The Big Prim Problem

I reduce to many prims with megaprims, and make me a easy way to make big buildings, maybe need accept and give to builders a new tool for make a better world.

I use mega prims.. the largest I use is 32 x 32 for creating large flat lawns

I use a few for privacy walls (I have a PG parcel in a PG SIM that borders a Mature prim)
and I use it to block signs with mature content so they don't infringe on the PG nature of my parcel.

I think limiting (and again allowing creation of) mega prims up to 32 x 32 (as max size) would be helpful in prim limitations.. as long as they do not encroach on other parcels.. would be nice.. Since most 512 parcels are 16x32 this would allow having nice textured flat lawns (or other ground cover) as well as saving when doing long walls

I have 4096m parcel and by using 32x32, 20x20 and 10x10 I have saved over 20 prims of prim allowance..allowing me to use the savings on landscape items (Plants rocks etc)

please DO NOT disallow mega prims.. - policing of their use is great, but take it on case by case basis!

Its soooo easy … Just increase the limits to 64 meters … and remove all above.
Larger prims are useful for many reasons. And at least they could help to increase the somtimes really poor performance of the grid. But please dont policy us to death …

I agree with Deeka. Why can't LL make larger prims for us to use? The largest I use personally, is 20 x 20, and textures don't ever work correctly on builds with many 10 x 10's linked together, so I vote to have larger prims available. If LL cannot provide them for us, please leave us the megas we already have. And having a land option to restrict the rezzing of prims as a function of size sounds good to me. As to the interaction with the physics engine, developers can take that into consideration when building their sims to optimize the sim's purpose. For example, fighting with combat systems works better without them, so maybe not use them for this if you want better physics performance.

MEGA PRIMS

I think that MEGA Prims should stay in SL. I use them in a lot of builds that i do.
Maybe MEGA Prims over 50meters should be banned but smaller Mega prims can be very usefull.

What should be done is have all the Mega Prims removed from SL but extend the regular prim size from 10x10x10 to 50x50x50. I think regular prims should also have an option to cut and sculpt to.

If SL is thinking of removing Mega prims because of problems with prims going onto other property they should ban particle scripts as well. Particle scripts are a bigger problem than prims. I think if people have the problem of prims going onto there land then set the land options so the prims cant.

Mega prims have some down sides but way more good uses in SL. If they are banned then there will be no more big malls, building, ships, planes etc. It would just make SL worse in my opinion. I think removing all of them is a very bad idea unless they extend regular prim limits.

The sad thing about asking the pack what sizes should be allowed (despite the fact LL are historically proven to ignore the opinions "of the vast majority of residents" anyway) is that they will pick the size they use, or the size of their land and say that sizes beyond their limited scope should not be allowed.

I own sims. I have need for real prims up to sim size. Leave megaprims alone, as is, all of them as a pack people have to look for. (This stops newbs using them) Allow people to delete what they don't want (Be honest... when was the entire mainland ever covered with a 65535?) and then bump the real prim up to 20x20x20 or even bigger.

Hello all,
I just started developing for SL and I find using more than one prim for walls is a waste of my time. I think the in-world editor needs to be extended for full use.

I wandered around and find that megaprims or Extra Large prims cost to buy. I don't think that's fair.

I believe the in-world editor needs to be extended so that we don't need to use so many prims to make what we need.

I'd say update the inworld editor please.....I am paying my subscription and I don't want to buy or pay for a feature that should already be included.......

Thanks!

I think megaprims should be allowed, or the allowable size of the current normal prims to be increased. Preferably number 2 that normal prim allowance be increased so a person can legitimently create some of their own mega prims on their land without using the hacked ones. Mega prims allow for smoother builds and can allow much larger, innovative structures on parcels that don't allow as many prims. Although I think the way large ones should be taken out, as I've seen some mishaps were a user didn't realize how big those measurements actually were covered a huge space. these megaprims are vital to having mall floors and other huge buildings exist. Taking them out would be like causing a mass demolition of Second Life. On top of that what about the people who bought buildings that used these megaprims and dont know how to fix them. Thats another headache for those users.

