How to Summon a Spirit?

[Prokofy Neva]

I have this idea to have a spirit appear if you click on the right sequence of rocks. Of course, this is probably not realizable in a simple way, because professional game makers like MadPea have done this sort of things with proprietary scripts such as in that sword gatcha they had, where if you assemble all the pieces, it does all these cool things.

Ideally, I'd love to step on a mat, and a prim pops up with the spirit, i.e. a texture on high transparency.

But since "stepping on a prim to make something happen" is rare in SL (yes there are door mats that tell you of visitors, and yes I once got a creative scripter here to make my long-wished-for rabbits-fall-on-head script), I realize I may have to settle for something less.

Since getting this custom made might be too expensive (I think), I am imagining that just to have a prim you click that makes a spirit appear would be enough. But how to do this?

Yes, there are ways to make prims temp rez and I even had a scripter make a thing for me to work this way one to put out a driveway/drawbridge but I can't get it to work to this day and I finally gave up. I would love to make tables that pop up food but I never got that temp rez thing to work that way.

One obvious way is through particles, although again, with simplicity in mind, if you have only one image to use, it will make a shower of repeat images. That would be ok, if it were possible to click again and have it go away.

I tried to get Jopsy's particle and then toggle scripts to work, and they just do nothing. It seems as if you don't have to rename the texture or anything, you drop a texture and this script into a prim, and it should start. But nothing happens. I often have that problem with this site, I don't know, maybe I'm doing something wrong.

So unless there's a better idea, what I hope to do is:

o drop a texture into a prim

o drop a script that makes that texture a particle or even better, pops it up "as is" in singular form

o add a toggle to turn it on and off (would that be in the same prim?)

Advice appreciated.

[Rolig Loon]

The easiest solution is probably to use a particle display, as you have deduced.  The only thing that's wrong in your analysis is the assumption that a particle generator will produce a "shower of repeat images. " It doesn't have to.  You can generate a single static image by setting the particle parameters to create ONE particle with ZERO minimum and maximum speed and a 30 second lifetime.  If you do that, your particle will just sit there indefinitely, or until you send the generator a llParticleSystem([]) command to shut it off.  You could send that with a trigger in the touch_start event, as you suggested, or in a timer event that starts when your victim steps on the prim that starts the whole show.

Edited January 14, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[Prokofy Neva]

You know that's VERY interesting! I never knew that! And that's because I don't know how to script. I just jam whatever script is to hand in a prim and try to make it work. I thought the very notion of "particle" meant that the thing has to break up into particles and shower everywhere, like fireworks.

So I am going to try to change some existing script to do that thing you suggest. However, I should warn you that the last time I did this the other day, I made some kind of slab on flexible and physics that just rockets around the sim and I can't catch it, even on highlight transparent. I will have to ask the Lindens to get it for me.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Ideally, I'd love to step on a mat, and a prim pops up with the spirit, i.e. a texture on high transparency.

That's actually not that complicated, you could easily adapt the example script for llVolumeDetect by replacing the llSay command with a call to the function creating your particle(s), like so.

make_particle()
{
	// stuff to make particle(s) goes here!
}

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llVolumeDetect(TRUE); // Starts llVolumeDetect
    }

    collision_start(integer total_number)
    {
        make_particle();
    }
}

 

(Enabling VolumeDetect on an object will make it phantom, so make sure there's something underneath for people to stand on!)

Edited January 15, 2018 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

The easiest solution is probably to use a particle display, as you have deduced.  The only thing that's wrong in your analysis is the assumption that a particle generator will produce a "shower of repeat images. " It doesn't have to.  You can generate a single static image by setting the particle parameters to create ONE particle with ZERO minimum and maximum speed and a 30 second lifetime.  If you do that, your particle will just sit there indefinitely, or until you send the generator a llParticleSystem([]) command to shut it off.  You could send that with a trigger in the touch_start event, as you suggested, or in a timer event that starts when your victim steps on the prim that starts the whole show.

And, even better, that particle spirit will always face the camera. As you move about, it will appear as if the spirit's gaze is following you.

[OptimoMaximo]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I thought the very notion of "particle" meant that the thing has to break up into particles and shower everywhere, like fireworks.

Depending on the particle type you're working with in CG, that assumption can be true. It is not for what concerns SL, which uses what is called sprite particles. You feed in a sprite, a 2d texture, and each single particle will be a little plane with your texture on it. SL uses the most primitive type of sprite particle, which can *not* be animated, while the main point and reason for this type of particles is to achieve a more random look using fewer particles, running a sprite-sheet animation. I would hope LL will add this in a remote feature, but i won't hold my breath for it.

[Prokofy Neva]

@OptimoMaximo I realize that the particle can't be animated as such. However, if you take the prim that you're putting the particle on, and put it on "flexible" and change the wind or the drag or whatever, it gets floppy, and as I discovered, it will rez out and stay floppy during its life. So that sort of makes it look animated. It was good enough for this spirit fish I made for these panda bears anyway.

 

PS Actually, I was confused here. That is NOT the particularized texture that does that. The floppy prim is obviously a prim that sprang out of another prim using a "Summon Spirit" script that in fact Innula Zenovka was kind enough to write up and send me. It simply does exactly what I asked for here. I'm not a scripter and not asking for free work or handouts -- I make these inquiries only to find out if something is doable, and doable simply, and whether dummies can adjust existing scripts to make that happen, and if not, to pay a scripter. 

But I continue to be baffled by her position, laid out to me in IMs, which is NOT to publish her script here on the forums, because she feels that such publishing in general encourages drive-by grabbers who just want to exploit kind open source scripters -- to summarize what is no doubt a more complex position. But yet she has made it open source, so IM me (so as not to bother her) and I will send it to you.

