The Prim Limit

I'm interested in learning about ownling land in SL. Is there a good FAQ or guide available?

I have a very specific question. Once I buy the land, I'd like to place a building on it. I understand that land can support a limited number of prims. If I buy a pre-built strucutre, the advertisement for htat structure usually tells me how many prims are in the strucute. But I still don't have a good feel for how many prims are needed to make an object.

If I can learn prim counts for objects I observe, then I can learn what might be low, reasonable, and high prim counts for land I'm examining.

If I'm wandering about, is there a way to select an object (even a building!) and get a prim count for it?

What counts against the prim limit on my land? Objects I create myself, like prims that form my building? Objects that I bring to the land and leave there, like furniture? Objects which other people leave behind, like rezzed inventory items?

Right-click -> Edit - to see the number of prims in each linkset. A large object might have many linksets. If you see everything greyed out untick "select only my objects" in Tools on the top bar (which is a very useful feature). Building is very, very cool - don't miss out on creating your own things. To get started visit the Ivory Tower, take a building class, and/or you might enjoy Enjah Mysterio's house-building kit* which comes with a step-by-step illustrated book and all the pieces needed to make a simple house.

*50L in Grignano at Low Prim Solutions

There's no rule about how many prims needed to make an object. Some take more than others depending upon the shape and the textures used. Any prims on your land count towards your prim limit, with the exception of attachments and temp-on-rez objects.

Of course. I'm trying to develop a gut feel, though. If I see a box, I expect it to be a single prim -- a box. Maybe if each side has a different texture, it's more than one prim.

If I see a house, or a nice piece of furniture, or a chair or a bar (for drinking), how do I guess how many prims are in it? I know the answer varies widely, but I'd like to start learning how to decompose shapes I see into their compoennt prims. That'll skill will make me a better designer, too.

Thanks! I think this will only work on objects that I'm allowed to modify, though; isn't that right?

Thanks for the link to the house kit. That sounds like a swell way for me to start building structures on my land.

You can have multiple textures on a single prim.



You can see how many prims an object or a collection of objects use regardless of who made them or whether they are modifyable. Multiple select and edit them and look at the build panel.

It can be hard to learn how to build items by observing them because the well built and textured ones do not reveal instantly how they are built. Its only the badly done ones that were made in haste that have prim shapes appear very clearly for decomposition.

The best way is to actually attempt it yourself and go through what the other builder went through.

The best way to become familiar enough with prim shapes that you can judge how an object has been made, and from how many parts, is really just through experimenting with building yourself. By playing with the building tools you'll become more familiar with what is possible, and you'll better be able to break down how someone has made something.

That said, if you only want to know how many prims a build is so you'll know if it's good for your land or not, you can just edit the object. You can't *actually* edit it, but by selecting the edit option and expanding the window ('more'), the general tab will tell you how many prims the object is.

Better than that, if you're interested in deconstructing objects for your own learning and building, going into edit mode on a build will highlight the individual prims that make it, and you can see what shapes it's made from, what tricks the builder used. For example, whether those iron railings are a row of prims, or one flat surface with a texture with transparent areas that makes it look like a lot of seperate railings. Some of the best objects use a clever combination of prims and textures to create a look that's realistic enough without using too many prims (as you've realised when you found the limits of your land, this is important for just about everyone). Once you start spotting how people do that then you're onto a winner

And another one! If you own land, every prim on it counts towards your limit (except, as Osprey said attachments and temp-on-rez objects), no matter who made them - so yes, people can use up your limit. But you can easily avoid this - the land options let you disable other people from building on your land, as one option. The problem I've noticed with this is that you can still end up with other people's objects on your land, even though they didn't *build* them on your land. Common example being someone crashing a car into your house and leaving it there!

The most effective option in my opinion is setting 'autoreturn', which will return all objects that aren't your own after a time selected by you. Thus, even if you're offline for a couple of days, your land will be regularly 'swept' of any litter left by others eating away at your prim limit.

Thanks for the very useful answers, Erin. I appreciate your help!