Wow I Learned Something After Nearly 13 Years of SL

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't pretend to be technically-minded but SL forces you to learn technology, or rather technical minutae -- more than you do anywhere else -- or not function.

I take no shame in saying this despite years of ridicule in SL by the techies of the non-techies because I don't expect you to be able to decline six cases in Russian (my particular area of expertise) nor to perform surgery (a doctor's area of expertise) because society is made up of people with different specializations. I continue to be mocked for not knowing scripting but I know enough to adjust scripts often and I don't care -- again, you're not translating Russian necessarily so I'm not scripting.

One of the things Lindens and oldbies would always airily tell you was to go take a class at some newbie program, or study the wiki, or take a tutorial, or watch Torley on YouTube. And none of these are the ways I and others learn, and doing these things either doesn't work, is too boring or time-consuming and doesn't have what you need. I think most people learn what they have to learn about SL's arcane and intricate workings by having some overriding thing they need to do, then learning whatever technical things you need to do to facilitate that. So if you're a newbie, you learn how to offer and accept teleports so you can socialize. Or you learn how to deed a TV to a group because your rental is on group land. Or you learn about XYZ axis because you're adjusting some furniture or accessory or whatever.

I can take a VERY long time to learn, but this beats all the records.

Many of you know or have heard of something called the "root prim". This is the sort of thing that I "know about" but don't really "know," the way I "know about" internal combustion but don't really know it to drive a car or take the bus. I know that the dreaded "root prim" is a harsh task-master, like the Merciless Autocrat Autoreturn. If you don't do "the root prim thing" right, your item is messed up, perhaps irreparably.

So I "know" that you have to "link to root prim" but for me, that's a catch-as-catch-can affair. I never really know HOW YOU TELL what the root prim *is*. How could I know, I didn't make the thing! I know it's coloured red on the tutorial -- but it isn't "in real life". And so on. THAT there is a root prim that I dare not ignore at my peril is a given, but I've always been kind of vague about it.

Finally, the other day, totally by chance, I read some notes by a creator to a potion-making cauldron who happened to write plain, more or less coherent instructions about how to modify and use his device to make your own prims, and he noted this all-important fact that was a revelation to me: THE ROOT PRIM HAS TO BE THE LAST THING YOU LINK.

Before that, I would do things like -- hmm, that prim is big and fat, maybe that's the root? Or...that prim is the base of this table, that must be the root? Or...that prim has all the scripts in it, so it must be the root, right? Things like that. Because frankly, nobody ever said: the root prim is the last thing you link, it's not what you start with.

I just never knew that the root prim is -- counterintuitively, conversely, the-last-thing-you-expect -- the LAST thing you must link.

Now...why don't they call it then the Capping Prim? The Over-Arching Prim? The Last Prim?  The Ultima Prim? Those would all give you a clue that you must link LAST to them.

It just makes no sense to me that a thing called ROOT -- which sounds like "the first thing" or "the base" or "the original" or "the bottom of the thing" would be the LAST thing to link.

It so happens that in the cause of this cauldron, it was the thing with the scripts and config card and so all the little bottles and shelves had to be linked to *it*  -- but NOT by starting out with that base thing with all the stuff in it as "the root" but by putting that thing THE LAST. Who knew?!

I care not if people are laughing hysterically and pointing by now. I bet at least a few people reading this are marveling at this epiphany themselves. The only thing left to wonder is why this "root thing" has such an odd name when it isn't first, on the ground, the base, etc. I suppose it's because it's "the most important".

Now WHY is it the most important? Well, aside from the scripts and cards, it might have to do with things rotating around Z-axises -- and other scary things that I just glance at as a Cloud of Unknowing and know "There Lies Madness". You would do the same thing with present participle gerunds in Russian. So it is what it is -- and frankly, I'm not even sure I have it right now, but I have been using this "understanding" on a few things that I had to fix or take a part or build, and they've been working ok!

Edited September 17, 2017 by Prokofy Neva

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I take no shame in saying this despite years of ridicule in SL by the techies of the non-techies because I don't expect you to be able to decline six cases in Russian (my particular area of expertise) nor to perform surgery (a doctor's area of expertise) because society is made up of people with different specializations. I continue to be mocked for not knowing scripting but I know enough to adjust scripts often and I don't care -- again, you're not translating Russian necessarily so I'm not scripting.

 

There's "not being able to decline six cases in Russian" and there's "moving to Russia with no more knowledge than this person:"

http://www.traveller.com.au/please-direct-me-to-the-pectopah-1ivg9

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, I think in fairness, he was just a tourist, not moving there, but I kind of sympathize. When I was about 9 -- so this is 52 years ago -- my Dad taught my brother and me the Cyrillic alphabet, and told us all those tricks, like the "backwards R" isn't an R at all but pronounced "Ya" and means "I" in English -- and so on. I remember the sense of mystery and wonder and confusion. I find people can learn the alphabet in about 3 days but confusion prevails unless they really go and learn the language. And tourists aren't expected to do that. 

