Vanishing Prims

Maybe you guys can figure this out. I'm in the middle of a very lare build, consisting almost entirely of sculpted prims. My problem is that now when i get my camera in close to look at what I have done, or to align new pieces, I lose large chuck of my build. The prims are still there, I just can't see them. Can anyone tell me if this is an SL issue, or a hardware issue. I had some trouble getting my graphics settings to work a while back, but everything has been fine until now. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nonahmi

Is this just a draw distance issue? I mean, are the parts that disappear the ones that are furthest away? If so, simply up your draw distance. Be aware, though, that smaller objects will be culled over distance, and there's not really any reliable way to stop that. About the best you can do is park your avatar dead center in the build, and then move the camera around, while keeping the avatar itself still. Disabling camera constraints and unlimiting select distance will help immensely with this.


If it's not far objects, but near objects that are disappearing, then there's a more significant problem. What viewer are you using? I had this happen with one of the recent RC builds. Get close to a sculpty, and it disappears. It was really annoying.

Best I can figure, the renderer was taking its cues off the camera's proximity to the sculpty's bounding box, rather than to its mesh shape. Move the camera inside the bounding box, and the mesh disappears, just as it would if the camera were inside the mesh itself. I didn't test thoroughly enough to verify that, so it's just a guess, but it seems to make sense.

In any case, I've never seen it happen in the main viewer, and it seemed to go away with the next RC version. I haven't used the latest RC, though, so maybe it's back. If you're using an RC, make sure to report the bug, and then start using the main viewer. If it's happening for you in the main viewer, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe try updating/reinstalling your drivers. Without knowing the actual cause of the problem, it's hard to make a solid recommendation for how to solve it.

Yeah, it's in this version of the RC.

It only happens when I get in very close with the camera. It makes no difference where my AV is located. I am using the RC, mostly because I don't like the main viewer, I know they should be the same, but they're not for some reason. I will try switching to see if it makes a difference.

Thanks

I see this bug *all the time* with the current released viewer. Makes me crazy

The fix, is to select the objects in some fashion, and then poof, they re-appear. A shift drag after selecting something will usually do the trick.

For those of us that like to go on hunts, it's a royal pain

i had a issue but a little different.. been working on a build for weeks didnt change the size of it but i went to link it and 2 pieces were gone.. i looked in my lost and found and there they were. i was at a sandbox and i was working for a while im thinking maybe it was starting to auto delete my stuff but i didnt think it would do that if u were working on it.. hehe then i thought about it and how does it know u are working on it . so i think that is what was happeneing. not sure.

Jack i have learned to link and un link as i go at the sand box..... And the LOD on the prims are set to reduce lagg the they vanish for me to...

but remember each prim has LOD 1 - Lod 2 lod-3 it is the level of distance at which you see the prim ....

thanx benz i really dont know what a lod is but i will always keep a copy or keep it linked from now on.. its hard though . sometimes u have to unlink to do stuff. i am building a replica of my rl house as a project. and i dont care how many prims i use as long as this house when finished looks exactly like my rl house. including furniture however i got to a problem. i passed the 256 prim limit and dont know what to do. i know i can unlink parts . but how do i put them back in the exact same spot easily? if i write down the location of the section will it line up in another area or another sim? and if so what is the rule?? set edit window to location? instead of world and will that make the location the same everytime? really sux there is a limit

If you are interested to learn what LOD is, you could find some information in a video tutorial, we created some time ago. the tutorial tells a lot of stuff about sculpties and how to make things with blender, but the key information in the video also applies for prims. Hence i encourage you to take a look at it even if you neither work with sculpties nor you are interested in blender:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/06/04/precision_sculpties_lod/

cheers,
Gaia

Sculpts are invisible from the inside. So if you get inside a sculpt you will no longer see it.

And again the same is true for normal prims

ok but i still didnt get a answer to my second question ?

Have you seen this thread ?

/8/67/319470/1.html

It looks like you can find your answers there ...

no that didnt answer my question . that just told me what LL was doing with the prims.. and in that thread it said 1000 prim limit.. im getting a 256 prim limit when i try to link.. and was wondering the easiest way to link in seperate sections. do i have to make the house local in the edit window and then remember the numbers of the position to rerezz it in the same location? cause it will be a pain to have to line this up every time and did they change the 1000 limit to 256? or is this something all together different?

