for walls

There should be a new prim shape that allows us to build larger domes or cylinders. Imagine how the Romans built the Pantheon, they built its dome in small sections. If large prims are going to be banned, then I want the ability to make large domes out of smaller curved pieces.

My own opinion. Mega prims do have a use. I use the 20X20X.5 ones mostly, as flooring for my sky boxes. The big cylinder one can make a nice light for big beacons, like a lighthouse for example. Many creative people out there would be without a good tool to create. Indeed, they can be used for griefing. But, aren't scripts and physical objects the main source of griefing anyway? Those two are what are used for guns and without physics, the term "orbiting" wouldn't have been even started here in SL. I don't see an effort towards removing scripts (the main griefer tool) or the physics engine (the secondary griefing tool). As such, mega prims can be also treated like this.

EDIT: Another thing. If physics is the reason for not allowing anything other than 10m, Why not make at least 20M prims that would have the physics ability disabled? if possible, could be a good idea.

One way to eliminate the griefing use of prims would be to give the property owner the right/ability to delete any prim that encrouched on his property.

Good: There are many examples of good uses of megaprims all over the place. Mostly used for foundations, platforms, walls, ceilings, etc.

I am currently building a boardwalk, condo high-rise, club, and rent homes, that would be challenging without megaprims. By using megaprims, I have been able to save over 200 prims, which allows that to be used for renters of the condos or vendor spaces on the boardwalk. Understanding the limits of the number of prims a simulator (region) can have, it is important to be able to use an appropriate size prim for buildings and walks.

Bad: There are bad people everywhere. The megaprims are not the issue, it is irresponsible people that are. In real life, do we stop selling things like fertilizer that are used for bombs? No, we go after those people that make the bombs and use them for bad purposes. We also setup tracking methods that make it easier to find people that buy fertilizer out of the blue.

Ideas: Have a special permit to use megaprims. This permit would require the following:
1) An agreement that the builder would use the prims responsibly and agree to resolve any report of overlap/grieving within a reasonable amount of time.
2) A one-time application fee to have the megaprim sizes available in the client. This would be nominal, L$500-L$1000 may be reasonable for those who really need to use them.
3) A one-week build period that would require a LL person to verify that the builder does understand the basics of building.
4) An agreement that anything below 700m needs to be aesthetic with the region and anything above 700m does not encroach on adjacent parcels.
5) An agreement that no prim will overlap a region, or be larger then the region itself.

Limit the maximum size of the megaprims to the physics engine and graphics engine limitations by creating a list of rules for the limitations. An example is the 20x20x.5 prim. This appears to work fine for the physics engine unless you hollow out the center. The physics engine appears to not detect this as a hole but solid. On the other hand, a 20x20x.5 that the path has been cut to make it 10x10x.5, the physics engine works fine. These limitations needs to be captured and rules should be setup to follow these limitations when using megaprims.

Also, there should be a way to find your objects within the region quickly. I use coordinate numbers when placing prims and sometimes end up sending a prim across the region when I fat-finger a number. On the rare occasion this happens, I mostly can find them. There has been one time that I could not find one because it was underneath several structures and overlapped several 512m2 areas. Luckily the neighbor was nice and IM'ed me and said that they could not remove the object since it's center was in the next property, therefore preventing the nice neighbor from removing it. I immediately went and got it. Mistakes happen but there needs to be a way to find these objects.

Mega prims have a massive advantage for builders and when used legitimately they are great for everyone in the game. The answer is simple. Give the in world police the ability to police miss use of these prims, by sending them back and deleting them, not some wishy washy, report it to Linden lab and wait six weeks for them to do nothing.
set down clear guidelines for their use, and create a max prim size. there are some amazing beautiful things inside the world that rely on mega prims, and if they are unilaterally removed it will cost plays $1000's and the game itself will loose.
The other option is increase the max prim counts for land owners, as this is ridiculously low for small parcel holders who could never make their dreams come true.
Put simply, you want people to simply quit they game and go find another that gives a rats about its customers, then delete all the megaprims!
We already mysteriously loose inventories and cash with no way to replace them, your on the edge of destroying this place!

