Difference between revisions of "Primitive"

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In Second Life, virtual physical objects such as cars, houses, jewelry, and even less obvious things like hair are made out of one or more primitive parts called ''prims''.  Objects made from prims are usually created in-world using the built in object editing tool.  This tool is used for all sorts of 3D modeling in Second Life, playing the same role  as 3D Max, Maya, or Blender, but customized for the Second Life way of doing things.
In Second Life, virtual physical objects such as cars, houses, jewelry, and even less obvious things like hair are made out of one or more primitive parts called ''prims''.  Objects made from prims are usually created in-world using the built in object editing tool.  This tool is used for all sorts of 3D modeling in Second Life, playing the same role  as 3D Max, Maya, or Blender, but customized for the Second Life way of doing things.


Each prim is represented by a set of parameters, including position, scale, rotation, shape, cut, hollow, etc. Prims can be linked together into link sets. They can also be attached to avatars, but this process is separate from linking. ''Primitives are implemented in LLPrimitive, with vertex generation performed in LLVolume and rendering in LLVOVolume.''


Prims can be modified in various ways, such as size, twists, shearing, and cutting.  Also, images ([[textures]]) can be applied to each surface of a prim to change its appearance.
Prims can be modified in various ways, such as size, twists, shearing, and cutting.  Also, images ([[textures]]) can be applied to each surface of a prim to change its appearance.

Revision as of 12:06, 8 August 2008

A Primitive or prim is a single part object. Multi-part objects will have multiple primitive parts ("prims").

In Second Life, virtual physical objects such as cars, houses, jewelry, and even less obvious things like hair are made out of one or more primitive parts called prims. Objects made from prims are usually created in-world using the built in object editing tool. This tool is used for all sorts of 3D modeling in Second Life, playing the same role as 3D Max, Maya, or Blender, but customized for the Second Life way of doing things.

Each prim is represented by a set of parameters, including position, scale, rotation, shape, cut, hollow, etc. Prims can be linked together into link sets. They can also be attached to avatars, but this process is separate from linking. Primitives are implemented in LLPrimitive, with vertex generation performed in LLVolume and rendering in LLVOVolume.

Prims can be modified in various ways, such as size, twists, shearing, and cutting. Also, images (textures) can be applied to each surface of a prim to change its appearance. There are eight primitive types:

  1. box: all kinds of rectangular shapes
  2. cylinder: round tables, floors, long pipes
  3. prism: a box with one very small face
  4. sphere: can be used for ellipsoids of all shapes
  5. torus: most complex, can be modified in many exotic ways
  6. tube: another form of hollow cylinder
  7. ring: another variant of torus
  8. sculpted: new as of 2007, used for highly variable organic shapes

Box, cylinder, prism and sphere can be made flexible. Flexible prims can not be physical and are automatically phantom.

There are seven primitive material types:

  1. stone
  2. metal
  3. glass
  4. wood
  5. flesh
  6. plastic
  7. rubber

The color, texture, bumpiness, shininess, and transparency of prims can also be adjusted.

See also