About Blocked Doorways

I get messages from people who find that they cannot walk through a doorway or up stairs, etc.  And it is hard to explain why this is, and why in most cases by far the easiest thing is to re-rez the house.

 So I am going to try to do that here, in a very simplified way, and only in regard to doorways (floors are another matter, though the same principles apply).

First let me explain what the three Physics Types (PT) are:

1. Prim -- this is the legacy physics type, which any cube or other shape you rez from scratch will have. All SL content originally had this physics type.  

If you make a hole in a wall made of a prim with Prim physics shape, you can walk through the hole. This is how most non-mesh doorways in SL were always made. You made a hole to walk through.

2. None -- None is the same as Phantom, except Phantom makes the whole object phantom and with None you can make only one prim phantom. With a doorway wall set to none, you can walk though not only the hole but the whole wall.

3. Convex Hull -- this is the default for mesh. Think of it as shrink-wrap.  You cannot walk through the doorway because the hole is shrink-wrapped. (The shrinkwrap can have random smaller holes in it but not usually ones you can walk through.)

Now when the new "mesh accounting" system came into being I found I could cut the prims on my houses by 40% just by making MOST of the prims Convex Hull (CH). (I did this in the Features tab of edit.)  The reason the prims dropped is because when you link two regular cubes (walls), together they are not two but ONE Land Impact.  So, yay!

But shrink wrapping the whole wall the doorway was in blocked the hole, so you could not walk through any doorways.  

So I had two choices: change the walls and doorframes to None -- so anyone could walk through them as if they were phantom -- OR to make them Prim, so people could could walk through them like regular prims.

Often, making them prim was the way to go BUT I found that sometimes, for reasons I don't think anyone fully understands, a wall that has been hollowed and cut to make a doorway will shoot way up in prims.  Recently I found every prim like this in a house was 17 Land Impact! 

So what I sometimes do is make the wall None but slip regular  prims inside the walls to block people from walking through. 

(I will also sometimes do this with mesh walls if I find that adding regular prims inside walls has lower land impact than uploading the wall with a physics shape -- this is too complicated to explain here, but has to do with the fact that adding a regular cube prim to a house can often be lower LI than uploading a large mesh with a physics shape.)

Here is what causes the problem. When you unlink a prim with None Physics Type, it stops being None and becomes Convex Hull -- so any hole you walk through is closed.

This is what causes the blockage. And if you know how, and it's just one prim, you can just link that prim back -- without changing the root prim -- and change the Physics Type back to None (or Prim).

Bottom line:  If you intend to unlink and relink something, check the Physics type and make sure you restore it after relinking.

But if you have unlinked a lot -- and sometimes people unlink (and then relink) the entire house -- and there is no easy way to fix the problem except to re-rez the house.

And re-rezzing is very simple unless someone has modified his home and failed to take copies, so if you mod anything, be sure to make regular backup copies.  

And that was the SIMPLIFIED explanation!  There is a lot more to it.  This is just a way to explain that when I say re-rezzing is the easiest solution by far, it's because it is.

  

Introducing the Montecito House

Hello Friends!

It's been awhile since I've blogged about a new house, but the Montecito is just too pretty not to share!  I love the light, bright, airy feel, mostly due to the walls of beautifully paned windows.  Everywhere you look, you will notice the details that make a house a home- from the skylights throughout, to the French Doors and expert texturing- this house was crafted with care!  With only 99 prims, you have plenty to spare on your choice of furniture and accessories!  The house and deck have a footprint of 45 x 45 -- perfect for a 64 x 64 (4096) parcel.  Enjoy!

FEATURES:

~ Three bedrooms -- remove doors to a room to make it another living area.

~ Master suite has a bathroom area.

~ Kitchen area fits all La Galleria kitchens

~ L Click window contoller switch to open or close shutters (seen only from outside -- inside stays open)

~ L Click the large foyer skylight to rez hanging ivy.


Here is a list of everything that is included with the house:

Pool with float and tread water animations -- "sit" on the side of the pool with steps.

Steps for pool - tile.

Steps for deck - wood.

Fireplace

Chandelier.

Entry Light

Celing fan.

Garden walls -- place wherever you like.

Juniper plants in planters

Rows of flowers.

Planter with palms for foyer.

Hanging Ivy for dining and living room trellis.

Planter with palms for outdoors

Textured wood floor block for building.

Textured roof shingles block for building.

Halloween is getting close!

Hello Friends!

It's Halloween time, and as usual I've put out a bunch of spooky free gifts for you all!

On the front porch of the Montecito House, the bubbling remains of a melted witch and a roiling cauldron of witch's brew you can touch for a stick to stir with ("sit" on cauldron), a witch's broom you can ride, and lots of  other spooky decorations!  Plus some other decorations inside, including a ghost in the living room.

The floating ghost and skeleton hands can be hard to select, so do this: 

1. Alt Command T so you can see invisible things in red.

2. Select the invisible red ball that the hands or ghost rotate around.

By the painted console inside the Montecito House you will find the Jack o Lantern Wreath and the mesh Scarecrow.

By the first mesh kitchen in the Kitchen Dept (the Vintage) you will find the Pumpkin Punchbowl and that gives cups to drink, cups for display, caramel apples to wear and eat, popcorn balls to wear and eat, and a Halloween banner.

All copyable!

I Hate Marketing

I was pretty happy to hear recently that I had won a Rezzie award in two categories -- best kitchens and best dining rooms.  It is gratifying to be noticed.! But what made it even sweeter is that it validates my reluctance to do the kinds of  "marketing" that I consider a chore -- such as participating in events (other than a couple of charity ones) and hunts, sending things to bloggers, etc.   The Rezzie awards on top of placing last year in the top 5 winners in the Avi Choice Awards (for furniture and for houses) mean that word of mouth is still king, and I don't have to do that other stuff!

Now, I do some marketing: I have this blog, which is sporadically updated ( and also has some good help pages).  New additions to my Marketplace listings do automatically get tweeted, and I will tweet about some new thing now and then.  I do occasionally get invited to be featured in magazine articles or TV shows.

But mainly my only "marketing" is done directly to my own customers: sending my weekly notecard about new releases, updates, promos, helpful tips, gifts.  I like doing that. I appreciate my customers and I really like making gifts for them, passing along helpful tips, telling them about what I am working on.

All of which means that even in this age of instantaneous ubiquitous communication in every possible form -- a friend telling a friend is still the most effective advertising there is. And that is a really good thing for me, and anyone else who just likes to spend time creating and taking care of business.