Negative objects

would be cool if you could built a negative space tube into a square and get a hole left over. negative space items would expand the building options alot. i know several times i needed something chopepd away and hand to improvise with 20 smaller parts to get it to look the way i wanted.

that would be the equivalent of a CSG subtract function... someone's suggested it before, and i think it's a good idea, but i think it'd be terribly complex to execute.

Well I've heard that hollow objects cause huge amount of processing power when colliding, so I think it won't be a good idea (until they got much faster servers) Some servers are already lagging constantly...

The servers are too crowded. They added 5 or 6 servers but didn't let anyone move to them except controlled projects. At this point the world was already over crowded. Then they opened up to open beta. My guess is this is a stress test on the servers, if it isn't then they should have waited until after the move to switch to open.

What I would like to see is an option for another shapes texture to totally obscure any inside it. I mean in such a way that if I put a transparent tube in a wall I want to be able to see through the wall. This is not the way it should work all or even most of the time, but the option for this would be extremely nice.

so what you're suggesting would basically allow easier creation of windows... i.e. create the size/shape window you want, make it 0.01m thicker than the wall, and then when you put it in the wall, you can see through it (and through whatever translucent/transparent texture you have on the "window" to the outside, right?

I think all we really need it the ability to adjust where our hollows are.

Yes phil but you see if we can get that its a small step to saying 'Hey if the 'Phantom' option is on for the outside one, you should be able to walk through the hole!'

LOL Ok maybe not that small.

Yes I think being able to subtract shapes from others would be cool. I just think its a bit hard to get in right now.

correct, in that it's not that small.

what you can see through something (z-order) is determined primarily by the renderer. what you can walk through (collision detection) is determined by the physics. we're talking apples and elephants here

Skids I totally agree with ya, and I believe this should be implimented, as long as it doesnt increase lag. Having negative prims could lead to more complex tunnel systems and networks of hollow objects being built, which would be quite interesting. I am still wondering tho if doing this would increase the lag on the servers.

Just in terms of data storage on the servers, they probably have something efficient in place for the storage of primitives.

The database probably only stores exactly what it needs to, such as:

The object is a cube.
The cube position is x, y, z.
The cube is __m x __m x __m in size.
The cube is __% hollow.
The cube has been cut by __%.
etc, etc.

Then the client can be optimised to make certain pre-rendering assumptions about each primitive type. It already knows the basic ways it needs to "think" about each primitive it has to render.



When you have the ability to carve/cut from objects, any kind of standardisation that exists from object to object is now completely gone.

Say if you were to take a cube and then carve tiny chunks out of it over and over and over, until you eventually end up with some kind of detailed sculpture.

a) storing that object in the database just got a whole lot more difficult

b) the client can't make any assumptions about the shape unless several detail levels of that shape were to be stored in the database (similar to the way textures work), which is even more wasteful

c) chances are that beautiful sculpture has more faces/vertices on it than the sum of the surrounding buildings and other objects in the area, so it's gonna take a lot of CPU power to render it, not to mention any kind of lag if the object needs to be moved in any way, etc, etc.



So yeah... I think (and I may be wrong, hehe.. these Lindens have a habit of surprising you when you think you've figured something out) that for the basic primitives we have, it's a MUCH easier task for the client/server to handle those and move them around, etc, etc...

Once we have the ability to REALLY get in there and fine-edit the objects with functions like carving, our world gets a whole lot prettier, but it also gets really ugly on the computation / data storage & retrieval / rendering side of things.