Textures sold inworld

I'm finding it impossible to find flowers for hanging baskets. And there is a serious lack of good tree and bush (roses etc) textures that are not taken off the internet and just cleaned up. I know some who have spent up to $300-$500 USD for good tree textures but for my needs I could never justify spending that much. With all the artists and texture places in SL.. I would have thought someone would have met this need a long time ago. I just assume that these types of textures are just too hard to do.

There is and always will be a lot of builders that build and will continue to build this way and I can assure you that their buildings are definitely not laughed at.

Those are the succesfull builders that have the experience and workaround knowledge to avoid the Alpha Sorting Glitch.

By the sounds of things Von you need to either brush up on your skills and/or learn a little more about building in SL.

3Ring, I was looking to do this exact same thing last year and went round and looked at how other artists were selling textures and packs. In addition I spoke with a number of friends that build and purchase textures as well.
The main complaint seemed to be how the textures were presented, normally on a small prim face which even when zoomed in still lacked detail etc. In more cases than one some friends said that they had purchased textures on the offchance they were what they wanted only to find when rezzed at home they were not.
The other problem was that depending on how the artist designed the textures there was seldom any documention on how to align them or their actual purpose in the build.

When I started the initial process of setting this up last year I was working mainly on Window textures and brick wall textures, the window textures were only 1 texture with approx 20 diferent window sizes of the same theme, in all there were 3 textures, one with clear windows, one with half open blinds and one with closed blinds. Having just 3 window textures for a whole build would be considerably less render time.
I also included full instructions and a texture with all the offsets and repeats for the builder, in addition I also textured 20 prims to included as sample windows as well.

The way I was going to display these was on half a house like you see in RL at a Home exhibition. The texture pack would be named on a prim for selling the contents and then it could be touched to display the windows on the display house. This was much better as the buyer could see all the windows on a sample build designed at the sizes they were meant to be.

I never got round to finishing this idea as my private work in SL seemed to of taken off at the same time. If you want to see some samples or take a look at what I had done then contact me inworld I still have most I think in my inventory.

thank you Larrie.

i agree that inworld texture selling techniques are not great, and i have already considered that. i would like to see someone put out fairly useful sized prims with the textures grouped (as you mentioned) but to have them with a watermark so that they could not be easily copied. in essence they'd have to pay L$20 per texture by doing it this way, but if they sold even one pack they'd recoup their lindens so they wouldn't really be put out in the end. again, they'd have to actually make at least one sale. LOL

i would think any texture store should be up high in the sky, so that rezzing is faster because there wouldn't be general ground traffic slowing things down. i'm not sure if 512 or 256 is better, but i'd guess smaller is better - someone else will have to comment on that theory.

lots of good ideas here. i'm not really looking to make a business of selling textures, just having some fun with photoshop and wanting to know what is interesting to people. so, i guess i'd be more into custom work than an inworld store- although that would be far off, but is not completely out of the question.

if it had not been covered yet maybe roof tile that have a center run of tiles and that go away from that center so you can line up roofs and make it look nice

Good suggestion but almost impossible to do.

The problem is that roofs in SL can vary so much in size, both length, height etc that one texture cannot be designed as you described to fit all, this also has a lot to do with the fact that planar must be used in most cases to texture the roof prims and that adds to the problems with regards repeats.
This is one reason why you do not often see good looking roofs in SL and most are just textured with a roof tile repeated across.

Most places sell the flowers and trees themselves, not the textures alone. And they are usually No Copy, at least the really nice ones like Heart VR. Textures are too easily ripped off, so it makes sense to sell them as objects, when you can.

Seconding Linda's thread - my partner Fatima Ur spent a considerable chunk of RL US$ to buy tree and shrub textures. They are damn good I have to say, and sell pretty well - but no way is she selling the textures themselves; for one thing it's against the licensing terms.

/shamesless plug on - try Fatimas Art sim and explore from there
/shameless plug off

Inc

I am not talking about windows, I hope you know.. I am talking about Brick and Stone and Timber framed stuff. Show me one that looks good when you put a plant in front of it or when you walk by with 957prim Hair that sticks out to over there.. Are you being defensive?



Yes I know - the workaround.. I make Bushes and fences and some windows.. same exact principle. Some people love it, some people don't care and some people think its crap.




That is why I am not a Builder.. because I am not as good as most of you at finding workarounds for things that hide the flaw of a product...but I am learning fast.. and maybe you can teach me how, so I can learn even faster

Interesting concept. I shoud try that with some of my fancy roofs. DO you mean where the tiles go away from the center in opposite directions? Kind of like a mirror effect?

since the roofline is a peak, and it typically requires 2 prims butted up agains each other, i don't see the point.

note: i don't build structures like houses, so maybe i am missing something.

if you were to use weird shape prims other than "teh box" then maybe there are situations where this kind of funk would be justified


Roofs can make or break the way a building looks and many people have a hard time with them ( including me).







"No 10-Pack for you!"

Even those of us who DO build structures miss the obvious. I've always made sloped roofs the way you describe...two big flat prims butted up against each other. Often with another prim underneath them to form the "ceiling".

The other day I visited a friend while he was building. He was using a big prism. One prim, not three. (A cut box works, too.)

A hollowed and tapered cube is another way (or two of them cut and one rotated for a larger house). Hollowing out the cube gives the added advantage of a higher roofspace, into which you can add a sleeping platform or other structure. For a thatched roof you can use two stretched and cut cylinders and maybe add a stretched cylinder along the top with a 'nick' cut out of it for embellishment.