[sldev] Optimus Prim vs. Megatrim: "The Big Prim Problem"
Argent Stonecutter
secret.argent at gmail.com
Wed Oct 17 10:59:44 PDT 2007
On 17-Oct-2007, at 12:41, Dzonatas wrote:
> Argent Stonecutter wrote:
>> The thing is, as far as the physics engine is concerned, a linkset
>> 40m across is just as hard to deal with as a single prim 40m
>> across. A linkset with a hollow is just as bad as a hollow prim.
>> If the prims are unlinked and magic, what happens if some of them
>> are deleted? It seems a lot of complexity that will violate the
>> principle of least astonishment.
> There is a parallelization process that could happen within a sim.
> The single 40m prim offers no parallelization ability by default by
> itself. A prim made of smaller prims may be broken up and processed
> by two (or more) separate render paths on the physics side. With
> both version available, one optimized megaprim could travel across
> a sim boundary and be handled physically by both.
Just thinking of the obvious ways this could break makes me want to
run screaming.
>> I don't see how exposing the complexity to the end user provides
>> any benefit. As something that the server could to to simplify the
>> calculations for concave objects under the hood, sure... but the
>> client doesn't care, it only wants the graphically simplest form.
> It does not need to be exposed. The current state of the viewer
> would only have such exposure just to give the ability. Beyond
> that, the viewer can include (in the future) specialized megaprim
> builders (as sort-of suggested in Aimee's blog -- please review her
> blog again).
And I'm saying it shouldn't be exposed outside the sim itself. There
is no reason this kind of optimization - breaking a single prim or
linkset (they're the same thing as far as the the physics engine is
concerned, as far as I can tell) into multiple objects for the
physics engine - should require even transmitting the fact that this
optimization has taken place to the viewer, or to other sims.
More information about the SLDev
mailing list