Large Prim

Hi all, after searching for a cylinder prim that is about 8" around x 2' (or so) thick x 20" (no taller than this) I cant find one. I know you can turn some certain prims into a cylinder but it seems the one I have wont do this correctly, Im sure its my fault. Anyway, I want to build a tower for a house Im working on and Im kind of stuck here. Any ideas?

Ummm do you mean 8 meters diameter by 20 Meters tall? Why not just use two 8M diameter by 10M tall cylinders? No need for megaprims there.

Also, a warning. If you intend to hollow the cylinder for a living space, you'll have camera problems inside the round room. Aiming a camera at the interior of a hollowed prim throws the camera backwards, outside the prim's exterior surface.

I dont know what meters are. Im talking about feet. Its for a column for a house. I dont want to make them in two pieces as they never seem to fit or look right. I have tried that. I have many different huge prim sizes but none seem to be the right size. Its not going to be the entire living space. Just a special area.

Meters are digital feet.

1 m = 39.37 inches = 3.28 feet.

The meter is the standard unit of length almost everywhere in the world except for the U.S., and is the standard for all scientific work anywhere. You cannot build anything in SL using feet as your measurement unit. SL only accepts meters.

As for getting pieces to fit right, all you have to do is make one of your cylinders and then Shift-drag the z-axis to create the second one above it. The two will automatically be aligned and, providing that you match their ends properly, will look like a single tall cylinder.

This is some sort of sick joke, right?

Right?!

I use the numbers here the same. It doesnt matter to me if they are meters or feet, they measure out the same to me. As long as the numbers match. I will try what you said to do to get them to work. I didnt know it would work that way. Thank you so much!

20 feet is roughly 6 Meters. Prims can be up to 10 Meters. You do not need a "Large prim" to do that. Just check a web conversion page for English to Metric conversions, since ALL building in SL is done in Meters, and not in feet and inches.

You don't know what a meter is? Did you get passed elementary school, or are you just from somewhere where book-lurnin' takes a back seat to high-school football?

Back off, boys, don't be poking your meter sticks so aggressively.

They aren't real meters anyway.

I can't check inworld, but on the editing dialog, it doesn't say feet or meters, does it? It's only numbers, if I recall.

I'm not saying it's feet. I'm just saying.

Prims are measured in meters (m)

Asking for an 8x3x20 prim, you want one 8meters X, 3 meters Y, and 20 meters tall.

Hmmm.... this is a tough one to call. The OP's specification -- 8" around x 2' (or so) thick x 20" (no taller than this) -- is a very confusing set of measurements. "Eight inches around" is a tiny circumference. It works out to a radius of 0.105 feet = 0.032 m. Unless, of course, she meant "eight inches in diameter," which is a shade over 0.2 m and still tiny. Either one seems at odds with "2 feet (or so) thick," no matter whether "thick" means the cylinder's major diameter or its wall thickness when hollowed. The Z dimension, given as 20", is only 1.66 feet or about 0.5m, which is WAY short for a room meant for any avatar but a tiny. Even if you take these odd measurements to mean meters instead of feet and inches, it's a weird tower -- 0.66 m X, 2.0m Y, and 20m Z. The best thing to do is to get out a meter stick and measure the dimensions on the ground again.

This part really made me scratch my head



At first the OP said it was a tower and then a column.

.

I don't understand. I have a whole house made of hollowed spheres and cylinders and I don't see that problem at all. Is this some difference in viewer settings maybe?

Nope. It affects all viewers, and all platforms. If the reverse path between your camera and the wall on the inside of a hollowed prim intersects the outer surface of that prim, and is not on a transparent placem your camera will get thrown outside the prim, 100% of the time.

Take a cylinder, cube or any other normally solid prim.

Hollow it, any shape, any percentage.

Stand inside it.

Aim your camera at the interior hollowed surface. Actually at the WALL, not at a picture prim on the wall, or some furniture near the wall.

*BANG* Your camera is outside the prim, looking at the outer surface that is behind your intended camera position!

Now IF the line straight back from that camera angle does NOT intersect teh outer wall, such as looking down into a hollowed prim from above, this effect does not occur. It is only if there is a non-transparent exterior surface on the reverse vector.

Well. Something is different.

After rechecking the house*, I did exactly what you describe. Standing in centre of a 10m cylinder 96% hollow, nothing else to look at. With "normal" (Reset View) camera position, standing on ground, or floating so I can't see anything but wall, I see the inside of the cylinder, even if I pan the view with either arrows or camera control.

If I move the camera position (mouse wheel or camera control) to a position outside the cylinder, then of course I see the outside. If I then pan the camera, it remains oustide during the pan, but pops inside when it stops rotating (camera constraints?-but toggling disable has no effect). Then it pops outside during subsequent pans, only while moving, and back in when the pan stops.

In other words, the only unexpected behaviour is that the constraint of the camera to the inside of the cylinder when stationary, if it's resting position is set to see the outside, is not maintained during the act of panning. Seems to me this is the exact opposite of what you describe.

It all depends on your point of view?

*i.e. I can wander about with no ill effects unless I set the camera position too far from my head, so that it would be outside without th wall getting in the way.

I just performed this experiment. 10m cylinder 95% hollow. If I alt-leftclick on the inside of the cylinder, then the camera moves backwards from its initial position, so that it is looking at the outside of the wall behind the camera's original position.

Interestingly, if you have the minimap turned on, then you will also see that the field of view narrows as this happens.

And if I hold alt-leftclick down and pan/zoom the the camera, I can't get the camera to go inside the cylinder. I can move the camera above the cylinder so that I can see in, but the moment that the position of the camera enters the hollow, the camera jumps outside the cylinder.

Actually, that's not quite true. If I move the camera above the cylinder and then zoom in on a straight line, then the camera enters the cylinder, but as soon as I hold down control (making it cntr-alt-leftbutton) and move the camera down in the z direction, the camera pops out of the cylinder.

Hmm. Yes. I never had any reason to use Alt-LeftClick/Hold. I zoom with the mouse wheel. When I do use it, I get the same thing you report. Have to get avatar out of the cylinder to reset it. I would say this is obviously a bug with the Alt-LeftClick interface, as (a) it does not behave the same as other zoom methods. (b) it is completely silly and destructive behaviour and (c) I can't think of any sensible use for the effect. I'll have a look in the jira, and maybe start one if it's not there already.
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There is a jira for this bug, VWR-1286. I voted for it. Not very hopeful though, as it's been open since June 2007! I will try to get to an office hours where I can ask about it.

There is only one argument in favour of the status quo - that people use the bug to hide inside hollow (mega)prims for privacy, but since the other camera movement methods are not affected, this does not provide the privacy they think it does.