Honestly, the open source cults never cease to provide me with weirdnesses about themselves...

Another scripter who hasn't been in this discussion kindly wrote me a "single particle" script although it doesn't turn off. That's for another day. So if you want THAT script IM me.

Honestly, I think such scripts should just be published here because I think there will be 2 1/2 people who will care. Those who actually make things for fun or business already know this and don't need those scripts. Those amateurs like me who occasionally dabble in a very shallow way because they simply want to make something in the larger context of decorating a sim, to make a project or ambiance (not a "creation" as such) are going to be the ones to have the advantage of a script library.

My own belief is that open source is for the birds for the most part and people should charge for their work. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate open source scripts that I make liberal use of and don't charge for as they request under their license. But I find the *ideology* contradictory and annoying.

I use an open source rental script that looks like Trishka's kaftan at this point, but it doesn't matter, lots of people worked on it over the years, lots of things got added, it works more or less, some did it for free, others not, but it is freely available (in my store in Ross if you want) I do this not for love of the open source movement which I realize derp "the Internet is supported by blah blah" but because I don't wish to be captured by the major rent-seeking virtual monopolist of SL who wields a now nearly-ubiquitous rental/vendor product. 

In fact, the history of the open source script I use is one of the first rental scripts which worked by having the maker gouging hapless newby landlords by making them pay thousands of dollars for using it outright OR letting them buy it cheap but with himself taking a cut of EVERY transaction. Imagine every time you make a sale, the scripter's hand is out, collecting not $2000 or $10000 but millions. There were quite a few oldbies doing that sort of rent-seeking literally in the early days. Made fortunes! Finally, over some quarrel with the Lindens or something, they liberated their scripts. 

You know how in the old days your Irish grandmother with 10 kids would grumble that if the men had to have every other one, there'd only be two kids. Well, if scripts weren't copybottable because they weren't server-side, the whole attitude would be different.

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Love Zhaoying]

16 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

And, even better, that particle spirit will always face the camera. As you move about, it will appear as if the spirit's gaze is following you.

Like "Clum Babies" on Drawn Together!

[Innula Zenovka]

On 15/01/2018 at 4:20 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

But I continue to be baffled by her position, laid out to me in IMs, which is NOT to publish her script here on the forums, because she feels that such publishing in general encourages drive-by grabbers who just want to exploit kind open source scripters -- to summarize what is no doubt a more complex position. But yet she has made it open source, so IM me (so as not to bother her) and I will send it to you.

I've tried to explain to Prokofy, though obviously I can't have expressed myself very well, that I don't normally post full solutions to scripting problems in this forum not because of any particular feelings about open source (I am, as it happens, not particularly keen on open source myself, but that's neither here nor there) but because I don't want casual readers of the forum to clutter the place up with posts asking for free scripts, since that simply makes extra work for LL's moderators, who patiently and reliably move them to a more appropriate forum like Inworld Employment or Wanted.

This forum is for questions about scripting -- how do I do this, or is this possible, or why has this script  suddenly stopped working -- not questions about where can I find a script or will someone please make me one.    If I wanted recommendations on where to buy a mesh body, I wouldn't ask in the mesh forum, and if I wanted to hire someone to make animations for me, I wouldn't ask in the animations forum.    That's all. 

There's no hard and fast rule, and all the forum regulars have rather different ideas about what the convention is, but many of us don't post full solutions here both because, as I've said, we don't want to give casual visitors the mistaken impression this is where to find scripts, as opposed to find out about them, and because -- though it's not issue here, but often it is -- we want to help people to write the scripts themselves because it's such a rewarding feeling when you do, and it finally works. and we don't want to take that away from people.

If anyone wants a copy of the script, by all means ask either Prok or me.      When I have a moment, I'll probably write up a rather more generic version of it and put it in the Scripts Library, if it's likely to be useful.   

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Innula Zenovka

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I've tried to explain to Prokofy, though obviously I can't have expressed myself very well, that I don't normally post full solutions to scripting problems in this forum not because of any particular feelings about open source (I am, as it happens, not particularly keen on open source myself, but that's neither here nor there) but because I don't want casual readers of the forum to clutter the place up with posts asking for free scripts, since that simply makes extra work for LL's moderators, who patiently and reliably move them to a more appropriate forum like Inworld Employment or Wanted.

This forum is for questions about scripting -- how do I do this, or is this possible, or why has this script  suddenly stopped working -- not questions about where can I find a script or will someone please make me one.    If I wanted recommendations on where to buy a mesh body, I wouldn't ask in the mesh forum, and if I wanted to hire someone to make animations for me, I wouldn't ask in the animations forum.    That's all. 

There's no hard and fast rule, and all the forum regulars have rather different ideas about what the convention is, but many of us don't post full solutions here both because, as I've said, we don't want to give casual visitors the mistaken impression this is where to find scripts, as opposed to find out about them, and because -- though it's not issue here, but often it is -- we want to help people to write the scripts themselves because it's such a rewarding feeling when you do, and it finally works. and we don't want to take that away from people.

If anyone wants a copy of the script, by all means ask either Prok or me.      When I have a moment, I'll probably write up a rather more generic version of it and put it in the Scripts Library, if it's likely to be useful.   

 

Plus..if Prof TRIES, he/she might learn something!

[Rolig Loon]

23 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

This forum is for questions about scripting -- how do I do this, or is this possible, or why has this script  suddenly stopped working -- not questions about where can I find a script or will someone please make me one.    If I wanted recommendations on where to buy a mesh body, I wouldn't ask in the mesh forum, and if I wanted to hire someone to make animations for me, I wouldn't ask in the animations forum.    That's all. 

