Location Is Everything?

[Hayati Osumi]

Lately my cats are not responding to the home and range boundaries I have set for them...and sometimes they fall straight through the floor to the first floor of my skybox after setting them to live on the second floor. How do they fall through solid objects? Does anyone know?

[Tad Carlucci]

OK, I'll take a guess .. your house is Mesh, right?

Add an invisible floor prim with the top just slightly above the floor of your Mesh house.

As to how to fall through .. in a nutshell, the trick is to "get inside". When you (a prim) and a box (another prim) need to occupy the same space, the physics engine marks you both temporarily phantom with respect to each other. If the box was a "floor" you (or a cat, or any "Physical Object") will begin to fall. Once you've (or whatever) have fallen (or walked, flown, whatever) so that you are no longer "inside" the engine removes the temporary phantom status.

So, how does a cat do it? Well, the cat is not always physical. If, when it's non-physical (that is, not moving about) it changes position (say, goes from sitting to laying on it's back) it's possible that part of the cat will move "inside" another prim. When, in a few moments, the cat decides to "walk" it goes physical. At that moment, the cat and the wall/floor/whatever are "inside" each other and the physics engine fixes the problem by marking them phantom. If, when the cat's done moving, it's now "outside" the wall/floor/whatever, the next time this happens, it "bumps" the wall/floor (now ceiling)/whatever and, since they're not phantom to each other this time, bounces off.

[Hayati Osumi]

No actually my house I built myself out of prims...I in fact do not like Mesh anything...It's a solid object at all times and never set to phantom...I cant walk through walls and such...so I am questioning how my cats do it...I also have horses that have never been able to walk through walls or solid boundaries. Setting my cats home and range to the smallest 3 meter setting doesnt keep them from wandering the room which is 12m x 12m.

[Tad Carlucci]

(03-20-2014 03:28 PM)Hayati Osumi Wrote:  It's a solid object at all times and never set to phantom...

And there's your mistake.

When the cat goes non-physical (phantom) it can move itself INSIDE your prims.

When it later goes physical (non-phantom) the prim it is INSIDE, becomes PHANTOM, but ONLY with respect to the cat, and the cat becomes phantom, but only with respect to the prim.

So, yes, your self-built house DOES become phantom.

And, if the prim the cat is inside is the floor, the cat will fall (since *IT*, the cat) sees no physical floor prim until AFTER it has fallen through and the temporary phantom settings are removed.

[Shamu077 Resident]

(03-20-2014 10:48 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  

(03-20-2014 03:28 PM)Hayati Osumi Wrote:  It's a solid object at all times and never set to phantom...

And there's your mistake.

When the cat goes non-physical (phantom) it can move itself INSIDE your prims.

When it later goes physical (non-phantom) the prim it is INSIDE, becomes PHANTOM, but ONLY with respect to the cat, and the cat becomes phantom, but only with respect to the prim.

So, yes, your self-built house DOES become phantom.

And, if the prim the cat is inside is the floor, the cat will fall (since *IT*, the cat) sees no physical floor prim until AFTER it has fallen through and the temporary phantom settings are removed.

What I 'd like to know is - when a cat falls through a prim like a skybox platform, why does it often just sit in space at some random distance below the platform?
It can be floating anywhere from 1 meter to 500 meters below the platform, but they never fall back to the land/sea level (splat).

[Tad Carlucci]

There are a number of reasons:

It might be bumping up against a parcel border which it cannot cross (this was the cause for me).

It might be hitting the self-movement limit (I've seen this). Of course, after a while it will stop moving, then decide to move again: so it can work its way, slowly, from one corner to another (seen this, too).

It might have fallen onto an invisible prim (I've done this, as a 'safety net' because Charm didn't like hearing cats splattering onto the ground).

And, yes, I have watched a cat fall from 4096 to 20 and go SPLAT! It's a cat, it rolls over, sits up, says "I MEANT TO DO THAT!!!" and walks off prissily, of course. It just took a few hours to make it all the way down (self-movement limit).

As I said in another thread this morning, I did a lot of research into what was going on back in mid-2011. And I do not expect we'll ever see a fix because of the difficulty and lag issues.

[Shamu077 Resident]

(03-21-2014 07:29 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  There are a number of reasons:

It might be bumping up against a parcel border which it cannot cross (this was the cause for me).

It might be hitting the self-movement limit (I've seen this). Of course, after a while it will stop moving, then decide to move again: so it can work its way, slowly, from one corner to another (seen this, too).

It might have fallen onto an invisible prim (I've done this, as a 'safety net' because Charm didn't like hearing cats splattering onto the ground).

And, yes, I have watched a cat fall from 4096 to 20 and go SPLAT! It's a cat, it rolls over, sits up, says "I MEANT TO DO THAT!!!" and walks off prissily, of course. It just took a few hours to make it all the way down (self-movement limit).

As I said in another thread this morning, I did a lot of research into what was going on back in mid-2011. And I do not expect we'll ever see a fix because of the difficulty and lag issues.

Thanks Tad, of all those possibilities I think self-movement limit explains it for my flying cats. I have no safety nets and the cats are a long way from a parcel or sim boundary.

Time for an experiment - Rezz a MegaPuss on a small platform below my platforms - then remove platform prim and observe. Make sure the cat is awake and can walk/run. A Mega should make a larger splat - unless it lands in the duck pond or swimming pool.

[cyber Ahn]

hi, I have found similar problems. When the cats run around the room, then they sometimes jump. When they jump, they jump sometimes through walls or floors. Also I need my cat often then looking times in the next room or in the first floor. There is no mesh house! it is possible these are the cats jump in phantom? That would be the only explanation for me.

[KittyCats Resident]

(03-23-2014 06:07 AM)cyber Ahn Wrote:  hi, I have found similar problems. When the cats run around the room, then they sometimes jump. When they jump, they jump sometimes through walls or floors. Also I need my cat often then looking times in the next room or in the first floor. There is no mesh house! it is possible these are the cats jump in phantom? That would be the only explanation for me.

The problem where they jump through objects was supposed to be taken care of. Reading your post, i double checked the code, and found a mistake which made it completely ineffective. i fixed this for future versions.

thanx for pointing us!

[KittyCats Resident]

(03-21-2014 06:57 AM)Shamu077 Resident Wrote:  What I 'd like to know is - when a cat falls through a prim like a skybox platform, why does it often just sit in space at some random distance below the platform?
It can be floating anywhere from 1 meter to 500 meters below the platform, but they never fall back to the land/sea level (splat).

I added something which in future versions should somewhat lessen the impact of this problem.

Regards
KittyCatS