I have used them a long time in my buildings. I think it is silly to have the largest prim be 10m as it very commonly waste prims and it also allows for ther use of very unique moving texture pattens like dance floors where it would be very dificult to replicate with multiple prims. The 20, 40, and 50m prims are what I often use and an occasional 100m.

The other HUGE issue (sorry no pun intended) is that you cannot bend a prim unless you use some custom sculpie which of course requires skill in PS which I don't. The only easy way I have to make gentle curves is the use of sectioned huge prims. Also, large open floors are greatly simplified to move and texture in interesting ways with them. And there are many ways to manipulate the shapes, go look at Torley Lindens Tips if you don't know how.

Did you ever try and make a seamless conical roof? Takes seconds with a huge prim, hours with small ones.

There are so many ways to be abusive in SL. Noobies and ALTs with weapons, traps, spams and attacks with self-replicating prims like the hate groups like Patriotic Nigas do.

Someone's skypad??? Come on...We all live in a prim conscious world here. Yes eliminate the 256m, 65000m ones, they are useless except for greifing. I could even conceive of the 100m being lost, but please don't tie my hands by removing one of my useful creative tools.

Bottom line for me is that they are one of the best ways to create really nice looking building effects that are almost impossible with smaller ones, especially when you consider the texturing problems that can occur. I always thought the focus of SL was to be a creative/interactive world.

Someone can easily greif with any sized prim; eliminating them entirely will not solve the greifing and land abuse problems. If someone abuses them then suspend or ban the people doing it, not the prims. By and large the peeps in SL are good people and quite considerate of neighbors. Removing huge prims would mostly hurt the common use of them for positive uses, not solve the personality problems greifers have.

Thanks

"Eliminate griefing of giant prims

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One way to eliminate the griefing use of prims would be to give the property owner the right/ability to delete any prim that encrouched on his property"

More than just BIG prim encrouching. What ever griefing policy installed should also apply to tons of griefers who use 1 meter prim to drop into private houses or buildings to attack avatars in the middle of the nights.. The problem is not the prims. It is the people who abuse it.

Megaprims are a pain and should just be banned.
From what I've read from the threads here's the issue:

1) It's easy to texture. Well learn how to line up prims properly and then learn how to texture properly and you won't have that problem.

2) It saves prim. Well get more land! If you can't afford to build it using traditional prim then it shouldn't be built. Building too much on a small parcel causes lag, not to mention parcel encroachment on the neighbors and general frustration. There's a reason I left mainland and that was it! Builds should always be appropriate to the size of the land. 50 story builds are not meant to be on 512 parcels. If you want a 50 story building get yourself 8000M of land and have a blast. If you can't afford then land then don't build it!!

3) For me as a builder and custom builder, I get asked to "fix it". Megaprims cannot be fixed, edited or modified by anybody except the owner. Basically if I run across megaprims, the solution is simple "delete it". Sometimes I can work around or with existing structure if built decently (I don't fix other's work.) and with normal prim. But when megaprims are used I only have one option and that's the delete button.

Megaprims are just a cheat tool, like so many that have been created in SL. I'm a traditionalist. I enjoy building with traditional prims, using the coordinates and being proud of the fact that I understand building in a traditional sense.

Scultpies have their uses for shoes and skirts and the like. They may even find their way into homes in smaller pieces like doors and windows. However I don't think sculpties can be compared to megaprims. I wouldn't want to see a 100x100 sculptie anymore than I want to see a 100x100 megaprim.

Just get rid of the cheat tools like megaprims that cause so many problems! If you don't have the prim to build it in the traditional way, that's a good hint that the build shouldn't have been built on that parcel of land in the first place!

While the 65K prim almost certainly has no legitimate use, on my island sim, I have found a good use for a 1K prim (and I carefully checked to make sure it was not encroaching on anyone). 256m prims - very handy for creating "sky levels" above your sim. The other smaller sized mega-prims all have many uses when creating large structures.

