System to control rezzing within a specified area of ground or sky in a parcel.
The Bright Litter Returner will quickly return objects rezzed by unauthorised residents within a specified block of airspace inside a parcel of land.
This is useful if you own land on which you wish to allow people to rez, but would like to keep some part of it free from foreign objects.
For instance, you may run a public sandbox, and decide you'd like to open an art gallery in the sky above it. You want people to be able to rez almost anywhere on the parcel - just *not* inside your new floating gallery building.
The Bright Litter Returner lets you do this.
It takes the form of a "server" box, and a sign which simply says "please do not rez here".
Rez the server anywhere on the parcel, rez the sign inside the gallery, and program in two sets of X/Y/Z coordinates: one for the west/south/bottom of the building, and one for the east/north/top.
The system will then monitor this space, and if it finds any objects which don't belong to you, it will return them to their owners' inventories.
Optionally, you can also allow objects set to a particular group to remain, or add chosen residents to a "whitelist", whose objects are not returned.
The Bright Litter Returner lets you create specially protected blocks of space, control who can rez there, and generally make better use of your land both on the ground and in the sky.
Rez the object "Bright Litter Returner boxed", right-click to display its pop-up menu, select "Open" to show its "Contents" window, and click the "Copy To Inventory" button at the bottom. This will create a folder called "Bright Litter Returner boxed" in your inventory.
In the folder, you will find a notecard containing this manual, and two objects: the "Bright Litter Returner SIGN", and the "Bright Litter Returner SERVER".
Rez the "Bright Litter Returner SERVER" - a small red box - on your parcel.
Even if you plan to create multiple litter-free areas on your parcel, you only need ONE server. It can be anywhere on the parcel.
If you do not personally own the land, you will hear this message:
SORRY, YOU DO NOT OWN THIS LAND. SL restricts the right to return objects. This server must be owned by the landowner.
If the land is personally owned by another avatar, the next line will say:
This land is owned by another avatar.
But if the land is group owned, the next lines will be:
The land is owned by a group. The server must be deeded to the group.
In this case, right-click the server, click "Edit" to display its edit window, click to enable "[X] Share", and then click the "Deed" button.
If you are the landowner, or once you have deeded the server to the land-owning group, the server will pop-up a dialog box requesting permission to return objects from the land.
Grant this permission, and the server will turn green. You'll hear the message:
Server ready.
Rez the "Bright Litter Returner SIGN".
It reads "please do not rez here", and must be inside the area you plan to keep clear of litter.
Then click it to display the following menu:
Status: NOT SCANNING Whitelist entries: 0, Allow group rezzing: YES Report returns: NO, Scan interval: 10 Position: X=107.2/Y=95.7/Z=510.0 Scan area from: X=0/Y=0/Z=0 Scan area to: X=256/Y=256/Z=4096 [START] [TEST] [GROUP] [REPORT] [INTERVAL] [FROM X] [FROM Y] [FROM Z] [TO X] [TO Y] [TO Z]
Click [GROUP] to control whether objects rezzed by other people, but set to the same group as the sign, should be treated as litter.
If group rezzing is allowed, such objects will not be treated as litter, and not returned. Otherwise, they will be.
(Note that objects which have actually been deeded to the group, rather than merely being set to the group, will never be returned, whether group rezzing is allowed or not.)
Click [REPORT] to enable or disable reporting. If enabled, the returner will send you a message each time it returns an object.
Click [INTERVAL] to change the number of seconds the returner should wait between scans. Out of the box, this will be set to 10 seconds.
Making this interval shorter may mean that litter is returned a few seconds faster on average, but in practice the effect is barely noticeable. Leaving a reasonable interval makes an already efficient scan procedure even less demanding on region resources.
Click the [FROM] and [TO] buttons to define the area to keep clear. For instance, if you want to return any litter rezzed inside a building, and the west wall is 100m from the region's edge, click [FROM X]. You will see the following dialog:
FROM X: Please enter a value 0-107. [ ] [ ] [Submit]
Just enter 100 and click [Submit].
If you're not sure what coordinates to put in, just rez two prims, and move them to the opposite corners of the three dimensional block of space you wish to keep clear. Then edit them, and note their X, Y, and Z coordinates. Enter the lower coordinate in each pair as the "from" value, and the higher as the "to" value.
Remember that the sign must always be inside the area to be scanned. In this example, for instance, the sign's X position is 107.2, which is why the "FROM X" value cannot be higher than 107.
If you add a resident to its "whitelist", the system will never return their objects.
Right-click the sign for its pop-up menu, click "Open" to display its "Contents" window, and double-click the "WHITELIST" notecard to edit it.
Add a new line for each resident you wish to whitelist, showing their UUID and (optionally) their name. For instance, if you wish to allow Philip Linden to rez without having their objects returned, add the following line:
a2e76fcd-9360-4f6d-a924-000000000003 Philip Linden
Note that the name is not checked, and may even be omitted. But it will allow you to remember which UUID refers to which resident, in case you need to remove one in the future.
Bear in mind also that Second Life scripts have limited memory, so the whitelist cannot accomodate an indefinite number of UUIDs. Checking very long lists will also slow down the scripts. If you need to whitelist more than a dozen people or so, consider forming a group, and allowing group rez rights.
When you have finished adding residents, click the notecard window's "SAVE" button.
