That Plywood Cube...

Has it occurred to anyone else that the most common object in SL is impossible?

I mean, LOOK at the thing. No seams. Is it solid plywood? If so, why are more than two faces smooth? The other four should show the plys.

And how about that plywood ball, or the torus? ANY of the default shapes using the default texture are completely unrealistic.

I can suspend my disbelief for flying, or teleporting, or avatars making funny typing motions in the air, or shopping malls in the sky. But this plywood thing is giving me a mental breakdown. Help!

It was made by the same people who made this

Truly, your mouse is just fine... just waaaaay too much online time... I strongly recommend a cookout at the beach.

Roasting marshmallows on sticks. Burning any and all real plywood that you can find...

Well, given how many prims it takes to create a realistic plywood box..

Seriously, Lindel.. click the log out button for a bit, go visit a forest and for goodness' sake, stay the heck away from the plywood.

plywood cubes predate SL. It's a joke.

Maybe we should have a jira to add seams to the plywood cubes.

I haven't seen the 'banging on things' pic on the front page in quite a long time, btw.

A plywood cube is a work of art.

The cube can be done - or you could get pretty close to it. 6 slabs of plywood mitered to 45 degrees on all sides, then glued and clamped into place. A little sanding and filling, and it would appear almost seamless.

The rounded ones would be tough. The sphere almost impossible. You could use a single sheet of veneer and come close with enough steam and patience, but lining up the grain would take a miracle.

Is there a better material you could suggest? I personally think all prims should be carved out of root vegetables. You could have a turnip cube, a potato sphere, a carrot column. If you didn't like your build, you could throw the prims in a pot of stock, add some spices and maybe some chicken and make a delicious soup.

The veggies are a creative option, yes.

I prefer polished alyoominnium.

I thought about the mitered edges idea, but when I proposed it to the Resident Geek, he said his table saw wouldn't cut that cleanly or accurately. I think he's just trying to avoid working in the garage and getting all sawdusty.

Stone Soup!

I went to Torley's island and got his texture packs. The plywood is promptly replaced by watermellon, which is SO much more realistic for making cubes. I mean, I see watermellon cubes all the time in Jello and stuff.

We're getting off topic here, lol. That's a problem with plywood. The edges chip. If he uses a finer toothed blade that will help. Also, if he takes heavy masking tape and puts it along the line he intends to cut, then makes his cut through the wood and the line, he'll get a cleaner cut. the tape comes right off after making the cut.

The saw makes a difference. When I was building furniture, I used a Jet. LOVED it. It was built like a Sherman tank, easy to adjust and very accurate. Cheapo Craftsmans and cut-rate brands vibrate and drift and just won't cut a clean line. They're good for rough carpentry, but not for anything you want to join up accurately.

well the cube is "referred to" as plywood, but the material type is actually just "wood". A solid block of wood can be carved into any shape Torus, Cube, Sphere... whatever.

Were it to be carved, and solid, it would have no seams.

That said, the texture is a simple swatch image, repeated over and over again, and resembled "wood grained shelf paper" or veneer. So, if we examine THAT...

the texture repeats precisely once per face, the seams of the texture are, precisely, at the edges of the cube. Each face, having 4 seams.

Therefor, it is more appropriate to think of the cube as a solid, poured block of particle board... with 6, precisely square pieces of veneer.

...Or as a potato disguised as a plywood cube.

In my world, you can run a clock off of prims as a science project for school, or get some PVC pipe and hairspray and launch the prim at near supersonic speeds through you neighbors garage window. Let's see your silly particle board prim do THAT!

Saved by Winter. Whew, thanks!

/me runs to the garage with a printout of Trout's post for the Resident Geek.


[EDIT] ...and hides the post about potato bazookas. No telling what that guy would do with a potato and a can of hairspray.

Wait a minute here, guys. I recall from the Official SL Handbook (and you need to get this, even if you don't think you need it, just because it IS a pretty cool book) that the ability to create is "the most god-like power in Second Life".

We're not carving anytrhing, we're just willing these perfect blocks of plywood into existance.

*whew* that's a relief. My woodworking skills truly suck. My housemate won't even let me help in the house renovation we're doing. I can build things in SL I never could in RL ... like, nice, evenly sided cubes of wood.

Even though it's off topic, I love talking (and bragging) about tools, so I can't resist chiming in on this.

Not all Craftsman machines are bad. Many are, but not all. In my shop I've got a Craftsman radial arm saw, which is a fantastic machine. It takes about two and a half full days to set any radial arm saw up properly, which is why you read so many mixed reviews of all makes and models of them (lots of people set them up incorrectly, and then insist it's the saw's fault, not theirs, that it doesn't cut straight), and the Craftsman is certainly no exception to that. But once it's set, it's awesome. The thing weighs a good 150 pounds or so, very different from the run-of-the-mill little benchtop tools that have soiled the Craftsman name.

I also have a Craftsman table saw, which is the oldest machine I own. It's been going strong for about 10 years. I wouldn't really call it high end (unlike the radial arm saw, which is really surprisingly high quality), but it's been a reliable work horse for me. I would really like to replace it with a more full-featured one, but this one works well enough that I've never been able to justify the expense of getting another.

Also, since you mentioned Jet, just so you know, while they do make some very good machines, the also make some really terrible ones. Band saws of theirs that I've seen, for example, vibrate like crazy due to cheap aluminum wheels. You get what you pay for on those. I invested in a Powermatic 14" band saw, which costs about twice as much as the Jet of the same size, but it was worth every penny. The wheels are powder-coated cast iron, and the entire machine is solid as a rock. It passes the "nickel test" (stand a nickel on its side on the table with the motor running, and if it doesn't fall over or roll off, you know the machine is not vibrating) with flying colors, and it slices through just about anything I can throw at it with relative ease.


To get back on topic (sort of), I'm half tempted to make a seamless plywood cube now. It could certainly be done by mitering the edges of all six panels, as Trout suggested. Or an easier way would be to use regular butt joints, and then cover the whole thing with veneer as a final step.

The impossible part is not making it seamless, but making it so that it's invisible from the inside.

OMG, I'm back in Disbelief Hell. Thanks heaps, Chosen. If this gets any worse, I bet every prim I've ever rezzed will vanish.

/me goes to take some lemonade to the Geek.

Good post - and I agree that you get what you pay for. it saeems like Craftsman is now courting the low-end market and that stuff is just garbage. It's light weight, so it vibrates like crazy, and it's terribly underpowered. The high end contractor's grade stuff is still pretty good. I had a Craftsman band saw that worked pretty well, although I didn't use it to it's full potential. The Jet I used was the Contractor's saw, which was one step down from their cabinet saw. It weighed around 600+ pounds, so once you got it placed in the shop, it wasn't going anywhere. It was the smoothest machine I've ever used. I had a Jet drill press as well, which I loved. I don't remember who made my lathe, but it was an off brand and never gave me anything but trouble. A shame, because I love lathe work. It's just impossible when your lathe is always shifting and vibrating itself into pieces.

/me stands in a pile of sawdust running her toe around in it watching the boys play with their toys.

This'll teach me to post frivolous threads and show them to the Geek. Now he wants a bigger table saw.

That better not have jinxed us, mister!

My prims grow plants out of their eyes once they've been in the cupboard for too long.

I'm sure you can work out a compromise... need a new computer? New TV? Swimming pool in the back yard.