Are There Places to Go to Practice Terraforming?

My new land is rather hilly, grading down towards the ocean. Love the land, amazing sunset views from the top of the hill and the huge deck over the water and after having a prim island, it's nice to have a lot of grass along with a beach as a change of pace. Gives me new landscaping options.

However; most likely I am going to have to start terraforming. The beach area isn't large enough and my house isn't fitting to well on the site. I had to put it on stilts right now, which has it raised so high, that I can't see the beach at all, which is very unfortunate. Tried moving it every way possible, to no avail.

So it's either a new house (which is still a possibility) and/or terraform and I'm a bit gunshy about it. Ok, terrified. I'm convinced I'm going to ruin the land and not be able to get it back to it's original state - even tho I know there is a "revert" button.

So, I was wondering if there are places you can go to practice on - sort of like a sandbox maybe? Does such a thing exist? Or will I have to just bite the bullet and hope for the best?

Thanks!

take the plunge. make the whole darn thing as low as it will go, place your house, then fit the landscaping to accentuate your home and beach-desires space by space by space.

i think you will be much more pleased with the results if you build the land to fit the house, instead of trying to fit the house on the land. now you will be able to build the land up to the foundation, make hills that have landscaping views you can see from inside. your beach will be usable in the way that suits you (water sports, blankets, cabana... whatever you want) and best of all.. you will be able to face the house in the direction you find most pleasing, which i suspect is facing the beach.

good luck.

If you mess up and need a hand I'll come help you. Terraforming is my very least favourte of any part of a build, so it's good for the soul for me to make myself do it

If you want to practice on my lands you can, everything is in the air. Lemme know

Thanks Cherry! I go on vacation in a couple of days, but when I get back, if I need you I'll ring you up

One cautionary note:

The "Revert" in terraforming is not an "Undo". Meaning it does not just back out the changes you recently made. Revert takes the selected area back to the last saved sim terrain profile.

On the mainland, this means it restores the terrain to what the Lindens designed when the sim was first set up. That may be extremely different from what you have now, and may not mesh well with what is around you. The Lindens NEVER save later terrain states.

On a private island sim, "Revert takes the selected terrain to the heights it was at the last time the sim owner "Baked" and saved the terrain profile. If you live in a private sim, and have a friendly sim owner, you may be able to ask them to do a bake of the terrain before you start experimenting. Then a Revert WILL take you back to where you started.

Wow! That is worth knowing Ceera. Thanks for the warning. BTW, it is on Mainland.

Elora,

I asked the same question when I first got land. I didn't find anyone like Cherry willing to let me practice on theirs, so I was forced to experiment on my own. But I WAS given one encouraging bit of advice: terraforming is easy!

You know what? It is! And I LOVE it...for me, it's my favorite part of a build.

The cautions about the "Revert" button are good ones. And i will add that terraforming is not precise...more like moulding a ball of soft clay. You push it down here, it squooches up there.

There are two basic approaches: Freehand, or selecting a swatch of land and applying a tool to the entire selection. The latter is especially good for raising or lowering large areas, and for cutting roadbeds and stream beds. Freehand is more artistic; you use the tool like a brush. It's also good to do small-scale things like push down a bit that's showing through your living room floor, or filling in a gap around the foundations.

You can take a previous suggestion, and lower everything, then build it up where needed. Or you can take the opposite approach -- raise everything as high as it will go, and start carving away.

One thing I found with my mainland parcel. The standard +/- 4 meter range wouldn't let me get the landscape I had in my head. I had to modify my plans to work around the limitations of the land. I was a little frustrated at first, but I'm happy with the way it all eventually turned out.

Don't overlook the possibility of using prims to get what you want. A prim boulder in the right place, or an artifical prim beach can do the trick, if the land itself won't do what you want.

Thanks for all the encouragement Lindal. I am concerned about the 4 meter range at the bottom somewhat. But, knowing I can use a prim beach to help out will be a big help. It didn't even occur to me. At least it will be one big, flat surface to lay the house on, which I can kind of "jut" out of the hill, lower to the ocean side if need be so the house isn't high up on those stilts, which is why I'm losing my view, and fill in the underside with a bunch of boulders. Kind of northeast coastal, New England maybe.

