Currently each mesh object can have 8 faces. However, if I link 255 together, that is effectively 8 * 255 = 2040 faces in that linkset.

I think there would a lot of benefit if a single object could have a maximum of 2040 faces but be unlinkable or a linkset could be comprised of objects with more than 8 faces as long as the current maximum number of faces per linkset is not exceeded.

This would give us more flexibility in structuring our mesh objects and give us the ability to eliminate workarounds that are inefficient.

If the user tries to link another object into a linkset which would exceed the total number of faces for the entire linkset, then it would fail to link in the same way it fails to link if you try to link more than 255 objects together.

Examples:

* 1 object could have a maximum number of 2040 faces but then could not be linked to another object.

* 5 objects could have 16 faces and another 20 objects could have 4 faces for a total of 160 faces which could all be linked and is equivalent to 20 objects in a linkset each with 8 faces.

One area where this could be a benefit is mesh bodies with alpha cuts. Today they are linksets of about 25 objects so that there are about 200 faces for enough cuts. Each object brings extra overheads as well as the faces. With the scheme I outline here, one object would be able to have 200 faces and so a mesh body would not have to be cut up and linked. It would still be more efficient than a 25 object linkset.

There are many other applications which would benefit from this scheme.

NOTE#1: It may seem open to abuse to allow a single unlinked object to have this many faces but in reality if someone wanted that many faces today, they already could and the 255 object linkset would be far worse than a single object with the same amount of faces.

NOTE#2: Obviously the number of total faces per object wouldn't have to be that high. There would still be a lot of benefit. The point is in adding the flexibility rather than what the actual per object maximum should be.