31 Prim Limit? How is it possible then...

Hello all, I finally got a flight script all worked out the way I wanted it. Got a small version of a space-type craft built and hey, great deal it works right?

Well, I go and build the full size rig... 58 prims total, and when I try to fly it... I get a script error telling me that physics cannot control more than 31 prims at one time.

If this is truly the case... then how in the world do people get their humongous crusie ships, super complex space vehicles, etc that I know for a fact have more than 31 prims.

Thanks for any help you all can provide. If it weren't for you all, I couldn't have gotten the flight script adjusted the way I wanted either way, so thanks in advance everyone.

Take care,
Haplo

I know, I was horrified when I found my land could only support 10 prims and I was hoping to build a house. But for me the secret lay in the fact that a hollowed prim is still only one prim. So 4 walls of the house were just one prim. And a wall with a cutout for a door which would have required 3 slabs in the usual 3D editor, cut out correctly is again just one prim in SL.

I just found I had to do some lateral thinking

The approaches I've seen used are generally either non physical movement or to split the object into a vehicle (less than 31 prims) and an attachment worn by the avatar. This can be rezzed by the vehicle when the avatar sits and auto attach itelf (with permission of course)

Yeah, I tried using a flight assist script, used as an attachment, but never found a pose tight enough to keep an av solid enough not to have the wobble motion of av flight... like if you fly forward... you pitch forward. Well, so does the craft. Quite entertaining though. LOL

Wasn't aware of an auto-attachment possibility... will look into that the flight script would definately hammer out stability issues. If I could sit and fly the floor, top, and back half of the ship... then attach the rest of the surrounding area... it would work perfectly... just don't know how to do it. lol

Thanks.
Haplo

Newgate is spot-on. Though, if you're talking about the kind of huge ships I suspect you are, those are all non-physical. Attachment ships tend to run around the same size as your typical vehicle, but they are just very highly detailed.

The key point of an attachment ship is that attachments are phantom, so you should always try to compensate for this by creating what is known as a hitbox for the physical vehicle.

There are many varying ways to do this. I tend to just use the larger parts of the ship itself, but the majority just use the entire ship as an attachment with an invisible hitbox that you fly around on.

The pros and cons of these 2 approaches vary depending on which side of this coin you're on. If you're the creator, using the "Attach the whole ship" method would make it where if your flight scripts suck, the user can just create their own scripted hitbox to wear your ship with. I tend to be very disappointed in these, but I figure that's the reason why the whole ship is one item. Usually these require a lot of manual work on the user's side in that they rez the hitbox, sit on it and start the ship, and then find the attachment in their inventory and 'wear' it.

The other method takes a little more scripting if you want to pull it off right so the ship never looks incomplete, but it's my preferred method since it is the easiest way to make the hitbox as accurate as possible without having to build 2 ships. Also, my scripts work with touch menus, which won't work if you click on the attachment.

So in the end it really depends on the needs of what you want to do and what your scripts use. If you use all vocal commands, then either method would work fine, but if you use touch menus I stress that you utilize the 2nd method or some people are going to be clicking on it with nothing happening.

That's the other thing I forgot to mention about attachment ships...the animation needs to be really high priority so they will override SL's, and they need to be meticulously done so that the AV will not 'jiggle' the ship around or pop part of their body through it in some odd way.

How "big" a plot is that?

65536 sqm / 15000 prims * 10 prims = 43.691 or 44 sqm, assuming normal prim allotment.

Math 4tw!

44 square meters.. or ~6.5 meters squared. Too short for the average male avatar to lay down in.

Hehehe, I just couldnt believe anyone would buy something that small!!!!

It may work for an ad farm, but thats about it.

Wow.. the average male avatars are 19 feet tall?!?!?!?! Almost DRAGON-sized there!

Don't program any Martian probes for us, mmmkay?

haha...oh thats good, that imperial to metric conversion flaw by NASA deserves to be be brought up again and again

OK! Well, I have successfully used the "partial + attachment" technique and it works GREAT! Now I have just one other problem to solve and I'm golden if anyone cares to help out...

I am assuming it is a simple matter of camera angles, but no matter the combination I try I can't seem to get it to work.

In a nutshell, this is for the most part a circular craft, therefore the best flight charachteristics put you close to center.

That being the case, I have provided a large viewing area, but I am having trouble getting the camera position to be forward close to the window *AND* have a forward view. it seems like no matter which values I give to the combos of Camera Angle and Camera Position I use, I always end up behind myself looking forard, or facing myself looking backward.

Any suggestions? Or is that just the way it is, not being able to place the "camera view" in front of your av and still look forward?

Thanks again for the hints and tips, I now at least have a good and well controlled craft.

-Hap