The Big Prim Problem

megaPrims
I have a quarter sim waterfront estate and without megaprims i would be unable to provide
platforms for any building.
However the largest size i have used are the 100m so anything above this size could be
removed as far as i am concerned.
I would like to see the size restriction on prims changed and maybe increased to
50 x 50 x 50.this would greatly reduce the need for the megaprims

Certain Megaprims are quite useful and it would be bad to see them go. I endeavor to use them sparingly, and responsibly. Acutally, the only ones I have rezzed on my property are 20x20x0.5's for a buildng platform, which reduces the prim cout 4:1. I agree with Storm Nordwind in as much that encroachment is a prim issue, not a mega-prim issue. I've seen far more regular prims and Linden trees encroach more than any mega-prim. Personally, I can do without the rediculously sized ones. (The 65536x65536x0.1 is absolutely NOT needed, and I wouldnt complain if it was removed today). I think everyone who doesnt want to see them go might want to consider that sim stability outweighs having mega-prims. Megaprims are great, and can be quite useful, but many forum posts concern complaints about client and sim stability. Now that Linden Lab has pushed stability to the forefront, I dont think that complaining about the removal of them (should this occur) is valid, since the use of mega-prims is a known contributor to this situation. Also, the 'cost' issue brought up is pretty silly too. If one can afford a 256 sq meter lot, they can afford a 512, as the tier is free either way. If one needs more prims, they need more land, as this is a fact of life in SL. And if one is working with parcels as small as 256 square meters due to 'cost issues', the maybe they should rethink weather they can afford land ownership, or, for that matter, internet access. Overall, in the end, I hope some of the more useful, smaller ones can be retained, but in the end, I'll take rock solid stability over mega-prims anyday. Mega-prims were never an official prim, and were cheated into existance, and up to this point tolerated by Linden Lab, so, if any product uses them (I've absolutely never have used them in a for sale product ever for this exact reason), the fault of any loss due to the removal of them falls entirely on the builder since they were not using official second life prims.

One last note, to Storm NordWind, and any others to whom this may apply, if I were you, I'd consider this fair warning that the removal of megaprims is going to occur. Start your rebuilds now so that when (or if) it happens, you'll be able to provide replacements to customers or rebuild your builds. You're better off being prepared rather than complaining here that they were removed w/o warning. Personally, I believe that at the very least, some, if not all, will ultimately be removed to make way for the rollout of Havok 4. Everyone in here for ages has complained that Linden Lab needed to upgrade to a newer version of Havok, which they did. Now that they are, it's starting to appear clear to me that Mega-prims need to go to make way for the improvements to the grid.

I too think that megaprims that are used reasonably are good, but those sim wide are crazy, i can think only a very few occasions a sim /owner/ would like to use them. So, as the blog post implies that those under 256m in every direction are not going to mix graphics engines, i suggest that the size of mega prims is limited to 256x256x256 m.

In any case, if there are going to be restrictions, a proper warning time before putting them in effect must be given, i'd say one month will do for that...

Ruuh's suggestion about building sertificate sounds kind of good too, if it's anyhow possible, it might be worth thinking about.

Just my two cents for the mega prims

I think those sim-wide and larger parcel-wide ones are by far the worst, and need to be removed. As a helper in several sandboxes, by far our worst nemesis is the ones that can cover multiple sims at once, are impossible to see, and are also invisible. You can't even get the owner names from them most of the time, either.

Anything over about 40x40 seems way too excessive for most every day cases, I think. It's just too damn easy to rez one on a load of people and leave.



Perhaps an adaptation of the Uncle Ben principle is fit:

"With mega prims comes mega responsibility."



Sadly, they're abused by those less responsible, and thus ruined for everyone. Though, that sim-wide ons is just ridiculous. :-)

Big prims are a fantastic tool for covering and flooring in underground areas - both efficient and aesthetically pleasing - please keep them! Example in use - Kohana Isle.

prim allowances what they are because of the computational power of both the server and the client (yeah, you're computer).