In all my time in SL i have only ever seen a few instances where the mega prims have been used for greifing.
And there uses outweigh that of anything bad. within reason, I myself use the 256x256 one to create barriers in a private estate to limit access to resadents to uper levels. But this prim i could go without.
However the 20x20 one is most usefull for myself.
You should place SLurl's of example areas. You want a good one? secondlife://kelchrist/127/127/140
We were going to purchase a few more region but place this all on hold depending upon the results. If they are removed, the region will be shut down. If they stay, a few more will go up.
However LL remember back in beta, we placed the prim limit due to problems with the havok1 physics system. With Havok4 implamented prims should be able to be bumped upto at minimum + .25% what they are now, possable twice. But tests are still in works.
My suggestion, keep the mega prims within limit and add .25% prim, or remove them all together and bump it up .25% + possably 50% increase. Removing these have become a big part of customization of private regions and alike. the 20x20 way more so. Just removing them helps with grifers yes, but shows you arent that compationate about others who do use them lagitly.

First this is likely a repeat of previous comments, but since you asked.

I think that the Lindens should not remove mega prims. I think it is rather unfortunate that we have to resort to using prims made by someone who has since been banned from the game. I would much rather be able to create them myself. Removing them entirely would break several of my builds at this point as I have found them indispensible and have continued to find uses for them beyond what I had ever considered.

Yes they can be abused. What in SL cannot? You can make some pretty abusive stuff using normal prims. Furthermore I think approaching the situation thinking only of the possible abuses would be a mistake. I understand that there are problems with them, however I think there are solutions for all of these problems. Consequently I feel the same way about the 5m particle limit, this has limited me greatly in the effects I am able to create, and the proposed reason for it's limit is to prevent greifing, great but what about the legitimate uses?

Sculpties + Mega prims = Stuff you've never seen before that is majorly cool. I just finished reworking Port Seraphine using mega sculpties almost exclusively. None of the mega sculpties are physical, they are all phantom. I used prims in excess of 100m several times. Primarily because I cant define my own prim scale above 10m, a limitation I have fought with since joining SL, a limitation which has cost me a very large number of hours and one that routinely annoys me.

Sure there are certainly cons, but not ones that cannot be addressed simply. Any prim over 50m make phantom automatically. You don't seem to have a problem making flexi's autophantom so why not prims in excess of a certain size? Automatically remove any prim that exceeds the size of a sim.

What is more of a performance hit? A grid of 25x25 cubes or one prim that stretches 250m? My guess would be the grid of 625 cubes would be far more damaging to a sims performance than one mega prim.

You asked for examples, someone mentioned Light Waves' sim so I won't repeat that one though it is certainly worth mentioning. I have included a few pictures below of the sim I am currently working on that uses mega prims almost exclusively. Without them this project would not have been possible. There is no other way in which to make what I've made without using prims in excess of 10m.

http://www.lucidmovement.com/img/PortSeraphine/Finished_002.jpg
http://www.lucidmovement.com/img/PortSeraphine/Finished_009.jpg

http://www.lucidmovement.com/img/PortSeraphine/Finished_013.jpg

To sum up, yes please keep them and furthermore give us some more freedom by allowing us to scale our prims past 10m. I would recommend a max of 256m^3.

Read the title Big Prim PROBLEM!!

that says it all!!

I find big prims a problem,, becouse its not part of the deal

I myself use big prims on my land, and for that mather they are handy for filling space quike
or build a mega strukture whitout running out of prims,,, but on the other hand,,
that is (second) life,,, no more prims? buy more land!!

there is a limit of 10 meters and lots of restricktions are made whit that limit...

Big prims are not official Secondlife building blocks and are a leftover from a exploide
For that mather i would seen them all be gone.

Or the size limit of 10m must be set higher,, so everybody can make his owne prims whit dimensions of 30 meter or so,, and everybody has the same option of making big prims, and not every body has to go on a search for annybody who might have these prims in inventory.

I see it as problem becouse people now start saying things like, NO BIG PRIM??? No more island green,,, and stuf like that,,,, DO REALIZE THAT ALL THE ANSWERS I GOT FROM LINDEN SIDE WAS,,,,,, DELETED ON SIGHT!!! and they are right about it,,, just the same as they where right bout doing something on copybot!!

As i understand the tos rightfully i understand the resedents are allowed to build whit the prims SL gives us,,, and that dos not include some exploids.

And the fact Gene Replacement has made money on this even makes me a bit mader on his comment the big prims give terrorism!!!!!!!! Maybe its wise to keep your mouth shut Gene,,,, grrr!!

Again, Keep the rules clear,, dont go looking trow fingers whit those things and get back to the SL that SL is!!!!
No Big Prims!!!! Aldo i use them and get used to them i still say NO!!
If you get them all availeble trow the normal editing menu(creating prims) then i say yes.
and then im talking about sizes up to 20/30 meter,,, that should be the top!!

