The 500 Prim Boots

Columbia Journalism Review covers SL footwear fashions

Possibly seeking to claim a part of the lucrative Second Life fashion news scene, the July/August issue of the Columbia Journalism Review includes in-depth coverage of virtual footwear - featuring the Herald's own Walker Spaight, Urizenus Sklar and several other virtual world journalists. Given the CJR’s impending fashion-forward format change, it is unsurprising that Herald Editrix Pixeleen Mistral’s 500 prim boots figure prominently in Stephen Totilo’s piece “Burning the Virtual Shoe Leather”.

these boots were made for lagging

Unfortunately, Ms. Mistral's lag-tastic boots are never actually shown in the CJR story - possibly to keep the web site from slowing to a crawl or even crashing. Because we know how important fairly unbalanced coverage is to our readers, at the Herald we have invested in a special “class 5” server that can stand up to 500 prim boots. Ms. Mistral took a few minutes from controlling the voices at the Herald to model her boots - so we are able to bring you exclusive pictures of the boots that lagged a thousand sims.

When asked about the CJR move to virtual fashion coverage, Ms. Mistral said, “I think they are taking the right approach here by gradually introducing the new format. It’s going to be tough on some of their readers, but changing the rules of the game is best done by sending subtle signals like this, then suddenly changing everything while claiming that was what everyone wanted all along. Look at how well that works for the Lindens - SL is full of happy customers”.

each buckle and stud is a separate prim

Comments

[shockwave yareach]

Good heavens. There is no rational reason a set of boots needs to be 500 prims. Have you people never heard of textures? Make a JPG of what each buckle/clasp/clip/dongle looks like and put it on a single prim just slightly larger than the diameter of the boot. Not perfect, but 1 prim instead of 100. Do you realize that my entire volcanic lair, with all the furniture, the elevator and hidden lab, use fewer prims than those shoes do?

Part of being a good designer is working within the limitations of your medium. Painters have to suffice with lack of motion and we have to suffice with finite computing power that sets an upperlimit on how many prims we can display.

You know that the servers are already talking amongst themselves about you and your shoes. They whisper in the dead of night about the cruel monster which sucks their lifeforce out with every step. It is a horror story that they tell the new servers when they misbehave. Yes, yes the computers at LL have already coined a name for you. In hushed voices, they call you... DAS BOOT.

[Justice Palen]

It was my understanding that clothing is not handled by the SIM servers, but only downloaded from the asset servers and rendered by the clients, so this will only serve to slow down people who are within drawing range of them - not the SIM servers themselves. Or have I missed something fundamental?

[shockwave yareach]

Every prim in the sim is handled by that sim's processor. Clothing, Avatars and jewelry are not counted against the prim limit of the parcel you are entering - a club with 1000 prim limit for building could have 20 people walking around with 100prim necklaces as an example. But the prims are still controlled by the simulator, worn or not. So if you wear 1000 prims you are forcing the simulator to compute positions, speeds, rotations and forces for 1000 prims. This forces the sim to start dilating time so it can handle everything and response time gets long. In other words, laggy.

[Loloz Oh]

Wow, a crappy pair of poorly designed boots. Great story.

[Nina A]

Why do they look as if they are made from 6 prims?

[Andrew Replacement]

"So if you wear 1000 prims you are forcing the simulator to compute positions, speeds, rotations and forces for 1000 prims."

No, I don't think that's right. All attachments are non-physical and phantom, and get rendered solely on the client. To the simulator, a high-prim avatar is a collision box with a few asset UUIDs for its attachments, and it doesn't know or care how complex those assets are. You'll only lag clients with those boots (unless they're scripted, shudder).

[Shuggafut Shickenhead]

Hell gurl, I gots me a pair of 600 prim boots! Whatchoo think about dat, Reyneesha? Huh? You ain' got nuttin' to say 'bout dat doo ya? No, I thot not.

[Wendell Holmer]

I think the point of 500 prim boots is the sheer, promiscuous, in-your-face grandiosity of the things. Why build the pyramids when a hole in the ground serves the same purpose?

And I think the point of the story is to direct us to the Columbia Journalism Review article, which is a fine history of journalism in SL. It raises a question. Is it enough to report on SL as a world in itself, without going behind the textures and the fake names? Or is it only valid to report on facts you can check in the real world?

[Nacon]

Time for sculpty....

Gladly to say, Pixeleen is a pixel whore.

In fact... no matter how many prims on a avatar, doesn't lag the server worst than your own client.
And believe me, I tried to see what 7000+ prims attachment look like, the bonus, they all were Torus. Zero point five FPS!

...btw, did Tenshi get fired from fashion department? Nice!

[Myrrh Massiel]

...pixie's boots are the next-best-thing to being barefoot!..

[Tooter Claxton]

What? No bling? Tsss.

[Tanits]

=O i want a pair!