Prim Magic - Getting More
Most of us know by now that prims currently refer to the separate parts of an object and land impact is the cost we have to tally up and stay under in our rentals, homesteads and full sims. But for us old folks that grew up with prims being the ONLY thing that counted, it is difficult to get out of that mindset. We "say" land impact while we are often still thinking "prims". Hopefully my experiment of the morning will help things become a bit more clear. Here's the story.
This Saturday Sale was a good one and I picked up three very nice pieces of furniture. None of it was low prim by any means, but I figured it could be used in the future when my prim count (land impact) wasn't limited to 50. Then I went to my cabin and counted the cost of the fireplace area. It was 8. The detailed crate Las Lunas Fireplace was only 6 li. Eyebrows raised; project began.
I took up the desk which I never really felt went well and moved the kitchen table over to that area. I added the Kalopsia - Pia's Chair (also from the Saturday Sale) and went looking for a new plant. I found Ariskea [Sunrise] Succulent Ceramic hangers (4 li).
The fireplace was 6 li and the plant 4 li; linked together they were only 7 li. Thus saving 3 li for other things. How DOES that (only sometimes now -- don't get too excited) work?
Here is the technical explanation in simplistic terms. If you only want the bottom line, look at the screenshots and read the warnings at the end.
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If you right click on a mesh item and open the build menu, you will see underlined text that says "more info". Click that link, and you will learn about that object as well as if and when it can be linked to another to save on land impact.
If we look at the fireplace we can see that there are three parts that make up the land impact cost of the item.
The download cost refers to the complexity of the item (triangles, lod settings, size of object).
The physics refers to the model part that defines what people will bump into or walk through.
The server part of the triad usually refers to the number of pieces in an item (let's not get too complicated).
The important thing to remember is that these three part of a model determine their land impact cost with the HIGHEST number the one that is used. So looking at the fireplace here (made up of many parts) we can see that while the number for download is low, the physics and server costs are high.
That means ---- if we can find an item that has high download costs but low physics and server costs -- we can link them together to make one (yes, a more complex for sure) piece.
And that is what I did. I loved the hanging pots but there was no way I could afford 4 li on a 50 li budget. But linking them only added 1 li to the combined object -- and that worked perfectly.
Now many of you have likely figured out that you can link two mesh painting and in many cases you will save some land impact. This is just a more complex version of that. What you need to remember -- and I greatly encourage you to experiment until you feel you understand the process -- is that it is all about the math. You need to find a balance between objects.
Some creators use lots of pieces to make a single object. The chair is a good example of that.
Because it was made in many pieces the server cost is very high. In THIS case the download is low. One could link a plant (as an example) to this chair and it will be "free" -- land impact wise anyway; a more complex plant made up of two meshes would add 1 li.
If you are linking items that are a single mesh rather than ones made up of many pieces it is easy to unlink or move parts around using "edit linked" in the build menu. But it gets messy with complex items like these. So keep that in mind.
Now I am going to go searching for just the right plant!
Completed room furnished with only 16 land impact.
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