Ghosting - for building not spying

Maybe this has come up before, but I don't see it after looking through this forum.

I'm suggesting Ghosting.. As we see in some video games, usually as a cheat. It doesn't make you invisible, but able to pass through walls....

As we speak, I'm trapped in the attic of the new house I'm building. Of course there is no door to the attic, and being the crack builder that I am There are no holes in the roof either. So I was working on the second floor, linking it together preparing for Rez-Faux and the bed room door - which is snazzy and has an autoclose timer, slamed shut and knocked me into the attic. Surprising I know, but here I am, and no way out. At least no way out without logging out and then coming back in HOME rather than LAST LOCATION... What a pain. But also it's a pain not to be able to see the attic as I build it to texture the inside of it - at least above the ceiling. And yes, there are good reasons for texturing things that you don't want to see. It turns out that textures can peak through along edges and through minute cracks... You know, you've had that problem...

So, I'm not suggesting Ghosting as invisibility, but Phantom -ness - or freedom from Physical Laws. And to avoid being able to walk through other people's walls, why not restrict it, when enabled, to only work for objects that I own. That would prevent it from being abused. I can walk through walls of buildings that I own, so building using this feature would be no problem. But I couldn't sneek past my neighbors locked doors.

And while we are at it... Let's have invisibility. But only for me. Again to prevent abuse. Everybody else can see me, but I can build while only seeing the cursor. So that way I don't have to put up with trying to build while looking through the back of my head. Isn't it odd that we can't build while in mouse look mode?? That's sort of what I want here.

I know I know.. There are the camera controls, but these are a pain in the butt since every time you use the convenient WASD keys to move around, you kill the camera control position. And they are so restrictive, limited zoom etc. I spend half my time positioning myself so that the camera controls will take me where I want to go... Sigh...

Maybe these have been suggested before and I missed them. In which case, as Emily Littella says: "Never Mind".

Do Ghosting for my objects only, and Invisibility [for me only] cause concern for abuse?

Sure would make building easier for everyone, wouldn't they?



Have a good one,
wwv

PS: now back to getting out of the attic...

Set the prims phantom.

Here's a few workarounds:
Sit on a prim and move it while you're sitting on it. You can move it through other objects.
Sit on something that's inaccessible to you, and wait for the autopilot to give up and "teleport" you out.
Teleport to any landmark.
Teleport home.

1. Select the grass, and choose "sit here"
   
2. Rez a box on the grass, select it and choose "Sit here"
   
3. Select the roof and choose "Sit here"
   
4. Select any wall or floor section, and adjust the "HOLLOW" setting til you find a hole opening that you can walk, fly, or fall through
   [*0Select a section of wall, roof, or floor, and set it to phantom, then walk through.
   
5. Select a section of the roof or floor, and move it out of the way, then use "Ctrl-Z" to put it back
   
6. Don an X-Flight enabled Jetpack. Type "X speed 500" then fly in any direction. Within a couple of seconds, you'll be free.
   
7. Don't build your avatar into a box next time.
   

There's about a million more.

I've got a poseball, that's essentially a non-physical vehicle. Once you jump on the ball, you look a bit like you're flying. Then you just steer yourself around. Nice thing about it is, you can fly through walls and floors and ceilings. (and you're invulnerable to 99% of greifing attacks)

IM me in world and I'll get you one.

Winter,

Well, as you no doubt recall, I was put into the attic by a auto-closing door. If I had built myself into that position, I would not have minded un-building the roof to get out. But the roof was built off-line with very exacting alignment which I was loath to disturb. It never occurred to me to TP home...

An acquaintance gave me an Anti-Griefing Vehicle that he recommended as a way to be a phantom as well. Perhaps your vehicle is equivalent.
Thanks,
Now there only remains the problem of having to look through the back of my head as I work.

wwv

You don't need your avatar in the field of view... Ctrl-Alt-Left-drag on an object or land and the camera will orbit around that object. Some camera manipulation lets the camera go anywhere you want within some reasonable distance from your av.