I think this needs to be handled on a case by case basis - if some one's Mega-Prim (or any prim) is encroaching, then the land owners themselves ought to have the tools to deal with it.

If Mega-prims cause too many problems on the Mainland, then perhaps they should be limited to estate lands. Alternatively, limit the size of Mega-Prims that can be used on the Mainland.

If LL decides to change the rules, and disallow some or all Mega-Prims, we MUST have lots of warning this time. Dropping it on us like the gambling ban will cause disaster - and show a callous attitude. 3 months warning would be right.

Lastly, let me add my voice to the chorus of builders who want bigger prims - 20m at least, and perhaps the ability to create "Curve Segment" prims that could be the full 20m, to allow the construction of larger curved objects.

This sounds like a good idea, and a feasible one. Is there a JIRA entry for it?

This compromise has value and avoids badness

- nothing over 256m on a side for sure... I'd be thrilled with a limit at 64m
- reduces prim counts and construction costs on large structures
- supports environments: prims with textures of mountains, etc
- you have many Corporate customers built on prims larger than 10M

BUT:

not being able to link such objects is really a pain! If you allow objects larger than
10m you really should allow them to be linked.

Mmmm, I debated whether to say this but:

If it came to not having anything larger than 10M vs paying LL to dispense non-
copyable "official" larger prims, I'd say put em up for sale.

Some wonerfull uses for mega prims

Using a cut and hollowed sphere solves all the collision issues of a megaprim, and permits you to make loverly domes without any seams or texturing issues. ask and I'll show you some loverly 30m domes from my inventory that fit onto first land and take next to no prims. They are not in world right now.

Here is a galaxy sphere that I made when I was a noobie with phantom mega prims. It uses 50x50x50 spheres and is breakth taking to look at.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Meyers/98/79/752

Most mega prims can be turned inside out to make their hollow work properly.

Mega prims let you make a smooth animation over a long distance. The 60x60x20 one makes a loverly river without any ugly seams in the rippeling water texture.

Cutting and hollowing the 256x256x256 megaprim to turn it into a 256x256x1 prim makes a perfectly flat surface to build a region onto. If done 600m into the sky you can have a city scape above and countryside below

It is possition to make 512, 1024, 4096... parcel sized prims by cutting mega prims that are larger. I always place one down as a template when building on a parcel. Anything sticking over the prim will be out of the parcel.

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Mega prims are no differnt to any other prim in SL. In the hands of a skilled builder they are wonderfull things, and in the hands of a griefer they are a pest. Dont punish those of us who have build our shops, homes, and even land with mega prims, just because some jerk rezzes one in a sandbox. Ban the jerk, not the prim.

In my opinion there is no need for a prim larger than 256x256x256. That is the size you would use to create a region sized flat surface, or paint a picture on the region walls for a nice hollodeck style backdrop.

I have visited havok4 and I dont think megaprims are the biggest problem to be addressed there. Lets hope you remember to make the scripted movment work the same there as it currently does ont he main grid. I cant live without my flight assist, elevators, teleporters that go over 768m high, or the ones you dont even have to sit on that pull you to the destiantion. none of that stuff works on havok4. Megaprims are not the biggest challenge for havok4. Given the choice between megaprim or physics that dont crash the region, I would rather have the megaprims.

Darling.

if these giant prims encroach on land, there should be a way to delete them or more democratically, not allow them to be moved beyond the point of encroaching. The penalty for griefing with mega prims could be made more severe. They should all be nonphysical for starters, perhaps above a certain size they could be phantom. You could even set a group of rules, but allow residents to apply for special permits. Grief is grief, no matter how it is achieved. Is the issue the responsible use of a clearly beneficial building tool, or is it the issue of irresponsible residents exploiting something to make trouble with clear impunity.
Allow them to be used but not abused.

Hi,

First I'd like to say that as a responsible builder, if these things are negatively impacting the grid in such a way that can't be corrected programatically, then I'm all for removing them.

