how does SL know if you're a prim or an av?

I realize this may be a silly/basic question, but I have no idea how the software knows to make the difference.

In some cases, say if you have a ban on your land for someone, they can sit themselves on a prim and modify the prim coordinates to your land parcel without being recognized as avs crossing the "border". So it seems to me the difference can easily disappear?

Anyway, I'm just curious to know. If it's a trade secret I'll understand.

-Thea

Heya Thea, the situation you describe should not happen. If you have a good repro for this, please go to HELP menu ---> REPORT BUG. You can also IM me inworld if you wanna show me, but an avatar is still an avatar, even when seated on a prim. The "proper" behavior would be that you get a message saying "Can't enter parcel, banned." and you'd snap back, whilst seated on the prim, to the edge of the parcel. Sometimes there is a delay, even if your land is on the border of a region, but the snapback should still happen.

As for the root of your question, it kind of makes me think of camouflage or sometimes when Resis ask about "avatar invisibility". The simple fact is: if you press Ctrl-Shift-1, you'll see Main Agents, meaning avatars in the region, including you! Avatars are in a separate class than objects. As they are controlled by real people behind the keyboard and mouse, and they have special, unique requirements and resources. Second Life responds to the live input+output, and there's a whole infrastructure in place that does that for each Resident. You could build a mannequin out of prims, but it won't trick the system. I suppose that's why it's so appropriate it's called Second Life.