Mesh and PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ

[Innula Zenovka]

Does PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ work for mesh items?   I'm trying to make something to temp-attach demo items for a customer, and it rather seems that setting PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ to TRUE, either by script or manually, is having no effect -- the object still counts against the parcel prim limit as much as it does when it's not temp-rez, though it does die after about minute.

Is this expected behaviour?   

The Mesh Prim Equivalence Test article in the wiki confuses me, since it says "Mesh objects count against the Sim prim limit as only one prim. bug https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-269, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-86" but the test it outlines (link two cubes and set them to Convex Hull) would give you an object of one LI anyway, so I'm not sure what it decribes.

If it is expected behaviour, it seems a bit silly that that I can take advantage of temp-rez to rez demo hairs made of prims and sculpties with an LI of 200 without it counting against the parcel's available LI, but if I rez a temp-rez dress with an LI of 25, it does!

Anyway, since I can't access the two jira articles to which the Wiki links, I thought I would ask here before opening a jira about it.

 

ETA -- I am not trying to cheat by creating a temp-rezzer that keeps on rezzing stuff, to simulate a permanent object.  I simply want to use experience tools to rez demo items that immediately temp-attach to the customer, but if they count against parcel LI limits for the fraction of a second they're rezzed but unattached, that limits what I can do.

[Rolig Loon]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

Does PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ work for mesh items?   I'm trying to make something to temp-attach demo items for a customer, and it rather seems that setting PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ to TRUE, either by script or manually, is having no effect -- the object still counts against the parcel prim limit as much as it does when it's not temp-rez, though it does die after about minute.

Is this expected behaviour?   

 [ .... ]

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Well, it's not what I would expect.  I would have expected a temp-rez mesh object to be subject to the same the parcel or region L.I. limit rules as a prim object outside the mesh accounting system.  That is, the limit on the number of temp-rez objects is = RegionPrimLimit - NumberOfPrimsInRegion + Minimum(0.5*RegionPrimLimit, 1000) . ( Incidentally, there is a misstatement in the Knowledge Base article that describes how to create a temporary object. It says, "Note: Temporary objects don't count toward your land object or prim limits," which is not true or is at least misleading. )

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[ .... ]

The

Mesh Prim Equivalence Test

article in the wiki confuses me, since it says

"Mesh objects count against the Sim prim limit as only one prim. bug

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-269

,

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-86

" but the test it outlines (link two cubes and set them to Convex Hull) would give you an object of one LI anyway, so I'm not sure what it decribes. [ .... ]

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In fact, as I read that test, that's exactly what it says.  Whether you start with a mesh object and make it temp-rez or start with a pair of linked cubes and set them to Convex Hull, they should both count against the parcel and region L.I. limits the same way.  (There's what appears to be a typo in the second half of the test.  Where it says, "Verify Temporary Mesh objects do count against the sim prim limit.", I am fairly sure from context that it means, "Verify these linked set objects do count against the sim prim limit.")

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Sorry, maybe I should have made myself clearer, but I don't understand your reply, Rolig.

When I was testing earlier today, I made a simple object with an LI of 5 by rezzing 5 cubes and linking them together.   I picked it up, and the the available LI on the parcel, as reported in the About Land window, went up by 5.   I rezzed it from my inventory, and the available LI went down by 5.

Then I set it to temp on rez, and picked it up.   Rezzed it, and this time -- as I expected -- the available LI in the About Land window didn't go down.   It stayed the same as it was, as if I hadn't rezzed anything.   The object vanished after about a minute, again with no effect on the LI as reported by the About Land window (which I was opening and closing at appropriate times, to refresh it).

I then repeated the procedure with an old mesh object I'd made, with an LI of 6.   This time, setting the object to Temp Rez didn't mitigate the object's LI -- that is, whether or not I set it to temp on rez, the available LI on the parcel went down by 6 when I rezzed it and up by six when I took it back into my inventory, or deleted it, or when the garbage collector deleted it.

A friend of mine tested this on her parcel, where she had  20 available LI.   She was able to rez (from a rezzer) a prim object with an LI of 30 that had been sent to temp on rez (which I would have expected) but got an error message about the parcel befing full when, after deleting the prim object, she tried to use the rezzer to rez a mesh object with an LI oif 25 that had also been set to temp on rez.

That is, mesh objects and prim objects seem to be behaving differently, in the sense one has an apparent impact on the available LI of the parcel and one doesn't, when set to temp on rez.   Is this expected?  I wasn't expecting it, but that doesn't mean anything.

[Rolig Loon]

Sorry.  I didn't mean to be confusing.,  I was agreeing with you, at least on the point that I would have expected a mesh object that had been set to temp-rez to have the same effect on L.I. of the parcel and region that a prim object set to temp-rez does. I can't see why they should behave in different ways.  In fact, that's what I think that test you quoted is saying -- they should behave the same way.

Where I think I disagree is that they should both count against the total L.I., according to the rules.  Contrary to the note in the Knowledge Base, you can't just rez temp-rez objects (mesh or prim) indefinitely.  They do affect L.I.  The maximum number of temp-rez objects that you can rez is RegionPrimLimit - NumberOfPrimsInRegion + Minimum(0.5*RegionPrimLimit, 1000).  I think the confusion arises because the About Land display is screwed up.  It should show a change in L.I. when you temp-rez something, but it doesn't.  Or maybe it doesn't show it consistently.

