How do I Make a Zero-Mass Prim

Im trying to make a prim that basically can't be selected or found. I heard you can torture it but is this the only way? as it is still selectable, just not visible even if selected.

I think the better question is, why do you want to make a prim that is neither detectable nor selectable?

To grief someone with. There would be no other reason. And Honestly, you expect us to answer that question.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to make these. Sensors, probes, and scanners come to mind. It's rather rude to jump to conclusions.

The information you have is correct, you have to torture the prim and use the invisiprim texture on it. But to say it's unselectable and undetectable is a fallacy. There are scanners designed to detect zero mass prims, and you can select them if you know where to select. They are at best, just hard to find.

Nope. No legitimate reason in those - any of the above can be accomplished by a visible, selectable prim too.

I could custom build you a prim so insanely small that it could not be manually detected (orders of magnitude smaller than a tortured mini prim). However, youd need to convince me that it is for a legitimate (non griefing) purpose, and youd have to pay for it. Feel free to IM me if your interested.

Wrong. if every sensor and probe were visible, the air would be filled with ugly flying spam. It's better to make them invisible so they don't disturb the people around you. And just because I believe in freedom of information and don't like people who ask everyont to "prove" this or that, I'll make and give one to anyone who asks, for free, just IM me in world.

Darien, I have to disagree. Sensors and probes serve only 2 purposes to protect land that you are leasing from either someone lese or LL, (which is foolish failure to understand what the grid is)or to iengage in combat for the purpose of griefing or faux fighting.

85% is griefing. I wasn't jumping to conclusions. And finally, a prim is setting on a computer server and that is basically electrons and light. So ergo all are massless since all are virtural. Invisaprim thakes a simple alpha texture.
He wants undetectable and that leads to believe either griefing or combat, or both.

Right. Like I said, no legitimate reason. You use the noble sounding phrase "don't disturb the people around you", but the truth can be more accurately summed up as "So that the vast majority of the people are unaware of their existence". The air over my plot doesn't need to be filled with your sensors. In fact, I would greatly prefer that it was not (And have taken all possible steps to ensure just this)

I have one completely undectectable by any means, it's so good it won't even show in my inventory or yours when you pay me L$5k for it..........
<BOOM TISH>

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle here. There are legitimate uses for transparent sensors, but when the goal is to make them completely undetectable by any means, then there's a safe bet the operator is up to no good.

One example I can think of for a legit use was the terrain mapping project that Cadroe Murphy was doing a while back (not sure if it's still going on). Basically, he sent out autonomous probes to fly across the grid and gather land height data, which he then ported into 3DS Max to output a very nicely rendered 3D relief map of the world to the Web. It was pretty cool, an interesting project, and certainly nothing anyone should have complained about (and I don't think anyone did).

Now, of course the sensors used for that didn't NEED to be invisible, and I have no idea whether they were or they weren't. I do think that it would have made good sense if they were invisible though. Having them visible could be a distraction both for bystanders and for the guy running the project. I know if I saw one flying overhead I'd probably drop what I was doing to chase it down and figure out what it was. That would be a few minutes of my time wasted just to get an answer that doesn't really matter in the end. And for the poor guy who has to answer the same "what is this" question ten thousand times a day, it would probably be enough to stop the project in its tracks. For stuff like that, I'd just as soon not know it's happening.

However, should someone actually want to be aware of such things on their own land, they have every right. No attempt should be made to stop them.

An ordinary prim with a simple transparent texture on it is easily detectable by anyone who's actively looking, but is also well enough hidden so as not to be a distraction to anyone who's not. That's the way to go. If your intentions are honorable, there's never any need for more than that.


Oh, and for all those who subscribe to the "I don't want my land scanned at all" philosophy, I'd suggest rethinking that. For lack of a better term, that line of thinking preposterously unrealistic. Whether you're talking about an automated sensor or a live person with pen and a notebook, it makes no difference. Anyone who wants to can see whatever is on your land any time they want and record what they've seen.

Land-based information in SL is public record, always has been, and always will be. It cannot be otherwise (at least not on the mainland or on any publicly visible island). If you truly want to keep to yourself, frankly you shouldn't be in SL.

That's not to say there aren't certain things you should be allowed to keep private; just don't expect anything that has to do with your land ever to be secret. It's not. If you want true secrecy, then build whatever you want in a 3D modeling program on your own computer and leave it at that; don't put it in a publicly accessible online world. If you choose to be in SL, you're opting to be in the public eye and that's all there is to it.

Invisible is a lot different than unselectable and undetectable.

Invisible is courteous in many cases to lower the amount of visible air clutter of sensors flitting around- but they're still going to be detectable and selectable if you can figure out where they *should* be. There's no good reason to make it undetectable/selectable though if you can just make it invisible.... unless you're up to no good.

I'm curious to know about a valid purpose for an unselectable, undetectable object.

I'd also like to know how you'd handle it after rezzing it, if the script got an error and quit ...

Sounds like trouble to me. Invisible, fine. Undetectable and unselectable? I'll be happy if it's impossible.

It is impossible. You can make it so it's very hard to find (i.e. very tiny), and doesn't show up on show invisible (i.e. invisiprim). However no matter how tiny or how transparent, it can be selected by dragging a box around it, assuming you know where it is. It will also show up on the object list of a parcel, as it still exists. If it's scripted, it will still show up in the top scripts list, assuming you are on an estate. Sensors can still pick it up, and there are "bug detectors" created just for this purpose. So there is no such thing as a 'unselectable' or 'undetectable' prim. A better description would be 'hard for the average person to find' prim.