Dear Lindens,

I understand that there can be problems with the big prims. I never had that experience, but oke,... you will know better than i do. If you want to reduce that big prim use, than you have to give the oppertunity to us to use more prims than we are allowed to. I use those things because I want to make beautifull detailed houses. That takes prims. Every prim counts so if I can use a 20 X 20 prim I am happy. that is 1 instead of 4. Same with landscaping. Specially on the mainland you want to make an envoirement without the view on buildings of your neightbours. So you make hugh wallpapers with for example, a nice mountianview. You cant do that with the 10 x 10 pieces because it takes to much prims.

Perhaps it is an idea to let us buy extra prims. I know that when someone ownes a whole island that there is a bonus system for prims. Why not give that to all the little oners too?

I have a premium account now. I don't find any advantages in that account so I am going to give that up. But if someone with the premium account gets more prims to use when bought land,... well perhaps than there is a reason to continue that account ))

Think about it )))

Elin

My proposed solution:

* Ban any prim over 128m. They're breaking the sims and the clients.

* Force any prim over 16m to be non-physical, since they'll used for walls and doors at that size.

* Allow clients to make prims at most 32m large. It's obvious they're useful. I can probably save 100 prims that way on my parcel.

They have some uses, the smaller ones up to 50x50 should be kept or better still why don't Linden Labs up the measly 10x10 limit so we can make nice big floors etc and save on prims.

Hi

I would try a more gracious for of getting rid of the mega prims.

I myself like the idea of getting them out, but you can do it more gracious...

Linden should be able to make a routine in it that on a certain date (that can be posted) restrict the possibility to rezz any NEW big objects anymore.

*** well i presume this is possible... if not well forget my remarks ***

That way their will be no new pollution.

And i would propose that Linden will give all current builders / owners of buildings some time to get the prims out of their lands / builds, say 3 months or so...

After that Linden can take the right to just delete the whole shebang.........

Is this reasonable?

I built a sphere some time ago, put a floor through the middle and made it spin. I put a star testure on it and wow, I have a personal ballroom.

It took 230 prims to make the ball, 40x40x40 so I took it out and used a single mega prim. OK I did have a problem with gravity but after making the ball phantom all was fine.

This simple action saved me 229 prims which for me is a real bonus. I understand the need to not take the P*** with these things but a limit on size maybe? 50x50x50 ?

BTW. I got the idea for the ballroom from another location in SL. They have a full sim mega prim sphere !! Now that is taking the P***

Shipper

Mega prims can off course cause some nuisances when they are used in a bad way but, i think personaly when some sort of are used with parcimony in building like 20X20x0.5 for making plateform or so they are usefull tools.

Remove whatever breaks the code & add official support for prim sizes that don't break the code, including the ability to create them.

If you need to set separate size limits for prims that are physical, then do that as well.

I'd much rather re-engineer, than have visitors crashing in my sims.

My 2 cents - whatever the maximum size should be, update the client to allow its creation then enforce it. We've got this problem now because the 'mega' prims did not generate any sensible policy response when they were first introduced. It was very hard to find any formal position on them from LL.

If 20x20 is useful, give us the option to create and manipulate prims that size natively. Then, if it can't be created with the client, it should not exist and should be eliminated.

We do often use megaprims on projects for our clients.

We've done lot of testing on our islands before using them to see which size to use (we generally use 20m and 40m prims), how many megaprims can be used before the simulator has difficulties, what kind of usage, etc.

We've also used them as sculpted prims and had very nice results (have a look at the Magrite like floating islands we have on "La Plaine" island) !

They are VERY useful for floors and walls and big (10 to 40 meters) sculpted (rocks, etc) even if, in this case, we hit the sculpted limitations (as you might know, sculpted are seen as a kind of sphere by the collision engine ...).

Too big megaprims (256 and more) can make the sim crash ... and are sometimes really annoying (can move or remove, etc).

So my opinion is : make mega prims up to 40 or 80 meters a standard object ... and remove bigger one.

MegaPrims are WONDERFUL!, useful and a valid part of SL building technique.

