The Big Prim Problem

Please don't call my opinion silly. I'm just stating that some of us truly DO NOT CARE how well the physics engine performs. In contrast, this thread represents a selective sampling of folks who do. So you all can talk amongst yourselves all you want, but that doesn't mean that everybody agrees with you, or that anybody who doesn't is "silly."

I'm not eager for the Havoc 4 roll-out to be canceled. But I don't want it to come at the price of prims up to at least 256m. 'Taint worth it, to me.

The main reason LL are upgrading to Havok 4 incidentally, is that a large majority of sim crashes are due to the Havok 1 physics engine locking up. Less sim crashes is something that I'd imagine you'd be hard pressed to find people against.

Without ever upgrading our physics engine, all the gamers and RPG people will leave SL, no more gun sales, vehicle sales or cyberpunk clothing sales etc.
Hovok1 isn't going to work better when we double our population.
SL will become just a womens shopping website..................
Larger prims can be added later, to stay with Havok 1 till the year 2020 won't keep SL alive let alone keep it at the front of the pack.
I don't want to see Megaprims go but the but to keep them and the 20th century physics engine, nope they will have to go.

- Your first point is too specific; what people want is a way to produce shapes larger than 10 x 10 x 10, whether this is done via an increase in raw prim sizes, or through some other alternative is irrelevant. People who specifically want a limit increase are unaware that there are alternatives, or why increasing the limit without them is a bad thing.
- Mega-prims are no more prone to griefing than any regular prim, the nature of the griefing changes very slightly, but is fundamentally the same. People want rid of mega-prims because of problems involved with other people using them (graphical glitches, selection bugs, parcel encroachment etc. etc.) which is the 3rd point.

Eliminating those what you basically have is exactly what I stated in my post:
- People want bigger shapes.
- LL want rid of mega-prims (which are currently the easiest way to make those bigger shapes).

And I was not advertising my proposal in that case; I was arguing your point that it was not a solution to the problem at hand. Yet to me it is a technically feasible solution that produces a compromise for both sides by covering both issues I just noted.
To clarify:
- I said what I'd proposed would solve that and to read it
- You didn't read it and said it wasn't a solution to the argument
- I said what the argument was and why my solution would work
- You didn't read it and said it wasn't the argument at all, when what you said is the same as what I said but less succinct.


Quote where I supposedly said this, and then go read my damned proposal, as you clearly have just ignored the whole thing, it explains quite clearly with several examples to try and make it crystal clear, I may even do an image to try and illustrate it since it's causing you such trouble.
My proposal allows you to represent a larger object using a series of 10 x 10 x 10 sub-divisions. Therefore, to work out how many you'll need; you take the dimensions of the object you want, divide each of them by ten, then multiply together:
- A 50 x 50 x 50 shape (that's right, any shape) = 5 x 5 x 5 = 125 prims.
- A 20 x 20 x 20 shape (still any shape) = 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 prims.
Those are the maximums, as any shape which has more complex adjustments will have empty space where those sub-divisions don't contain anything, and thus can be removed. Not to mention empty space inside a huge prim.
If you read the proposal you will see that the amount of cutting and twisting is irrelevant, as the new prims that would be added to represent these sub-divisions (not that hard to implement) would be able to represent those shapes.
Read the proposal, please. As you're arguing against it with points that I've already covered several times now.


Please point me to the written agreement you signed with LL saying you can keep your mega-prims forever without them ever changing the behaviour or implementation of them, or just plain deciding they need to remove them later on.


The fact they allowed them on private islands is still ultimately irrelevant. Their reasons for doing this are obvious; it's the easiest way to ensure they don't have to worry about the grid problems due to people using mega-prims in builds all over the mainland, as they can just remove them instead of trying to solve the grid issues. It does not mean that they're happy to do it, or do not want rid of them.


Temp-on-rez is a very gray area, as they do not technically break any hard limitation like mega-prims do. LL allows us to have temporary prims that do not impact prim-count, these may be created by scripts.
Creating a temp-on-rez object can therefore be done happily within the rules, but you are at the mercy of the simulator's garbage collector for these objects. Using them to get around your prim count is wrought with so many problems, glitches and timing issues that it's not really worth it. Ultimately though, temp-on-rez falls more into the "hack" category rather than being an actual exploit.