You could also bring up the map, and then click on some part of it to tp there. Could be right next to where you are stuck.

Ok. Thanks for all the suggestions about how to get out of the attic.

Regarding the "feature request".

(1) Ghosting. I've tried the Anti Griefing Vehicle as a helper for building. As I'm sure you know, if you've tried it, that this is a pretty poor substitute for a feature in the SL client. Yep, it's a slick trick to get out of the attic. but as a building aid, it pretty much sucks. Navigation is dodgey at best. It's sluggish and laggy, even when used in places like mine - a beach community - where response is very good. Navigation while building should be predictable and efficient. Wasting time moving around to build things is not productive. I'm sure a FEATURE in the client would be better than cobbling something together with a laggy script. Another problem with the vehicle is the camera angle. The camera is fixed too far back from the Avatar. And I tried to change the camera position and got a pile of math errors, so the scripts are very fragile and would take a lot of work to figure out how to change the camera position.

(2) Invisible. Again, this is a feature where the avatar is invisible for me only. This allows me to build without looking at the back of my head. I'm not trying to hide, only get out of my own way so I can build unencumbered. Nobody has said anything suggesting that this is available via a script. So looks like this is a real feature request. Right?

BTW, the camera controls as they now are do not solve this problem. You can't leave your avatar somewhere and navigate all over your property to build a large house, for example. Zoom is limited - very limited - and motion, while less limited is also constrained. And having to navigate the camera with the mouse is a pain. I'd like to navigate the camera with the keys and use the mouse to edit/build. The choice to drop all selections whenever WASD keys are used is a poor one in my opinion. This means that I have to place myself, edit/select/link stuff, then move etc. Not efficient. Recall that I am building stuff OFF LINE so most of the positioning and sizing of objects is done very efficiently - in 3ds max in my case - so all I'm doing is texturing in-world. It's still a royal pain in the butt to get around to do it.

BTW, I have posted these in the Feature Request voting systems. with a pointer back to this topic for discussion.

Thanks,

wwv

I don't understand - what's the difference between this and just moving the camera such that your avatar is not in the field of view? For example, can't you hover over your roof and access the inside of the attic from there (orbit around the roof until the camera is inside, then pan it down)? For me, I can stand about a fifth of a sim away from an object and still access it.

I think there's also an animation that makes you invisible except for your tag, which you can then turn off for yourself.

The features you are requesting.. already exist in different form.

1. Hit CTRL-ALT-D (brings up the "Client" menu)
   
2. Select "Client > X Disable Camera Constraints" (make the X go away)
   

Now you *CAN* just "park your avatar someplace" and move your camera all around.

1. Hold down ALT
   
2. Hold your mouse over something nearby
   
3. Press and hold the left mouse button
   
4. move the mouse around
   
5. still holding ALT, let go of the mouse button
   
6. select another point nearby
   
7. move the mouse around again

I think you'll find, that your "features" already exist. Now, make yourself a nice comfortable chair, sit your avatar in the chair, and build wherever you like.

You know, I've been building for 6 months in this game.. I've never gotten my avatar "trapped" to the point that I started posting to the forums for help.

Seriously, I figured this out on the first day... try this:

1. rez a prim.
   
2. sit on the prim.
   
3. slide the prim outside.

Oh, and lastly. SL provides no support whatsoever for offline building. You're taking your own life in your hands there. I highly suggest learning to build with the in-world tools. Your prim counts will be lower, and you'll learn valuable skills like outlined above.

Winter,

Thanks for the documentation on Camera operation. Or shall I say the "Camera Cookie"... How obscure... But again, unless the camera is controlled by KEYS - preferably WASD - then it won't be very efficient to use. The necessity of using the mouse to control both the camera and select and manipulate the Edit dialog is just more inefficient than it should be. I will certainly give your suggestions a try.

