I want to build a house

I can't figure out how to cut windows into a wall (among other house building techniques). Is that something I can do with the basic prim editor, or will I need to learn scripting?
Can I build a house without using 4 prims just to make a wall with one window?

Is there a tutorial for house building tips somewhere?

I'll appreciate any advice you might have.

Thank you!

Hi Benjamin Welcome to SL and the forums! What you want to do can be done with the on board tools- there are many classes available and you can find them in world under Events, Education -
There is also a Forum for building and scripting and textures - here is the Building one: /8/1.html

It all takes patience and a willingness to experiment.

Above all- have fun!

ETA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVSzh_QTE00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcdtU485BqQ&feature=user

Various approaches..

One is to use several prims to make the wall, leaving a hole where there window goes.

Antoher is to use texure with a transparent window drawn on it.

A third is tto not make so many typose...

lee

As someone who repaints her house frequently...I hate this approach.



LOL. At least...oh hell, nm, too easy...

You can also rotate a box prim onto its side and hollow it, and make the side of the building out of that.

Sugest you read through the Building Tips forum, which has tons of useful discussions for novice and expert builders alike.

The only "real hole" that you can make in a prim is to hollow the prim on the Z-axis. That hole is always centered in the prim and proportional to the X and Y dimensions of the prim. So for a very simple 1-prim wall with a window in it, you could make a 5m x 5M x 0.3 M prim, hollow it to 70% or so, and rotate the prim to stand this "wall" up on its edge.

You can cut away half of a prim using the path cut options, and then resize that as needed, to roughly get a "doorway", again centered in the prim and proportional to the un-cut dimensions of the prim. So for a very simple 1-prim wall with a doorway in it, you could make a 10m x 5M x 0.3 M prim, hollow it to 60% or so, Path cut start 0.125, end 0.625, and rotate the prim to stand this "wall" up on its edge.

Neither of the above gives you very much control over how your window or door is placed or proportioned.

Your next low-prim option, for a window, is to use wall textures that have an alpha-mapped transparent area in them. It isn't an actual hole, but will appear to be a window in the wall, anywhere that the texture maker chooses to place it. Texture shops like Texture-R-Us sell a wide range of wall textures and matching wall with window textures, or you can make your own. The down side of using alpha textures on walls is that plants, high heeled shoes, wings, and anything else in SL that uses transparency or invisiprims will not render properly on the same line of sight with the wall.

The best bet is simply spend more prims, and build the openeinsg where you really want them, as real openings. Stack the prims like building blocks to form the openings, and texture them so it looks like a continuous wall with holes as desired.

Yeah and then face the challenge of learning how to align textures on the inside of a hollow which isn't always pretty but yes, it's a good way to save prims on a build and NCI teach this technique.

Which reminds me, NCI run building classes Benjamin, look them up inworld, the classes are free and you'll find many great tips, it's well worth investing a little time.

The Ivory Tower of Primitives also has free tutorials, although it can get a little busy there and the information at first may seem overwhelming.

I'm a fan of a product called Prim Docker, it's not perfect but it general helps you align prims, copy textures between prims and will at times even work out how big a prim you need for a space, it costs around L$400.

If you don't like the pre-made wall-with-windows textures, but still want the prim-saving features of an alpha-textured window:

1. Build your wall using however many prims are needed.

2. Take a picture of the wall.

3. Save it to disk, and cut out the "window" parts of the texture. Save the result as a file that supports alpha textures, such as .png.

4. Upload the image to SL.

5. Rez a new single prim wall the size of the old one, and apply your wall-and-window texture to it.

Alpha textures can be used to produce some very interesting effects.

Go take a look at The Free Dove sometime. From the inside, the store appears to be pretty much windowless, with tons of wall space for advertising and vendors. From the outside, it's a modern, glass-walled building that you can see into plainly. The window texture is only applied to the OUTSIDE surface of the walls.

By reversing this, you can live in a blank featureless cube that is bright and airy on the inside...

Nice tip Lindal!

bookmarked for future reference

good info