noob question about mega prims

OK, stupid noob here...so please don't hit me.

Regarding mega or super prims, is there a way to edit their properties to, say, make them hollow? Or is that one of the locked-in-stone restrictions of those?

If the megaprim is circular you can get it to be hollow with solid walls, all the rest can be hollow but the whole object is solid, only way to walk into it or through it is to make it phantom.

Edit: actually now I said that I don't know if I remember that right, maybe it is if you have a circular hole you can past through it, damn can't log on to confirm

Thanks Dekka...I'll have to do some more experimenting I guess. I just wish megaprims could be edited like normal prims, as they would REALLY help cut down on overall prim count for some builds. But I realize there's a history behind the "accident" that permitted megaprims in the first place.

Incidentally, I don't seem to have any spherical mega prims; all of mine are cubes or rectangular boxes. I'll have to do some digging now that I know other shapes are out there.

...if only I could log in too. :/

/me taps her foot impatiently.

Nadine,

You can turn a box mega into a sphere mega quite easily. On the "Object" tab of the Edit window, look for "Building Block Type" on the right side and change it to another type (sphere, ring, torus, whatever).

yeesh, thanks! Told you I was a noob! :/

Now I can log in and actually try this.

hey guys. sorry to cut in on your post. i have a 20x20 mega and need a 20x10. when i use the ctrl-shift-drag to move shrink it, it snaps back to 20. how do i cut a mega? thanks.

I think that is one of the restrictions/shortcomings of the mega prims, though I could be wrong.

You can path cut it to be 20x10, but I believe it is still 20x20 when it comes to physics (can't walk through the cut part unless the whole prim is phantom)

You can cut and hollow megaprims, but you cannot resize them using the sliders.

If you hollow a box megaprim, it will appear hollow visually, but if you are standing inside it you will find that you float until it 'expels' you ... as if it were solid. So no, you cannot make a cubical skybox out of a single megaprim.

You can, however, I believe, use the cut spherical ones as domes. Never done it myself, others willhave to speak to it.

When you cut a megaprim, like any other prim, it maintains its original "footprint". So, if you put a cut megaprim right against your parcel boundary, there's a good chance that its footprint will "overhang" into your neighbor's property, which can be irritating to some (since it will, I think, show on their minimap and possibly make rezzing funny, depending on where it is).

If you use a megaprim for the floor of a building platform, do not be surprised if you have more trouble than usual rezzing things on it. Some people rez a 10x10 regular rug on such floors to use as rezzing surfaces.

If at all possible, do not position megaprims within 10m of a sim boundary.

Please do not make megaprims physical ... it freaks out the current physics engine. The next one will have better computations, which may make things a little better, or may just make it freak out quicker. Others, again, will have to address that.
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Great replies all. thank you.

Hmmm. I've made an auto-rezzer that rezzes a tower that uses megaprims, that you CAN walk around inside, but that you CANNOT accidentally walk through the walls. Each 60m section of tower (yes, I used the 60 x 20 mega cylinder) is 6 floors and uses just 13 prims. The auto-rezzer will rez any number of segments you specify, up to the max that will fit under the build height of 768m.

Maybe I should put that up on SLX as a freebie or something.

neat...learning a lot here. Thanks, all.

largest megaprim that can stay solid AND hollow (and path cut) with a correct colision box is 20x20x15m cylinder.

All larger ones get a rectangular colision box that equals their bounding box without hole(path cut can make it shorter and it ignores hollow) and they must be phantom.
Some smaller ones have the same issue.

twisting messes up almost any prims colision box.
taper messes up some but not all of them.

Oh, I don't remember seeing that one.

Havok 4 is coming out across the grid really soon, and from what testing I've done, it would seem that ALL megaprims will now behave with a correct physical shape.

I've been able to take a big hollow cylinder into a Havok 1 sim, walk on it like it was a big rectangular box, then drag it into a Havok 4 region, and fly right through its center.

*gives it more tests*
-I can walk all around inside the hollow of a 40x40x40 sphere (which I cut open just a bit for entry).
-I can make that sphere a cylinder, twist it, and taper it, and everything still works exactly as it looks.
-I can rez a 100x100x.01 cylinder (that is, a circle), hollow it, fly up through its center, and walk on it.

So don't worry about Ollj Oh's or anyone else's warnings that they're physically inaccurate. This has been true but won't be anymore.
(Whether megas still cause OTHER issues is still up for debate, however.)

With Havoc 4 you can even create a 40x40x40 bouncing ball if you want, a bit big but no problem for the physics engine.

Wow! This is awesome--now I can finally make that giant skybox hangar out of two or three prims.

Really? Cool! I guess it's time to really read about Havok4 again, I did a round of reading when it went into beta but not since ... this is terrific!
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So, are they going to give us the ability to create larger prims in havok 4?... I have been doing some building and it's a pain to use 4 prims to make a 12x12 platform when I could use 1.

Starfire--I'm going to guess that probably we will be able to manipulate existing mega prims a bit more, but likely will not be able to create or resize mega prims.

Just a guess though--by Tuesday/Wednesday we should be able to experiment for ourselves, in-world, since H4 will be gridwide by then.

Just another little trick that works on both normal and mega prims.

Change them to a sphere, Dimple either on or both ends depending on which section of the prim you require, Change back to the required prim shape (box, cylinder etc)

Voila!!! its thinner than it was.

There are limitsas dimple will only allow you to go down to 0.02 of the original size so with a 40 X 40 it will stop at 0.8m thickness.

I love dimple, I use it all the time - used it to make a floor and ceiling for my 3-prim 50x50 skybox cube.

Thanks, that's actually a new technique for this noobish builder. Appreciate that insight.

Hi all. I used the spherical metaprim to build a rounded hill. It is on a havoc 4 sim. You are all welcome to drop in at walk on it "Splendour/53/93/31". I put a freebie collection of magaprims there as well. Have a nice walk.
(2-apr-200 It seems like others cannot take it - IM me, and I'll send you the collection)

Thanks Boreal--I am there now. Sadly, seems the transaction server (or something) is wonky, as clicking your megaprim collection gives zero response. :/


Edit: lovely hill, by the way! I almost didn't realize I was standing on a megaprim.