I wasn't talking about now, I was talking about by the time they blocked the exploit and decided upon their stance on the issue. If I didn't say a year, then I didn't mean a year.


By the time the townhall occurred and a decision was made, too many people had mega-prims to just take them away. LL don't really want people to have warp-pos, but they won't just take it away as it was so widely used by the time they found out about it. Thing is; warp-pos is not actually breaking any limitations put in place.
They allowed people to keep mega-prims because they knew there'd be a huge uproar if they deleted them all without offering a replacement.


Please READ what I've been saying. I'm not proposing LL delete them, I'm proposing they replace them with a solution that removes the issues of mega-prims, and lets builders build things. LL aren't proposing to delete them either, this thread is here to ask us what we think!
I think you're just putting words/phrases in my mouth, because that's not what I'm saying at all.


By 'gave us' I was referring to your flawed metaphor which talks about giving someone $500,000. LL didn't "give" anything, they let us keep something. These are two completely different things.
But they let us keep them with the condition that they are unsupported, will be removed if they're considered a problem and that they really don't like having to allow them in the first-place.


Possibly. But I know several who are using them because they've tried to make the shape they need out of regular prims, and it simply isn't possible to do it and make it look the same with regular prims. Others use them not because they want to save prims, but because of the sheer amount of time it would take to do otherwise, they do it to save time rather than cheat their prim-count.

If there are far more people out there using mega-prims because they want to pack more stuff on their land, then yes, all of them are leechers.


Good. Because with or without a quote my statement was completely accurate. You seem to be under the misguided impression that if you quote the same phrase that my arguments regarding said phrase are somehow invalidated.


As I've pointed out several times, what you call advertising my proposal, they don't NEED to delete them to fix them, if they're debating this then great. Maybe they'll see there are alternatives that give people who want to use mega-prims legitimately a tool to use, and remove the problems of mega-prims. There be other solutions that consider LL's technical stand-point and give builders tools they need. If so then I can't wait to hear them.


And yet here we are in a Linden created thread which clearly indicates they are considering the implications of pulling them. Joints presumably underwent some internal discussion as well.


Then don't use it in your posts. You talked about applying the situation to real-life, then gave several "real-life" comparisons, none of which apply. If you're going to follow up a point with sarcasm then at least make it relevant.


Not necessarily you, but to make your example of a house parallel the subject matter of mega-prims, then yes, that's what the situation would be if they were in fact accurate comparisons.


Please actually read my posts and proposals, instead of assuming that just because I'm opposed to keeping mega-prims as they are, that I am out to have them all deleted.
While I would not shed a tear if they were removed, I still want a way to more easily build bigger shapes.

I'm just going to answer in quote from now on, because I'm sick of repeating myself... I'm sorry if anyone I use for 'Answer Quotes' didn't want to be quoted, its just if I answer him, he'll just quote me for another argument lol.

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I could go on, but I don't want to be accused of over quoting lol...

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http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/images/satyr.jpg

Try doing that with regular sized prims over Linden and resident land.

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Compulov is a person, seems like Compulov wants mega prims, not bigger shapes made from smaller ones, as do others.

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I also read this the first time I looked... Baring in mind that I read the rest...



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So, that would apply to a 100x100x100 shape now would it.



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Please point me to a written agreement you signed saying any official feature will be kept forever. The ToS clearly stays LL can change it when ever they want, FOR REASON OR NO REASON.

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http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/images/satyr.jpg

What? you mean mainland problems like that one? And also the griefing weapon that rezzes a huge prim in the middle of a sim, making everyone float upward?

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You misread, I said 'the temp on rez bug in 2006' that enabled everyone to rez unlimited amount of temp on rez prims. As you should know, every plot of land has a limit to how many temp prims you can have, the bug allowed everyone to rez unlimited amounts.

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You never said you wasn't talking about 'now' either, the way the sentance is phrased, it seems like you're talking about now.

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2 months between releasing and the Lindens achknowledgement wouldn't of caused an uproar, as not many people would of had/used them in that amount of time. Considering there was no approval on if they would be eventually banned (at the time between Sept. and Dec.) It makes no consequence to Linden Labs (at the time) to offer a replacement. And relating to ToS, they would of had no obligation. They still don't according to ToS as the don't need a Reason to delete any content. But they obviously regonise that so many people now create with them.

But it does matter now, because not only do residents use them, but also corporate businesses.