There's no hard and fast rule, and all the forum regulars have rather different ideas about what the convention is, but many of us don't post full solutions here both because, as I've said, we don't want to give casual visitors the mistaken impression this is where to find scripts, as opposed to find out about them, and because -- though it's not issue here, but often it is -- we want to help people to write the scripts themselves because it's such a rewarding feeling when you do, and it finally works. and we don't want to take that away from people.

This is exactly the point. It has nothing to do with open source. As Innula says, each of the regulars in this forum has a somewhat different interpretation , but the underlying principle is that this is a place to get help writing scripts, not a place to come looking for free ones.  This is not a script library.  There are plenty of those, and many of us have donated free, working scripts to them.  Here, we often post snippets of code (sometimes untested), or rough examples to illustrate a technique. Rarely a finished script.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[Innula Zenovka]

43 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Plus..if Prof TRIES, he/she might learn something!

While I agree pretty much anyone can learn to script if they want to and are interested, there's absolutely no reason anyone should feel they ought to.  I'm assured that I wouldn't find it difficult to make mesh or animations, and I haven't found it too difficult when I've bothered to try with Blender.   But I don't find it anywhere near as interesting as I do scripting and I have only a limited amount of time, so I'd rather ask people who are good at making mesh or animations, and who enjoy doing it, to make stuff for me.

No one can be a specialist in everything, after all, and if everyone knew how to script then that would be a lot of us out of business.   

While I disagree with Prok on many things, I do recognise he does a great deal for SL in various ways, and I'm generally happy -- when I have time -- to knock out short scripts for Prok and other established content creators.  I don't normally charge for that kind of thing because it's simply my way of killing 20 minutes or so rather than by doodling or playing sudoku or something.  I just don't want to give people who are simply trying to scrounge free scripts written to order the idea this is a good place to ask.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Innula Zenovka said:

While I agree pretty much anyone can learn to script if they want to and are interested, there's absolutely no reason anyone should feel they ought to.  I'm assured that I wouldn't find it difficult to make mesh or animations, and I haven't found it too difficult when I've bothered to try with Blender.   But I don't find it anywhere near as interesting as I do scripting and I have only a limited amount of time, so I'd rather ask people who are good at making mesh or animations, and who enjoy doing it, to make stuff for me.

No one can be a specialist in everything, after all, and if everyone knew how to script then that would be a lot of us out of business.   

While I disagree with Prok on many things, I do recognise he does a great deal for SL in various ways, and I'm generally happy -- when I have time -- to knock out short scripts for Prok and other established content creators.  I don't normally charge for that kind of thing because it's simply my way of killing 20 minutes or so rather than by doodling or playing sudoku or something.  I just don't want to give people who are simply trying to scrounge free scripts written to order the idea this is a good place to ask.

Agreed in that, I have 30 years' programming experience so scripting may come a lot easier to me than someone who is not a programmer. 

[Prokofy Neva]

16 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I've tried to explain to Prokofy, though obviously I can't have expressed myself very well, that I don't normally post full solutions to scripting problems in this forum not because of any particular feelings about open source (I am, as it happens, not particularly keen on open source myself, but that's neither here nor there) but because I don't want casual readers of the forum to clutter the place up with posts asking for free scripts, since that simply makes extra work for LL's moderators, who patiently and reliably move them to a more appropriate forum like Inworld Employment or Wanted.

This forum is for questions about scripting -- how do I do this, or is this possible, or why has this script  suddenly stopped working -- not questions about where can I find a script or will someone please make me one.    If I wanted recommendations on where to buy a mesh body, I wouldn't ask in the mesh forum, and if I wanted to hire someone to make animations for me, I wouldn't ask in the animations forum.    That's all. 

There's no hard and fast rule, and all the forum regulars have rather different ideas about what the convention is, but many of us don't post full solutions here both because, as I've said, we don't want to give casual visitors the mistaken impression this is where to find scripts, as opposed to find out about them, and because -- though it's not issue here, but often it is -- we want to help people to write the scripts themselves because it's such a rewarding feeling when you do, and it finally works. and we don't want to take that away from people.

If anyone wants a copy of the script, by all means ask either Prok or me.      When I have a moment, I'll probably write up a rather more generic version of it and put it in the Scripts Library, if it's likely to be useful.   

 

As I've explained to you already multiple times inworld, it's not that I don't understand you, it's that I disagree with you. And because I think what you are doing is morally wrong, I object to it. Scripts that are open should be published, here, on the forum where people look for scripting help. And I totally understand and did the first time that you aren't an opensourcenik. But it doesn't matter because you are adapting their culture, consciously or not. You make a free script and gift it to me on all perms - you could have said "Hi, I saw your request, I'll do it for $1000". Instead, you did it for free as a hobby but then wouldn't publish it. This is wrong, Innula, and Rolig and others clapping this. It's morally contradictory and unfair. Of course in SL, you can "do what you want on your land" and if you feel moved to make a script that is open but not really, and dole it out to the approved, that's your call. But again, I call it out as part of that wrongness of open source cultism, adopted even by those who aren't claiming to be for open source.

So to reiterate:

1. I don't like open source, and to me this is a perfect contradict in terms so typical of this cult -- make a script that is open, copyable, not for sale -- yet hold it close because God forbid, a rapacious newbie might get it -- or rather, to make your point, might see that such things are given freely and get the idea he can "get a handout" or something complex for his business.

