HOWTO: Resize Stubborn Objects Smaller
As many of you know I have a small metric ton of free objects posted on the SLExchange.com website. These are objects that were created as entries in the game show "Building Shelter" which I had a large part in birthing and hosting a while back.
As a quick aside: Mera Pixel has recently taken up the reins again and should be hosting the Thursday Building Shelter games in the coming weeks! Woot!
Back on topic there is one free item in particular that I would like to concentrate on for this blog entry. FireEyes Fauna created an adorable laptop computer as an entry quite a while back. It has received many downloads and many positive "star" ratings in its time on SLExchange.com. Somewhat recently it received its first written review from someone unhappy with the freebie. The core of the issue at hand is that it's a rather large object and that it cannot be downsized in its current state.
The Stubborn Laptop
1 Object, 6 Primitives
I thought that this would be a good topic to offer up a builders' tip. Inspiration for a new howto entry here on this blog. The subject is resizing objects that you have modify rights to and what to do about a stubborn object that just doesn't want to get smaller.
Turn On "Edit linked parts" Checkbox
In the first image above you'll notice that after rezzing our laptop, right clicking it, and choosing Edit from the pie menu we see an edit window that declares our selection contains "1 Object, 6 Primitives". This is good news actually because it means we likely have pretty minimal changes to make - there are, after all, only 6 prims that might be causing the resize issue.
In the second screen shot we've started our investigation. It's time to discover the offending prim or prims so that we can force a resize. Notice in the edit window the minor change - we have checked the box that says "Edit linked parts." With this setting enabled we will now be able to select and manipulate the individual components that together make this laptop an object of interest.
Select the Keyboard Prim
In this next screenshot I've clicked the keyboard prim to select just that one portion of this object. You can see the highlight lines (note: you probably figured out that you should click the images to make them larger, right?) around that single prim. In the edit window I have switched from the "General" tab to the "Object" tab. The object tab shows me the selection's (in this case the keyboard prim's) position, its size and its rotation amongst other things.
Prims cannot be smaller than .01 meters in size on any plane. Once any prim in an object reaches .01 meters in size the entire object is locked from being resized smaller - there's no way to make on of its components smaller thus you cannot make the whole smaller.
This prim has an X plane size of 1.036, a Y of 0.777 and a Z plane of 0.065. This particular prim, the keyboard portion of our object, is not the culprit! We need do nothing further to this prim, instead we'll click to change our selection to another building block and continue our investigation.
Selecting the Display Prim
I've moved on to select the second prim, the one that represents the laptop computer display. Its size is:
X: 0.933
Y: 0.725
Z: 0.065
All planes of this prim are larger than 0.01m, therefore this prim is not the problem either. Let's keep looking.
Select Display Border
Now I've selected the portion of our virtual machine's virtual machine that represents the border around the screen display area. This outer bevel has a size of:
X: 1.036
Y: 0.777
Z: 0.065
Once again it's larger than 0.01 in all directions so this prim would not be responsible for keeping us from resizing our object either.
Select the Hinge Primitive
When the prim part that represents the hinge for our screen is selected it shows us a size of:
X: 0.065
Y: 0.065
Z: 1.036
Once again we've got a clean bill of health and a prim that is not cramping our style. Move along, nothing to see here!
Selection Moved to the Mouse
Now let's inspect the mouse sitting alongside our laptop on a pretend virtual desk in our virtual world. The size of this powerful little pointing device is:
X: 0.130
Y: 0.259
Z: 0.130
5 out of 6 prims down and we've not found a problem. Is Dolmere wrong? Is there something else that would stop an object from resizing besides having a prim that is only 0.01 meters in size? Maybe there is magic in the machine and... well, let's just check our last prim before we get too excited, OK?
The Mouse Pad of Culprtism Strikes Fast and Stealthilylikeandstuff
The final prim in our object to inspect is the mouse pad. When we select this object we see a size of:
X: 0.388
Y: 0.388
Z: 0.010
DING! DING! DING!
We found the culprit! This one prim is keeping all the others from being able to shrink any further.
Now that we have found the problem how do we go about fixing it?
The Tools Have Spoken
The first thing to do is to separate the problematic prim from the rest of the object. This way we can freely resize the rest of the object without it interfering. To do this we'll leave the mouse pad prim as the only one selected and then we'll choose "Unlink" from the "Tools" menu.
Resized Electronics
With the mouse pad unlinked you're free to maniuplate the laptop as an object again. Uncheck the "Edit linked parts" checkbox in the editor and select the laptop object. Now hold the control and shift keys together to get your white resize drag handles and resize to your heart's content.
The mouse pad will be left behind in the larger format for the moment.
Optional: Resize the Mouse Pad
If you want to remove the mouse pad then simply right click and delete the single prim and leave your laptop mouse pad free and completely resized. You may want to keep the pad though. To do so you'll need to move it and resize it on its own.
Select the mouse pad and hold the control and shift keys again. This time instead of grabbing the white resize drag handles use the colored resize handles that correspond to the two sides of the prim that CAN be resized. Make the mouse pad smaller by moving the sides in without altering the height/thickness of the pad itself.
Once it's resize alt-zoom your camera around and fix the placement of the mouse pad so that it's back underneath your SLMouse.
Optional: Relink if Desired
If you've decided to keep the mouse pad you must now relink it to the original object. With the mouse pad selected hold the shift key down and select the laptop. You'll end up with a selection around the entire object AND the mousepad. Go back to the "Tools" menu and select "Link".
Congratulations! You have resized a stubborn object!
Comments
A slight alternative which I typically enjoy is thus:
Once you've found the offending prim, you know that this one side is as small as it can go, groovy. Now when you have it selected, hold Ctrl-Shift and resize the side that is .01 to something larger. The bigger the better, but you don't have to go nuts. Now that you've given it some extra weight, uncheck the Edit Linked Parts box and you'll have the whole thing selected once again. Ctrl-Shift and resize the whole bugger down, and it'll be keeping the proportions of *everything* equal. Once you've got it to a size you're happy with, go back to Edit Linked Parts, click on your offending prim, and size its side back down to .01. Now you've managed to get everything reduced and not lost the other dimensions of said prim in the process.
Posted by: Mera Pixel | August 14, 2007 08:22 AM