Russians say that Americans smile "too much" and they are "fake" and they open their mouths way to wide to eat their gigantic cheeseburgers, which they find revolting. So, sure, in reverse, Russians seem like they don't smile. But they have very warm smiles when they do smile. They are just schooled in keeping a stony facade in public from the Communist era when thought crime could land you in the GULAG -- but this is wearing off slowly, I think.

 

[Pamela Galli]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

There's "not being able to decline six cases in Russian" and there's "moving to Russia with no more knowledge than this person:"

http://www.traveller.com.au/please-direct-me-to-the-pectopah-1ivg9

That is pretty funny. Esp the stoney silence.

[Callum Meriman]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It just makes no sense to me that a thing called ROOT -- which sounds like "the first thing" or "the base" or "the original" or "the bottom of the thing" would be the LAST thing to link.

Computer trees are always drawn upside down, root at the top and branches underneath. Escoteric (ass-about) diagramming to make sure a lay-person can never fully grok it and we maintain our wages. teehee.

But, more seriously, the same technique, of the last being the root, also works when you join two parcels. If you drag from one parcel to the other, when you join them, the last selected becomes the root parcel. It's name, settings, stream and so on take effect.

Edit: Adding a typical tree diagram to show trhis upsidedown-ness we IT people love.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Callum Meriman

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

   Maybe it should be called a peanut plant diagram.

[Rachel1206]

You link TO the ROOT prim - confusion seems to come from video/builders showing, where they select last prim and link items together and refers to this as last prim. It is important to understand root prim, when we work on things more complex.

The root prim is our anchor point no matter what - orientation, positions of linked items, be it wheels, doors, hands, tentacles - important if we want movements etc.

Play around with it - best way to learn in SecondLife is learning by doing!

And rule #1 - always work on an object rezzed facing  to the east - that is rotation <0.0, 0.0, 0.0>

Edited September 17, 2017 by Rachel1206

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

But, more seriously, the same technique, of the last being the root, also works when you join two parcels. If you drag from one parcel to the other, when you join them, the last selected becomes the root parcel. It's name, settings, stream and so on take effect.

I see that somebody edited the wiki in 2015 to say it works this way, but I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. I just tried it and every attempt preserved the larger parcel's identity, subsuming the smaller one when they were joined. When joining same-sized parcels, I observed (but from only a few trials -- I got bored) that the earlier created parcel's identity was preserved.

(For anyone wanting to try this, be aware that Auto-Return Interval is cleared to 0 whenever parcels are Joined or Subdivided, so remember to put it back when you're done!)

I vaguely recall that long, long ago the logic for which parcel's identity is preserved was too arcane for a Linden to explain it, so at some point it got tidied-up to this "larger parcel wins" rule. The discussions around this are likely too many generations of defunct forums ago to be found anymore.

Anyway, it's all just convention, and while it's crucial that a convention be consistent, it's merely convenient that it be intuitive. A particularly blatant case of a counter-intuitive SL convention is that shift-dragging an object leaves the new instance behind in the location from which the original instance is being dragged.

(The reasons one should care which is the original may be pretty arcane to non-scripters, but some may find it confusing when the new, left-behind instance lacks some persistent prim properties (e.g., particles) set in the original.)

[Nova Convair]

If you build you need to understand how the SL mechanics work. If you don't understand it fully you will wonder why things don't work. If I'm alone in russia and don't speak the language I will encounter problems here and there. That's how it is .  

Imagine a single prim. Now get 10 more prims linked to it. If you make a diagram and draw lines who is linked to who you will see a star. The root is in the middle and every other prim is linked to the root. If an avatar sits on it it's just like any other prim and linked to the root.

That's the diagram. Has nothing to do how it looks like in SL. The root could be an invisible prim hovering 5m over the rest of the linkset. But the linking is always a star. All child prims and sitters are directly linked to the root prim. That's a very simple and limiting geometry btw.

Now imagine you like to move or rotate things. You need to use the proper coordinate system. You can use the one of the sim and place something in the sim. Ok, but if you want to position an avatar on a seat that system is worthless. The chair can be everywhere in any rotation. So you need to move things relative to the root. You use the root's coordinate system. Since a sitting avatar is linked directly to the root it's relatively easy to position that. It is clear that everything is messed up if you ever change the root.

So why not move things relative to another child prim? The door could move relative to the doorframe for example or a sitting avatar relative to the prim it seems to sit on. Yes, but the door is not linked to the doorframe. The door is linked to the root and the doorframe is linked to the root. They are not linked to each other.

It can be scripted of course - no problem - but the complexity of this script is alot higher than all the free scripts that are around for so many years.

Oh one detail btw. If I select an object in edit mode the root is yellow marked and the rest is cyan marked. I have no clue if the LL viewer shows that too, but I'd never use the LL viewer for building purposes for several reasons.

[Candi Clawtooth]

Does this root prim and attachments bring the build to whatever prim the root is ???  I am   trying to figure that one out....i need to make things that are 1 or 2 prim and just havent found any reads about it so far.

[acedacid]

it depends on what are the specific objects. if you have two standard boxes with one wood texture and LOD - then 2 prims are probably going to become 1. if it's a more complex build with various textures, alphas, weight and soecular maps then the prim count will probably be the same as singular objects separated.