CODE ISSUE: If Linden Labs would get busy!, and add megaprim specifications to the code handlers, there wouldn't be any problems. As for the 'physics issues', adapt the Havok code and even the 'physics problems', will go away. It is not a supernatural event here, ...its JUST code. Right? hehe

TERRORIST ISSUE: As far as terrorists goes, why don't we leave that rhetoric in the RL? If individuals are an issue, there are already mechanisms in place to handle them... its not the megaprims themselves, it is the abusers that are 'the terrorists'.

SIZE CAPS ISSUE: As far as a cap in sizing goes... since a landowner owns from 0 to an altitude of 'off world' then they have the right to completely FILL that volume with one huge prim if that's what they want! That is the way it is ...except by community agreement, or by covenant... in RL, and that's the way it should be in SL. 'I believe' a community should have public access strips, such as altitudes that people can easily fly through, sidewalks, public roads, areas between land... but it is up to the community, to set those limits!

MONEY ISSUE: As far as the money issue goes, prim usage should be on a volume basis...10 x 10 x 10 should be ONE PRIM, a smaller prim should a partial prim, a larger one should scale up accordingly... there, no more money issue.

about abuse with mega-prims:

thats not the problem with mega-prims, as long as you can place funky scripts into every prim, you need to disestablish ALL prims...

handling mega-prims and the look of mainland:

i think, this is also not the bad deal with mega-prims. if you look around nearly every
mainland sim (and not only these) you will recognise mostly a unfortunate handling with
ALL prims....i did not see a great number of mega-prims in this building-mess case.

too many people do not care about theirs parcels (for what reason ever) and allow to build
for everybody. ( for this point i would really appreciate, if the land-menue would be changed to build only for groupmembers....for shops or sandboxes there should be a special button to activate the building possibility)

most people, who are building with mega-prims, know how to do..and of course know about the issues.

there is ONE thing, that has to be changed in case of mega-prims (and any other land-
owner issues) : please change the parcel border restrictions in that way, that ANY objekt,
which is overlap the other residents parcel (and if its even just a millimeter) and at any size of the objekt, do AUTORETURN.

that will solve many problems.

at least, i guess, the mega-prim discussion is a placeholder for a discussion about $$$



btw. i really need mega-prims for my building experiences. it would be too expensive
(what many people said before) to resist the costs for prims

best regards

Hi all, we know megaprims are now spread out. It must be hard to keep people from using those megaprims since they use them to save up prim usage, and once they are gone, lots of residents would complain, so if there was a plan to keep us from using those megaprims, maybe double the prim usage limits. That's what Linden Lab should feel responsibility for doing so as well, I feel. Since they could keep us from using them when they were out at first, and if you guys knew, it would cause lots of problems then, why didn't you guys just get rid of them. Maintenance of SL is Linden Lab's job in the first place, I feel. So I think as a company, they should take a lil bit of damage for increasing the prim usage on each parcel for leaving this megaprims problem until now.

No, you should not remove all of the mega prims but you should remove those individuals abusing them! I have three mega prims on my property and I will be more than happy to explain why. Three times I have bought/sold land, moved to new sims, just to be bombarded with those high rotating advertising signs that seem to follow me everywhere I go. I, frankly, was just going to sell my land this time and go back to basic because it isn't worth it for me to constantly be moving from these ugly signs when the regions are totally residential when I buy my property. Why should I have to put 20 prims per side of my border just to hide these ugly rotating signs? I now have two properties that have been bombarded with these signs... I frankly think these things are more of a nuisance. Their scripted rotating action can't be the best for lag (and since every time they move it, it gets laggy, I am sure it isn't).

A most of the feelings i share towards the big prims has already been said by a lot of people here. They really are a great help for builders. And as prims always equals money in SL, i would hate to see some wonderful buildings and sims dissapear, just because the owner has to buy a whole lot of more land, to make up for a megaprim use with hundred of tiny ones (and though i am not a programmer, i cannot understand how that is supposed to do any good to lag as well?!).

I cannot afford much land in SL, and I have used the megaprims in various ways already:
To level land, where terraforming wont help (there are a lot of hillside plots, where its hard to set up something nice without using a hell of prims as a base) and as a prim-cheap coverscreen for annoying neighbours (rotating pornbanners to the dozen). Of course i could do all of this with many tiny prims as well. But in that case, you would need to double the primlimit per sqm, so i still could put up something similar.