Somehow i dont believe the integretie of second life annymore,,, you have to sign a contrackt ( the TOS ) but if you break it,, SecondLife is looking thruw its fingers (letting it happen annyway!!) I hope that stops and SecondLife is holding itself to our agrement!!!

Keep it black or white,,, Dont make it gray, if you start making it gray, there is no end, and is the whole TOS a fake!!!

Mega Prims, when used responsibly, are of great benefit.

Our platform for a 2048 which is completely within property lines and has a hedge all the way around was be built using only six prims; less than half what it would take with 10m Prims.

The prims saved allowed us to put in flowers at ground level after furnishing our home; with prim counts on smaller parcels often being barely enough for a decent house and sparse furnishings, anything that allows residents to beautify their land with prims not needed elsewhere will serve to increase curb appeal and property values.


If Mega Prims are removed, perhaps there could be some consideration given to increasing the maximum size of regular prims; perhaps to a happy medium of 30x30 to allow platforms within a parcel footprint to be made with as few prims as possible.

Actually my sky islands are 50x50x50 and everyone loves them. I think anything larger then that should be shrunk down. It's only 10 more then you said. I don't see any harm in that...


I admire gene only for the fact he created them, but as for his current opinion that they must go, i have no support for him anymore... But to agree with you if they do raise the prim size limits to a size thats reasonable (IMO 50 is highest) i wouldn't mind them "converting" all mega prims to regular prims. But only IF.

Thats about all i use them for. It's about the only legitimate thing i can think they are used for. Therefor us who use them for that purpose should be allowed to use them since we obviously enjoy them.

A bit of advice for those who don't see our point. Television was in black and white for a long time till someone figured out a way to introduce it in color. I see the basic prim set as black and white. Mega prims are a step into a revolutionary change that could make everyones lives easier.

I would like to add my voice to request that you allow mega prims to remain.

I personally use 20x20x0.5 and 32x32x0.8 all the time for building my shops. Removing mega prims would cause me to use 50 or 60 more 10x10 prims per 32x32 plot (which is the parcel size i use most.) that's quite a chunk out of the prim allowance of 234. It means I can have less products on display ... which means my sales turnover will go down, and hey, haven't we already seen enough of a downturn in recent weeks due to gambling and now VAT. To my knowledge, I have never caused a problem to anyone.

If REALLY HUGE megaprims are a problem to the physics engine, then maybe LL would like to comment if there is a maximum acceptible size for acceptible physics engine performance. It would not cause me much of a problem if 32x32x.8 were the largest size. But I imagine some would like larger. Over to you on that one LL.

Griefers - Well if dropping large prims on a sim is your method of griefing, can't you do it just as well with a huge block of 10x10's linked together. So banning megaprims will not stop that. Maybe it's down to permissions ... maybe you can use them on your own land or on land you rent ... provided you don't encroach on to your neighbours land, or if you want to use them to build in a sandbox, you need to get added to some sort of access list or belong to a group.

Griefers will grief ... it's how they get their kicks, but please don't punish the rest of us for their misdemeanours. Tackle the griefers!!

So ...
GOOD - They save SO MANY prims on a build, so they allow you to have (and hopefully sell) more products ... which must be a good thing for the SL economy as a whole.
They can only be used on owned or rented land or on sandboxes where you are authorised in some way.

BAD - Never had a bad experience

IDEAS - If they really are a problem to LL, then they should restrict their size to whatever they feel is an acceptible compromise between size vs performance. 32x32 and thicknesses is my size.

I would imagine most of these comments are from builders who fear the demise of megaprims. I don't know what the split is between builders and general users, but i would imagine the majority of people are not even aware of megaprims, so it is unlikely they would comment on this thread.

Gene (if that was Gene) in the 2rd comment to the blog post is clearly trolling.

While reading through the posts it seems that most of the builders like myslef don't know the consequences and/or the problems that Megaprims are causing and what problems will be faced ahead........

For the purpose of Havoc Physics and/or other updates I think the MegaPrims can really bring the server down.

If thats the case, I think Megaprims should be abandoned, BUT at least update the InWorld Editor to support larger sized prims, but not too big...

keepin it simple, combining oppinions this is what i get for a solution from the posters

remove prims above 256

increase max size

do not delete current huge prims, in order to safe guard what is already built with them.

but i guess in the end, LLabs will go with the more money way, or the more quality way...more money says keep the limit kill the huge...more quality means give in to popular demand.

I would like to weigh in to support the idea of a larger standard prim size. I think the current 10 x 10 x 10 is too restrictive and a larger standard prim would truly help performance in many, many cases (providing people don't go slapping 1024 x 1024 textures on them.) Having a fully manipulatable 40 x 40 x 40 (or 50 x 50 x 50) prim would be very welcome providing it is reliable.

