Can you turn ban lines off?

Can you turn banlines off? A tenant of mine has these things coming through his walls even though his walls aren't even at the edge of the parcel, is there an option to hide them or anything is it just going to be an annoyance?

Sounds like the wall has some level of transparency to the texture and SL is having a sorting problem. The only way to "turn it off" would be to use a different texture on the walls, without any transparency.

I don't think the transparency of the wall has anything to do with ban line visibility, does it?
I think it's the distance from the camera to the parcel boundary or something similar to that.

You can get the parcel owner to put you on an access allowed list or redefine the texture used to draw ban lines.

i hate ban lines. i mean, why can't we ban without the hideous visuals?

Actually I recently read here that banlines are treated as a texture with an alpha channel, so that they are subject to the alpha sorting problem just like prims are. If this is the case, then Cristalle is correct.

But if the tenant does not want to change their house, or whatever it is with the alpha channel that's causing the problem, then Suezanne's suggestion is worth pursuing. If the tenant asks nicely and promises not to actually go on the neighbor's property, hopefully the neighbor will add them to their access list.

It's been so long since I've owned any land I don't remember.

What got me about the ban lines back then was how far away you be from them - it used to be so far you couldn't enjoy walking around a small plot without seeing ban lines from over 10 meters away.

It is the sorting problem. One thing that has worked for me is to insert non alpha prims inside the wall, except of course for the doors and windows. Generally walls in ready made houses have a bit of thickness in them where such prims can be inserted. Be sure to check how this looks from several angles so your prims are entirely buried.

You could then cover the window with a solid curtain or blinds. This ruins the view on that side, to be sure, but then again the view was the ban lines.

I've also used this trick when using alpha plants right outside of alpha walls, and I didn't want it to look as if the rose bush was poking into the living room!

You can redefine the texture that displays for ban lines.

I added the following line:

<noentrylines.tga value="2bfd3884-7e27-69b9-ba3a-3e673f680004"/>

to the textures.xml file in C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings (for a normal installation)

and now my ban line texture has been replaced with the water texture.

I suspect that is one really wanted to try using this trick all the time it would be good to use or make a texture the same size as the normal banline texture.

One could use the key for a totally clear texture to make all the normal ban lines vanish, or perhaps create a texture that wouldn't drive you nuts but would still give you a clue about banned parcels, maybe a texture the same size as the normal banline texture but that has only one nearly transparent pixel in it.

sue i tried that a few months ago and was chagrined theat it didn't work, now you are saying it sould?
/me edits and loggs in in desparation.

It's working for me.

SL just crashed, but SL had crashed earlier today.

When you tamper with stuff, from then on, everytime something goes wrong, you wonder if something you did caused the problem.

That's why I would suggest figuring out the size of the normal ban line texture and using a replacement the same size, if you want to try it. That's one less thing you've tampered with by not changing the size of the texture.

A consevative approach to testing it would be to replace the normal one with the one that is for banned unless you buy a pass, noentrypasslines.tga, which has a key of ac8f8627-6a30-8da8-d4bd-958668eea7a0 . That won't look any better but it tests the basic concept with a replacement texture that one would expect to be identical in nature to the normal one.

Another possible way such tampering might cause a crash would be if some magic invisible character was different. This used to happen with the old ini files. The xml files would be more resistent to such things, I would think, but it might be better to copy an existing line and change only the values that you need to change and not mess with the rest of the characters.

yes, yes it does work. ty ty ty, now is there a way to force it to stay on all the time?

i just checked sue, the no enrty tga is 256x256

So far as I'm aware the file shouldn't get changed until you reinstall SL. I don't think SL updates this textures.xml file.

If SL does update it with something that doesn't really matter, then you could start SL from a shortcut to a batch file which copies a saved version of the textures.xml over top of the regular copy of textures.xml before called secondlife.exe. .

Or use a real programming language if the thought of using something as primitive as a batch file is disturbing.

One problem with copying initialization files before starting the program that uses them in a batch file is that the batch file doesn't wait for the copy to complete before starting secondlife.exe. This is bad in theory but in practice the copy of such a tiny file takes so little time it will work anyway even though it is bad form. One could put a pause statement in although that is not very elegant.

