The Case of the Premature Linking

Location: House of Usher

On a weekend of illness, reading, and being housebound, The Virtual House of Usher 2.0 in Jokaydia Grid has spawned a mystery worthy of Poe--vanishing walls, shifting images, and spooky apparitions that bespeak my recent fever, if not an overdose of Laudanum.

In texturing a wall above a hidden passage (all of this linked to the main build), I'd hoped to align the wallpaper patterns perfectly on two prims to hide the secret behind the walls. I'd had no trouble doing this on other walls, where, however, I'd not yet linked the prims. I'd also been able to shift horizontal and vertical repeats on already-linked walls without problem.

Now, however, when I try to re-texture or shift the repeats on one particular prim, it fails.

If I resize it, it vanishes! If I go back to edit the rest of the build and then move my camera back to the vanished prim, there it is again!

If I try to unlink it, it fails. For the love of God, Montresor!

Moving to another part of the House, I found I could unlink all four roof prims and then manipulate them. For my perverse prim, however, it's linked to too many others for me to consider.

Today.

I think I'll unlink it all and fix my spectral wall tomorrow, the the cold light of day when the shadows near my chamber door do not loom so large...only that, and nothing more.

Lessons Learned:

• When building in OpenSim, get textures on prims to-be-linked aligned and perfect before linking them.
• Consider doing a large build in sections, so if unlinking has to occur, it only alters 10 or 20, not 50, prims.
  
• Count your blessings. In Second Life, our build of Usher had reached over 2000 prims by this point in construction. I have just hit 300, including prim-heavy props and furniture. I think we'll keep the entire thing under 1000 prims and then move on to the family graveyard and other Poe-themed areas on Nevermore.
• Do not read too much Poe (or Poe-influence Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk) too close to working with a Poe-themed build.

See if you can spot the Imp of the Perverse Prim! Go to Jokay's shiny new Hypergrid Directory and scroll down to Nevermore. I hope you don't land in the dark tarn of Usher.

Update, Nov. 15: The mystery spawned in night's drear domain has been solved. Once I unlinked the House I could modify the errant prim.

I then relinked the House in sements and took copies into inventory. Other prims that were linked still could be edited. I think, however, that this impish prim of the perverse will remain autonomous until the final tolling of the bells of doom.