That said, however, I would ask that they be officially accepted and allowed.

Yes, I believe there are legitimate uses for the mega prims, at least for the ones that are the basic shapes 100x100 and smaller. For one, they save on the prim count allowing even folks like me who have small plots of land create structures that would be more difficult to accomplish with 10x10 sheets of "plywood". I suspect some of the more fantastic structures here in SL, the ones that get everyone all excited, are making use of these prims.

Now when we get to the prims over 100x100, then perhaps the legitimate uses for them might dwindle unless one owned an island or an entire sim. I mean, how many people really need a wall that's 65k long? Of course, a sculpty mountain made from one might be neat, Mount Everest.

As for the specialty shapes, those you'd have to take on a case by case basis, the grass should stay.

Personally, I've tried to stick with using only the 20x20 sheets not knowing the impact of the larger stuff and not having the venue in which to use them as my land plot is small, but assuming no adverse impact, I'd love to be able to use the larger stuff in a project and would especially like to see some sculpty stuff done in some of the bigger sizes.

My one thought is, how the heck are you going to get rid of them? Unless they have a unique signature on the Asset server so you can scan for and delete them, how are you going to get rid of them? Policing them up manually probably wouldn't do much good, they'd still be out there and you folks don't have the manpower to do it that way. Also, if you just delete them from the database and they disappear from Inventory and in world, people are going to be pissed when some of their favorite places disappear in chunks. You're going to have a PR nightmare.

Just my 10 cents worth.

Sougent Harrop

P.S. If you want to see a legitimate use of the big prims on a very small scale, I have a skybox made of 20x20 prims and a few stone walls on my land, I'd be happy to give a tour to any Linden that wants to see.

A resident should be able to own prims no larger than the land they own, unless it is a vertical prim. I use the long prims on my parcel, only in the vertical direction.

Why not have scalable prims? The larger the land you own, the larger your prims become. Perhaps programming considerations prevent this, but it sounds good.

Seams in the geometry every 10 meters look fantastic in otherwise perfectly aligned large architectural builds. Certainly there'd be no way to use some sort of... "bounding box" to determine if a certain percentage of the prim was encroaching on someone else's land. Better to just delete them all and not worry about the impact to the content that your users have made.

don't remove them! I'd be all for a 256 size limit. but don't remove them entirely! PLEEEEEASE!

I've been here since Dec. 03 and built many, many things, always wishing there was a prim larger than 10x10x10, but I always used my mind to get around this nagging problem, thinking up ways to piece together gable ends etc, with 2,3 and sometimes more prims (there are 2 problems with this, prim usage and texturing).Texturing something pieced is a nightmare.

I never had a clue there were any prims larger than standard, so I continue to do as always, work with the tools provided, I can say that in my years and years of PC gaming that I've only used 1 cheat(SimCity Simolean), always doing the best I could with the skills I honed.

Anything bigger than a 20x20x20 is not needed, use your minds and work with the tools provided ppl and not with things used to skirt the rules.

Linden crew...a 20x20x20 and it'd make me happy, otherwise I'll keep piecing 10x10x10's.

Megaprims are very useful, and with the addition of sculpties, they have become even more so.... By making a prim phantom in nature, and adding a boulder-like sculptie texture, for example....we can save thousands of prims, and it does not re-draw constantly from distance like the existing terrain does in SL......, and this is only one small example...

The removal of such prims would literally dismantle many existing SIMS, and destroy thousands of hours and dollars in development within major existing environments.
The thought is quite alarming, and in fact would be devastating.

The idea that the megaprims are a nusance applies to any prim, which once made invisible and yet not phantom in nature can impede movement....

Instead of questioning their uses, I feel we should be having a discussion regarding how to better integrate these large prims into the build engine, the architecture and the environment..., and minimize the possibility of there being a nusance.

The use of the 256x256 can be used to create levels, and interesting shading within a private SIM environment... However, I do agree that larger than 256x256 in size is a bit odd, and I have found no use for something larger than that....