2. I'm not aware of mods always having to move droves of people who need to hire a scripter for complex work as distinct from asking for free scripts that do things they are interested in. I'm sure the mods are far more busier elsewhere. Of course you watch this section far more. But the Lindens as such couldn't hold your position, that scripts should be held close so that newbies won't be encouraged to - God forbid -- get something free or hire a scripter in that dirty world of commerce which the cultists hate. It's like some little club where a few smart insiders get to answer or not answer or dole out scripts or not.

3. What is this really about? You don't want newbies (or the uncultured, if not new) to hire other people for jobs while the open source cult is kept pristine? You want their jobs? But none of that seems to apply. That's why it's so inexplicable and wrong.

4. I reject out of hand that I have to "learn scripting" any more than I have to "learn Spanish" or that you have to learn Russian -- I know Russian, and that's my job. People have different skills and roles in society, not everybody has to code despite the cultism of Silicon Valley saying this.

5. What I especially object to is this idea that I've become part of the "deserving poor" here. I may be clueless about scripting and ready to be sent packing like any other newb, but because I "do other things for SL" (like run the land preserve or provide low cost newbie rentals or whatever) then...I'm in. I get the secret club's copy. 

6. I also maintain that surely there aren't more than a tiny handful of people who will use a script like this. The overwhelming majority of people in SL a) never come on the forums and don't care b) wouldn't know a script if it bit them. They just want things to work, and that's fine. Over the years I have found tenants have become less and less skillful. They can no longer place houses, place furniture even, figure out how to count prims on land, figure out whether their house fits. This is why more and more rentals agents do all that for them -- and that's ok. There's nothing meritorious about DIY as such. If someone slaves to learn scripting and puts a Hello Avatar script into a prim for his little office and beams at his accomplishment, he doesn't get days off from Purgatory. 

7. When someone asks you a question about scripting THEY DON'T KNOW that they are asking for something hard or expensive. I only know this from YEARS in SL. I know vaguely that scripts can do this or that if you push them into a prim, and that behind the scenes it's because of this or that principle, some of which "never apply" to SL. Before "experience" was put in, it was impossible to act on an avatar without him constantly saying yes to annoying blue screens. Now you can. The Lindens get that they have to remove more and more to the back end and make it more and more point and click, too. The example Innula gave me just wasn't persuasive to me. So somebody comes in and says "I want a script that jumps out of a jack-in-the-box and does knife-tricks and helps me advertise my business," the answer is "the thing you're asking for isn't something that is in the script library, or doable by combining a few building blocks, it's complex so go over to "help wanted" and hire a scripter. My God, pay these hard-working people!

9. At the end of the day, I truly see nothing wrong with scrounging for free scripts. If they are open and free, why would ANYTHING attached to them be labelled "scrounging"? I have a place called The Alchemist where I put out a book of free scripts I've collected and tested. Perhaps once or twice a month someone takes it. Meanwhile "free dances" is every day, and "free horses" is every hour and so on in our land preserve. This is the reality of SL. 

I totally get it that you mean somebody who is wheedling to get a generous soul like you to spend your Suduko time on him and help his business. But you can just say no if you don't want to do hired scripting help. That person should be able to come here and get notecard giver, notecard taker, and create a networked system of notecards, for example -- all free and available scripts.

To me, the entire word of programming to me is summed up in this joke:

A programmer is going to the grocery store and his wife tells him, "Buy a gallon of milk, and if there are eggs, buy a dozen." So the programmer goes, buys everything, and drives back to his house. Upon arrival, his wife angrily asks him, "Why did you get 13 gallons of milk?" The programmer says, "There were eggs!"

I just don't want to contort my brain and my language and my activities to fit a machine. That's what's happening here, as Jared Lanier has written eloquently. I don't want to become that fellow that buys the 13 gallons of milk, or has to pretend that it is necessary to buy 13 gallons of milk to make a particle fly in Second Life. 

Edited January 17, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 1/14/2018 at 6:07 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I have this idea to have a spirit appear if you click on the right sequence of rocks. Of course, this is probably not realizable in a simple way, because professional game makers like MadPea have done this sort of things with proprietary scripts such as in that sword gatcha they had, where if you assemble all the pieces, it does all these cool things.

 

I canna help it...

GLENDOWER

         I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

 

 

 

HOTSPUR

         Why, so can I, or so can any man;

 

         But will they come when you do call for them?

Edited January 17, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

As I've explained to you already multiple times inworld, it's not that I don't understand you, it's that I disagree with you. And because I think what you are doing is morally wrong, I object to it. Scripts that are open should be published, here, on the forum where people look for scripting help. And I totally understand and did the first time that you aren't an opensourcenik. But it doesn't matter because you are adapting their culture, consciously or not. You make a free script and gift it to me on all perms - you could have said "Hi, I saw your request, I'll do it for $1000". Instead, you did it for free as a hobby but then wouldn't publish it. This is wrong, Innula, and Rolig and others clapping this. It's morally contradictory and unfair. Of course in SL, you can "do what you want on your land" and if you feel moved to make a script that is open but not really, and dole it out to the approved, that's your call. But again, I call it out as part of that wrongness of open source cultism, adopted even by those who aren't claiming to be for open source.

So to reiterate:

1. I don't like open source, and to me this is a perfect contradict in terms so typical of this cult -- make a script that is open, copyable, not for sale -- yet hold it close because God forbid, a rapacious newbie might get it -- or rather, to make your point, might see that such things are given freely and get the idea he can "get a handout" or something complex for his business.

2. I'm not aware of mods always having to move droves of people who need to hire a scripter for complex work as distinct from asking for free scripts that do things they are interested in. I'm sure the mods are far more busier elsewhere. Of course you watch this section far more. But the Lindens as such couldn't hold your position, that scripts should be held close so that newbies won't be encouraged to - God forbid -- get something free or hire a scripter in that dirty world of commerce which the cultists hate. It's like some little club where a few smart insiders get to answer or not answer or dole out scripts or not.

