I've built my deck, any constructive criticism welcome

Just to clarify I didn't build the house hehe, it had a deck on the front and I never liked it, so I took it back and built only the deck.

I think the jagged look is down to my PC and the pic, I don't have a wizzy PC and when you are there the lines in the windows are not so bad as they look

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate your feedback.

And anything you can tell me about rails is great, I think it needs some too

you will get there soon enough hon hehe

next thing you know, you will be posting a pic of a house you built to go with the deck and planter (remember my comment in the planter thread?)

by the way if you ever have questions or need help, look me up in world, I am always will to assist if someone has questions or needs help

I am a builder/clothing designer

I tend to build and rip down and rebuild things a lot

currently building a club, just for the sake of building it LOL

They make nice art pieces- what we shoot in the RL and in SL - not to mention stuff from out here in RL used on say- Planters! My camera is always in my bag - you should see the weird looks I get in places...

Oh thank you Rhaorth, I really appreciate that, it would be great to have some guidance.

Amaranthim I need to learn how to get RL pics into SL, but it's great to know I can use pics from SL. Is it ok to do that, I mean is it copyright or anything? Like if I saw a building and liked the texture, took a pic and used it on something of my own?

Ok- suppose you and your friends are out and about exploring and you snap a pic and texture a prim and voila! A picture of a great time out- that is fine- If you are out and see a lovely wall texture and think- hmm that wd look awesome on the walls of the house I am making! That you cannot do - that is the infamous texture stealing you hear about. Because someone else produced it for their builds, you see.

As for getting a picture- which will show up in your Textures folder, btw- in world- you just say File Upload- at the cost of $10L per upload. And give a holler anytime you want to play at it- I'm not fantastic at it- but I do have fun

Oh thanks, I was going to go off stealing textures, better not do that then.

I have found a couple of texture places, does anyone have any suggestions for purchasing good textures?

What are you looking for? I have tons of my own and am willing to share- as well as I know I have some freebies I wd be happy to send you- drop me an IM or NC if you remember to to jog my memory. Also- explore your texture folder- We come preloaded with bunches.

Edited to add- if you get hooked, look up th in-world group Builder Exchange- great bunch of peeps, very helpful

Oh thanks again Amaranthim. I've been trying to find a stone texture, like the house, it's hard to explain, I will know it when I see it.

Isn't building fun and learning so much fun, I think I have an awesome journey ahead.

I do have one question and I could probably find it on the boards, but while I'm here if anyone can bothered answering. When you stretch a prim and apply texture, the texture is stretched too and so with tiles they get all distorted and big. Is there a way to apply the texture without it getting stretched?

You need to play with the repeats tabs- horizontal and vertical until you get the desired effect. Also- some images are "tileable" which means they can be repeated with out visible breaks and repeats - see this link here that explains how to make such textures at least so you can see the effect: http://adrian.gimp.org/texture_tut/

Another thing to remember is that just because an image is on the web doesn't necessarily mean you can grab it and use it- there are different things that determine your usage of them and usually these things are clearly spelled out. Here is a website that states they are free textures- but i honestly did not read enough to determine if they are allowed or not- i mean it only for an example. http://www.oneodddude.net/FreeTextures.php

The ONLY way to be sure - is to either create your own with a graphix program such as Gimp http://www.gimp.org/ - free app - or Photoshop or others of that sort. Or take your camera and get your own textures and weird looks from passersby

Below where you add your texture and color, there are choices for number of repititions per face, offset and such. Adjusting those will get your texture looking like you want it to. If it is stretched, increase the number of repetitions.

Or what Amara said.

Oh and... be careful of texturing small things in tight spaces... it can have rather interesting results on the surrounding walls...

also if you uncheck the "stretch textures" box that will also auto tile it when you stretch the prim

play around with those different settings on a "trash test prim" something you plan to just delete anyway

*Kiss*

Thanks so much everyone, I will have a play with all your suggestions over the weekend

Just last week Bella posted that she had built her first item...
now she is a fallen woman... building junkie!!!

Deck looks great Bella, good job VV

How many prims?

I see a way to do it with five. Four, if you use sculpty stairs and an invisiramp. (Counting only the stone parts, not the dirt in the planter or the furnishings.)

Bella- sent you some textures to play with

This tip can be used for all sorts of things. For instance, panelling, mouldings, etc. Make it with prims in fine detail, and then snap it to get a texture for it.

Four if she sinks everything to lose the bottom step, or lose the bottom step and make each of the remaining four steps slightly higher

That one was 14 prims, but I've rebuilt it now and it's 18 oops.

Thank you Amaranthim, I've been playing with those textures

that looks great..
did you build your home as well?

Oh I wish I could take credit for that Ceka, but I'm really just playing with blocks at the moment. I only built the deck, I'm just playing around and learning, it's lots of fun!

Oh Honey you need some megas...There is no way that shd have taken that many prims... Now- megas can be dangerous so stick to the smaller ones- you in world now?