Link Fails

Hi apologies if this has already been covered, I did a quick search but couldnt find it anywhere. My problem is this, I am building a house, some large 10x10 prims, when i come to link the whole thing i get a message "link failed pieces too far apart". I have only come across this while building large houses, is it due to the size of the prims involved? Is this a common thing? Should I worry because I have done something wrong? Thanks

The maximum linkable distance between any two prims is 32M on center. If any two are further apart from each other than that, the link will fail. That's for 10M prims, by the way. For smaller prims, the distance is less. Link distance is a bit like gravity; larger objects have more of it and smaller objects have less.

The exact formula for how link distance works was posted by Andrew Linden at /111/62/11883/1.html It's a little harder to read than it once was since bbCode no longer works on the forums, but it's still legible.

So, to answer your questions, yes, it's a common thing, and no, you shouldn't be worried. There's really no need to link a whole house. It's not like a house has to move or has to be physical. For stationary objects, linking is almost more of an organizational tool than a structural one. Link your house into easily manageable pieces. Don't worry about linking the whole thing.

The next question whenever this topic comes up is always "but the reason I wanted to link the whole thing was so I could take it all into inventory at once; how can I do that if it's not all one piece?". The answer is it doesn't matter if something's in one piece or a thousand pieces. You can still take it into inventory as one object.

The explanation of how is a little more complicated than it's supposed to be though. The way it's supposed to work is you select all the objects at once, right click, and select Take. All the pieces then appear in your inventory as a single object (with a multiple boxes icon next to it, so you know it's got more than one part). However, this functionality is currently broken. You can end up losing some of the parts.

A more reliable way to go is to use a scripted packaging product like Rez Foo, Rez Faux, or Builder's Buddy. I use Rez Foo, and I've never had any problems with it. It's a little time consuming, as it requires dropping a script into each piece and then putting each piece into the contents of a packager object, but the results are 100% reliable. You can take the packager anywhere and then have it re-rez your build at the touch of a button. You can also sell the package to others, so buying your large houses will be really simple for your customers. They just buy the package from you, hit the button, and sit back, and watch it build a copy of your house for them.

I don't agree with the 32m on center, that simply isn't true in my case. This is getting stupid. I'm working on a build, I'm not trying to connect the entire build. I'm working on a 10x10x15m section that's just 6 prims and I can't link a 7th prim that's literally 1m from the center root prim. WTF.

I'm having issues with "link failed" all over this build, and the it's always on small sections, nothing bigger than 10x10m or so.

E

Interesting update, I'm now trying to link the 7th piece to a totally independent prim that's directly attached and under it, and it still says pieces are too far apart. Something is screwed up with this 7th prim, any idea what is causing it? (I mean -besides- LL)

E

Make sure that you haven't accidentally selected anything else as well?

I've only ever gotten the message when it makes sense, with a build that goes over 30m in any direction. (32, w/e lol)

EDIT:: However, the distance isnt from the root prim... its from the center of it all... you said its a central root, but felt I should say that anyway.

Yeah I made sure nothing else is attached. This one prim seems to think everything is far away from it when it's actually touching everything. I had to take the problem prim into my inventory and re-rez it before it would get linked to anything. Weird.

odd bug o.o

Happened to me all day yesterday. I couldn't link two prims that were literally touching each other. In my case I suspect that it had something to do with the scripting I was doing. Even after deleting all of the scripts I still couldn't link the pieces. If I rezzed a new piece (the same piece that had never contained the script), it would work.

Very frustrating.

Doug

I too have noticed this strange link fail message quite often on prims that ordinarily should have no problems linking being that they are well within normal linking distance. It is almost like the prim itself is somehow bugged.

Solution that usually works for me is to select the prims you are trying to link, do a drag copy and delete the old prims (the ones you pulled away) and the new prims usually link fine.

Works nine times out of ten for me. Hope it helps.