As far as prims larger than the standard size, it would be nice to provide for their use in exceptional cases where there would be no other sane means to construct (an example, a 100M geodesic dome with 100s of prims vs using one 100M dome. In these cases, applying for use and receiving a waiver would seem reasonable. However using megaprims just to save prims wouldn't seem to be a good reason to apply.

They are certainly handy for hiding the illegal casino that is still operating on a PG sim iin Cotis, despite my reporting it 4 times and my neighbour reporting it dozens of times!

As it is directly next to my land I use mega prims to screen it out, nothing else would do the job.

I also agree that these prims are not a problem in themselves, its the people who use them to annoy and encroach that are the problem.

Katie Usher

Ok, here's my take, and this was from the Havok4 meeting I was at:


When Havok4 drops on the main grid, go ahead and bump up the max size to 40m³.


I was able to test out some of these megaprims on the beta grid, and when the sim had no problems de-interpolating two physical 150m³ spheres, I knew it was time to revisit these larger prims.


Fact is, the've been used, and they've been abused. The hole in the client allowed them to grow to sizes that are just insane.


The absolute BEST way to handle things, IMO would be:

1) Remove every prim > 256m on any side. There's no reason for any prim bigger than a sim.

2) Until Havok4 hits, insert some temporary code that checks for prims > 20m on a side. If they are there, they get forced phantom and non-physical, unchangeable.

3) When Havok4 is deployed, remove the temprary code from step 2, and change the limit to 40m³.


This way, it would strike a balance between the legitimate users of these bigger prims, and help foil griefing efforts (deploying 256 256x256x0.1 prims into 256 different sims takes ALOT more effort than one 65,536x65,536,0.1).

As a builder, I find that the mega prims are a very valuable tool on construction projects for private sim owners.

I do agree that any prim over 256 meters x 256 meters is useless.

On the mainland where everyone lives so close together, i feel that mega prims shouldnt be allowed. which from what i understand is the current stance by LL anyways. so i don't see a need for a change in that.

an example of good use of mega prims. or giant prims. whatever you want to call them, would be the 2 Auditoriums on the IBM sims.


I would like to see LL bring back the ability for people to create giant prims. But make them a bit more flexible in thier dimensions. and limit them to 256 x 256.


Darius Wilberg
Sim Development Studios

I was just about to purchase a second sim...thank goodness I saw this post before I invested any more money. If all mega prims are banned even for private estates..I will probably be selling. With the release of so much land recently I have been forced to offer higher prim limits to tenants..the only reason this is an option is because I use mega prims in my builds. In some instances on my sim to not be able to use mega prims would take away from the beauty I have been able to create using mega prims and terraforming combinations.
I for one will not be purchasing my planned 2nd, 3rd, 4th......10th sim as planned until I see the mega prim issue resolved ..that or sim prim increases to make up the difference.
I understand the need to banish the overly large mega prims...anything larger than a sim is absurd, but the use of 20x20x1 is and has been invaluable for me, and the 40 meter cylinder cannot be beat for creating waterfalls and in my case lava flows.
As far as this comment:
"the larger ones, when used on the mainland, often produce annoying “parcel encroachment” situations. The megaprims are difficult to interact with, and are often not recognized by Residents as being an object at all — “I couldn’t go past some kind of invisible barrier.” Abusive Residents take advantage of these problems."
Surely you're not saying that it's abusive to create an invisible prim barrier? Are we going to ban the use of transparent textures on prims? or say that transparent prims have to be phantom? I personally use a mega prim barrier at cloud level to help maintain privacy for my tenants...and they love this feature...no noobies flying around their homes. But lets look at what you're actually saying in this quote. is it considered abusive because a resident cannot 'see' the barrier? or is it abusive because the invisible texture is on a mega prim rather than a regular prim? I have also placed invisible regular prims along walkways so as not to obstruct views while helping to keep residents from falling allowing for a more pleasant experience...do I need to remove them or face being labeled abusive? Okay this last part is all said tongue in cheek...I'm just sayin' .

We used a lot of mega prims on Itel the island to build almost everything. It's worth giving a look at how creatively we were able to use them.

The owner of my estate was kind enough to let me have a megaprim for the water in my pool. It is great .... no seams. It adds to the realism, and hasn't been a cause for problems to any of my neighbors as far as I know. Granted, it's only about 20 x 40, not a ginormous megaprim, but still, I would hate to lose it.

So, my vote is to keep them.