Group Prim Movement when selected

I have a rather large house build. I spent a lot of time lining things up, making textures match up, etc. I ultimately grouped prims as I could and built my own rezzer box which is working flawlessly. When the house is rezzed from the box, everything is lined up perfectly. However, when I simply select one of the larger groupings, it immediately does a slight rotation and goes off-kilter with the rest of the house - moving slightly away from level. Even worse - it won't let me rotate it back where it belongs. It always jumps a bit off one way or the other. I've deleted and re-rezzed the thing several times all with the same result and I'm certain I'm doing nothing to rotate it myself. I've tried turning the 'snap to grid' off and I've tried lowering the ground to be sure it wasn't a collision there. I'm stumped. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Are you sure it's actually rotating? I mean have the numbers changed?

It sounds to me like it's a graphics glitch. I've haven't heard of it happening to entire linksets, but it is fairly common for it to happen to individual prims within a set. Turn on Edit Linked Parts, click on a linked prim to edit it, and it appears to rotate a bit. It's really annoying. The good news is the prim hasn't actually moved; it just looks like it has. Usually, clicking on it a second time will set it right.

What you're describing sounds like the same sort of glitch, just with whole linksets instead of individual prims. Check to see if the numbers are actually changing.

All this, by the way, is assuming that when you say "groupings" you mean linksets. Because SL is a social communications program in addition to being a 3D modeler, its terminology is a little different from that of dedicated 3D modeling programs. In most modeling programs, what SL calls a link would be called a group, but a group in SL means a group of people. So I guess they figured "link" was the next best word.


In any case, what you're experiencing is a bug. File a bug report.


EDIT: I just thought of another possible cause for your problem. You say you're using a homemade rezzer box to rez the house. Does this rezzer require you to put a locator script inside each piece, similar to how Rez Foo and Rez Faux operate? If so, perhaps that script is malfunctioning. What happens if you delete all the scripts? Do things still pop out of alignment when touched? If not, then you know the problem is somewhere in your scripting.

Thanks. Yes - the rotation numbers are changing. If I have the edit window open and select the "linked set" (thanks for that - yes that's what I meant) the x/y rotation numbers change slightly. Yes, the rezzer does use a listening script in each set's root prim for the rezzer. I'll look at it closely, but I don't see, intuitively, how the one linked set would have this issue when none of the others (at least a dozen linked sets) have this problem -- all with exactly the same script. The placement from the rezzer is perfect. It is only when I select the set with the editor that it rotates. Really bizarre. Thanks so much for the ideas. It gives me more to explore and I'll file a bug report once I feel I've tried everything and still can't resolve it.

I'm stunned. It IS the script somehow but I still believe it to be a bug. The listener in the prim never does a rotation. Each linked set is rezzed at the appropriate rotation and the listener script does nothing but llSetPosition and only when a specific message is received. Nevertheless, if I disable the script the problem disappears.

Poof - problem solved. I simply recompiled the script without making a single modification. Cleared my cache just a couple of days ago so I have no idea what could have caused it to go haywire. I guess the moral of the story is that scripts don't need to have a programming bug to be buggy! If anything is acting flaky - recompile!

Thanks for pointing me toward the script

Glad you got it worked out. Really weird though. I didn't know there could be such a thing as a "bad compile", but apparently there can. Interesting discovery, if nothing else.

Check out http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Builders_Buddy and compare it to your scripts. You may be able to use something out of it.

One nice feature is that it will reposition the rezzed sections on demand from the rezzor box (I but my rezzor script in the basement with a mod to stop it from deleting the basement when cleaning out the scripts). That way you can set things back to where they rezzed if they drift. Only works while all the scripts are intact.

Ahh, another piece of the puzzle. I have had this *really* annoying bug happen to me quite a lot recently, and now that you mention it, all of the objects have had a script of one type or another in them.

The most common effect for me is that once something is selected (or touched), it will rotate (usually on two of the axis about 0.05 each, sometimes the change is small enough that it does not show in the numbers). The change sometimes jumps back, sometimes doesn't and is visible it other people.

Also this is NOT just limited to your objects , I have seen it happen to objects that I have touched that are owned by other people (people that I don't know), and obviously I couldn't tell if the numbers changed (and it hasn't happened when someone I know has been around *and* watching).

Any other clues, so that we have enough information to submit a bug report?

This is a bit off topic compared to your situation, but, I've found that when editing a linked set, sometimes a linked part will "snap" back again. I ultimately will have to unlink the set, perform the rotation, and relink it.

I think there may be something going on with the script compiler or SL cache. I just had a similarly bizarre issue with the particle system. Particles would just randomly stop for no apparent reason. I completely cleared my cache - actually moved it to a different hard drive - and that seems to have fixed the problem. Could it be that the recompile is replacing a corrupt copy of the compiled script in the cache with a fresh one? I'm afraid we'll never really know on something so esoteric. When it's buried this deep - it is difficult to isolate.

You know, now that you mention it, I have a scripted shower with a curtain that opens and closes on touch using llSetPrimitiveParams to change only the 'cut' of the curtain prim. Whenever the curtain is open or closed, the entire shower rotates ever so slightly, but then jumps right back into place. I recompiled this script with no effect. I don't know if these things are related or if we'll ever have enough info to file a bug report. I think we'll probably just have to chalk all this up to SL quirkiness!