As a builder, megaprims are invaluable. IMO the MOST used megaprim is the 20x20x.5, although I've seen the 100m mega prim often used very well as well.

What I have noticed, is in private sims, residential, rpg, or even private business sims, megaprims are most often wisely, and conscienciously (spelling?) used. Its in sandboxes, public build sims, and other high traffic areas where megaprims have been abused in my experience.

Prehaps rather than an SL wide removing of them, why not consider allowing megaprim use to be set by the sim/parcel owners akin to flying, object creation, or object entry? This would allow for places that experience megaprim problems to have them removed, BUT places where megaprims are needed, can STILL make use of them, either publicly or privately.

[edit: added below as an afterthought]

Regarding encroachment onto other sims or parcels..... yes this is a problem I've noticed. IS there any possibility of being able to address this? Honestly, a well (badly?) placed 10x10 can encroach on anothers persons property as much as a 20x20 or bigger. Is it possible to set a parcel, or sim, to prevent any prims from encroachign in this manner? Presently no, but is it a possible addition?

For just about every build I use a mega prim or two for the floor, roof, ground leveler, even a privacy wall. Without mega prims the SL experiece would be seriously limited for me and most of the places I go to for shopping and entertainment, as I see them all over the place. Increasing prim allowance on land would help alleviate the problem or limiting the size of mega prims to something reasonable. I have seen prims that would cover many sims and they are not worthwhile and indeed could lead to acts of disruption. So my vote on this issue is to continue to allow them but place a limit on sizes allowed. Mostly because the alternative of increasing prim allowance would mean a lot of work for a lot of builders who would have to reconstruct half of second life to meet the "code." As a builder that would mean increased opportunities for work, but at what cost to the community at large? Huge amounts of resources would be diverted to the task and we would see a stagnation on second life as the world "stops" to remake itself.

I have never liked the 10m limit on prim size. That is ok if all you build is jewelry, shoes, furniture and vehicles. If you're building houses and other structures they are terribly wasteful of scant resources, considering the low prim limits on most properties. With the explosion of avatars and prims that LL must keep track of, it would seem to me there would be an investment in finding a way to make a class of large prim.

If LL is so concerned about misuse of huge prims, I'd suggest taking a more aggressive stance against griefers, since that is where the problem lies and not with the huge prims. I don't know what is at the heart of the physics problems with huge prim. But, what about a class of large prim that could be used primarily for structures, perhaps limiting them to rezzing on your own property and limiting their growth to the boundaries of your parcel? That would certainly help builders of large structures and help reduce the prim count.

If you can't do that, leave the huge prims alone. Fix Havoc instead.

I'm sure all this has been said, but there are many good options available to solve the mega-prim problem:

First though, recognize that the users of SL have determined jumbo prims to have profound value in building, and find ways to make the best ones official, rather than ban them and reduce the value of people's existing sim investment. Otherwise, there are choices:

- Legalize the most commonly used size in building (we've never used more than 100x100 in my sim, and we have some good sized sky boxes) and ban the rest. Adapt the physics engine to that size.

- Expand people's prim count per parcel & solve the linking problem that prevents people from making large linked arrays that are say, 100x100m.

- Charge sims a surcharge based on the number of jumbos they use, pro-rated by size. (small surcharge for 20x20s, larger surcharge for 256x256

Either way, to repeat myself, I think it's important that SL recognize that the users have determined, based on their collective experience, that jumbo prims are important components of building structures that fool the senses, and are pleasantly complex. It would, I think, seriously downgrade the value of a private parcel to lose access to these building tools, when used sensibly.

Solly Independent

Not only should megaprims remain allowed we should be able to create our own! I would love to be able to work the megaprims just as I would a regular prim. I agree that the max size should be the 256 meters that you mentioned. I use megaprims on my parcel for both my store and my garden in the sky. I've saved about 20 prims using those.

If you start taking out all the great things that could be used for griefing, how long til scripting is taken away? You wouldn't dream of that, so why take these out? While you're at it... let us make tinier prims too!