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

[Sylvio Deutsch]

Oh no, sad news... I´m one of the very happy with the mega prims hability...


{}Overtake


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Able Whitman 
  To: sldev at lists.secondlife.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 12:38 AM
  Subject: [sldev] Re: A patch to allow creation of megaprims from within theviewer


  Unfortunately, Andrew Linden confirmed today in his Havok4 office hours that the ability to create megaprims was unintentional and that the fix to disable it "should go out in the next server update" (see: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Andrew_Linden/Office_Hours/2008_05_10).

  I'm disappointed. I've gotten nothing but positive feedback about the ability to create large prims and their usefulness in streamlining builds and reducing prim counts. Andrew mentions that "Qarl Linden is working on the true beginning of 'Megaprim Liberation' -- being able to return objects that overlap onto your land." I'm hopeful that we'll be able to see this liberation sooner rather than later.

  For people who are using my patch against other grids that already support large prims, I'll keep fixing bugs that are found and posting updates on my site (ablewhitman.org) instead of in JIRA.

  Cheers,
  --Able


  On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:36 PM, Able Whitman <able.whitman at gmail.com> wrote:

    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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