Primtiquity

With the advent of sculpted prims upon us, many are gearing up for the changes and new possibilities they will bring to Second Life. Most of these changes will be for the better - reduced prim count, increased quality, wider range of possible shapes, less textures needed (and therefore less lag in many cases) and so forth. Some content creators may fell a bit intimidated by this change, specifically those who have never done 3D modeling outside of SL (myself included, but I'll learn ) but overall I believe this will usher in a new era of fantastic building.

However... I do wonder what will happen to the builds of old. Over the years, builders have done fantastic things with the "limited" tool set provided for us. Learning how to torture prims into new and interesting shapes, expertly texturing prims to trick they eye, and all other facets of the old purely prim-based building have resulted in some truly stunning work. Will they be treated as historical treasures or just junk to be deleted?

I'm hoping for the former. Much in the same way that the early primitar was rebuilt, I think it's an important part of SL's history that should be preserved. One may turn their nose up at a piece of furniture that has a high prim count compared to another made with only a few sculpties, but you have to appreciate how well crafted it was and the unique skill that went into it.

What are your thoughts?

Prims are junk. It's time to move on...

"Look! I made this 20ft statue from elephant dung! Aren't I clever?"


"No!, you're friggin crazy!"


It shouldn't be about the effort that went into making something. The result is all that matters. Because of computers, I believe that everybody will have the ability to create great art one day. The art will be judged purely on aesthetics and not on how difficult it was to create.

I disagree, how much care and attention someone puts into a creation plays a big part.

I spent 8 hours taking a dump yesterday. Wanna buy it?

Not particularly, but would you scoff at a hand-made watch which took care and dedication saying "pfft, I'll take a factory built one thanks"

Nope, wanna buy some ExLax?

For the record 2K, my question assumes we are examining objects that are... I don't know how to describe it... with purpose? Not junk? Builds that would be considered impressive today if sculpty prims were never introduced. Some of Cubey Terra's aircraft come to mind as a quick example.

A pile of feces made out of prims or sculpties is junk no matter what. That's not what I'm talking about here.

[Edit] Whoops, looks like I misread your post, 2k. Still, I think you're missing my point. Yes, aesthetics is an important part of a piece of work - but that is certainly not the entire aspect of it. If that were the case, then the Governor's Manson or even the Man Statue would have been deleted long ago.

Soon I shall be able to claim that all of my cars are "primtiques" then I shall be able to charge big Lindens for them and become teh RICH!!!!! Mwuuuwhahahahaaha!!


Seriously though, there are so many excellent builds out there I'd hate to see people say "well these are just too many prims" and delete them. I also agree that the talent that goes into creating these scupltures should be recognized.

I'm hoping they are looked at as historical treasures.

The advent of sculpties on the main grid is going to be something of a paradigm shift but it's hard to tell at this point to tell how quickly and thoroughly it's going to replace the old prims if ever. There are some truly amazing things made with the current prim system. The designers that have figured out how to work within its limitations have shown their talent and ingenuity and no doubt many of the same people are going to prove to be sculpty stars.

But I wouldn't mind some conservation of "the old way" somewhere, somehow. I've got a lot of respect for the many silk purses made from the old prim sow's ears.

(And I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get within two meters of my first sculpty. The "unusual" collision(?) situation is going to be a challenge.)

I've seen the sculpties on the beta grid and seen most of the sculptie threads on this forum and don't see a massive paradigm shift occuring yet.

The sculpties just aren't that good yet, perhaps because we are new to this, but have YOU seen anything truely spectacular sculptie-wise yet?

I guess we'll be needing age verification for prims. (Stick out tongue)

Nope, but I hope to over time


.

Hence my use of a some qualifiers. There's a lot of potential there, but there are also limitations. Give a truly creative person some new tools but with some rather fussy constraints and they'll blow your mind every time. Will they replace my purposely boxy house? Nuh-uh. But they might make me better rocks for the landscape.

Oh, I don't know, there's still a lot of stuff that cannot, or doesn't need to be done with sculpted prims alone. I expect that we'll see new and old builds nicely blend in with each other over time.

Exactly. I think sculpies are going to be an awesome addition to SL, but I think they're going to be just that. An addition. I don't think they're going to replace prims or make them redundant or obsolete.

The parametric meshes that make up the old prims are much higher quality than the arbitrary meshes of the new sculptie prims. Old prims will always create better sharp edges and flat surfaces and are much easier to texture. I don't think that sculpties will devalue non-sculptie builds.