What are prims in Second Life?

Prims, or primatives as they are referred to when you right click on an object and look at its properties, are the hot commodity in Second Life. A single shape is one prim and can be linked with other objects to make up many prims. A chair, for example, might take up 11 prim. If your First Land (512m of space that comes without any additional land tier fees) only has 117 prim allowed, you could see that the rezzing 10 chairs on your land would exhaust almost all your prim allotment for your First Land.

Buying Tip: So when buying objects always check the prim count first. It is possible the item you are about to buy that looks and seems so cool might be 300 or more prim. There are games which are more than that which means they won’t even rez on your First Land because they exceed your prim allotment.

Builder Tip: Try to keep prim count low. This will make your items more attractive to the most amount of residents and thus means you can sell them for more $L. You might consider making multiple versions: a lower prim count version which perhaps isn’t as detailed and pretty and a higher prim count one with more detail.