Yes, I have heard about the SIT ON A PRIM fix. But nothing is quite as elegant as TP HOME to get out of the attic.

Regarding OFFLINE BUILDING... Your tone seems somehow judgmental... Offline building actually uses PRIMS so there is no reason for the prim counts to be any higher. Only the editing interface is changed. And if you are a 10 year veteran of 3ds max, or another 3d tool as I am, them using something familiar and efficient is very useful. At present, Blender, Maya and Max are supported for offline building. I suggest you check out the following links for more information on Offline building:

My First House... I built the house and rendered the textures both in Max. Since max will render scenes directly into TGA with the alpha channel, textures including windows are a snap. And of course you can apply the textures to the model as prims in max to test the textures. As of this point, there is no support for translating texture layout from max to SL directly. The textures must be re-applied in SL once the prims are imported. But there is no fundamental reason that the offline tools could not express texturing and import this as well. Someday I hope to get back to this.

My Private Boards including how to use the SL Primitive Importer script that works for objects made using the Blender tools, Maya tools and the SL Prims tools for max.
and
various posts in the Building Forums here regarding offline building.

Celierra,

In answer to your question. Moving your avatar is reasonably efficient using WASD keys. Flying is a bit dodgey because it seems to be optimized for long distance travel rather than working in close quarters.

But, again the camera controls are mouse not key controlled. And every time you use WASD keys, you reset the selection. So the mouse is all over the screen, back and forth between the camera controls, texture and edit dialogs.... Like I said, it would be much more efficient to use WASD keys [flying with better damping for close quarters would be ideal] with an invisible Avatar and keep the mouse on the edit/ texture dialogs and selecting objects. The WASD keys must not change the selection since this would defeat the purpose. I hope that is clear.

Perhaps there is a better solution, but I've tried several things and these enhancements would seem to have the best payoff.

Cheers,
wwv

sit your avatar on something.

Then alt-cam into your work area.

Then try your WASD keys. (or the arrow keys, or the number pad)... as long as your avatar is seated.. I think you'll find that the WASD controls the camera.

And once again.. if you were more familiar with the in world building tools.. I think you'd find that the mouse is not your enemy when moving your camera. Alt Left click to get into a spot, let off the alt key and left click to select, right click and choose edit... it's really extremely intuitive.

My left hand almost never leaves the Ctl - Alt keys when in game.
I usually land "in game", disable camera constraints, and don't even move my av for hours, all the while using Ctl + Alt and the mouse to see and do everything.

If something changes in my sim (or the ones around me) I just "tour cam" over and have a look, click some buttons or doors if I want and hit Esc to return. Too easy.
If I want my 'av' to see it up close, then I sit on something and I'm there. (Same sim only)

The camera is a powerfull tool.

You could also have just set one of the prims to phantom, walk out, then reset it to normal. that wouldn'tcause any prims to move out of alignment either.

You can turn off the "avatar" type in "client->rendering".

Looking the client menu for "disable camera constraints".

Just tried that. It seems to work as long as the seat doesn't have a camera angle and/or focus set. If they are set, the camera will snap back into position.

Sitting on a freshly rezzed cube, it works fine, though one still has to Alt-Click to change focus.

(Re: Argent's suggestion)
On my client, the selection for turning off avatar rendering is "Client-->Rendering-->Types-->Character". Of course, I believe that makes everyone else's av's invisible also, so one has to remember to re-enable character rendering when around others. (Bump! "Sorry... didn't see you. I turned off avatar rendering on my client!"

Aren't the Client and Server menus hidden by default? It's been so long since I enabled them, I forgot how.

-Added-

Oh, yeah, Ctrl-Alt-D for the above mentioned "Debug" menus.

Personally, I'm starting to get used to the camera controls. It took a while, though.

Well, yes and no. Avatars disapear and their locations cease to update. Wear a prim, turn off av rendering, walk. The prim doesn't follow (ditto other people wearing prims). As soon as you turn it back on things snap back into place.