3. What is this really about? You don't want newbies (or the uncultured, if not new) to hire other people for jobs while the open source cult is kept pristine? You want their jobs? But none of that seems to apply. That's why it's so inexplicable and wrong.

4. I reject out of hand that I have to "learn scripting" any more than I have to "learn Spanish" or that you have to learn Russian -- I know Russian, and that's my job. People have different skills and roles in society, not everybody has to code despite the cultism of Silicon Valley saying this.

5. What I especially object to is this idea that I've become part of the "deserving poor" here. I may be clueless about scripting and ready to be sent packing like any other newb, but because I "do other things for SL" (like run the land preserve or provide low cost newbie rentals or whatever) then...I'm in. I get the secret club's copy. 

6. I also maintain that surely there aren't more than a tiny handful of people who will use a script like this. The overwhelming majority of people in SL a) never come on the forums and don't care b) wouldn't know a script if it bit them. They just want things to work, and that's fine. Over the years I have found tenants have become less and less skillful. They can no longer place houses, place furniture even, figure out how to count prims on land, figure out whether their house fits. This is why more and more rentals agents do all that for them -- and that's ok. There's nothing meritorious about DIY as such. If someone slaves to learn scripting and puts a Hello Avatar script into a prim for his little office and beams at his accomplishment, he doesn't get days off from Purgatory. 

7. When someone asks you a question about scripting THEY DON'T KNOW that they are asking for something hard or expensive. I only know this from YEARS in SL. I know vaguely that scripts can do this or that if you push them into a prim, and that behind the scenes it's because of this or that principle, some of which "never apply" to SL. Before "experience" was put in, it was impossible to act on an avatar without him constantly saying yes to annoying blue screens. Now you can. The Lindens get that they have to remove more and more to the back end and make it more and more point and click, too. The example Innula gave me just wasn't persuasive to me. So somebody comes in and says "I want a script that jumps out of a jack-in-the-box and does knife-tricks and helps me advertise my business," the answer is "the thing you're asking for isn't something that is in the script library, or doable by combining a few building blocks, it's complex so go over to "help wanted" and hire a scripter. My God, pay these hard-working people!

9. At the end of the day, I truly see nothing wrong with scrounging for free scripts. If they are open and free, why would ANYTHING attached to them be labelled "scrounging"? I have a place called The Alchemist where I put out a book of free scripts I've collected and tested. Perhaps once or twice a month someone takes it. Meanwhile "free dances" is every day, and "free horses" is every hour and so on in our land preserve. This is the reality of SL. 

I totally get it that you mean somebody who is wheedling to get a generous soul like you to spend your Suduko time on him and help his business. But you can just say no if you don't want to do hired scripting help. That person should be able to come here and get notecard giver, notecard taker, and create a networked system of notecards, for example -- all free and available scripts.

To me, the entire word of programming to me is summed up in this joke:

A programmer is going to the grocery store and his wife tells him, "Buy a gallon of milk, and if there are eggs, buy a dozen." So the programmer goes, buys everything, and drives back to his house. Upon arrival, his wife angrily asks him, "Why did you get 13 gallons of milk?" The programmer says, "There were eggs!"

I just don't want to contort my brain and my language and my activities to fit a machine. That's what's happening here, as Jared Lanier has written eloquently. I don't want to become that fellow that buys the 13 gallons of milk, or has to pretend that it is necessary to buy 13 gallons of milk to make a particle fly in Second Life. 

..and yet you want programmers to be nice to you and give you their hard work for free..

Sorry, your logic fails my sniff test.

[Innula Zenovka]

@Prokofy Neva   Let's try once more.

The convention here is that, for the reasons Rolig and I have tried to explain, that generally we try not to post full scripts in this forum.   That's partly -- and it doesn't apply in this case, obviously -- because when we're helping people with scripts we want to let them put things together and get it to work for themselves, because we know how rewarding it feels when you do get it to work, and partly because we try to encourage people who are looking for ready-made scripts to look in one of the libraries or to ask in the appropriate forum, Wanted or Inworld Employment. 

You say you're not aware of mods having to move droves of people who need to hire a scripter, but you very fairly accept that I probably watch this forum more closely than do you.   That's probably correct, since I have it set to notify me of all new posts.    Obviously it varies from week to week, but I'd say that generally we get about three or four such requests a week -- that is, requests for a complex script that can't be answered simply by providing a link to a script somewhere in a scripting library (though why people can't simply use Google to find things themselves is a mystery).  This doesn't sound many but on average it's around a third to a half of all new posts.    Unless they spark some kind of discussion, the moderators do move them surprisingly quickly (whether on their own initiative or because someone has asked them to).     

My impression is that there are now far fewer such requests than we used to have in the past, so it may be that the moderators' diligence is having the desired side-effect of not letting this forum look like the right place to ask for scripts.    Certainly, when I'm using Google to search one of the forum's previous incarnations for something I dimly recall seeing discussed there a few years ago, I'm struck by how many "Is there a script that will do this?" questions that I have to wade through in the old forums as compared with how few there are now, which suggests it's working.     

Normally, when I see a question like that, I post a generic answer, to the effect that what the poster is trying to do is certainly possible, though I'm not aware of any free scripts that will do it.  If they want to try writing a script themselves, they should look at the following sections of the wiki (provide links) and then ask again here with specific questions.  But if they want someone to write one for them, they should ask in Inworld Employment.   

