[sldev] A patch to allow creation of megaprims from within the viewer

SignpostMarv Martin me at signpostmarv.name
Sun May 11 19:40:28 PDT 2008


A version of the viewer that's available for download with this patch
included would be very useful for the builders at SL's 5th Birthday- not
only for infrastructure, but I would imagine that exhibitors would
appreciate the arbitrary creation of megaprims. The megaprim packs
available on SL Exchange are handy, but have you seen how long it takes
for the inventory server to unpack them all ?

I've experimented with using sculptie megaprims for long stretches of
road- being able to create megaprims of arbitrary size would make it
easier to work with of course.

~ Marv.


Able Whitman wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> This is the second small feature I've been working on lately. 
> Apparently at some time in the recent past, an LL server update 
> re-enabled the ability to create prims with dimensions larger than 10m 
> on a side. There are already lots of new megaprims available, mostly 
> for free (like here on SLExchange: 
> http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=685589 
> <http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=685589>). 
> I'm pretty sure most of these prims have been created using 
> LibSL-derived tools.
>
> I don't know if this new-again ability is intentional or not, although 
> I certainly hope it is because megaprims are incredibly useful. Either 
> way, I wanted to be able to create large prims directly in the viewer. 
> My biggest reason for wanting this ability is so that any builds I 
> produce using these prims will then list me as the creator, instead of 
> the creator of the prims that come from megaprim collections. Being 
> able to create them myself also gives me the flexibility to have large 
> prims in whatever size I need, regardless of whether someone thought 
> to create one in advance or not.
>
> For the moment, I haven't posted this patch in JIRA, for a few reasons.
> 1. As above, I'm not sure if the ability to create these large prims 
> is intentional or not
> 2. The patch, as it stands, isn't as good or as polished as I'd like 
> for a JIRA submission
> 3. The creation and handling of large prims in the viewer is quirky
> 4. The use of megaprims always seems to be somewhat controversial
>
> With regards to "quirky", these large prims are subject to a couple of 
> constraints:
> a. Prims with dimensions greater than 10m can only be *created*, they 
> cannot be resized again later
> b. Attempts to resize any dimension of a large prim results in all 
> dimensions of the prim being re-clamped to a 10m maximum
>
> With regards to controversy over the use of megaprims, I certainly 
> understand that they can be used as a greifing tool (and I myself have 
> been on the grief-receiving end of this). However, I feel that the 
> incredible usefulness of such large prims greatly overweighs the 
> detriments. Some people seem to disagree vehemently, though, so I 
> thought a discussion here might be fruitful.
>
> That said, the patch itself is actually fairly straightforward. Part 
> of the patch simply enables the Build tools to display and edit scale 
> values larger than 10.0.
>
> Since large prims can only be oversized on creation, I've replaced the 
> viewer's hard-coded new prim size of <0.5, 0.5, 0.5> with configurable 
> settings. Then I've exposed these settings on the Create tool panel of 
> the Build tools floater.
>
> Put together, these changes make it pretty simple to create prims of 
> whatever dimensions you'd like.
>
> I've attached my patch (which is against 1.19.1.4 <http://1.19.1.4>, 
> the most recent official release viewer), as well as a screenshot 
> demonstrating the patch in action.
>
> Please let me know if you have any questions, thoughts, or concerns.
>
> Cheers,
> --Able
>
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