Seating, objects, and llSitTarget

I suspect the answer to this must be somewhere in this forum, but I'm having no luck with search, so...

I'm trying to figure out a couple of things about seating on prim:

1. default seating: if I create a prim of a certain size, it *seems* that multiple avatars can sit on it. That is, if I create a .5 m default cube, one person can sit (it seems): if I make it longer in the horizontal dimension, it appears two or possibly more people can sit. What (if any) are the "rules" regarding default number of seating spots per object? With a linked object, how are these rules applied (E.G.: is it the parent prim that determines number of seating positions?) And what is the "magic" rule that makes clicking "sit" on an object sometimes work, and sometimes generate the "there are no seating positions on the object" message...under otherwise identical circumstances?
   
2. llSitTarget: can I create/customize multiple seating targets on a prim by using multiple calls to llSitTarget? If so, how many (E.G.: is it bound by the default seating limits, if any)? What determines the order the seating positions are used?
   

Apologies in advance if this question has been asked over and over- if so, any direction to a relevant thread answering my questions would be very much appreciated!

llSitTarget only creates the one sit target, no matter how many times it's called.

Linking order determines the order of seating positions in a object.

For the rest, I don't know.

The sit target is a prim property, thus you can set it and delete the script that set it and still that target will be set. There is only one sit target for each prim and if you change it it will not affect a sitter until next sit.

If there is no sit target, yes: multiple avatars can sit on the object/prim. This is true if no sit target has even been set, or if the sit target has been removed programmatically. While you can sit anywhere on the GROUND, it seems you can only sit on the EDGE of prims without sit targets (well, flat surfaces such as boxes anyway; not sure about curved ones). So you can't sit in the middle of a prim floor for example; you have to find some place where, "your feet can hang over." Not sure about joins between flat surfaces that meet, "seamlessly."

From my experience, you end up with your shins in the seam.

Thanks, folks! So if I want multiple, programmatically controlled sit targets, I need more prims. Darn...but I guess that explains the pose balls

I am just building a simple bench, though...so I was hoping to get away with a single seating prim. However, the default seating positions don't work terribly well. It's too bad that number of seating positions isn't based on number of linear metres of surface on the target prim surface...but I suppose that would be a bit much to ask.

You can make the, "pose balls," invisible, but this has the drawback that they will simply fill in an order based on the link order rather than allowing people to choose where to sit. You could also break the seat up into multiple prims and try to join them as seamlessly as possible by setting their positions by the number and messing with the texture offsets.

Well if your bench is multiple prims you could have that many seats in it, just set the sit targets to be on the bench seat and rotated properly even if the prim isn't part of the bench. So say the bench is 4 prims (seat, back, each arm). You could then use 4 sit targets that are lined up along the bench even though the bench isn't 'hosting' all 4 seats itself. Just make sure you set the sit targets in the prims in link order of how you want the seats to fill up on the bench. Feel free to contact me in game if you want an example (I don't have one made but could whip up something easily enough). The trickiest part with this will be the rotations since the sit target will be rotated to match the 'host' prim and not the bench seat.

True. You could implement a configuration notecard where the positions are simply listed in link order and each prim is told by the root prim where to set its position. Then each child prim can transform the object-relative position and rotation to prim-relative position and rotation. That would be a nifty little object-oriented approach that could be thrown onto any object whatsoever. I might just implement it.

Has anyone developed a sitTarget setting program with a dialog box? Avatars have such varied shapes that I reckon there could be a use for a dialog controlling up, down, forward, backward, etc.

The pose balls don't have to be pink and blue spheres. Put cushions on the bench, and make those the "balls". Or, make the sit prims almost transparent flat rectangles that fill up the space so that people won't accidentally sit on the bench itself.

This would probably not work the way you are thinking. In my experience once an avatar is seated on a sit target, changing the target won't move the avatar until they re-sit. This includes moving the position of a linked prim while an avatar is seated on it.

true. but you can move the prim that's calling the sit-target so that you get the illusion of moving the sit target itself. this is how the better made multiple position adult furniture work.