Terraforming sandbox-like?

I joined SL last month, been wandering around in world.

I've been thinking about trying to find a way to scrape together enough to upgrade to a Premium account, hold some land, play around with landscaping, and try to re-create conservation areas and real-world terrain.


BUT

I would like to get a sense of the terraforming tools first, so that I can get a sense of whether this is something I would enjoy doing, or something that feels cludge-like.


Are there any groups or places in world that allow users to terraform land, similar in concept to Sandboxes for building? I recognize that terraforming land has a different level of permissions associated with it than building, but was curious if there are any resources in-world for users to play with terraforming that get reset at intervals maybe.

I think Torley might have something like that - if I recall correctly.

Check out the region "Here" - and if there's nothing like that there, drop me a notecard inworld (not an IM, I never see those!) - I've always got a patch of land somewhere that can be played around with, if not an entire region.

Oh, thank you! I'll check out "Here" and take a look, and will send you a note if not.

I currently have set a 3616sqm plot in the SE corner of the Polkadot sim to terraform enable for everyone. Its also a sandbox with 24 hour return.

Have fun!

I don't know whether terraforming could actually be described as fun, beyond the satisfaction you get from landscaping your plot the way you want it!

If you want to play about with terraforming big-scale, you could always download an Open Sim standalone sim to your computer, but it's not linked to any grids. Although it looks and works exactly like Second Life it's independent of Linden Lab.

You also need to know if you're considering Mainland through a premium account that terraforming is more limited, often only +/-5m. You can achieve some startling results in terms of a "gardening" approach but you are limited and have no control over terrain textures.

Also, if you are used to terraforming in games you can never have real control over the look because even on a private island Second Life only supports terrain texture layering in quadrants from the outside in using height as opposed to the easier terrain painting that most games support.