item too far to link??

When i try to link some objects, i sometimes get a message saying the items are too far away to link....even when they are actually touching. Other times i am able to link objects that are on opposite ends of a building....

Anyone knows how that works? what are the requirements for two items to be linkable?

It's quite hard when you try to make a building and you have to link it in two or three separate parts cause some pieces are supposedly too far away.

This is a rather complex function, at least, not something that can easily judged by eye.

It's not just the distance between the prims that matters, it's also the size. Two 10x10x10 meter cubes can be linked from 30 meters apart. But shrink them down to 1x1x1 meters, and they can no longer link. It's the small pieces that wil usually foil a large link.

I have a build that is sitting on a 30m by 30 m foundation. The foundation blocks will link but once I start adding sections from the build which are well within that area, the "link failed" error comes up.

This was not a problem before the 1.5 update.

Has there been a change in the linking hiearchy?

Could an experienced builder share thier tips for linking a large build?

The future owner of this build will most likely not appreciate his new home in "halves" that can be shifted with each furniture placement.

Thank you in advance for any help.

-Taylor

Some advice if you end up making the building in halves... make sure the root prims for each half are next to each other. It's a lot easier lining them up if the roots are adjacent. The location information in the edit box refers to the root prim, so you can easily place them at the same elevation, rotation, etc.
After you place the pieces, lock the suckers down. Then you won't have to worry about moving half your house when you place a couch.

What's the reason for these restrictions on linking?

I can guess at a few somewhat arbitrary candidates, but no really strong technical reason comes to mind.

I think it has something to do with the physics engine.

Is that formula the Lindens posted still around, or did it get nuked with the old script forum?

Fantastic Whacktastic Tip of the CENTURY (OK you can tell I'm stuck on the ship and am Bored.. LOL) I learned this tip from our own MAXX MONDE my favorite builder in all of SecondLife ^_^. Why link buildings at all??? I SAY, instead of linking the prims... Once you have it built, select all the prims that you want kept together, instead of LINKING them... right click and choose TAKE A COPY. This will place ONE ITEM in your objects folder and it will be named whatever the root object (if you were gonna link them that is) would be named... So long as you can COPY the prims in question you can use this technique. It's even better if you can modify them too then you can rename this ONE ITEM to say... "HOUSE" instead of say... "RoofSupportBeam" or.. "window". LOL so yeah, once you have this one item in your inventory you can drop copies of the whole house anywhere you want! It would be a good idea to be in EDIT MODE before you drop the house so that all the prims remain SELECTED and you can move them all at once.

SO Yes... a little recap. Select prims that you have copy permisions on, and rightclick take copy once the whole mess is selected. Sure beats Linking!

Thanks for the props Ark, just trying to pass on the knowledge. I'm sure others knew of this before me

Anyway, be careful though, edit mode is a must, and you can't select more than 300+ objects (roughly - been a while since I've had to select that many unlinked at a time) or you'll need to work out logical parts and how to align them later.

I keep massive builds in my inventory this way, but I have to say I'm worried about the USL build, because I'm working at the exact limit of zoom on the structure - not sure how to save it yet.

I run into that problem often when doing a large waterfalls. I link water sections, rock sections and landscaping sections individually. After that I put the coords in the desc before giving the sections to the new owner in case a section is moved by mistake.

Thanks for all those great tips guys!<

I still wish there was a definite answer to the linking problem, the whole select and copy trick is fine but it's not as usefull, well not for me. If the mysterious "ultimate linden fornula" to calvulate the linking system was available, it would help a lot.

The build engine is amazing, don't think i'm not happy, but a few aspects of it are a bit too obscure and difficult to actually get hard data about.

Oh well....still, that helped a lot.....


Thanks again guys.

I noticed yesterday when making a 20m diameter sphere (just for fun) using like 600 prims that if I selected about half of it I could link them together.

BUT if i tried to add just 1 more prim to the linked set then it would only work if i selected the individual first, then the set, so that the set is the parent. The other way gave me the too far apart error, even though they were the exact same prims I was trying to link.

The formula would be great! as it seems that the link number (order in which you select the prims to link) plays an important role, if not just the parent.

From my own experience, a good rule of thumb for link distances is to think of them as relative. If all your objects are 10x10x10s you have a 30 meter volume to work with, if they're 1x1x1s, you have a 3 meter volume to work with. Now this is a bit off, but it's a good rule of thumb to keep you within link distances.

Now as to making sure you've got your entire huge build in inventory. I actually had the occasion to pick up about a 300-400 prim build (a very large one), and before removing it I ran over to cordova to make sure I had all of it. It took about three trips before I was sure I got it all in one piece. If you can't get it all in one piece, try to have your root prim be positionally next to your next section so they'll be easy to align (like alignment spheres).

another tip, which isnt always succesful, is selecting the entire building, shrinking it, then linking, then resizing it to its normal size. BUT!!, make sure you are somewhere with no LAGG, or else some data on location and size will get lost and you building will be all screwed up. So, use Maxx Monde's trick to keep a copy of the entire building as a backup copy.

so

you have your 30x30x30 object to link but it says too far apart....

let s think a bit, if they are too far apart on maximum size, they will be closer if you shrink the whole thing to the SMALLEST possible right ?

Select all the prims, dont forget to unselect reselect one of them at the end to have your ROOT PRIM, Shrink the whole thing to SMALLER SIZE POSSIBLE and no LINK THEM...

ATTENTION: if you reshrink to MAXIMUM SIZE, it may unlink when you drop a copy from your inventory, so DONT RESHRINK TO FULL SIZE but at approximately 90% the total max size and it will work PERFECTLY...

...hope that helps. HugZ.

I had a huge build that was in four large chunks. What I did was make four cylinders of increasing size and placed them all in the center of the whole thing. Then I made each one the parent of a chunk. Since the cylinders were all aligned...when I brought each chunk out to rez..I only needed to input the same coordinates for each of the chunks. Once the the whole mess was rezzed and aligned I could select individual and delete the cylinders. Don't know if this makes sense or not...but its a trick that has worked for me. But, it will only work so far. This is kinda like a middlling type of workaround. For the more enormous builds...I would recommend the other method of Maxx.

What I've done in the past is create a prim and give it a script that, on voice command, will move 10 meters in a given direction. ("W", "S", "NE", etc.) Then put this at one end of your large build and sit on it.

Now you can select as much of the build as you can, give a few voice commands to move to the other side, and shift-select in the rest.