restricting an object's position

Hiya all. I'm sure this has been asked several times before, but I couldn't find anything after some searching, apologies in advance.

I have a couple of objects I would like people to be able to move freely withing a predetermined area. I am already running touch_start() & touch_end() to get the objects' positions (sent to a php script elsewhere). i would prefer that these things were not allowed to roam willy nilly all over the place, and would like to keep them confined to the area of the building they are in.

Is there an existing function that will allow me to keep an object within some predefined coordinates, or do I need to manually check against the location after touch_end()?

Hmm. I thought maybe llSetStatus(STATUS_SANDBOX, TRUE) might be useful for this, but apparently that turns the object non-physical as well. Might play around with that in any case and see if it might do what you want (e.g. try setting STATUS_SANDBOX then turning the object physical afterwards).

Otherwise, I'd say check position in 'touch_end' and maybe 'touch' as well. If it is out of bounds, force it back with a llMoveToTarget() or (maybe just if it is far enough away) by turning the object non-physical, moving back with non-physical movement, then turning the object physical again.

Oh, and here's one more possibility that might work depending on your situation. Make the place you want to keep the object a parcel, and completely surround it with another parcel that has object entry turned off. You might need the object owner to be different from the owner of the surrounding parcel so that automatic owner exemptions don't apply. This won't constrain vertical movement, but I think it should take care of the horizontal.

There's a multitude of ways it can be done. You can set a base position, and if with a timer event, check the current position against the base, if it's too far away (llVectDist()), you can move it back to the base position. Also, you can use various parcel tools (llOverMyLand()) to check to see if it's on a specific parcel, and if not, move it back there.

This would be the easiest way to do this.

thanks for all your suggestions.

I wound up using a timed event (every second) that checks the current x & y coordinates against the boundaries of the space.

if it has traveled beyond the boundaries i make it a phantom object and have it travel to a predetermined spot, once there it becomes physical again.

below is the relevant code. any suggestions on improving are welcomed.


vector my_pos = <0,0,0>;
float timetowait = 1.;

default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetTimerEvent(timetowait);
}

timer()
{
my_pos = llGetPos();

float x_pos = my_pos.x;
float y_pos = my_pos.y;

if (y_pos < 159 || y_pos > 208 || x_pos > 99 || x_pos < 60){

llSetStatus(STATUS_PHANTOM, TRUE);
llMoveToTarget(<96,190,22.7>,.2);

} else {

llSetStatus(STATUS_PHANTOM, FALSE);
llStopMoveToTarget();

}
}
}

Checkout the not_at_target event.
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/not_at_target