How Many *explicit-delete* Prims Is It?!

[MajikVixen Lorefield]

https://gyazo.com/6e905fbf2ea4c6f31b29ebf1bad19202

Look at my build window.  It says 5.

Look at area search.  It also confirms 5, but if you wanna get all stickler semantic-y about it, it says 4.

Apparently there is a discrepancy with mesh objects and the like ... Firestorm group chat has confirmed that we all go by LI now because of what mesh tends to do (be off in count, either up or down, depending --which is why I assume they put LI in the build window and not prims).

 

Now...

If I sell something I make, and I advertise how many prims it is, am I going to use what shows up in my build window, or what shows up under "prims" in my area search window?   (You can arguably also use Build>Pathfinding>Region Objects, but that also just gives LI, so pretend we're lazy and we'll just use area search.)

If I am building something and I need to keep my limit under 50 prims, am I going to use my build window to add up and determine how many prims I have with unlinked objects, or am I going to build with the area search window open?  Will I have to ask each contest I participate in how they count prims so that I play by the rules?

If I am going to hold a build contest, and each entry is allowed 50 prims, how do I know that they adhered to the prim rule?  --Would I individually click on their items and get the build window information + temporarily derender things I have already counted ...or am I going to use area search?  And if I use area search, will I go by LI or by prims (as sometimes things do not show a LI, it simply gives "...")?  ...How do I be fair?  Should I tell participants that we're playing a semantics game with everything under the specific word "prim" or do I count these things the way "everyone" does via LI?

...What do you all think?  Please and thank you.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The people who were in SL before mesh still tend to say "prims" as a synonym for Land Impact.

Mesh can have LI between 0.5 (half a prim) and "there isn't enough capacity in the sim to rez this."

The discrepancy is because mesh is often much "heavier" than prims. More data to send to a viewer, more data to handle for collisions, and more data to render on the screen. Some regular prims can also be tortured in such a way that they consume much more land impact, mainly because the physics cost shoots way up.

For marketing purposes, you should ALWAYS list the LI. The number of "prims" (which could mean links in the linkset) is not useful information for the buyer. 

If you're doing a contest, the choice is up to you. Is it more important that the object only takes up an equivalent of 50 prims, or are you allowing 50 individual components?

Also, you can just right-click an object and "inspect" it rather than using the clunky area search window. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[KathrynLisbeth]

Copy it / Rez a copy.   It kicks SL to update any 'I just linked this' discrepancy.   Like needing to round up fractional LI.

Edited July 10, 2020 by KathrynLisbeth

[Chic Aeon]

10 hours ago, MajikVixen Lorefield said:

do I count these things the way "everyone" does via LI?

Prims and Land Impact are VERY different things  -- even in MESH.  Each mesh object (single upload of one mesh, not a linkset) equates to a "prim" so far as counting parts of the viewer. But Land Impact is what is used now to decide how much you can put on your land. 

A typical multi-piece house like Trompe Loeil makes could be 97 "prims" but only 52 land impact. So folks want to know what the COST of the item is in relation to the amount of land impact that is on the plot -- in that case 52. Very few care how many "pieces" something is.   

So while some folks do use the word "prim" to mean land impact, that is incorrect. They COULD be the same number but many times are not :D.