Question about the invisible SOLID middle of sculpties (Rocks)

I've never made a scupltie, so please forgive any errors I may make in my comments

As I undertand it, Sculpties are not solid items in-world hence you can walk thru them (like phantom items)

There was talk I read about putting an invisible prim inside a sculptie to give it a solid (if not 100% accurate) centre.

However, I have bought some rocks (Sculpties) from a few different suppliers, and they are definatly solid (or rather they come with an approximate solid core.)

the problem is, when I resize the sculptie rocks, (lets say to the max 10x10) this invisible solid core grows too.
I then rotate the rock (to make it look nice) but this invisible solid is now (in various directions) far larger than the sculptie rock. So I now find myself waking up in the air about 1 or 2 metres above the surface of the sculptie rock. Yet, I can't see any way of "seeing" this invisible solid core, or moving/resizing it.

Is there anyway around this?

The only way I can think of is to make the whole rock, Phantom and put another solid prim inside it.

This is exactly what you do, although people usually make the solid prim invisible so it doesn't stick out.

Bear in mind that sculpties are NOT phantom by nature (flexis are though), they simply have a spherical bounding box. As a result, some sculpties will do just fine without an extra collission prim, but others will behave oddly without it. In general, the more oddly shaped a sculpty is, the less its own bounding box will work.

Sculpties are not phantom by themself. They do behave very much like standard prims. You must make them explicitly phantom, if you want to walk through them.

The problem with non phantom sculpties is, that in general their bounding box is not equal to their visible surface. So it may well be, that you seem to hover a few meters above the sculptie surface, simply because the bounding box is much bigger, than the sculptie looks like.

Because of this, sculptie makers tend to make the sculptie phantom and add a secnd (or more) invisible prim inside of the sculptie, thus simulating a more or less correct surface.

So if you have purchased sculptie rocks which are made out of one single object, then most probably it is exactly the above explained bounding box problem, that you stumble on. In that case indeed the only solution would be to make the sculptie phantom and add an invisible object to your scene, as you allready assumed.

oh, i believe there is a setting somewhere in the viewer, which shows you the bounding boxes of your objects. That may help you identify the cause of your problem, if it is differnt from what i assume.

I hope that clearifies a bit

Thanks to you both for the quick and excellent replies.
For the moment, I will do as you suggest and make them phantom and create a (rough fit) prim inside of them.

Out of interest, what would be the very easiest program for a beginner to use to create your own sculptie rocks (up to 10m in dimensions)

Thanks.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/

Excellent little freeware soft that isactually more efficient to use than most more advanced softwares for certain applications.