Ring prim hole limitations and radial texture mapping

I'm looking for an easy way around the 0.05 limit on hole size for the the ring prim.

Let me explain what I'm trying to do. I'm building a model of a ringed planet (well, actually a brown dwarf "star". Using the cylinder prim for the rings works great for the shape. I get some really nice thin outer rings using 95% hollow.

You can see the outermost ring is really thin. The only problem is the texture maps flat and doesn't look very ring-like. I really needed it to map radially. (Eventually I will put a real texture there. For now the default plywood works for what I want to show.)

I tried doing the same thing with the Ring prim:

This is a little dark, but you can see in the rings the texture maps radially, which is perfect. But now I can't get the outer rings very thin due to the 0.05 limit on hole size. I'd really like to get a bigger hole, but can't get the numbers down any farther than 0.05 no matter what I try.

What is the EASIEST quickest solution for me?

1. Make a radial texture and use the cylinder rings. (I haven't had much luck making a radial ring texture so far.)

2. Use the ring prims and some kind of invisiprim to cut away the inner part of the outer rings? Wouldn't this obscure parts of the other rings as well?

3. Something I haven't thought of?

I don't want to expend too much effort on this. It's not a build that will be used in world. I am just taking snapshots of the model to blow up and trace on to a RL space art painting. This way I don't have to use a lot of huge templates or arcane compass contraptions to get the perspective on the rings correct. I'm hoping the end result will look a little like this, only with better rings:



I know you creative folks may already have the best solution.

Use a tube, not a ring. The ring has a triangular profile. The tube has a rectangular profile, just like a cylinder.

If it won't get thin enough from hole size alone, then apply a profile cut, and you can eliminate 50% of the width. If that's still not thin enough, hollow it, and you can remove 95%.


That said, I honestly wouldn't recommend building the rings out of individual prims. It's a waste. All you need is a single prim, with a ring texture applied to it. That's how I've built every ringed planet I've ever made.

Why am I suddenly reminded of Slartibartfast talking with pride about doing all the crinkly bits around Norway?

Good question. I believe you'll find the answer is 42.

Well as this is a very temporary structure and I'm not worried about saving prims, I'll try the tube and profile cut and hollow. I didn't think about that or know it work along that axis.

Thanks. I knew you you folks would have a better idea.

Update:

It worked! It worked!

Profile cut on the outer ring prim did exactly what I was looking for -- very thin tenuous rings when I reduced it in the "E" window. I had no idea what profile cut meant in terms of the ring prim.

Now I can get on with my plans.

Thanks for following up. I'm glad to hear it's working well for you.