Why are the next prims going to be 64x64x64 meters?

[Jo Yardley]

Ok so they are going let us use bigger prims, in stead of 10x10x10 we will now be allowed to make 64x64x64 meter prims, or there abouts.

Hurrah, fantastic, let's get rif of all those old megaprims... well almost all of them...

Why 64?

Why not 100?

Why not 1000?

[Honey Puddles]

It was a compromise.

There was a lot of back and forth over this single issue by the Mesh beta testers. Powers within SL wanted to keep it 10m forever. Others wanted sim-sized prims (256) or larger. What we got instead, was a prim large enough to tile a whole sim, with only 16 prims. But a prim that can only overhang 32m into a neighboring sim (unless linked to another prim but that's besides the point).

Why 64 and not 60 or 65? Because the minimum parcel "block" is 4m x 4m. So having a maximum dimension that was a "power of 2" (4, 8 16, 32, 64, 128, 256) was a good and logical thing.. something that people have been complaining about at least since 2006 when I joined SL. (why limit us to 10 and not 8 or 12 or 16 when our land is always in multiples of 4?).

Now we get 64. And 64 is the minimum draw distance. And 64 is a good and responsible size. Not so large that you can rez it and not be able to see it cause your draw distance is too low. Not so large that a griefer or a noob can disrupt a whole sim just by rezzing one. and still large enough to create really beautiful sky domes, and very useable platforms, and really dramatically reduce the number of prims used in roads, sidewalks, and buildings.

64m is really just about perfect.

And presumably, old megaprims >64 will continue to work.

[Freecilla Kuhn]

It has some thing to do with computers being set up to read bits in those numbers faster 16, 32, 64, 128, 512, 1024, the same reason they recommend pictures being set at those numbers as well for upload. Also prims larger than 64x64 take longer to load but if we need bigger thank goodness we still have the megas. I have a race track in a 100x100x100 sphere and anything smaller just wouldn't cut it... I guess we can't say it is 100 meters squared if it is a sphere right?

[Void Singer]

draw distance and an even division of region size seem to be the main reasons that particular number was chosen, at least from the few conversations people have had with LL about it that I've managed to read.

as for why bigger at all? to support some of the purchasable content models that already exist (and the fact that we've been screaming at LL for years to give us better now that they know the engine can handle it)

[Dogboat Taurog]

---

Jo Yardley wrote:

Ok so they are going let us use bigger prims, in stead of 10x10x10 we will now be allowed to make 64x64x64 meter prims, or there abouts.

Hurrah, fantastic, let's get rif of all those old megaprims... well almost all of them...

Why 64?

Why not 100?

Why not 1000?

---

it will be great when LL finally implement this, it will legitimise megas, in the past i have walked away from land renters because of this silly myth.

[Void Singer]

a few of those myths aren't so mythical, but they are mostly based on the original megas which had such limited ranges that they were forced to be chopped up in unusual ways that could have some annoying side effects if people didn't pay attention; for instance cuts that faced traffic areas causing physics problems under the previous havoc version.

most of those problems were removed when the wider selection of megas became available, and almost eliminated entirely when the new physics engine went online. Unfortunately some people are resistant to changing their views, and hold onto information that is no longer valid.

[Dogboat Taurog]

---

Void Singer wrote:

a few of those myths aren't so mythical, but they are mostly based on the original megas which had such limited ranges that they were forced to be chopped up in unusual ways that could have some annoying side effects if people didn't pay attention; for instance cuts that faced traffic areas causing physics problems under the previous havoc version.

most of those problems were removed when the wider selection of megas became available, and almost eliminated entirely when the new physics engine went online. Unfortunately some people are resistant to changing their views, and hold onto information that is no longer valid.

---

myths in other words. i was using gene replacements megas over 4 years ago

badly used standard prims can cause as many problems.

[Void Singer]

but not at the same scale. my point was some of those "myths" were fairly accurate at one point... but peoples knowledge of them didn't keep up with the changes that made them less applicable. They're still true to some extent, A massively sliced mega can still caused physics issues... it's just that now, we don't need to chop megas up like that because there are more various sizes, and the physics engine behaves better with them even when they are sliced a bit.

[Susie Chaffe]

I still remember when that "window of opportunity" appeared and many us went rushing around making as many megas as we could.

When the window closed then came the frustration.  Why on earth didn't I make that 43.7x16.2x0.02 prim - :matte-motes-tongue:

[Void Singer]

if I had a nickel for every size I WISH I had....

[Honey Puddles]

I can't beleive I didn't make a whole run of 20 x 32 x ___ prims.

The default size of a 512 parcel.

[Opensource Obscure]

---

Jo Yardley wrote:

Ok so they are going let us use bigger prims, in stead of 10x10x10 we will now be allowed to make 64x64x64 meter prims, or there abouts.

Hurrah, fantastic, let's get rif of all those old megaprims... well almost all of them...

Why 64?

Why not 100?

Why not 1000?

---

Why not 29, or 18?

:matte-motes-delicious:

I think it has to do with linkability rules and distances.

But if you're seriously interested in knowing the answer I think you should ask Andrew Linden, during one of his 2 weekly inworld meetings.