building problems!

Hi everyone, I'm just wondering if you know, when you are building an object, once you have linked the prims together, is there anyway you can unlink the prims? I was getting into some difficulty with this. Once the prims are linked together is there no going back? Many thanks for your help. Andrew

go to th tool menu up topand scroll down to ulink.

you can also tick edit linked parts in the edit menu, choose a single prim then select unlink

I think it's Shift-Ctrl-L (Unlink).

Press Ctrl+Shift+L, I believe

...but be careful Andrew. This procedure does indeed unlink the ENTIRE structure - all whatever number of prims you have.

If, as I suspect from your post, what you're trying to do is to simply unlink one single prim, keeping all the rest linked, then I fear that there may not be a way. Guess you'll have to link them all up again afterwards.

Taking a different angle at it - if your issue is that you linked something in and it's in the wrong position/orientation/size or even the wrong colour - then there's an easier fix which is to edit, and then to select the "edit linked parts" option. This will allow you to move the offending prim relative to the rest of the build, change its colour, etc.

No, you can't delete it with this procedure, but if it's a simple matter of the prim being in the wrong place - this might help.

Apologies if this has muddied the waters

A correction to the previous post:

To unlink just one or more prims from an object, but not all the prims, check "Edit linked parts" in the edit box, select or multi-select the prim(s) you want to unlink, and use the Tools>Unlink menu option.

you can unlink just one prim from a mass of prims very easily.

highlight the prims and choose 'edit'
click 'edit linked parts'
click the prim you want to unlink
open tools - click 'unlink'

that's it

Too late

Just to further confuse the issue...

The only way the 'edit linked parts'/unlink above will NOT work is if you are trying to unlink the root prim. (Highlighted in yellow, while the rest are blue.)

To get rid of the root, you will have to unlink the set, delete or move the root and relink the set with a different root prim. (The root will always be the last prim chosen, or the root of the last set of linked prims chosen.)

If it's not vital to actually have the prim gone, and you're afraid to tinker too much with the item (ie a no-copy clothing item made by someone else) you can also edit linked parts, shrink the prim and 'bury' it inside the item or your body OR apply a transparent texture to just that prim, making it effectively invisible. (There's a transparent texture in the Library folder of your Inventory.)

Hope that helps.

Never had problems unlinking only the root here, it just picks another root prim for me. But this might be viewer dependant or something.

The tricky part of unlinking the root (or multiple child prims for that matter), is that after unlinking them, the entire object is selected again, so I have to de-select those parts that I do not want to delete.

Yep. Unlinking only the root prim works fine in the normal viewer.

Remember that the Name and Description of the linked set is in the root prim, so if you are deleting the root prim remember to add a name and description afterwards.

Rock

Hi, that's a great help, many thanks for your assistance. Andrew

People - my deepest apologies (and thanks) - I genuinely didn't know about the "edit linked prims" - "unlink" shuffle. Thanks to those who corrected me, and also thanks for teaching me something new. And of course, apologies for misleading information.

Don't worry about it you tried to help and in the proces learned something new.

One thing I noticed, when you manipulate in edit linked parts, sometimes when it is the root that you are trying to manipulate (position/rotation etc) might glitch and some other pieces follow the root.

This is something that happens to me in roughly 5% of all cases.
A bug I suppose?

ohh that is something to keep in mind and could upset a individual that is working on a major build

I am just using the save way and always unlink the object I want to manipulate, root or not. Then link it back to the rest when done.

To be clear: I only do this on moving and rotating, and for the rootprim also on resizing.

Changing texture, content, shape, and other things, never caused me any problems

Weird - I could swear I've tried to unlink a root prim without success. Could've been other SL weirdness going on at the same time, I guess.

Sorry if I gave misleading information.

same here, unlinking root or any other prim works for me (as you said.. it just picked another root)

the one thing you want to watch for, if you are unlinking something someone else made, that is scripted, and/or an attachment... remember which one is the root prim, so when you relink, you add that one to the link set last

(an easy way to do that is select them all, then hold down shift click the root prim to deselect, then click it again to reselect, thus making it the last one selected to the set, then ctrl L to link (or use the menu))

hope that helps (if it was already mentioned, sorry, did not read to the end before posting this reply)


also note... when selecting multiple prims to link together, and you are in an area (say your home) where doing the drag around them to select them all won't be a good thing....

try holding down shift, then click each one you want to link together (this also works for when you want to select specific prims in a linkset to unlink.. hold shift..)

some people use ctrl which puts the rotate lines (not sure what to call them LOL) and they can get in the way... shift just gives the position adjusting arrows which are easier to get around)

If someone knows an alternate way to select individual prims, please do tell us, the more info the better.

I get this a lot when making shoes... so when I have to move or edit the root, I unlink the whole thing, just to avoid causing prims to move around that I did not want moving around