Again, Joints were deleted with nothing like this thread. So, you're argument about having it down on writing or having things as an official feature is irrelavant.
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I HAVE been reading, and yes your proposal is instigating the deletion of mega prims and replacing them with 'unique primitives' that still have the boundry of 10x10x10.

Haravikk Mistral - "LL aren't proposing to delete them either" -



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I'm sorry, but the previous quote from you before this one states that "LL aren't proposing to delete them either" - But yet LL seem to have unofficial supported huge prims for the last year, or else, they'd be gone. Some Lindens wanted to get rid of them and others didn't or held them back for good reason.

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Where is it written that I can't use Sarcasm? Most of your post are all over the place, you either say something, don't say something, state that LL say one thing, then you completely invert it. And you're lecturing me about relevance? I can take any angle I choose in my debates a little sarcasm or light humor never hurt anyone, that is, if you can't get your point across, just attack everything.

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Actually, I stated that I'd paid for and signed forms for the two sarcastic points, merely on the fact that its an agreement. You brought the whole squatters rights into it.

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Please read your own posts and try not to contradict yourself. I did read it like I said, but it does not interest me. Its something I'd never use because it does not compete with using prims that are above the limit of 10x10x10.

I couldn't care less about your current status on if you don't want mega prims in SL, I care about the countless people in SL that have used them to create something amazing, that the current prim limit would never allow.




well then, good luck.

One last point though...

People also use mega prims with the use of sculpted maps, currently, your idea could never support it in SL. Unless there was some mass of 'new split-division prim' added to the system, involving:

New parent to child attributes.
A math system for the split-division process.
New x and y offsets allocated to the sculpt map section.
Resize offsets.
and
If people are using texture zoning, a new system has to be created for applying textures to these new division prims... If they want to stand up against Huge prims, that is.

The appartment complex I created for my wife would of been amazingly difficult to pull off with your solution, simply because it uses 8 quarter pathcut, 100x100x100 spheres with a seamless city projected on 4 outter and an overlay producing realistic city lights and reflection effects on 4 inner ones. With NO visible overlapping.

Some people will hate the idea of zoning something that consists of 100 prims, for example, people will hate the fact that you'd have to texture zone your JIRA solution. 125 prims for a manipulated torus is going to be a real pain in the backside to some people.

If you say that you can buy a script to texture align all the prims, I'll say, why in Gods name would any resident BUY something to support a supported feature? So LL would need to add a texture aligner to the list of other implications.

You really think LL would redevelope their build system, Pre-Second life 2.0? Because if you answer 'yes' I'll just come back and say - "Where have you been for the last two years?".

Detect surface, your quotes continue to prove nothing; you're still not reading anything I write!

I'm going to pick a few at random, as pointing out the flaws with them all isn't worth my time at this point, as you'll just do the same thing all over again:

[Slew of posts about upping the prim limit]

All made by people who don't know why the prim-limit is a good thing. I've explained why several times, quote me one person who shows full understanding of this and still wants it increased who does NOT use words along the lines of "I don't care about performance". Because I guarantee you, there are a lot more people who would love greater performance, including (finally) Linden Labs.


You clearly didn't, as you'd realise that what you quoted isn't true:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2860
That is the sub-issue attached to the JIRA issue, and has been since the start. I've even re-worded it and attached a picture in the vain hopes you might actually understand it.


2 months is a lot of time for builders. People can build fantastic things in Second Life in the space of a few hours or a couple of days. Give them two months of no Linden Labs position on mega-prims and you can be damn sure they were already featured in hundreds of builds by this point.


REPLACING. You said it yourself, sure, the specific case of creating a large prim known as a mega-prim would be gone, but there would be a replacement. It's completely different from JUST deleting them.


Show me where I contradict myself, or more accurately; where you've misunderstood what I was trying to say.

You prove you haven't attempted to understand my proposal in this quote:

Why in the hell would an editor, designed to let you produce a large prim out of several as though you were just creating one big-prim, require you to texture all the component parts? The proposal is for a big-prim editor, letting you create big prims as easily as you were creating a normal one. If I have to write precisely everything it will do in intricate detail then the proposal will triple in size, and I already write in lengthy paragraphs.

...Whatever - and you can quote me.

How many times do I have to say I've seen the POST!?!?!

I said that your idea is basically REPLACING HUGE PRIMS WITH SMALLER "unique primtive" which still have the limit of 10x10x10, FACT:



FACT:



I fail to see how I'm missing the point over my last posts.



