Mainland build size - what is the tasteful limit?
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Dnali Anabuki
Still Crazy
Join date: 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 1,633
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01-10-2008 19:14
From: Nika Talaj "In Xanadu did Desmond Shang / A Stately Pleasure-Dome Decree ..." Sounds like a lovely project. 500m high .... if Windlight ever does get shadows, the tower is going to create its own weather! Personally, for my taste, unless the outer walls step down to normal house-height, a 32m setback would be too small. Not too much more tho ... maybe 45 for a really high wall. For some reason it reminds me of Ringworld, perhaps because I see the possibility of smaller city outposts hovering above the clouds, near the tower. I'm also reminded of M.C. Escher, and I would be sad if there weren't a puzzling staircase or two in the build! You may need to buy surrounding sims anyway, just for prims  I'm sure it will be beautiful! When can I move in? Ah Ringworld....wouldn't that be nice! |
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Desmond Shang
Guvnah of Caledon
Join date: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 5,250
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01-10-2008 20:07
Fascinating replies everybody... lots of interesting ideas... gardens, Crystal Palace elements, height to buffer zone ratio (golden rectangle?), megaprim repulsive force - now THAT might be interesting to work with, if applied in certain ways!
Conceptually I'm almost certain that it will be a light, airy structure - perhaps it would have to be. Many levels would be like rural Caledon on the inside... perhaps a small town in one level. A personal dirigible might be handy transportation *inside* let alone outside of a 1/2 kilometer tall structure. Perhaps airship docking access would be a good idea.
The ad farms, lolcubes and other 'features' of the mainland might be faintly visible through the glass - in fact, the more dizzyingly bad it is outside, the bigger the contrast to civility on the inside. Although overall, a pretty countryside would be ideal.
As for 'when'... I think we are talking at *least* 2009 here. I've currently got 15 regions on the drawing board, literally - five of which will be finishing up Caledon's home isle.
The arcology would be drawing board plan #16, and I'm thinking: my last ever. 49 regions total if I get that far... after a while, one starts to wonder just *how* much of a life should be online.
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HyBosch Otsuzum
Vic Gent
Join date: 11 Sep 2006
Posts: 2
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01-11-2008 17:30
From: Desmond Shang Fascinating replies everybody... lots of interesting ideas... gardens, Crystal Palace elements, height to buffer zone ratio (golden rectangle?), megaprim repulsive force - now THAT might be interesting to work with, if applied in certain ways!
...
As for 'when'... I think we are talking at *least* 2009 here. I've currently got 15 regions on the drawing board, literally - five of which will be finishing up Caledon's home isle.
The arcology would be drawing board plan #16, and I'm thinking: my last ever. 49 regions total if I get that far... after a while, one starts to wonder just *how* much of a life should be online. Des - I immediately began to envision a combination of Dekka Raymaker's "stepped walls" concept combined with Cyn Vandeverre's "setbacks". Then I remembered that I have a photo that might help illustrate that. Since it's not immediately at hand. I'll drop it to you with a notecard. A brief description, though: Go with something like a 32 m buffer, then stepped terraces at a 30 degree angle to start, gradually steepening through 45 & 60 degrees until you have a rough half-hyperbolic curve up to the (near) vertical. That way the tower could still occupy over half of the space without overpowering neighboring sims. |
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ArchTx Edo
Mystic/Artist/Architect
Join date: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,993
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01-11-2008 21:35
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Oryx Tempel
Registered User
Join date: 8 Nov 2006
Posts: 7,663
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01-11-2008 22:09
If it's pretty and relatively lag-free, do it! We need more uber-cool monumental stuff in SL. I bet it would inspire, like Bradley said, the neighbors to improve their own builds, or even build to suit your structure, sort of like a futuristic neighborhood. Go for it!
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Cristalle Karami
Lady of the House
Join date: 4 Dec 2006
Posts: 6,222
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01-11-2008 22:39
I also have to add that landscaping goes a long way to softening the appearance of any structure and adding a level of majesty to it. If you throw such a huge compound up, please spare a few prims for some dogwoods and eucalyptus trees, and maybe a few plumeria. It will make the structure seem less imposing and maybe more mysterious.
