Region-Eating Pets in Belli

[Nika Talaj]

Some animesh pet makers are setting their creations to temp-rez to keep them low LI (there's a 15 LI minimum for rezzed animesh).  This makes them attractive to unaware users in Belli, and since temp-rez items are against covenant here, they can be reported.  The makers are not shy about this - some state it proudly on the marketplace!   And some of these products are really neat.  Who doesn't want a plant that actually grows when you tend it?  Some of these, but by no means all, are breedable as well.

The orange boxes here are temp-rez items surrounding a boat I picked up.  *

The clump of 4 temp-rez items are plant pets owned by what appears to me to be a genuine new SL user (not an alt).   I don't think they're using them as breeding stock.   So I'm hesitant to report this person, whom I think means no harm, and reluctant to be the bad guy who tries to explain temp-rez to a newbie.  In this case I'll wait to see if she, or perhaps I, move on.  Meanwhile, region performance suffers a bit.

Really, the person who should be reported is the maker!  These pest products have been around for quite some time now.  Does anyone (say, @Patch Linden ) know if LL is planning to do anything about all these popular products being set to temp-rez by default?

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* If you don't know how I got this pic, I did it in Firestorm.  I think SL's viewer has the same capability, tho.  Right-click on your minimap and choose "show".  You'll see "temporary" as one of the options, and they will show as orange boxes.

Here's another handy temp-rez detection trick.  Bring up Area Search,  hit "Search" without entering any search text, and it will list every nearby object.  Go to the "Filter" tab and set it up like this.  Hit Apply, and voila, you have a list of just the nearby temp-rez objects.  Note that objects will 'blink' onto and out of the list as they de-rez and rez again.  Sigh.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Nika Talaj

[Aethelwine]

I have been here for about 10 years now, and had a plant pet back maybe 5 years ago. But it had never occurred to me they would be temp rezzing, people wouldn't have to be noobs, not to know this, with mesh you can have pretty complex plants for low land impact anyway.

[Abnor Mole]

Any object that is consistently re-rezzing itself as a temp object (for whatever reason) is not allowed under the Covenant for the very reason stated: the constant rezzing of the object has a very significant impact on region performance. 

Edit: Not to be confused with an object the rezzes as temp only once and when requested. Those are ok. It is objects that re-rez over and over every minute or so on their own in an attempt to mimic permanence we are referring to. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Abnor Mole

[Pussycat Catnap]

2 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Really, the person who should be reported is the maker!  These pest products have been around for quite some time now.  Does anyone (say, @Patch Linden ) know if LL is planning to do anything about all these popular products being set to temp-rez by default?

Agreed.

I feel the rules fight this somewhat the wrong way. Rather than going after the low-level user, go after the dealer...

Take down the whole operation - revoke these people's ability to sell goods in SL.

 

[Patch Linden]

1 hour ago, Abnor Mole said:

Any object that is consistently re-rezzing itself as a temp object (for whatever reason) is not allowed under the Covenant for the very reason stated: the constant rezzing of the object has a very significant impact on region performance. 

Edit: Not to be confused with an object the rezzes as temp only once and when requested. Those are ok. It is objects that re-rez over and over every minute or so on their own in an attempt to mimic permanence we are referring to. 

 

If temp re-rezzing items are found to be causing region performance issues, then that is an abuse of resources on the region that should also be reported.

[Nika Talaj]

3 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

If temp re-rezzing items are found to be causing region performance issues, then that is an abuse of resources on the region that should also be reported.

So it's the responsibility of the observer to determine the degree to which a region is impacted?  (er, we don't have the tools to do that)

The makers of these are engaging in an exploit, to subvert animesh LI rules.  Via their unaware customers, these makers are damaging the performance of regions grid-wide. Do you want the names of a couple of them?  Aren't they the people who should be reported?  THIS IS AN EXPLOIT.  Shouldn't the sale of such products be curtailed?

[Patch Linden]

1 minute ago, Nika Talaj said:

So it's the responsibility of the observer to determine the degree to which a region is impacted?  (er, we don't have the tools to do that)

The makers of these are engaging in an exploit, to subvert animesh LI rules.  Via their unaware customers, these makers are damaging the performance of regions grid-wide. Do you want the names of a couple of them?  Aren't they the people who should be reported?  THIS IS AN EXPLOIT.  Shouldn't the sale of such products be curtailed?

Actually you do have the ability to see how a rezzing object impacts region performance, but that's probably better saved for a very long discussion about how to monitor region performance.

[Nika Talaj]

Just now, Patch Linden said:

Actually you do have the ability to see how a rezzing object impacts region performance, but that's probably better saved for a very long discussion about how to monitor region performance.

And you have the ability to stop merchants from making money by breaking your grid.

[Sparkly Rainbow]

If you find a temp-rezzing item, report it.  Then the Lindens/Moles can decide what to do about it.  I am sure they can determine if the object breaks the rules.  Let them sort it out.

[Abnor Mole]

Let's leave whether the practice should be allowed at all to another discussion some other time. Just know that for the purposes of THIS discussion, the use of such items in your Linden Home is not allowed.

