building problems

i was wondering if anyone else is having the same types of problems that i am

> problems linking prims that should be able to be linked (they are definitely close enough together). i can make an exact copy of a set of linked prims.....edit them to reduce thickness & am then unable to link them all together again
> when i copy a set of prims & edit them for thickness & then either try to lock them or leave the game & return.....parts but not all revert back to their original size

the building tools have not worked correctly for me since the upgrade to the new tools & has gotten worse since the last upgrade. i love to build but this is becoming embolism inducing

have not seen this behavior.

Make sure nothing has snuck into the contents folder of your prims -- i wonder if there is a rights issue that is affecting your ability to link.

The link formula is a bit weird. Smaller prims need to be closer than big prims to be able to link them up. I'm not sure why that is, but it's true. That said, there has been some forum chatter about the formula changing recently, so maybe it's a bug that crept in.

I've had a lot of weird problems with building also. My biggest gripe remains to be texturing. It just doesn't work since 1.6. If I select even just one whole prim and try to blank the ugly default plywood texture, some sides blank, some don't, pause a few seconds and the sides reshuffle. It's bizarre and incredibly annoying. I usually end up having to blank it three or four times, and often resort to blanking one side at a time. Oh what I wouldn't give for the option to say NO DEFAULT TEXTURE ON PRIMS. Mmmm.

I've not had much problem linking stuff, but I have had linked objects do wierd things, such as reverting in size like you said. Also I've tried resizing whole linked objects before, and some of the prims in the link set don't resize along with the rest, and I have to undo and try again.

While we're ranting, what decade can we expect basic text editing functionality in the notecard/script editors. Is a find/replace function really so much to ask?

Just about everyone has experienced both these problems, and both of them have existed since way before 1.6. For some people they seem to have gotten worse since the upgrade from 1.5, and for others they seem to have gotten better, which of course indicates that the occurance is just as random as it ever was.

I believe the resizing phenomenon has to do with cache discrepency. You make a change to a prim and the change gets saved locally but not on the server, or vise versa. Then the next time you re-cache the object (either by leaving the area and coming back or else by relogging) the prim reverts back to its previous state. I'm not sure what causes the false link distance error, but I'd imagine both are symptoms of a single larger issue.

I'm sure LL is working on it, but for now the easiest workaround is just to duplicate whatever prims are affected and then delete the originals. The new ones then usually finction properluy. Just be sure you know which is which. If you shift-drag, the old prims are the ones that moved. If you use ctrl-d, the old ones are the ones that stayed in place.

Also, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but both problems seem to only affect prims that have been altered with the manipulator tool. Prims built by numbers seem to be immune. That suggests that the failure is somewhere between where the graphical tools spit out data and where the database receives. Entering text directly seems to serve as a bypass.

This is certianly annoying, and we can only hope that they fix it soon.

Yeah, I had a weird one a couple days ago. I linked some prims and cloned the whole set raising it 10 meters. When I unlinked one of the prims in the cloned set, it immediately popped back down 10 meters. If I moved it, it would move back. I logged off and logged back in, and it was still happening. I just ended up deleting it. But it was mighty strange.

With the shuffling textures, it seemed to me like I was getting that more when I would cycle through different textures rapidly. It seemed almost like the texture change was being sent to the various prims by a messaging system, and the queues were backing up or something. So I've started trying to avoid going through a lot of texture changes quickly. I think that's helping, although it's hard to be sure.

I too have noticed that if i link say, 4 prims, but then edit selected prim & change it's size while it's still linked, it stays that way until I either relog or leave the sim & come back. It's then back to its pre-changed size. This happens 100% of the time. To beat it i have to unselect it from the link, change the size, then relink it. Total pain in the posterior!

I have issues with moving/resizing prims... Both by dragging and by entering numbers.

The crosshairs move but the prim is still drawn in it's old location. I can only select it by clicking on it in it's old location but the crosshair then appears in the expected new location...

It seems to happen about 1/3 of the time when I move a prim by number and much less often by dragging.

<ctrl>z then <ctrl>y (undo then redo) always fixes the problem. Recently moved prims are MUCH less likely to have this problem than prims I havn't touched in a while, but not immune either.

Could some of these behaviors be related to delays and timing issues in retrieving/updating prim entries on the asset server?

Racer P.

This is not uncommon. The client renderer doesn't update to redraw draw the object like it should. It's not a big deal though, just a minor annoyance, as there is an easy instant fix. Just roatate the object by one degree on any axis and then and then back again. It will instantly update to its correct location.

Oh, and by the way, when you say "crosshairs", I assume you mean the manipulator tool. Call it whatever you like, but keep in mind some people won't know what you mean if you call it anything other than its actual name. "Manipulator" is what it's called in every 3D modeling program there is.