[arton Rotaru]

Yes, mesh objects always count their LI against the land even when set temp_on_rez. I remember a mesh meeting during beta, when the Devs started playing with the land impact formula, and the LI shot through the roof, I threw in a "return of the temprezzer" phrase. But they were wiser this time, and disabled that ability with mesh.

We all know that there are good reasons where temp it is utterly useful, but we also know that it would have been abused to death, with the rather high LI counts on certain meshes/sizes.

[Qie Niangao]

(This is all just great. Yet another barrier to any widespread success of Experiences in SL.)

To further document the behaviour here, from some cursory testing I just did, where the "not counting as temp" applies and where it doesn't:

• Applies to all parts of a hybrid mesh-and-prim object (i.e., including the non-mesh parts) whether linked as root or otherwise.
• Does not apply to all-prim objects forced to mesh accounting, as with alpha textures in Alpha masking or Emissive mask mode, or with physics shape types None or Convex Hull.
• Does prevent land impact from being scored to PARCEL_COUNT_TEMP in llGetParcelPrimCount(). This is obviously incorrect, but the alternative would have been even more incorrect. ("Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive.")

I guess the practical solution here is to convert all temp-attached mesh to as many linked prims and sculpties as necessary, LI be damned since it can all be temp-rezzed to zero as long as that ol' evil Mesh is forsworn.

[Innula Zenovka]

BUG-9967:  Give temp-on-rez mesh objects an LI of 0, the same as temp-on-rez prim and sculpted objects

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Since there are already limits in place for the amount of temp-rezzable items... I fail to see where Mesh could be any more damaging than Prim. I've noticed that Mesh didn't get counted as temp when it got first introduced but I shrugged it off as a bug.

I'd still say it's a bug, for the exact reason Innula described. I mean, if necessary just introduce a throttle for the LI rezzable in a given amount of time.

[Robert Wytchwood]

I'm in aggreance with Innula about having mesh included into the temp rez feature.  Mesh shouldn't be anything less or different from prims and sculpts when it comes to temp rez.  One of the reasons I like to see it included is so I can make mesh monster spawners for in world games in SL.

Why should temporary game monsters use Li, especially when you have multiple players who will kill off something in a few seconds to a minute.  If a sim's Li is low due to this, then the next horde of monsters that are suppose to be spawned in the game will not be spawned but automatically returned.  It doesn't make logical sense and will prevent the potential use for in world game creators who want to bring some interactive fun in SL with mesh. 

[Dora Gustafson]

A server can only handle so and so much and the temporary prims are loads if paid for or not.
Meaning a multiple vertex monster will take up the same server time if the LI is not counted against your prim allowance and therefore create the same amount of lag

Knowing that all that can be abused will be abused, it looks like a sensible decision to me

[Innula Zenovka]

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Dora Gustafson wrote:

A server can only handle so and so much and the temporary prims are loads if paid for or not.

Meaning a multiple vertex monster will take up the same server time if the LI is not counted against your prim allowance and therefore create the same amount of lag

Knowing that all that can be abused will be abused, it looks like a sensible decision to me

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Yes, but there's different ways of dealing with abuse, and when something has perfectly legitimate use cases, it becomes a question of balance.  LL quite sensibly don't ban mesh attachments, or mesh attachments over a certain level of complexity, simply because they can be -- and are -- used to make GPU crashers.  

To my mind, this is a case of borking a perfectly useful feature simply because it can be abused -- like llTeleportAgent was for a long time.   

Experience tools offer many exciting possibilties, including the ability to temp-attach items to avatars without bugging them with permissions dialogs or having to give them the items to wear from inventory.   This restriction, though, greatly limits the circumstances in which this can be done with complex mesh items. 

I'd be quite content to see  LI=0 applied only to temp-rez mesh items that are rezzed by a script that's set to an experience, which would give LL a very easy way of dealing with cases of abuse.

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, if necessary, limiting this to Experience-based stuff is a practical approach that should defeat any possible objections, but to be honest, that should never need to be considered.

It's not that temp-rezzed items have no limits. They are merely limited by a different ceiling from the non-temp Land Impact limits. Maybe that ceiling was inappropriate all along, but that train has long since left the station.

The question, rather, is whether Mesh objects should be treated differently -- basically, a whole separate, third class of stuff that's kinda temp-rezzed and kinda not, depending who's doing the counting and when. That's what we have now, and that penalizes Mesh objects enough that they're not practical for a range of uses, many but not all Experience-related. The unintended consequence of the current accounting, then, is to dump Mesh objects and replace them with a host of linked Sculpties that can be temp-rezzed without the especially-restrictive Mesh rules.

But why is it better for SL to have a dozen or so sculpties linked together than one mesh object? We are supposed to believe that mesh is more efficient, right? Why is it good policy to discourage Mesh use in this way?

Now, I can make up a story about that. Maybe the complexity of a freshly-rezzed Mesh must be calculated on the spot, and maybe that's really expensive compared to non-Mesh objects (which nonetheless may have mesh-based physics types, so their LI isn't as simple as link-count, either). I'm just making this up, though, so no point in taking it too far.