[Nika Talaj]

OK, good, thanks.  I will quietly look forward to LL discussing this internally and some sort of policy emerging down the pike

And understand, I would like nothing better than learning how to assess the impact of temp-rezzing on a particular region or parcel that I don't own; but I'm a nerd.  I find myself wondering if that's a process that could be automated?   It doesn't make sense to assume that we're ALL nerds capable of and/or interested in analyzing region performance, even so much as looking for temp-rezzing objects.

[Quartz Mole]

Unless the rules on LI have changed over the last few years, don't mesh items count for their full LI even when set to TEMP_ON_REZ?   

Regular prim objects count as 0 LI when set to temporary, but mesh ones cost the full freight, I thought, from when they're rezzed until the garbage collector comes for them after about a minute.    I ran into this when experience perms were first introduced and I was experimenting with rezzing temp attachments, and discovered that I was constrained by the available LI for the parcel for the split second between the object rezzing in-world and its attaching to the avatar.     

When I investigated I was told that this was intended to stop precisely the sort of abuse described here.     

I've just tested it again, while writing this, and as far as I can see, setting mesh objects to TEMP_ON_REZ makes no difference to their LI, which seems to count against the parcel's available LI until they are deleted by the garbage collector.     

So I am not at all sure that the owners of these temp animesh pets actually derive any benefit from setting them to TEMP_ON_REZ.    

 

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Quartz Mole

[BJoyful]

21 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

So it's the responsibility of the observer to determine the degree to which a region is impacted?  (er, we don't have the tools to do that)

I think I discovered an easy way I found by accident to identify temp-rez (over and over every few seconds) using Firestorm is to  "derender and blacklist".  If a new one appears, it must be an over-and-over temp rezz "bad" variety, I think?

Edited September 2, 2020 by BJoyful
typo (smh)

[BJoyful]

19 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

And understand, I would like nothing better than learning how to assess the impact of temp-rezzing on a particular region or parcel that I don't own; but I'm a nerd.  I find myself wondering if that's a process that could be automated?   It doesn't make sense to assume that we're ALL nerds capable of and/or interested in analyzing region performance, even so much as looking for temp-rezzing objects.

I think we can determine if something we own is using a lot of script resources by using About Land and click Script Info button in lower left corner.  This will only work if you are the owner of the land, I think, but if something is unusually heavy compared to others in the list, I find a better alternative something, if possible. ♥

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, BJoyful said:

I think I discovered an easy way I found by accident to identify temp-rez (over and over every few seconds) using Firestorm is to  "derender and blacklist".  If a new one appears, it must be an over-and-over temp rezz "bad" variety, I think?

Have fun blacklisting thousands of objects to find one or two.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Nika Talaj]

5 hours ago, Quartz Mole said:

Unless the rules on LI have changed over the last few years, don't mesh items count for their full LI even when set to TEMP_ON_REZ?  ..

So I am not at all sure that the owners of these temp animesh pets actually derive any benefit from setting them to TEMP_ON_REZ.   

Just to be clear, the owners do not set them temp-rez.  The sellers of the pets set them that way (and the one's I've encountered are nomod).

You are right, I don't think mesh LI has ever been affected by setting it temp-rez.

And at this point, it appears that you are also right in that animesh LI (animesh uses higher-cost calculations than static mesh) are not affected by setting an animesh object temp-rez!    But ...... I'm quite sure it was not always that way, and it is pretty clear to me that others feel the same.  Let me explain.

A while after animesh went live on the grid, I went to an animal manufacturer's region.  At that time, they were selling a small number of nice-looking animesh animals, and in the box came a regular version (~30LI) AND a temp-rez version (3-4LI).  I was rather put off by this, and didn't buy. 

The maker has become more aware of the problems with temp-rez, because they no longer sell fully temp-rez versions.  However, they do sell "hybrid" versions - the animal can be set to occasionally go temp-rez to run a cycle of full animesh motion.  Then it switches back to regular mesh.  They now very clearly tell their customers in the product descriptions that temp-rez can degrade region performance, and recommend that "Hybrid" animals not be used in busy regions.  They created this hybrid mode in the belief that temp-rez animesh LI is simply based on the mesh LI, avoiding the higher cost animesh LI calculations.  Here's a portion of a current marketplace listing.

Quote

 

Animesh objects in-world (ie, not attached to an avatar) add an additional 15 to the land impact of an object, or even more for more complex models.

Therefore, we are offering an alternative, called an 'Animesh/Mesh hybrid'. What does this mean?

In order to reduce the land impact, the hybrid offers a 'temporary-rez' (temp-rez) option, which once activated (right click & touch to activate) will randomly play a 30 second loop of the animesh version, before it returns to the regular mesh version.

There are Pros and Contras that come with this option:

> PRO: Due to the temp-rez option, only the land impact of the mesh object will count.

 

They go on to state, as a Con, the region performance impacts.  BUT ... I went to their region this morning to check, and when these hybrids go temp-rez, their LI is now 30-40LI!!  So, using this method no longer has any benefit at all.  I'll let them know.  I think it shouldn't impact their business much because few of their products use hybrid mode, and their models are still very good.