Actually - now that I'm thinking about that...it kind of sounds nice! I may have to draw it out and see how it looks!

I needed some very minor work done on my land. Just to smooth the edges around the water and bring up or down a small corner.

I checked a few places which are advertised as terraforming companies. After each came by to check the work needed I was told it would cost $25,000L. The other one wanted $15,000L. All this for minor work. I would expect an entire sim to cost these prices and maybe not even then.

I was turned on to a female who not only did what I asked but also did extra work and she wanted $300L. I gave her much more then this although she said the 300 was enough. This is what you can expect from these places who advertise terraforming.

Yikes Ricardo! That's a lot of cash. I wouldn't pay that either. Not like I'm asking them to do my RL home. The other week, someone here was asking about landscaping services and got similar prices quoted too, and all she needed was a small pond done. Crazy.

There is a terraforming practice Island provided by the Lindens, it's next to the Concierge Island. However I don't know if it's limited to Concierge level residents, or open to all.

I don't know whether this is what Darien is referring to, but check out a region named "Terraforming Sandbox", I believe it is exactly what it sounds like.
.

Thanks Nika, I'll look it up when I get home tonight!

wow I did not know about that, I'll have to tell my friend about that. He was considering getting a void sim just to let people play around with terraforming on (he sells terraforming tools.)

It looks like that's similar to what this guy did:

http://world.secondlife.com/place/ee01c50b-6873-291e-180d-b831a7ed8b19
.

yes, that's it. I couldn't remember the name oddly enough, and I'm at work >.>

The first thing that I do with a new piece of land is to use the revert tool to get it back to original terrain.
That way I know what I will have to work with. I will be able to +/- 4m from that.
Sometimes the reverting reveals some nice features.
I remember a rather bland rounded steep hill overlooking Linden water. Reverting uncovered a gulley that formed the basis of a waterfall. The original rougher cliff also had some features that formed the basis of walkways and small seating areas.

As for areas in which to practice with the Edit Terrain tools:
Anyone with a water parcel can play on the sea bed.
- Actually, they *should* play on the seabed. There's a whole other building experience down there.

Yep and the person who did it for $5000L(and she didnt even want that,I made her take it,lol.) did an excellent job. She did the whole 1/4 of the sim I wanted done. She loves doing it too,I don't know if I can say her name or not though...but I will cause I am a rebel.
Eclectic Wingtips

Practice on mine and let Lindal do the terraforming if she loves doing it. I hate doing it - the limitations unless you're an Estate owner really annoy me and I guess I get extemely detail orientated so I want every little thing sculpted JUST SO.

Perfectionism rarely comes without frustration I'm learning, slowly, to accept "This is good enough". Ironically, it took another perfectionist to make me see that.

They wanted how much?

Wow.

When I get back from vacation, I'll look her up too. Between her, and calling on Cherry and Lindal to hopefully lend a hand (and my own fearful trepidation, yes I will take the plunge because I know it is the only way to learn); I think I'll be ok.

Just have to keep my husband out of the mix. THAT is the hard part! I love him, but let him buy his own land. MY world, MY imagination

Too right. TOO right

Have a nice holiday hon.

When I first came to sl I checked out the whole terraforming gig and decided to raise a small corner of my land. It was a small spot with patches of land underwater and some over it. I felt since it was such a small job it would give me a feel for terraforming and at the same time I would fix the land. After I was done I thought to myself it wasn't hard terraforming land but when I turned around I realized the entire land had also risen up sinking my house a few feet along with everything else on the land.

No more terraforming for me.

/me learns from this: note to self: remove house and all other items from land before terraforming!

I found two sims... one called Terraform Me, and the other called Terraforming Sandbox. The latter didn't allow me to teleport there, but the former did.

Terraform Me is a simple flat sim, owned by Jack Linden, in the group "Concierge Informatio" (the last part is cut off).

I'm wondering if it's alright to start practicing or not... I'd hate to mess up a Linden sim and have them bitch me out, ya know?