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Creating a 10 prim item that turns into 200


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I have been creating since 2004.  This is a first for me.  I will be making something and it will be about 10-20 prims.  Once I link these prims it suddenly turn into 100-200 prims.  I have unlinked and selected each item to link, I have tried unlinking and then linking two at a time and adding each together until attached.  Everything is fine until I get it all linked, then BAM 175 prims or something stupid like that.  I have even unlinked the item, taken it to another place, a sandbox, and linked again in everyway I can think of and same thing happens.  This has happened a few times now.  I am working with prims, sculpts and mesh.  Any help?

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Prim count means nothing anymore.  Land Impact or LI is what counts.  What confuses the issue is that LI is labeled as prims still in viewers and on MP and a lot of mesh modelers give prim count rather than LI and very few give the actual dimensions of the mesh object at the LI they do give.

Here is how what happened happened.

  • Linking mesh to sculpts turns the sculpts, normally counting as 1 LI, into counting as 2LI
  • Linking mesh to legacy prims that are tortured in any way causes LI to go up a lot
  • Resizing mesh larger increases its LI, sometimes A LOT*
  • Adding scripts to mesh items can cause a dramatic increase in LI
  • Adding materials texturing increases LI on all types of prims, sculpts and mesh.

* Example: I bought a mesh model of a stone arch ruin for use in a garden as a folly.  The MP listing gave its LI as 2 but didn't give the size dimensions. The picture looked like it would be suitable however.  The mesh model when I unpacked it was only about  a bit over 1 meters tall with a LI of 2, which was way to small.  I resized it to make it about 6m tall  The new LI was 199!  Note that other mesh models I have used I can resize quite a bit larger with no increase in LI.  It all depends on how efficient the model is made. 

The solution to the negative impact of mesh LI accounting is to

  • Only link mesh or prims with materials texturing to legacy box prims that have not been tortured. 
  • Link mesh to sculpts only when you can tolerate the doubling of the sculpts LI.  For example you are only using a few sculpts and the total LI is still well within and acceptable level.
  • Avoid using materials texturing unless the increase in LI is acceptable AND it really enhances your build and lowers the prim count because you can use less prims to achieve the same look.

It is better to follow these solutions even if you have to use a rez box for smaller things that normally you'd link together to make the entire build one object.

To use LI Impact to your advantage, set your legacy untortured prims to convex hull under Features>Physics Shape Type, if you are linking one or more together.  This will lower the prim count so that 2 prims will equal just 1.  However don't link sculpts to them or you lose the advantage.

 

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Good summary :)

In the end it depends a lot on the summary of the individual weights across all connected prims. And you're totally right, a lot of mesh is just horribly made. I'm guessing imported some model from some free library, without creating multiple LODs.

I guess just like with sculpts, it'll take a few years for creators to get a good feel on how things work :)

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<smartass mode>

Almost. Actually Advance Materials don't add anything to Land Impact at all, as long as the object is on meshy accounting already. So it doesn't add a thing to a mesh.

Land impact can also increase on meshes when resizing mesh "smaller". This can happen when the physics shape of the mesh is a so called "triangle based" physics mesh (Not Analyzed), and the Physics Shape type is set to "Prim".

</smartass mode>

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Cooty Leroux wrote:

I have been creating since 2004.  This is a first for me.  I will be making something and it will be about 10-20 prims.  Once I link these prims it suddenly turn into 100-200 prims.  I have unlinked and selected each item to link, I have tried unlinking and then linking two at a time and adding each together until attached.  Everything is fine until I get it all linked, then BAM 175 prims or something stupid like that.  I have even unlinked the item, taken it to another place, a sandbox, and linked again in everyway I can think of and same thing happens.  This has happened a few times now.  I am working with prims, sculpts and mesh.  Any help?

It may help using the Advanced Edit Floater, accessed by clicking More info, as you're working and keeping track of the Download, Physics and Server Weights for each element before you link them. This will reveal "hidden" costs under prim accounting that will appear when an object is under mesh accounting (which will happen when a prim is linked to a mesh item, or any prim of convex hull type, or any use of the new materials within the object).

 

Advanced-Edit-Interface.jpg

 

To counter an extremely high Physics Weight, which will be found in tortured prims (especially true of torii, which can go over 1,000!), set that individual element in your object to physics type none or (for less of a counter) convex hull.

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Thank you all for responses.  I have fixed the problem for now, until I can figure all this out.  I left SL for a little while but kept my store open and just came on if a problem arose.  So I am a bit behind on a lot of this and need to do some studying to keep up.  But the info you all gave me, gave me clues as to the problem and when I checked to see if what I thought was the problem was the problem your help was greatly appreciated since it worked.  Thank you all.

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