How can I make my sim a beach? RAW?

when i was renting land . it was private land. i was messing with terraforming and i was using the bulldozer thing. i could never get nice smooth land. it was always jagged and pointy expecially when i tried to raise it . the smooth option didnt work well. i have always wondered how they get the beaches to look so smooth as they drop off into the ocean. is this what u are talking about?

you could always make a sculpty beach like me..
but then again i *heart* my sculpts.

[img=http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6344/sculptedbeach.png]

Yes, exactly what i mean!!! like a smooth sloping beach! Im the same way..mine never looks right...lol

Ive used sculpted beaches and they just arent the same..takes so long to load and you cant really walk on top of them..

come walk on mine Yummy.. i made it myself ^^

I've always found it FAR easier to sculpt a beach area with the in-world tools rather than with a .raw file. I use .raw files frequently for client projects, but all my beaches are hand-work. Send me an IM in-world some time, and I'll be glad to give you some pointers on how to use the in-world terraforming tools to make nice beaches. It's mostly making good use of the smoothing function, and being careful with the strength settings.

And I virtually NEVER set the water level in a sim to anything other than 20.000. Any other value causes a gap at the edge of the sim, where it displays fake water on edges that have no actual neighboring sims, and on edges that DO have neighboring sims. The only time it is worth changing that value is when you have an entirely landlocked sim in a mini-continent, with other sims on all edges.

are you askin me to take a walk on the wild side? ;O)

Ok Ceera.. i'll give you a holler here in a bit!

I should be on for a fair part of the morning Saturday and Sunday. I'm on central time, US, so probably any time after 6 AM SL time and before 3 PM SL time is likely I'll be around. (Am up late tonight 'cause I can't get to sleep... *sighs* )

I agree and find the waterlevel option useless.
I cannot think of any reason to have the water raised unless you are thinking of deepsea projects.
Also indeed most of the really cool formed sims are handwork. I consider RAW files purely a 'rough starting point' tool

A well-crafted .raw file can eliminate 95% of the work in setting ip a sim or multiple sims for initial terraforming, and can do things that are virtually impossible by hand. For example, using a .raw file I can easily make a perfectly oval lake, or could even make a river that looks like your first name written in cursive. But for getting a gently sloping beach that interacts in a desirable manner with the water level, nothing beats hand work.

Well, last night a friend was helping me and we found out that the sim is AT the Linden water level, so its impossible to lower the land on the edges unless we raise the whole sim up. That's going to be a huge PITA because of all the buildings...lol. so I guess I have some work cut out for me to even get to the terraforming stage...

????

That makes no sense, Yummy.

Terraforming is on a zero to 255 scale, with the default water level at 20 Meters. That means that where the edges of the land meet the water occurs at 20 Meters, and you could still lower any land in the sim to as much as 20 M below that waterline.

That puzzles me, I don't see the need of your buildings being in danger just because you want a piece of beach.

I'll have to take a pic to show you, but when i lower the beach there is a wall of linden water..becuz my land is the same height as the water..so yea...I have to raise the land to then lower or slope the beach...lol

Yummy, that sounds more like the water in your sim is NOT set to 20M, but rather is set to zero or something less than 20M. Does the land in your sim right now go all the way to the square edges of your sim?

What is the height of your beach right now? Make a Landmark whils standing by the edge, and read the last number in the three number coordinates for the sim. Or rez a cube on the beach, edit it, and read the Z-height of the prim.

of course... ^^ mi playa es su playa

Yummy, if you will send me a landmark for your sim, at the location that you want the beach, I'll go visit it and give you an evaluation of what it will take to set up your beach. I am 99% certain it's actually more simple than you think.

Hi Ceera..sorry couldnt get in last nite..but i'll send you a LM..i pretty much have it figured out now..i just raised up the land and then was able to lower it by the edges..lol..it doesnt look so bad now