You said:



Which was in relation to me stating...



In which I gave you a few posts of people wanting the limit increase...

But I'm sure people like Seifert Surface will be happy to know that you think he hasn't a clue what hes on about.

And even if some people don't understand the system, that should NOT stray from the fact that EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion or suggestion.

You, yourself have shown no understanding to the issue and the fact that your solution is far too complex to implement, considering it raises other issues that LL would have figure out also, that you did NOT address when I brought them up, as you know full well I'm right. Read my last post again, at the bottom about sculpties, prove me wrong. Show me that your idea would cover all of that, and I'll tell you that Linden Labs would not redesign the creation panel that extensively, they would more than likely delete huge prims altogether than construct this feature..



What I quoted regarding your accusations of not being true, was posted by another resident saying that your 'solution' wouldn't be possible.

I'm personally arguing over the fact that its not what people want. They want the PRIM SIZE LIMIT raising, not the ability to create BIGGER SHAPES from smaller "Unique" primitives. - Please don't rant on about, that I've not read the JIRA page, its NO more complex than what I've explained. Yes, the primitives are "unique" because they will hold attributes different to regular primitives, But for example:

QUOTE THIS -

Considering that PEOPLE use HUGE PRIMS mainly for walls and floors, a 20 x 20 x 1 cube huge prim would translate in your solution as 4 10 x 10 x 1, WOULD IT OR WOULD IT NOT!! THERE IS NO POINT!!



I'm glad you mentioned this, because 1) Gene was part of a group that were branded as griefers. I not going to much into it, but the group was into some, er.... lets just say ARTWORK, that was very distasteful. The group also liked to do things to get recognised and apparently got banned for it. 2) In that 2 months, Gene would of had to of distributed it. And, in that short period of time, I VERY much doubt that it was widely used or distributed that freely, with the fact of people knew it was wrong and with Gene being banned for things surrounding huge prims and even the creation of them, people would of been a little cautious with the risk of being banned for using them. When LL announced that residents could use them in December 2006, THATS when the increase of huge prims in builds escalated.

You state that some people have no understanding of the issues at hand here? I say you have no understanding or knowledge of anything thats gone on in SL. Coming to conclusions you cannot back up.



My God, please..... PLEASE, can others pick up on this guys delusions...

The Case = The Mega Prim.
Replacement = Your JIRA Solution

What happened to the mega prim.. oh yeah, thats right, it got DELETED. How in the hell is that different than JUST deleting them, leaving smaller prims??? Again, replacing one 20 x 20 x 1 cube wall with 4 10 x 10 x 1 "special unique uber doober l33t" prims, is not a SOLUTION! You might as well just use regular prims in the first place. I know what you're saying though, just deleting them and not having them at all would be pretty saddening, but your replacement prims are just as depressing.

You'll just say "But, but, I was talking about 'bigger shapes' not walls...", which is fine, but the majority of huge prims are used for walls and floors, which renders your solution, useless.



Yeah, sure... I'll show you where you contradicted yourself and requote again lol



Heres the contraction...



Heres another quote:



That was in relation of me saying:



And after you asked me to quote you, you said this:



- Thats right, any shape - But not size or diameter like I stated.

And the funny thing is, you keep persisting on that I haven't looked at the JIRA Page, you keep saying it over and over lol. When its no more simpler than - Special primitives that create bigger shapes through smaller ones. Yeah, the primitives are special because they're like sculpties, but more defined and work inconjunction with the parent prim. The rest of it, people don't need to know about, because its how it works. I read that and understood it day one. I dismissed it because I thought it was a waste of time, it holds complications that you did not cover. And refer back to my last post for the problems, before you rant again.



lol Er, for the same reason why the editor allows you to texture regular sized prims? lol One of the reasons why people love huge prims is because it allows you to texture like a regular sized prim, with the same functions of offsets and repeats. You're obviously NOT a serious builder if you're asking the question, as any builder would tell you its NOT JUST ABOUT THE BUILDING' Seperating the huge prims into smaller "Unique" prims as you solution suggests, would cause aggravation when it comes to texturing the prim, with texture resets, flicker and also vector colouring will have the same problem with resetting to the original, when you're dealing with prims in large numbers.

If you did not think of that, its your own fault. But having an idea for a larger prim and not having it supported in the texture panel is plain idiotic.

