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

Able Whitman able.whitman at gmail.com
Mon May 12 14:36:12 PDT 2008


I've posted an updated version of my patch on JIRA. It's a small fix to
lltoolplacer.cpp which will clamp the scale values in the new stored
settings against MIN_OBJECT_SCALE and MAX_OBJECT_SCALE before sending the
ObjectAdd packet. This way invalid (negative, too small, too large) values
won't be passed along in the ObjectAdd request.

The practical effect is small, since these values are still validated by the
sim, but it's an extra precautionary measure.

Cheers,
--Able


On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Able Whitman <able.whitman at gmail.com>
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).
> 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, 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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