Overlapping Prims

[Raven Huntsman]

Hello, I'm in the process of putting together an environment within SL. I'd like to have weather effects like rain present, but my parcel will have interactive areas and purchases where people would need to touch/interact. This makes the use of better looking large mesh prim effects difficult because they block alot of touch and camera interactions, is there any way around this without sacrificing these large mesh effect objects?

[Rolig Loon]

No, there really isn't.  As you have found, some of the most realistic weather effects like rain, snow, blowing leaves, and dust involve swarms of large rotating mech objects.  Those are impressive but they can eat up a lot of L.I. and they interfere with clicking on other things in the area. You just have to place those mesh objects judiciously, avoiding places where they will mess up people's line of sight to clickable targets. Maybe set some of those objects high enough that the rain/snow doesn't reach the ground and people can click under them. Or plan on using particle effects in those areas. I know that they will probably look less realistic, but if you are subtle about it, you should be able to create a harmonious effect overall, and save on L.I. too.

[Chic Aeon]

Also good to note is that most of those weather systems and similar "effects" are very laggy and will likely prevent movement for folks with less hefty machines. They are impressive, but not terribly practical at the moment.  Before I got my new  close to the top of the powerful list computer a year or so ago, I crashed often in some sims that were using these features. And I still had then a more powerful desktop than the majority of SL users.  

 

So something to think about.