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Conifer Dada
Hiya m'dooks!
Join date: 6 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,716
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01-12-2008 03:20
If I owned a whole mainland sim and wanted to build an enclosed site, I'd probably leave a 4 metre strip around the entire perimeter that people from neighbouring sims could use as a public footpath.
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Princess Ivory
SL is my First Life
Join date: 17 Jan 2007
Posts: 720
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Golden Rule and the Sound Barrier
01-13-2008 04:33
Desmond,
I seem to recall reading somewhere that a 2:1 ratio is a good setback versus height guide.
The other thing you might want to consider that I haven't seen anyone else mention here yet is chat sound. A porn club built right to the sim border with 40m megaprim walls next to the sim my friend owns most of. Not only is it hideously ugly, but my poor friend and all her residents and visitors are now forced to listen to all the porn chat for a full 20 meters into her property. LL won't touch it, because both sims are rated "mature." In an ideal would, the porn shop could have a 10m setback, and my friend could have a 10m setback, and it wouldn't affect either of them very much. Unfortunately, porn owner says "no" because he has built to the property borders of his entire plot and doesn't want to reduce the size of his build.
So, you might want to consider at least a 10m (and maybe 20m) setback from borders of adjacent sims you do not own. Just fill 'em with some Linden trees, or something else low prim yet attractive.
Princess Ivory
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Ace Albion
Registered User
Join date: 21 Oct 2005
Posts: 866
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01-14-2008 05:17
Another reason to not build within 10m of a sim border (if your land is big enough that this would be practical) is because this is the sim-sim hand over area, and strange things can happen.
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Porky Gorky
Temperamentalalistical
Join date: 25 May 2004
Posts: 1,414
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01-14-2008 05:48
I did a region build a couple of years back, although no where hear the height of yours Desmond. I faced the same problem, didnt want to alienate the locals. In the end I left a 10m border around the structure, and within the border I built walk ways and paths etc intermixed with foliage to hide any ugly builds on my border. For those people that had nice builds on my border, or had at least attempted a nice build I tried to link my paths into their build/land somehow to make the sim border flow better. I would advise building your structure first, leave a space around the outside, then contact the bigger land owners on your borders and get their input on how to fill the spaces after.
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Bodhisatva Paperclip
Tip: Savor pie, bald chap
Join date: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 970
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01-14-2008 06:49
From: Senga Tsarchon How about the Crystal Palace? You could have a wide range of shapes, heights, and setbacks to make attractive from the outside, while allowing for a complex and interesting interior.
I vote Crystal Palace!
Wait a minute - oops, not a democracy. But I still like the idea. Senga beat me to it! My first thought was "Crystal Palace on Steroids." That would give you lots of opportunity for stepping up the height gradually at the edges, lots of transparency to lessen the visual mass, indoor/outdoor vegetation blending, unifying infill between the wacked out megastructure, ability to create a "familiar but twisted" vibe. We have a 2:1 height to property line ratio in Peronaut and it seems to be working well. Whatever it turns out to be, I'd love to visit. Give me a good reason to max out my draw distance!!
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Desmond Shang
Guvnah of Caledon
Join date: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 5,250
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01-14-2008 10:27
Chat range! Ouch, yes. This will definitely be a consideration. 2:1 seems pretty reasonable too - that would put it at 128m or so tallest. Though I'm tempted to sneak a spire in the middle, which would be out of most people's draw distance anyway unless they were already over the outskirts of it. ArchTx, those images are stunning, and yes, you did tap into some of the inspiration I'd had I'm having issues with the artslivres image links, though. Could you give me the search term you used on the site? * * * * * My guess, is that this whole project is well more than a year off - it may come down to making some small prim models of a steampunk Victorian arcology first, and deciding between them. Pretty sure the whole thing's infrastructure will come down to being about 900 prims, some of them megaprims (long story involving what it takes to properly finance a region). I wonder what kind of design bids $L 100k would get me? grin... ...but nothing official for now. Too far off, and it's best I have a sense of what will be tolerated on the mainland. If it turns out that all megaprims are banned, well, I'll have a bit of a problem.
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