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Large scale building and the SL tools...

Foolish Frost
Grand Technomancer
Join date: 7 Mar 2005
Posts: 1,433
12-17-2005 04:29
You know, after finishing the major building on one of my newest personal projects, here, I noticed that SL's tools were hindering me a great deal. As luck will have it, I found some solutions to these problems as well.

From: someone
1-
The first problem is moving large numbers of prims in a coordinated manner so that they don't 'explode'. Explode does not mean detonate across several sims in this case, but more of a tendency for prims to not move/rotate at the same speed at teh rest of the object. This leads to a form of annoying drift that can leave gaps in your structure.

Part of this seems to stem from packet loss and bandwidth restrictions. Simply put, every time you move something, it's sending data to and from your system and SL. This data is not transfered once per mouse move, but SEVERAL TIMES. With large structures, data-loss can be inevitable.

Solution: Link 30x30x30 meter sections of your build, and those sections will stay solid. Also, this seems to reduce the bandwidth needs, because it only has to send and recieve data for the MASTER PRIM. This can reduce the bandwith costs significantly, and make it much easier to move large scale objects.

(You would think the above is common sense, but hey, this is for new people too!)


From: someone
2-
When dealing with REALLY large sections, you will run into a problem that may not have occured to use: Edit Range.

Edit Range is when you try to select in edit mode something too far away. SL will only allow you to select things within a certain meter distance. I did not measure it, but it seems to be in the 100 meter range. Now, the problem with this is: If you are moving something 50+ meters in size, and you move past a certain distance into the Edit Range from your avatar, you 'drop' the objects your trying to move. Sometimes in a way that 'explodes' them (see above).

Annoying as hell. Really.

Well. I figured out how to fix that. Sit on the object. Since it's always within the Edit Range that way, you never drop it. Silly AND simple, aye?



Thanks for your time, and hope this info comes in handy!
Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
12-17-2005 04:39
I've run into #2 a lot when moving watermelons from one end of a field to another, LOLEX. I sometimes cut myself short 'cuz of draw distance too. Sitting has so many benefits to it, not the least of which is being a tremendously powerful tool against being pushed by a gun. It seems illogical based on offline rules, but ah, in SL, how some things work so differently.

For #1, I believe there are even more elegant methods. Have you seen CrystalShard Foo's Rez-Foo, especially designed for packing and moving big linksets of objects? :)
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Belaya Statosky
Information Retrieval
Join date: 3 Jun 2004
Posts: 552
12-17-2005 04:40
Really, I've found this to be a slick stop-gap to solving those sorts of issues..
Ron Overdrive
Registered User
Join date: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 1,002
12-17-2005 05:29
I've found this tool to be rather helpful. Sit on it and it moves you're avatar around with your camera. Great for macro building too.

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=36510
Foolish Frost
Grand Technomancer
Join date: 7 Mar 2005
Posts: 1,433
12-17-2005 06:43
You know, I think my problem is that I don't like using tools beyond the basic SL tools, and my own wits. While I don't see them as a bad thing in the least, they always felt somehow 'wrong' for me when I tried to use them.

Go figure... :rolleyes:

Anyway, I've found ways to make everything from domes to complext geometric figures in just a few minutes using SL tools and some elbow grease, and never go into using the building tools that were available. That mindset seems to have just followed me into everything now.

Then again, I'm a Fool... :D

Those tools DO look useful though!