Building:Linking

I have been unable to find a simple explanation on this point. How do i link prims? in a building for example? Any help greatly appreciated
Stone

hey, simply select all objects you want to link, the one you link up last, will be your root prim, while selected, hold ctrl, and press L and it will link, to unlink simply hold ctrl , alt, and L , hope this helps

to select multiple prims you can either hold shift and click them in order (last to first), or you can click and open space and drag a selection box over the prims you want. if you need to specify a specific prim as root with the second method you can shift+click the one you want to be root twice (deselects and reselects). you can't link prims while edit linked parts is checked (by design)

also bear in mind there is a limit to how many prims can be linked and the relative distance between them

The distance is 30m between the center of the farthest apart objects (Everything in between is fine, the 30m extands in all directions)

I think it might be 32m or something but 30 is a generally safe amount

The # of prims.. I don't remember lol.. alot. I've only hit the limit once, when making a tower of prim flowers using the trotation placement technique.. was pretty.. in the end was like.. 600 prims before I tried linking

big thanks to all who helped me I really appreciate it;- it seems like an easy question to answer-and i have been thru tutorials and suchlike-- but a dummy like me needs all the help i can get!! nice of you ))
ok-so 'simply select all prims' and then link' ok sounds easy-

I think the limit is around 380, can't remeber but i rmeeber hitting the wall around there

ill see if i can find it on the wiki.. if not, ill test tonight to find out ^_^

The limit for a single linkset is 256 prims. Due to a quirk of the mathematics though, the system counts from 0 to 255 instead of 1 to 256, so it's actually 255 usable prims in a set. (Same reason the physical limit is 31 instead of 32, by the way.)

Max distance 32, max amount 256, max physical 32, anyone noticing a pattern here? As with so many things in computing, it's powers of two.

The wiki entry is here: http://lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=link

after a bit of wandering the wiki the best i can come up with is 254 prims is the limit... thats kinda gleaned from the 'Build TOols Functional Spec' document... still searching for a difinitive answer though

ETA:: OK yeah, 254, due to limits on the physics engine. When HAvok 4 is released, the linking will be changed a bit, limits on both distance and amount will be changed

I can't wait to try all that was said about linking objects (prims??) I made a pillar for my livingroom and once I got all the pieces lined up I couldn't figure out how to link them to make one object.. going to try it again. If this works I will be a building fool. LOL. Thanks all!

Pattern, as soon as I read your answer the immediate pattern I saw was:
0=Black
255=White

and in this pattern that I am referring to 256 does not exist either.

there are 256 numbers, the 0 is the 256th

Oki, I am well aware of that but "0" is not considered a counting number, if what I am referring to starts at "0" and ends at "255" then "255" minus "0" will still equal "255".

But then if you are using keystrokes then yes I would agree that there really is 256 but this in itself is really another question and discussion.

My answer was really referring to the the pattern from which Chosen was referring to, and that was that there is no 256...

To link prims, select them by holding down the shift key and click once on each prim you want linked, then release the shift key and hold control 'CTRL' and 'L' together. They will change from yellow to blue outlines and one will remain yellow, this is now you primary prim. Moving the primary will alos move the child prims (ones that were highlighted as blue). Hope this helps.

realized that after rereading, sorry =P

Sanity Tip: choose your root prim with care as the linked build will use the root prim settings for the entire link set. Use a prim that is close to the center of your build. If at all possible, use a prim that isn't rotated or is at an even number (90, 180, 270.)

If you start out like this, you at least have a shot at returning your build to "normal" if you botch a rotation.

It's not that simple for a lot of people. There's a long standing bug, which you either have or you don't, that makes local rotation for a linkset come from the second to last selected prim before linking instead of the the last one. The parent is still the last selected one, but the rotation comes from second to last.

See https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-998 for more info.

Ahh, I wasn't aware of that - obviously the bug hasn't bitten me. Thanks Chosen!

Nice to see a simple question get answered promptly by a helpful crew instead of those miserable "bah humbug, USE SEARCH BEFORE YOU ASK A QUESTION" people. Search can be a total nuisance sometimes, especially if all you need is some quick basic information. Plus this gives everybody a chance to shout out some of the tips and tricks they have learned over their tour of duty in SL. I have one. Linking is one thing, unlinking is another. Be careful unlinking individual prims in one of these large 250 prims linked objects. If you unlink the parent prim, you no longer have a huge object, YOU HAVE 250 PIECES OF AN OBJECT THAT YOU HAVE TO RELINK ALL OVER AGAIN! I wanted to delete a large tavern I had built once, accidently deleted the wrong prim, and had to delete it the slow way, clicking every prim holding down that shift key to re-select large chunks to toss out. What a drag!!