What? You just want people to make "Bigger Prims", not huge prims, and just have them half supported by the editor?? It would be like releasing Windlight that only covers half the sky - I made my metaphor smaller for you this time -

I know I'm not dealing with a builder now, because no builder would ever ask that question.



No. The thread is for HUGE PRIMS, don't confuse people, YOU want "Bigger Prims" made from smaller "Unique" primitives that impose the same size restrictions as Regular Prims.

Huge Prims as they stand now, are far easier to deal with, manipulate and are supported better in the Editor Panel, than your solution, period.

Remember, Michael says: should LL delete them, or at some particular size level.

This could still be resolved by deleting all huge sizes, leaving huge prims up to 50 - 100m

Or simply by forcing an object ban in all sims on the main grid. Leaving private islands to still use them. Seeing as theres no resulting effects on surrounding sims, that are owned by other people.

I personally don't see a problem at all with using megaprims that are up to 50-100 meters wide. A lot of my builds are massive builds that without the megaprims I would not be able to accomplish properly. For instance, I just built a giant tower in Wisconsin, approximately 160 prims for the tower itself made of .1 by 10 by 50 square prims. It doesn't lag, it doesn't hurt anything. It's only beneficial vs having FIVE TIMES that many prims to make up the tower, which is absurd.

Smaller mega prims should be allowed to exist. It's the massive ones (over 100 meters wide/tall/deep) that cause the problems. Perhaps the limit should be made to 50 or 100? Don't squash the people like me who have massive amounts of land and can't afford to use it because of the prims.

I'm just going to remove huge chunks of this one because I don't have time to go over it all again.


...and replaced. Read it. Replaced, with something that solves the same legitimate problem (need to build bigger shapes more easily).
The alternative is just deleted, as in gone, no alternative, no replacement, just plain gone forever.


LL have NOT said "we're going to delete all the mega-prims", they want to find out how widely used they are so they can remove them if they can, or come to some other solution; "They want to know the implications of pulling them"
This is a thread created by LL considering deleting mega-prims, not saying that they will, or that that is the only solution. It's about a problem they want to solve, and our opinions, thoughts and facts on it's usage.


The whole point is that the sub-division prims use the parameters of the parent shape. Worst case is that a relatively small mega-prim might need one or two extra partial primitives because you've twisted it to hell, but on larger shapes doing so will create empty gaps elsewhere on the shape, allowing the number of partial primitives to be reduced.


Partial-primtives as I proposed (as part of the JIRA proposal that you claim to have understood from day-one) are just that. PARTIAL PRIMITIVES. They represent a PART of a PRIMITIVE. If the parent they are part of has its textured aligned in a certain way, then the primitive only has as much of the texture as they represent. A "corner" taken from a sphere would only have the chunk of texture that that larger sphere would have there.
If you take an apple and cut it in half, it only has half the apple skin on it. Except that the advantage of the partial prim is that if you want to change the whole apple from green to red, you can do so, as all partial prim settings will be updated at once.


A large amount of my time on SL is spent building, just as much time spent on scripting, with a little left over for events and exploring. I joined SL because of the building element, I wouldn't suggest a tool I personally would not use, just as I wouldn't suggest an LSL function that I have no use for.


No. The thread is for "mega-prims"; overly large primitives created by a glitch in SL around a year ago, and is for discussion about the fact that LL would like to get rid of them.
What I WANT is to see a solution that lets LL do what they want (which I support) and still allow people to build big-shapes easily (which I also support).

I recognise the problems with big-prims.
I recognise (as a builder) the advantages of allowing people to create big shapes easily.
I also recognise that the prim-limit is there to limit resources available to a person, that LL can more easily charge money for those resources (it costs them money to support them).

This is where my stance comes from, and why I believe my solution is a good alternative.
Sure it requires some work, so would increasing the prim-size limit, because it then means a lot more work is required on keeping the physics engine healthy, and finding other ways to improve performance.
It even has some added benefits, as partial prims can be used to create shapes that mega-prims do not, or are overly complicated for.
For example; to create a large curved piece of metal would require you to get a mega-prim, then cut and hollow it, resulting in the right shape, but with a centre-point that's miles away from your metal-piece. With a partial primitive you could just enter the same cylinder settings but specify only the slice of it that you want. There's likely loads more creative ones than that too.