360 degree sensor for phantom attached sphere...

Hi all, I'm new to SL.. I've got a phantom sphere that I will be attaching to myself, which i want to use to start creating a game. It needs to detect when anything comes within it (kind of like detecting collision, but for a phantom object). I started toying with llSensorRepeat but can't figure out how to sense something 360 degrees in all directions. Aside from that, I really don't think llsensor or llsensor repeat is what i want anyway because this sphere will have the ability to change size, so I'd constantly have to reset the sensing distance... any thoughts on something like a phantomcollison event?

nevermind... I just found llVolumeDetect... told you I'm new.

Hiya. "Phantom collisions" are called llVolumeDetect around here. It's a very handy little thing that does exactly what you need - detect when something comes inside it, firing a collision event.
Sadly it doesn't work on attachments. But yeah, you can use sensors. While llSensorRepeat constantly repeats the same sensor, with the same range, using the same interval, nothing prevents you from implementing your own SensorRepeat using a timer.
I assume you want to detect ACTIVE objects, like bullets.

Something like this:

float gRate=5.0; //scan every 5 seconds
float gRange=5.0; //scan a spherical volume 10m in diameter, like a 10x10x10 sphere prim

default
{

  state_entry()
  {
    llSetTimerEvent(gRate);
  }

  timer()
  {
    llSensor("","",ACTIVE,gRange,PI); //PI ensures the "360-degree-ness" that you want
  }

  sensor(integer total)
  {
    //do your thing here

  }
}

If your scale doesn't need to change too often, you can use llSensorRepeat, then llSensorRemove, and then llSensorRepeat with the new paramenters.

nevermind AGAIN!!! Attachments cannot use llVolumeDetect?? ok, now please help. Does someone know how to do this? Attachments can't use llVolumeDetect... what a crock!

Uh... you dont see my giant post up there?

Thanks Eggy...

I tried a sensor with PI before I made my first post, but I was not getting the desired effects.. it was detecting some objects and not others. Is the sensor a plane? I need 360 degrees in all directions, and yes for detecting bullets and such...

llVolumeDetect would be absolutely perfect!

Does your sensor call OR together ACTIVE, PASSIVE and AGENT, like this: ACTIVE|PASSIVE|AGENT?
Put that where eggy has ACTIVE in his script above, if you don't already have it.
==Chris

yea, this is what I have:

llSensorRepeat("", NULL_KEY, AGENT|ACTIVE|PASSIVE|SCRIPTED, PI, 5, 1);

But to get that to work with any degree of accuracy is going to be a huge pain in my neck. This sphere could grow or shrink and there could actually be several spheres for one player... all the sensors would probably get a little laggy.

Right now I'm trying something out. I'm going to try to use getPos and setPos so the phantom sphere always stays with the AV even though it's not attached. Then collisions should work via llVolumeDetect.

Umm... don't you know about the wiki? It explains sensors very well! With pictures!
http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=llSensor

... actually the sensor thing just won't work for my purposes. I need to detect collisions instantly (or as closely as possible).. using .1 seconds wouldn't even work very well, plus the sensor function itself is a little laggy (or so I've heard).

I finally got what I wanted though by using llVolumeDetect and making the sphere follow my AV when I touch it, keeping my AV in the center. I'll be tweaking this some, but it allows collision detection using the physics engine so I'm happy.

Thanks for your help though, Eggy.