In this case, since I'm always making rezzers of one sort or another, and since collision events (what happens when the avatar stands on something) can be tricky and I wanted to clarify in my own mind what the logic should be in a script like this, I wrote one quickly to check and then passed you a copy.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess, but I thought -- clearly mistakenly -- that it would be simpler just to pass you a copy than to explain here that what you wanted to do was pretty straightforward and, if you wanted a script writing, you should ask in Inworld Employment and then pass you a copy if I saw you post there.

I agree with you that there's nothing wrong with having free script libraries and free script repositories.   I also think there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to use them, rather than try to use this forum as yet another one, since this forum is, in my experience, both a very useful reference source for scripters and an invaluable resource for people who are learning to script with LSL.    There's nothing wrong, to my mind, with our trying to keep it on topic.   

There are, as you rightly note, very few scripters.    People who are starting to learn to script need somewhere to ask for help and guidance, and more experienced scripters also frequently need to ask for advice and to discuss technical issues with each other.   It's not like trying to learn Blender or Maya or Photoshop,  or a commercial language like C++ or Javascript where there are plenty of books, on-line courses and discussion groups available.    This is one of the very few such places we have (the parallel forum at SLU is the only other one  I know of), and I see nothing wrong with trying to keep it as a resource for scripters and people who want to learn to script and trying not to let it turn into somewhere people simply  ask for scripts.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Innula Zenovka

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

..and yet you want programmers to be nice to you and give you their hard work for free..

Sorry, your logic fails my sniff test.

Nope, because I *pay* programmers. I ask questions in a scripters' forum expecting that if it is simple, somebody gives a one line answer. I don't have any expectation that someone writes a script for me.

And PS, this is another thing that is WRONG with open source -- the "deserving" and "meritorious" idea for "open" scripts. They're not really open unless you're "nice to scripters".

My motto has always been: "Open Source = Closed Society of Scripters"

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Innula Zenovka said:

@Prokofy Neva   Let's try once more.

The convention here is that, for the reasons Rolig and I have tried to explain, that generally we try not to post full scripts in this forum.   That's partly -- and it doesn't apply in this case, obviously -- because when we're helping people with scripts we want to let them put things together and get it to work for themselves, because we know how rewarding it feels when you do get it to work, and partly because we try to encourage people who are looking for ready-made scripts to look in one of the libraries or to ask in the appropriate forum, Wanted or Inworld Employment. 

You say you're not aware of mods having to move droves of people who need to hire a scripter, but you very fairly accept that I probably watch this forum more closely than do you.   That's probably correct, since I have it set to notify me of all new posts.    Obviously it varies from week to week, but I'd say that generally we get about three or four such requests a week -- that is, requests for a complex script that can't be answered simply by providing a link to a script somewhere in a scripting library (though why people can't simply use Google to find things themselves is a mystery).  This doesn't sound many but on average it's around a third to a half of all new posts.    Unless they spark some kind of discussion, the moderators do move them surprisingly quickly (whether on their own initiative or because someone has asked them to).     

My impression is that there are now far fewer such requests than we used to have in the past, so it may be that the moderators' diligence is having the desired side-effect of not letting this forum look like the right place to ask for scripts.    Certainly, when I'm using Google to search one of the forum's previous incarnations for something I dimly recall seeing discussed there a few years ago, I'm struck by how many "Is there a script that will do this?" questions that I have to wade through in the old forums as compared with how few there are now, which suggests it's working.     

Normally, when I see a question like that, I post a generic answer, to the effect that what the poster is trying to do is certainly possible, though I'm not aware of any free scripts that will do it.  If they want to try writing a script themselves, they should look at the following sections of the wiki (provide links) and then ask again here with specific questions.  But if they want someone to write one for them, they should ask in Inworld Employment.   

In this case, since I'm always making rezzers of one sort or another, and since collision events (what happens when the avatar stands on something) can be tricky and I wanted to clarify in my own mind what the logic should be in a script like this, I wrote one quickly to check and then passed you a copy.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess, but I thought -- clearly mistakenly -- that it would be simpler just to pass you a copy than to explain here that what you wanted to do was pretty straightforward and, if you wanted a script writing, you should ask in Inworld Employment and then pass you a copy if I saw you post there.

I agree with you that there's nothing wrong with having free script libraries and free script repositories.   I also think there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to use them, rather than try to use this forum as yet another one, since this forum is, in my experience, both a very useful reference source for scripters and an invaluable resource for people who are learning to script with LSL.    There's nothing wrong, to my mind, with our trying to keep it on topic.   

There are, as you rightly note, very few scripters.    People who are starting to learn to script need somewhere to ask for help and guidance, and more experienced scripters also frequently need to ask for advice and to discuss technical issues with each other.   It's not like trying to learn Blender or Maya or Photoshop,  or a commercial language like C++ or Javascript where there are plenty of books, on-line courses and discussion groups available.    This is one of the very few such places we have (the parallel forum at SLU is the only other one  I know of), and I see nothing wrong with trying to keep it as a resource for scripters and people who want to learn to script and trying not to let it turn into somewhere people simply  ask for scripts.

@Inna Please note that I am persisting with this debate not because it's "about you" and this transaction whereby you did me a solid but because it's a generic issue that has troubled me in the past.

You say: "The convention here is that, for the reasons Rolig and I have tried to explain, that generally we try not to post full scripts in this forum" -- says who? The in-group of scripters who are on this forum? Some in-group of favourites of the Lindens? See, this is always the problem. Nothing is ever straightforward.A section on the forums that seems generic, and seems like you can post any question relating to scripting in it even if you are not one of the august members of the scripting tribe or ever hope to be one *is not that at all*. So *beware*.

Where is the boundary of "encouraged to learn"? Learn *to script* or learn only to put a script into a prim to make it work for a given purpose? 