I don't think that is necessary though.

ah sorry poor communication on my part there. Erm, "stay on all the time" as oppossed to blinking off when i move away from the barrier. ya that's what i meant although you are uite right on the other persistance in that respect is as easy a keeping the file in a backup dir and
dragging it on if/when you reinstall.

Well he's purchased a privacy screen with a mountain backdrop that seems to have done the trick, so I've reimbursed him.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Ciaran, since it's you, contact me in world and I'll show you my privacy screens which are a one off Ishtara did for me ... I don't think she'd mind if I shared so long as it was share and not sell

Ok Cherry I'll take a shufty later, thanks for the offer. I'm mowing the lawn! Can't put it off any longer.

/me looks out of the window ... I'd hurry up if I were you sweetie ... it looks like it's going to tip it down here so you're getting it next if it does.

Perhaps some open source programmers might enjoy fiddling around with this issue.

My group has a nice waterside mini-mountain on a 4096.
A border with an adjoining plot runs up the side of the hill - and the guy has ban-lines.

OK, he has his reasons, but the red neon lines are visible from 10 to 15 metres in on our side, depending on the viewing angle.
A wall hid them at eye-level but was an eyesore when built up the hillside. A screen would look similarly straight-edged artificial, as the screen texture can not have any alpha for this application.
A line of bushy trees is so-so, but because of the alpha-sort, the lines get through - although to a lesser extent.

What we are going for:
- photograph a line of the bushy tree foliage
- make that into a privacy screen just a bit lower than the topmost height of the trees
- plant the same trees along the border

The artificial 2D rectangular screen hides the lines.
The matching trees should make the whole thing 3D and make the skyline break uneven.

We'll see if it works
There's a compromise between having reasonability of tree-height and having the lines showing above tree height.
Some experimentation with distances and viewing angles is needed.


OR:
Maybe we'll try something with phantom sculpt prims centred right on the boundary. Texturing would have to wonderful as again, no alpha can be used in this application.


Suppressing the banlines for oneself by means of an override of the standard texture or by using a custom client would be a more universal solution. However, visitors would still see the lines, so it's a solution more suited to hermits.



OR ------ ( mind going lateral after the mention of substituting the standard ban line texture in the client install):

How about building a screen using a modified-colour version of the standard ban line (or pass-pay) texture? Use a colour for the lines and text that filters out the red to the best extent possible? The alignment would have to be bang-on, and maybe a hostage to fortune if the precise positioning of the lines and text is client-dependent.
But then, I suppose the alpha-sort bug would hit that one on the head. *sigh*

Sling? Ditto ... have something relatively useful for you maybe (no gaps in the trees) but maybe too square at the edges depending on your requirement.

This being because Ishtara rocks XX

If Ishtara made it, just send him to Ishtara. How many folks are you going to share her goody with?

Ishtara doesn't have the original files any more sweetheart, and I am doing this with her permission (and not passing on with perms).

*EDIT* to save being flamed - my intention is to create something and deed it to group without any perms at all so I am not 'sharing' it with anyone. The original file made came from something I inspired her with and so the story goes ...

Just trying to help out the community. Yanno ... like we all want to do, right?

People are fairly ignorant about banlines too! We have a neighbor who has the only banlines in 4 sims. The ground level is empty and they have a skyhouse that has no security at all. In fact, because of the banlines you have to fly up to get over them and practically go right through the sky house.lol. And they left the skyhouse so that anyone can edit it!

I think people resort to banlines because it seems like a way to stay safe and private but then don't realize the limitations.

Re: Backdrop, I'm glad that people are concerned about the rights of artists. Its a constant concern and when I asked LL to do a blog on it, they suggested I start a wiki. There are cases where content, like with Cherry, is actually available and others where someone's work has become a freebie incorrectly. I'm not sure what the answer is since I haven't looked at al the forum info yet or checked the wiki for current content but I feel we need to have some clarity about this so that content offered in a good way is clearly understood.

So hug and make up Cherry and Cristalle, you are both right.

Sorry, Cherry. It wasn't clear before.