Before I ask the Lindens about creating a new Building Block Type...

[Times Sands]

... I wanted to see if anyone here has heard any discussons about this before! The request  would be for a new basic Building Block called the "Box Tube." It would be a "squared-off Tube," that looks like a hollow Box prim, but (as with the regular Tube) the "hollow" would be set with a Hole Size parameter and the Hollow parameter would carve out the volume within the prim's walls.

I know it this can be simulated with sculpties, but they can't be Path Cut, Profile Cut, and edited in the many other ways that Tubes can. 

The Box Tube would very useful because:

• It would enable one prim to provide all 10  wall, ceiling, and floor surfaces of (say) a house with a central courtyard.
• Reducing the hole size to zero would produce all 6 faces of a hollow cubic or rectangular box (with a thin column in the center that could be hidden inside... say... a spiral staircase). All from one prim.
  

Second Life's regular Tube is generated by simply revolving a rectangular cross-section around a circular or oval path. The Box Tube would similarly revolve a rectangular cross-section around a square or rectangular path. But the trigonometry would need to be much more complicated, if the prim is to look truly squared-off (especially at the corners).

But I think the Lindens could do it... sometime!

Another related question is that I once saw discussions somewhere about creating prim shapes using scripts. But I'm not finding them now. The scripts weren't prim torture... they were snippets of SL code from which the basic Building Blocks are made. Can anyone point me to such discussions or scripts?

Many Thanks... and please let me know if you've seen this idea presented to the Lindens at any time before!

 

[Chic Aeon]

I have no info on this but since the building types have remained virtually the same for the last five years or more (and maybe MUCH longer) I am guessing that new types won't be added. It took many years just to get megaprims (to 64) available in the menu and we still don't have nanoprim sizes as they do in OpenSim and other worlds.

No point in asking but it is unlikely that anything will come of it. The Lindens do things in their own way and in their own time. The very seldom listen to their "citizens" .

 

Good luck with that. You might put it forth in OpenSim with better success.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I'm going to disagree with Chic a little bit.  LL does listen to the residents about building "blocks".  When SL was created LL provided the basic blocks that everyone has to use to build in SL.  Flexible prims were introduced somewhere around 2007 (I think).  They introduced sculpties to cover what many builders requested for creating unique shapes for building which, in turn, reduced prim counts.  They then introduced mesh not too long ago to fill the remaining void the builders wanted and needed.  It takes server code modification to utilize each building block introduced......it's much more than just giving the tool to the residents to use.  Things have to be thought out before hand, code written, tested and finally introduced.  Rules for usage have to be established to avoid at much abuse as possible.  LL's very basic concept for SL is for the users to create the content (which is what makes SL so attractive to builders and artists) so they really don't privide the blocks anymore......they give a platform that supports building blocks the users can create themselves.  Those basic blocks are very likely all you'll ever see LL provide.......ever.  You may see LL provide a platform that supports more blocks than what's available today but it's going to be up to the users to use that platform to create their own building blocks.

BTW, I'm pretty sure mesh can do exactly what you discribed.........so why not get a 3D modeling program and make that block yourself?  I know it not the same as LL doing it for you but LL provides a way for you to get what you want......and much more.  It's up to you though to do it.

[Times Sands]

Thanks Chic and Peggy! Good thoughts all around. And maybe I'll use this as a first-time mesh project! One thing you both said triggered a further thought. Yes, the Lindens haven't really been in the new-prim business since I joined in 2007. But the Phoenix viewer people have. So maybe I'll suggest it to them. They've added a bunch of new primitive shapes (most of which look like they came from prim torture). And last time I checked, the new shapes displayed and behaved properly in the default SL viewer (though you couldn't edit them there). So maybe the shape I'm interested in could someday be added to and edited in Phoenix, and then also used in SL. I'll investigate mesh and Phoenix. Thanks again!

[Times Sands]

Hi Again, Since my last reply, I realized that mesh wouldn't accomplish nearly what I want. Where mesh falls short is that the prim wouldn't have the same editing flexibility as the regular Tube prim... as with sculpties, Path Cut, Profile Cut, Hollow, Hole Size, and all that would not be available. So I'll focus first on seeing if the Phoenix people will create a "true" Box Tube... and then try the Lindens as (sadly) a last resort!

[Chosen Few]

---

Times Sands wrote:

Where mesh falls short is that the prim wouldn't have the same editing flexibility as the regular Tube prim... as with sculpties, Path Cut, Profile Cut, Hollow, Hole Size, and all that would not be available.

---

All that and more will be fully available in your 3D modeling program.  That's the whole point of using mesh in the first place.  A dedicated 3D modeling application can do everything more quickly, more easily, more efficiently, and far more powerfully, than SL ever could. 

Shift your paradigm.  Modeling in-world is entirely unnecessary.  When we had no other choice, it made sense to torture ourselves, to squeeze every last drop from in-world building that we could.  But now that SL artists can use all the same tools the rest of the 3D industry uses every day, it makes zero sense to keep focusing on in-world options.  Model it, upload it, done.

 

---

Times Sands wrote:

So I'll focus first on seeing if the Phoenix people will create a

"true

" Box Tube...

---

That's never going to happen.  The Phoenix/Firestorm people have no power to add prims to SL.  Those extra preset shaps you see in the editor are just permutations of the existing prims.  There's nothing special about them.  You can make them all yourself, by hand, with any viewer.  The Phoenix/Frestorm devs simply added a few shortcuts for creating shapes they felt were useful.

To add an entirely new prim would require changes not just to the viewer, but also to the server.  Only LL can change the server code (unless you're talking about using a custom, non-LL, grid, in which case you're probably on the wrong forum site).

 

---

Times Sands wrote:

and then try the Lindens as (sadly) a last resort!

---

The square tube is a good idea (or at least would have been a good idea a few years ago), but I seriously doubt LL has any interest in ever adding any more prims to SL.  Mesh modeling is how the entire planet does things, and now that SL finally can use it, there's no reason to make any further investment in the past.

SL users were cut off from the rest of the 3D modeling universe for for so many years that some seem to think mesh is this weird newfangled thing that LL came up with.  In truth, the weird thing that LL came up with was prim building in the first place.  Nobody in their right mind anwhere else in the 3D industry builds models out of primitives like that.  Mesh modeling is THE fundamental basis of 3D graphics.  It is what we've all been doing for the last 30+ years, and it's what we'll continue to do for the forseeable future.

[Times Sands]

All true points Chosen!  But once a mesh "Box Tube" (for example) is brought into SL, can I then adjust the ratio between the width of its central hole and the width of the prim itself? Or can I hollow out its tubular body by varying degrees? Or path-cut it into a half tube?  If I have to return to the source mesh tool to create variations like these, then SL's edit window will remain the more efficient tool for what I want to do (despite its non-standard quirkiness)! 

That said, though, if the prim I want isn't implemented in-world, then the flexibility I desire will be moot.  So I'll also search these forums and check the SL Wiki for leads to mesh tools that non-mathematicians can use. Thanks for all the insights, everyone!

[Penny Patton]

I believe that the inclusion of in-world building tools are a very big strength for SL. Mesh offers more ability to work at higher detail and complexity, but the in-world tools allow anyone to rez a prim and start building.

 I'd say that anyplace LL could improve the in-world tools they should leap at the opportunity.