Yet the avowed purpose of these benevolent dictators is that people are "encouraged to learn". Well, they're encouraged to shut up and learn scripting to the end and script themselves or high-tail it over to the "inworld employment" forum which is not really what an open library in an open society should be. It should be, well, open. Without fear or favour.

Let me tell you as someone who has hired many scripters for many purposes over the years: you have NO WAY of telling what you are getting unless someone is a famous scripter already selling a likely expensive product -- and 90% of those people write on their profiles "I do not do custom work." There is no Board Certified Scripters' Society or anything of the sort. It is all very reputation-based in a very atomized and diverse world with no mass media.

I once hired a scripter for a great idea I had at the time, a device that would help you while you were shopping for land to instantly tell how many prims were on a size of land and its tier-- any size of land, not just the standard ladder of tier sizes. I still sell this product. 

But I began to worry when one day, after days of waiting, this fellow told me he would get back to me soon but he was "waiting for his mom to pick him up after school". This was a subsequent teen grid resident who was a little early on that concept. A more senior person beloved by Lindens later stepped in and fixed that script. Somebody else got involved, etc. 

But the quality level of scripting varies WILDLY. I have found just how wildly over the years. So sending someone to "inworld employment" is merely a way of saying coldly "We hate business and commerce, we open source cultists, go away". Fortunately, you know, Microsoft and even Google don't work that way any more... Any goofus can come to "inworld employment" and say "step right up, pay me $5000, I'll do your script" and create chaos. And there is no way for quality and assurance to migrate to the top in a closed society where only certain people crouched on a forums get to decide what is "acceptable" or not.

I look in on this forum fairly often but don't watch it daily like a hawk. So while as I said, I'm happy to say you may count what you see as these "incidents" better, I'm simply still not convinced that a) it's the problem you imagine and b) the Lindens cured it with expert moderation. I think you have a political and ideological position that is objectionable, and you police it by this means -- that's all. Naturally, you'll disagree, but fortunately it doesn't matter. You don't have to work for free, you were nice enough to do so, but quite frankly, your free and open source script is going out on display in my stores for free. I'd post it here on the forums, too, except I imagine that would lead to a clash with you reporting to the Lindens that your wish to keep part-closed your open-sourced script was disobeyed (maybe there's a CC license for such a situation?) and the culprit must be banished. I thought of testing that but it makes me weary -- for you, keeping that "Summons Spirit" script away from the hoi-polloi is part of holding your finger in the dike against the tidal wave of grubby masses who want to grab and go.

But...I see quite a few people who come here or to other sections WHO WILL NEVER WRITE A SCRIPT. They just WANT the script to put in an object. And why not? Isn't that what SL is supposed to be about? Creativity with building blocks?

I simply strenously disagree with your notion of the "mission" of this forum. On the face of it, it can't be just "for scripters and people who want to learn to script" but also has to be for "people who need scripts to put into things who have at least that level of skill". This is a number of people that nowadays you can probably count on two hands. So it just seems nuts to discourage them.

I think SL's forums should be more open and democratic and tolerate entry by the non-cognoscenti and leave SLU, which is extremely insular and clutching for the purpose you describe.

BTW, I'll do you a favor and not try to trademark my name for your open-source script which I suggested LOL.
 

[Innula Zenovka]

@Prokofy Neva I do very much sympathise with your point that there's no ready way of knowing is someone who claims to be able to script has much idea about it.   I've certainly in the past seen people in in-world groups offering to write scripts for cash and then, a day or so later, seen them here asking how to do whatever it was they were offering to do in return for L$5000. 

However, I'm really not sure what the remedy is.  What's the difference between people asking for a script here, and hoping someone they know by reputation knows what they're doing will offer to write it for them, whether for free or for money, and asking in Inworld Employment or Wanted and hoping for the same result?   Is it simply that people who know what they're doing are more likely to see the request here?

As to who makes policies, it's always been the case since I started in a previous incarnation of this forum 10 years ago that the experienced scripters have generally been unwilling to post full scripts for the reasons that have already been rehearsed.   Those of us who've stuck around have adopted and adapted those customs and conventions because they seem good to us,.    There's nothing to stop anyone from posting complete solutions -- i do now and again, when it's the best way to make a point or the solution is something I think is generally useful -- but we tend not to.   

The Lindens seem to agree that this isn't the right place for people simply to ask for scripts, since if they felt differently, they'd presumably not move such requests to other fora they consider more appropriate, and since they're paying the bills for this place, that's their right.  Similarly, it's my right to decide whether or not to reply to any particular question.

As to Open Source, I know it's a bête noire of yours, and I'm not particularly fond of it either.    But it's really nothing to do with anything in this context.   Open Source doesn't mean "full perms."  It means "has all sorts of terms and conditions attached to it, many of which are completely inappropriate to SL, which is just as well because no one in SL normally bothers to try to enforce them anyway."   

I give most of my scripts out full perms for a couple of very simple reasons.   If someone's paid me, then it's theirs, as far as I'm concerned.   It's also a lot easier for both me and my customer that way, because I can write it in such a way that it's easy for the customer to tweak, just by adjusting a few values right at the top of the script, rather than having to keep coming back to me to ask me to change it.   Similarly, when I give out scripts for free, it's often because someone's asked me how to do something, so they have to be able to read it, and the "ease of editing" argument remains the same.     Yes, I could give out no mod scripts that you configure by notecard, but what's the point?  It only makes extra work for me, and it's one more thing to go wrong.    

I probably will post in the script library something similar to the rezzer I gave you.  I just want a bit of time to make something with a wider range of applications and also to add a few things to it that people might find useful (including some notes for people who want to understand how rezzers work).