I do understand the annoyance of griefers. I have been into quite some attacks already...strangly never any with megaprims. And is it really a difference if my parcel or the sim is flooded with one huge prim or thousands of tiny ones?! I am annoyed anyway.
And i don't like, that everything always has to be put asside, just because of some troublemakers. For one guy using the megaprim in a bad way, i guess there are a thousand or even more doing quite well with them in a good way.


What is really bad about the megaprims, are their limitations. Why do they have to be fixed sizes? If i could stretch them like any normal prim, there would be no trouble with the "invisible parts" of it lapping over to the neighbour plot. I would not have to pathcut a huge prim but could make one that fits perfect to my parcel or building.

Sure i can see, that some of the VERY huge prims (like the simsize one), are a bit oversized. Never saw those in use before. So maybe there is a way of limitating those to the parcel-owner only.


So, don't make these prims go away, but improve them instead!!!

As an island owner, I see the value in some of the big prims. However, some of the extremely large ones are a real nuisance.

I would hate to see the 20 x 20 x .5 or the 10 x 50 go away. Not only would it destroy many of the buildings on my islands, it would create a need for additional prims that I just don't have to offer on several of my islands.

I would like to see the obnoxiously large ones go away, anything over 40M in any direction.

If they all must go away - then I would like LL to increase the maximum size of the prims we can create to at least 20x20

First the 32x16 and the 32x32 are awasome for developing a build for a 512 or 1024 plot.

These are exactly 512 and 1024 meters!.

Second if you remove the restrictions on the smaller ones, so we can make any size to i think 50x50x50 will be more then enough, damm it will be so usefull, just finished a mall
from 96x96 meters it has 3 floors made from 32x32x.800 prims so only 27 prims.
And if you know how to handle them the are super.
And for Michael most shop renters know that if you res your stuff on a mega floor,
first build a normal 10x10 and res the stuff on that.

And for the real big ones, yes kill them!, some have funny names for example big red dot!
If you think nice a big red ball, and res it you have a problem!

The smaller ones awasome, and it would be super, if normal use was possible resize etc.

So better allow them and remove the restrictions, so it is clear to anyone how to use them, this will solve a lot off problems i think.

Sharp

Think there is some use for Mega prims.
Not all the shapes could be concerned, but the large 40 x 40 square megaprim is a "primsaver" when building some skyboxes... Using 2 or more to make a base, where a house will be builded is really usefull...
I agree the sizes of the megaprims could be an issues and I don't really see how a 256 megasphere could be used...
I think some..; "reduced size" megaprims... in the max size range of a 40 x 40 x 40 prim should be allowed...
If some prove to be usefull and have a non grieffing usage (I admit I've tested the 256 shpere and I realised how she could be damageable to the other residents... I retrieved that nightmare immediatly... ((I've made my test in a empty sim, if you wondered...)) That was only one prims on my land, but a prims which eat all the other residents space, and I wonder if there is any usage for it)

I think the megaprims as a usefull building ressource...
Sure... Some are really to large and some other lack this building usage quality...
But... Griefers doesn't needed the megaprims to wreak havok in sims...

I'm for a legalization of Megaprims, ranging in size, from above 10 x 10 x 10 to 40 x 40 x 40 (off course with all the variation aviable in thoses sizes ranges; i.e: 40 x 30 x 5 ... and so on...)

Some mega-prims are obviously useful for building, others are just griefing tools. Even those that are useful, though, are limited in many respects. You cannot effectively hollow a mega-prim sphere, for example, if you don't want to make it phantom. Many editing options don't work with mega-prims.

That's why my take on this is: Remove all mega-prims and move the size limit for ALL prims up to 40 or 50 meters.

When land is measured in 4x4 blocks I've never understood why we can't make prims that fit that size too.

I've already suggested 64x64 as the maximum dimension for prims allowable by the client - that's also a useful "computer number".

Broccoli