Max Objects

I am a virtual architect who has recently purchased land. I have reached the maximum number of objects for my parcel but need more because I am a builder architect. Is there any way to purchase more for my parcel?

Clay

The only way to add prim allowance is to buy additional land. It doesn't necessarily have to be connected to your present land -- it just has to be in the same sim. You'll normally get 117 prims per 512 sq m of land that you own. (A few sims have areas with higher than normal prim allowances.)

P2

It may not have to be connected, but it certainly has to be joined, if you want to build more in the original parcel.

I'm not quite sure what you mean..

If you have two parcels on land, in the same sim, regardless of distance, the prim limits are one.

So, if you have a 512 sq m parcel of land (117 prims) and buy another anywhere in the same sim, both parcels will show up a maximum of 234 prims. They don't have to be joined..

Just to reiterate what Zap said. It must be in the same sim and it must be owned by the same person or group, but it definitely does not need to be joined.

Edit:

The main reason you would join the parcels is so that they could share common things such as a common landing point, a common music url, etc.

Or you can build in public sandboxes. Or make friends with someone who owns an island and/or lots of land. Or you can take a commission for custom work that lets you build on the target site.

Using a sandbox is teh easiest option if you are starting out as a builder.

Hi Clay. Welcome to SL.

As you've just experienced first hand, prim limits are ALWAYS an obstacle in SL. They'll never go away, and to give you an idea of how often they're increased, it's happened just once in the last 2 years. Building an SL, therefore, is an exercise in minimalism. It's all about how to do more with less, and that in the end makes you a MUCH better modeler both inside SL and out.

As I usually mention when questions like this come up, outside SL I'm primarily a Maya user. Modeling in Maya is hardly reminiscent of modeling in SL, but my Maya models have still benefitted tremendously from my SL experience. Because SL has limits, it forces you to think critically about every step in a way that more fully featured modeling platforms like Maya and Max do not. As a result, you pay a lot more attention to what every single surface is doing. I can atest that when I became an active builder in SL, my poly counts on my Maya models went way down while the quality went way up. Give it a few weeks, and I promise you'll say the same thing about your own extra-SL models.

As you get more experience with SL's toolset, you'll start to learn little tricks for conserving prims. For example, you can use a cut and hollowed tube to replace 3 cylinders, or a cut and hollwed cube to replace 3 whole cubes. The list goes on and on and on and on.

The real power though is in the texturing. You'd be suprised what you can do with just a handfull of well textured prims. Often a simple model with exquisite texturing will look just as good if not better than a complex model with lots of sculpting. Usually when I build somthing complex, I'll create the whole thing out of prims first, and then I'll go back and scrutinize the model to see what prims I can replace with textures. In most cases, I'm able to lower the prim count by anywhere from about 30% to about 70%, depending on the type of build. Think of it kind of like when Buggs Bunny paints a doorway onto a wall and then procedes to walk right through it. If you're living in a "cartoon" world, who's to say what's "really" there and what's not? It's all just pixels anyway, and the right images in the right places can make all the difference.

Again, it's all about learning to do more with less. At first it might seem limiting, silly, or even childish, but think of it just as an exercise in problem solving, and the answers do come. There's almost nothing that can't be done.

All that having been said, if you REALLY do need more prims, the only way to do it is to get more land. As others have stated, having a second parcel of land in the same sim will increase your total prim allowance. You're then free to use all your prims on just one parcel or divide them between both in way you see fit. It makes no difference whether or not the two parcels are physically connected. Your allowance is your allowance. All that matters is how much of the sim you own; the size and location of each individual parcel within the sim are irrelevant.

If you can't afford more land, or if there's none available in the same sim, then the alternative is to build in a public sandbox. Just be prepared that your build won't be permanent, as sandboxes are "cleaned" every few hours. If you use a sandbox, make sure to "save" your work by taking copies into inventory at regular intervals.

Good luck and have fun with it. I hope you'll embrace the challenge of learning to do more with prims than you probably think is possible right now. It's a very rewarding process.

Wonder how I got that wrong. I was pretty sure of it. I had four unjoined parcels in Sawrey all next to another, and the prim limits were different on each one. Maybe since I never tested to see what would happen if I went beyond the prim allowances, I assumed the limits were individual rather than collective.

You hit the nail on the head. It's a little deceiving when you look at the land properties. The count will reflect what the particular parcel is capable of by its size without paying any mind to any others you might have. You can still put all your objects in one parcel though if you want. The count will just show that you're over the limit for that parcel, but you won't get capped until you reach the total limit for all the land you have in the sim.

I never actually thought about it before, but perhaps this should be addressed. It is pretty confusing. Lindens, paying attention? How about adding a line to the land properties window to indicate prim counts and any other useful stats for all the land you own in a sim, rather than limiting the info to just one parcel at a time?

It's not confusing. At least, it's never confused me. You just have to look at "Simulator object usage:"

Hmm... looks like we can't attach images.

Well, this is a real example. I'll type it in.

About Land

General Objects Options Media Access Ban

Simulator object usage: 286 out of 2629 (2343 available)
Objects parcel supports: 1054

Objects on parcel: 109

And when using the sand box, please delete your builds when done for the day.

Cool, Shack. Thanks for the info. Since I Live on a group owned sim, Simuator Object Usage shows all the objects on the sim. That's what I thought it was for all this time, hehehe. I never realized it was landowner-specific. That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for setting me straight on that.