 

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by Innula Zenovka

[Rolig Loon]

24 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I probably will post in the script library something similar to the rezzer I gave you.  I just want a bit of time to make something with a wider range of applications and also to add a few things to it that people might find useful (including some notes for people who want to understand how rezzers work).

For those following this thread at home ...  if you look through the LSL Scripting Library, you'll find that many of the scripts there were contributed by regulars in this forum. As Innula implies, quite a number of those are written as generic scripts with broad application.  They tend to be carefully documented and are supposed to have been field-tested and bug free. We have each contributed some scripts that were prompted by specific threads in the LSL Scripting forum, usually after a good deal of thought and refinement. 

In my mind, scripts and script snippets that are posted here are analogous to the sort of blackboard scribblings that we might do in a classroom -- illustrative but by no means polished or even guaranteed to be error free.  They're not written with all of the failsafes and user-friendly bits that we would typically write into a script for public consumption.  Scripts in the LSL Scripting Library, on the other hand, should be commercial quality, clean work -- as should any scripts that a buyer gets from the Marketplace or by offering a commission to  someone in the InWorld Employment forum.  In making this distinction, I am not meaning to say that we are sloppy or non-professional in this forum.  By no means.  It's just that our aim here is to share and refine concepts among scripters, not to post final products.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[Madelaine McMasters]

 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I ask questions in a scripters' forum expecting that if it is simple, somebody gives a one line answer. I don't have any expectation that someone writes a script for me.

When I ask questions of volunteers, I hope for answers. To expect them reflects a sense of entitlement that just plain turns me off.

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And PS, this is another thing that is WRONG with open source -- the "deserving" and "meritorious" idea for "open" scripts. They're not really open unless you're "nice to scripters".

Do you have an analogous complaint about open arms? I'm far more inclined to open mine for people who are nice to me.

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

1. I don't like open source, and to me this is a perfect contradict in terms so typical of this cult -- make a script that is open, copyable, not for sale -- yet hold it close because God forbid, a rapacious newbie might get it -- or rather, to make your point, might see that such things are given freely and get the idea he can "get a handout" or something complex for his business.

 

Words, and combinations of words, have meanings.

The phrase "open source" in software has a specific meaning:

https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

Any script that you can read is not "open source." A Microsoft engineer can read the source code of Windows, and copy it at will. People outside of Microsoft can't.

You were given a "full permission" script, allowing you to modify it, copy it for your own use and potentially transfer it to someone else. However, you weren't given the copyright to it. You can see the source code, but nobody else can right now.

Yes, because of the way the permissions system works in Second Life you have the ability to do anything you like with it. Second Life has many products that are sold with "full permissions." "Full permissions" aren't full "rights", though. Most suppliers of full permission products inform their sellers that they can't re-sell them with full permissions, for instance, even though the permission system would allow it. With 20th century technology (yes, LAST century) most people have the ability to copy a wide range of copyrighted work. They don't have the right to, because the law and the copyright holder says they don't. If ability granted rights there would be no usable copyright system at all.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Words, and combinations of words, have meanings.

The phrase "open source" in software has a specific meaning:

https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

Any script that you can read is not "open source." A Microsoft engineer can read the source code of Windows, and copy it at will. People outside of Microsoft can't.

You were given a "full permission" script, allowing you to modify it, copy it for your own use and potentially transfer it to someone else. However, you weren't given the copyright to it. You can see the source code, but nobody else can right now.

Yes, because of the way the permissions system works in Second Life you have the ability to do anything you like with it. Second Life has many products that are sold with "full permissions." "Full permissions" aren't full "rights", though. Most suppliers of full permission products inform their sellers that they can't re-sell them with full permissions, for instance, even though the permission system would allow it. With 20th century technology (yes, LAST century) most people have the ability to copy a wide range of copyrighted work. They don't have the right to, because the law and the copyright holder says they don't. If ability granted rights there would be no usable copyright system at all.

I know all that. But what I'm talking about is *different*. It's about the culture or even *cult* of open source. You're like the guy with the 13 jugs of milk. The *culture* is to use words like "open" or "full perm" or imagine they are devoted and selfless to humankind but the reality is "benevolent dictator" and all kinds of arcane prescriptions and clawbacks.

Theresa, God can see into any script, anywhere, even though He does not work for Microsoft. Did you realize that?

Copyright is another issue.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

For those following this thread at home ...  if you look through the LSL Scripting Library, you'll find that many of the scripts there were contributed by regulars in this forum. As Innula implies, quite a number of those are written as generic scripts with broad application.  They tend to be carefully documented and are supposed to have been field-tested and bug free. We have each contributed some scripts that were prompted by specific threads in the LSL Scripting forum, usually after a good deal of thought and refinement. 

In my mind, scripts and script snippets that are posted here are analogous to the sort of blackboard scribblings that we might do in a classroom -- illustrative but by no means polished or even guaranteed to be error free.  They're not written with all of the failsafes and user-friendly bits that we would typically write into a script for public consumption.  Scripts in the LSL Scripting Library, on the other hand, should be commercial quality, clean work -- as should any scripts that a buyer gets from the Marketplace or by offering a commission to  someone in the InWorld Employment forum.  In making this distinction, I am not meaning to say that we are sloppy or non-professional in this forum.  By no means.  It's just that our aim here is to share and refine concepts among scripters, not to post final products.

Well, that's a useful distinction to keep in mind. 

But Inna didn't say "after I get done tinkering with this some more I'll put it in the Library, but meanwhile here's my rough draft". She said nothing, then IM'd me privately inworld and said "Here it is, but don't put it on the forums because we don't like doing that."