I apologize for not checking this out again before posting.

Re: my neighbor's plant pets: On close examination, it appears that portions of my neighbor's plants are made of simple prims that are temp-rez, and portions are mesh.  I am puzzled as to why the maker bothers, perhaps using low-LI mesh to do the 'growing' and blooming was too difficult, but indeed their website states "Our plants are both beautifully detailed and low-prim as they are temporary rezzed above their pots."  Maybe these are older products.

The region has fewer than usual homes, due to being half water.  I still will not be reporting my neighbor, but if you want a LM, Quartz, I'll drop it off inworld.

 

[BJoyful]

6 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Have fun blacklisting thousands of objects to find one or two.

😄 It would take a long time to derender and blacklist thousands of objects... not the way I’d choose to spend my precious time in SL! 😁

[Elena Blossom]

Not exactly a 'pet', but does this apply to fireflies? I have fireflies emitters all around my homes , and I am wondering if that is against the convenant too   

I am not really familiar with the rezzing/temp-rezzing theme, sorry, I guess I should start reading about it. 

[Nika Talaj]

3 hours ago, Elena Core said:

Not exactly a 'pet', but does this apply to fireflies?

Nope, neither mine nor the Lindens'.  They are particles (note that they disappear if you turn particles off).  Particles are 'sprites', that is, rendered textures that have no physical presence in the world.  The texture is always oriented toward your camera, so you see it fully no matter where you're looking from.  LL has given particles the ability to respond to the environment (they can blow in the wind and bounce off the ground), but since LL did not gift their fireflies with these abilities, I didn't either.  That may make them very lightweight as far as your client's rendering engine is concerned

As opposed to particles, rezzing a new object is one of the more costly things a simulator can spend time doing.  That's why temp-rez is such a beast.

[karynmaria]

16 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Nope, neither mine nor the Lindens'.  They are particles (note that they disappear if you turn particles off).  Particles are 'sprites', that is, rendered textures that have no physical presence in the world.  The texture is always oriented toward your camera, so you see it fully no matter where you're looking from.  LL has given particles the ability to respond to the environment (they can blow in the wind and bounce off the ground), but since LL did not gift their fireflies with these abilities, I didn't either.  That may make them very lightweight as far as your client's rendering engine is concerned

As opposed to particles, rezzing a new object is one of the more costly things a simulator can spend time doing.  That's why temp-rez is such a beast.

I just love the fireflies you made,  I use them all the time.

[Dafadilia Wayfarer]

After reading this I'm a bit concerned about my Zooby daughter Wednesday that is an animesh baby. We have had her in our home for over a year now since even after reading the convenant thought she was allowed.

This thread has me more confused than ever. She comes with a hud where we can send her offline once we've logged because we don't like leaving her by herself. Would this be considered the temp Rez deal? Please forgive my ignorance, I'm truly not understanding.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

13 minutes ago, Dafadilia said:

After reading this I'm a bit concerned about my Zooby daughter Wednesday that is an animesh baby. We have had her in our home for over a year now since even after reading the convenant thought she was allowed.

This thread has me more confused than ever. She comes with a hud where we can send her offline once we've logged because we don't like leaving her by herself. Would this be considered the temp Rez deal? Please forgive my ignorance, I'm truly not understanding.

If you have any kind of "stuff" that gets automatically rezzed when you are in the area, and cleans itself up after you leave, that is not a problem.

But if you have an object that rezzes temporary objects at regular intervals (temporary objects are cleaned up after about a minute) to get yourself "free" LI, that's not allowed.

 

To find out if an object is temporary, you can select it in Edit mode (even if you don't own it) and go to the Object tab in the edit tools window:

If that's the case, and it doesn't disappear within a minute, it probably shouldn't exist.

[Dafadilia Wayfarer]

18 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

If you have any kind of "stuff" that gets automatically rezzed when you are in the area, and cleans itself up after you leave, that is not a problem.

But if you have an object that rezzes temporary objects at regular intervals (temporary objects are cleaned up after about a minute) to get yourself "free" LI, that's not allowed.

 

To find out if an object is temporary, you can select it in Edit mode (even if you don't own it) and go to the Object tab in the edit tools window:

If that's the case, and it doesn't disappear within a minute, it probably shouldn't exist.

Thank you! That makes sense. I've never heard of this so wanted to be sure since I do like to make sure I'm following the rules.

[Fay Starlight]

21 hours ago, karynmaria said:

I just love the fireflies you made,  I use them all the time.

I want some!?

 

[anthonytorino]

Not al ltemp rez are free rez items.

For the Bellisseria Horse Farm, the ones the community can  rez as temps, so they will disappear if not used or if dismounted anywhere. However once rezzed even as a temp it will count against the parcel until lit disappears. But disappears after 1 minute. 

 

it's set that way so horses disappear and clean up the parcel. But once mounted they can be ridden off parcel across all the sims, until you dismount.

Edited December 4, 2020 by anthonytorino