There are lots of ways to align link sets. Conceptually, the easiest ways involve overlapping them so that they fit together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Or, of course, you could do what comericial builders do.... use a box system like Builder's Buddy or RezFoo. It takes your linksets, remembers how they are related topologically, and stores them as a consolidated object, rerezzing them later on your command as if they were a single linkset. If you're only doing the one house, though, it's almost as easy to just do the puzzle trick and align the linksets visually. After all, how many times are you planning to rez this house, anyway?

Jack, a suggestion that can work (I've never had to do this).

Add to each half of the house a tiny prim - it can be invisible and/or burowed in the ground or inside a wall, hide it anyway.

Each of these prims MUST have the same location parameters, and both MUST be the central prim in each half of the building.

When rezzing it, all you need is put both in the same location (X, Y and Z parameters). I think this will work, maybe later I will make a quick test.
______________

Wish I was clear enough

The limit for the number of prims in a linkset has always been 256. (A glitch for a while made the actual limit 255, but they fixed that).

The 1000-prim limit (now raised to 4000) was a throttle that they put in, affecting Take, Take Copy and Delete actions, enacted with a server version a month or so back, and raised when builders of large projects complained bitterly.

The normal procedure for creating a structure that requires more than 255 prims, or which is too large in terms of linking distances to fit into a single linkset, is to break it up into multiple linksets.

For example, let's say I am making a two-story Tavern, and I need to use 350 prims to make it work.

I could build the ground floor and its ceiling as one linkset, and the second floor's walls, ceiling and roof as a second linkset. Two units, like child's blocks stacked atop each other. The doors might be seperate parts or might be linked, depending on your door scripts.

I have two ways to deal with taking this into inventory and setting it up again.

Simple option - Take and place as a coallesced object :

The simple way is just to select all the linksets and loose prims, and take the building into inventory (Or take a copy). This will work for anything up to 4000 prims, no matter how many loose prims or linksets are involved, and results in a single coallesced object in your inventory, bearing the name of the last item clicked on when you shift-clicked to highlight all of them.

If you rez this somewhere else, the parts will still be perfectly aligned. Select them all and move them as you wish.

But what if it was 20 parts instead of 2?

If you activate the building tools before rezzing the coallesced object, the entire set will remain highlighted after it rezzes. You can then easily move it all, without having to re-select all the parts.

Better option - use a Rezzer system :

The other way of deailing with this is a rezzer script, like Builder's Buddy (available free in the Scripting Tips forum).

/54/2b/96792/1.html

A rezzer has you put a small "component" script in each linkset, and in any loose seperate prims like doors. You then place a single prim near the build, and put the "control" half of the rezzer script in the prim. Try to place it in a predictable location, like near the SE corner of the building, since the rezzer when used will re-create the building in the same relative position to this prim. Touch the prim, and a menu will let you record the positions, relative to the control prim, of the linksets and individual prims that you put the component scripts into. You then take a copy of each of the scripted linksets and loose pieces, and add them to the contents of the control prim. Take the control prim into inventory, after giving it a sensible name, like "My house rezzer".

To use the rezzer, rez that control prim on the ground in the new location, and touch it. A menu will appear, including a "Build" option. Choose Build, and it will rez the parts of the building and move those parts to the same locations, relative to the control prim, that the parte were in when you recorded their positions earlier. Move or rotate the control prim, and the whole house will move or rotate with it.

Rezzers usually have a "clean up" command to remove the component scripts when you are done, so you can cut back on script lag. Use that, and then remove the control prim.

You can also leave the rezzer box in place, and leave the scripts active, to make it easier to move the build again later. Some rezzzers also offer a "clean up" option when you have full perms on the build, allowing you to clear the building off the parcel as a single action. I've designed buildings where the rezzer was decorated to look like the cornerstone of the foundation.

thanx so much ceera for that info this is what i needed to know. so actually i dont have to link the house. i can just highlight it and select take and it will show up as a consolidated object? and this so called trick can work up to the now 4000 prim limit . hope i have it right

Similar problem here - I have a group of about a dozen multiple prim objects including chairs with sit scripts. I have the whole group saved in my inventory as a combination of items.

When I try to rez the whole thing the chairs aren't there - at least I can't see them or select them. If I rez them with the edit window open everything is as it should be but when I'm done positioning it and close the edit window the chairs vanish again. Except sometimes they don't.

I think I'm using the latest version of the latest viewer. I'm going back in world now with a different viewer and I'll look in my lost and found folder too.

eta - I went back with a different viewer and I could see all the stuff I thought was vanished. But even then I had to actually be close to it - just camming in didn't always work.
Thanks to everyone who posted advice.