First make sure you have chosen your group, reporting, and interval settings, entered your six coordinates, and created your whitelist, all as described above.
Then click [TEST].
The sign will rez a "scanner" - a small prim which will fly around the area you have defined looking for litter.
It will tell you of any items of litter which *would* be returned if you started the scanner with the current settings - but it won't actually return them.
You'll hear messages like this:
Would return 'Lost Sheep' from Mizar 104/120/501 to LittleBo Peep.
Once the test is finished, you will hear:
Test scan completed after 8.7 seconds. 3 items would be returned.
Check the list of items which the system would return. If there are any which you don't want returned, change your settings accordingly. Perhaps change the area coordinates to exclude them, or add the objects' owners to the whitelist.
Also, note how long the test takes.
If you are scanning a small area - for instance, a sky box building which is 20m x 30m x 10m, so 6,000m3 in volume, then it may only take a second or two.
But if you are scanning a huge volume of space, it may take longer. For instance, if you own a parcel which covers quarter of a region - 16,384m2 - and want to prevent rezzing anywhere over 1,000m in altitude - so between 1,000 and 4,096 on the Z axis - you'll be scanning 50,724,864m3, or over fifty million cubic metres.
How long this takes will also depend on how many objects are in this space, how densely packed they are, and how well the region is performing.
If a single scan (including the scanning interval) takes more than 10 minutes, scanning will stop. The system is designed to keep specific areas clear, rather than the entire sky over an already large parcel. So if the test scan takes anywhere near this long, consider changing the settings.
MAKE SURE YOU RUN A TEST SCAN FIRST!
Once you are happy with the litter identified by the test scan, and the scan's duration, you are ready to start returning litter.
Click the sign, and click the [START] button.
You will see the following menu:
Return everything 100/80/500-150/200/700 EXCEPT: Objects OWNED by YOU or by sign's GROUP Objects SET to sign's GROUP Objects OWNED by 3 residents on WHITELIST Are you sure? [YES, GO!] [TEST FIRST] [NO, CANCEL]
Click [YES, GO!], and the scanning will begin.
After each scan, you will see the scanner - a tiny white translucent ball - appear in the centre of the sign. It will sit here for the scan interval period you defined, before then flying off to begin the next scan. The ball is invisible while flying round the area.
You can click the sign to monitor progress at any time. You will see a menu like this:
Status: SCANNING Whitelist entries: 3, Allow group rezzing: YES Report returns: NO, Scan interval: 10 Position: X=107.2/Y=95.7/Z=510.0 Scan area from: X=100/Y=80/Z=500 Scan area to: X=150/Y=200/Z=700 Time scanning: 0h 5m 12s Scans completed: 15, Objects returned: 4 Last scan took: 19.2s, Next scan in: 2.2s [UPDATE] [STOP]
Click [UPDATE] to redisplay the menu with updated scanning statistics.
Click [STOP] to stop scanning.
Note that while the system will almost always find litter, if you have a cluster of 16 or more of your own objects within a metre or so of each other, litter rezzed close to them may escape detection. If the space contains such a cluster, consider removing some of the objects, or spreading them out, or (if possible) linking some or all of them into a single object to reduce the object count.
Similarly, while it too will almost always be found, litter buried deep below ground level may also very occasionally be missed. We therefore recommend that you continue to set an "auto return" time - even if it is some hours - in your parcel's "About Land" settings, to ensure any overlooked litter is still eventually returned.
When you click [TEST] or [START] to begin scanning, the system will check for any problems. You may see the following messages:
Sorry, can't allow group rezzing: sign not set to a group.
If you wish to allow group rezzing, the sign itself must be set to a group, so that it knows which group is allowed to rez. Right-click the sign, click "Edit", click the button next to the group name in the edit window, and select a group.
Sorry, sign not set to land-owning group.
If the land is owned by a group, the sign must be set to that group.
Sorry, sign is not within the selected area.
The sign must be within the area selected. Either move the sign until it is, or change the area coordinates accordingly.
Sorry, selected area extends beyond parcel.
The area selected must be entirely within the parcel the sign is on. Change the coordinates so that they don't cross borders into other parcels.
* Use the Bright Litter Returner to unlock space you couldn't previously use because you couldn't control rezzing within it! Instead of keeping your shop on a separate parcel next to your sandbox, merge the parcels, and place the shop in the sky with a teleporter from ground level. You can then have a bigger sandbox, and a bigger shop!
* If you currently have a parcel which forbids rezzing to prevent it being clogged up with visitors' objects, consider liberalising the rez permissions, and using the Bright Litter Returner to restrict rezzing only where it matters. For instance, if you run a car showroom, allow people to rez demo vehicles on your test track, while keeping the shop floor of display models litter free.
* Combine the Bright Litter Returner with the Bright Security System to create an entirely private space within a public venue! Rather than having to keep a separate parcel of land for your private home next to your Motorcycle Motorcross Venue, move your home to a skybox above the venue and merge the parcels, allowing more space for your house and for the motorcyclists below!
* Remember that objects will only be returned if their centre is within the area defined. This means that an object rezzed just outside the area might project into it. So if you don't want objects inside a building, allow a margin of safety around the building to stop people rezzing very close to the walls.
* If a large number of people should be allowed to rez, rather than adding them all the the WHITELIST, form a group for them, and enable group rezzing. It is far more efficient, and easier to maintain.
Shan Bright
Chief Executive Officer