I need help building

I feel like i must be missing something because I have been here since 6/18 of this year and I still dont know how to build other than making a big box and calling it a house. I need hands on help with building if anyone can help me. Thanks.

I still stand by the opinion that the best way to learn about building is to head to the sandbox and pull out a prim, any prim and play with all the sliders, dont try to make anything.. just try to understand the paramaters and how to make them work together, just keep pulling out different prims and playing with settings, as you see the possibilities of different primitives you will get ideas for things to build. Once you have a better grip of how the different prims work start looking at objects that are similar to the thigns youd like to build as far as shape goes, try to work out how they were built and with what shapes.

Honestly its been said once or twice before and its true, building can be difficult, although it is a simplistic modeling engine, it is *still* a 3d modeling engine and has a learning curve.

I will echo what Spider said...

When I was first starting to build, all of my stuff came out looking like crap. My advice is to build, build again, and then build some more. Take all the stuff that looks like dog doo-doo, toss it in your Trash folder (that will be 99% of what you have), and then start again by building, building, building.

Seriously... Even today, when I consider myself a fairly accomplished builder, I probably toss out 80% of the prims I rez.

You learn to build the same way you get to Carnegie Hall... Practice, practice, practice.

- Ace

I am a building novice too. I agree with what these guys say but I would also add that I have found the Ivory Tower extremely useful. The best building tutorial on SL.

Search for it under Find/Places - it gives you step by step instructions on what you can do with a prim and you can work at your own pace.

Latonia

Good advice. Something else, especially applicable to houses, is to try to make all measurements round numbers. For example, place your first floor prim at numbers like 125.000, etc, rather than 124.295. It will make lining things up a lot easier. If it's not placed exactly where you want it, you can always move it after you have the basic shell done.

Check around and see if you can dig up some free houses. Lots of folks offer boxes with 4 or 5 of them in it. Take them out at a sandbox and examine them. Use options like 'select texture' and 'select individual?' and see what dimensions were used, how the textures were applied, etc. I get suprised every day at how clever some people are at applying textures in different ways to get unique effects. Well applied textures can make a world of difference on how an object appears.

Here are two or three things to do to get a grip on the Building Possibilities

First, visit Lumiere Noir s Ivory Tower Library of Primitives (look in FIND menu Places and type ivory or library) it is the absolute inworld tutorial for building, a titan s work and the best place to learn subtle techniques.

Second, visit the Junkyard, it s a place with over 1000 freebies to edit and learn from, one of the best schools in SL, that s how i learned to build myself, for the basics (then i went to the Tower). You will here find EVERYTHING you may dream of icluding vehicles, houses, objects and so much more i ll let you see by ureself. And also, dont forget my BUILDING guide and NEWCOMER guide, two black boxes with red letters rotating in a corner of the Junkyard.

Third, find a SANDBOX, and drop and edit the freebies, unlink them and see how the PRIMS are Tortured to do the object you can see.

Fourth, finally, DONT BE AFRAID BY THE BUILDING TOOL, just experiment EVERY SLIDER, try ALL, and look how it does, you ll be amazed by the possibilities you have at hand, try all the options on EACH kind of PRIM (cube, ball, torus, ring ......)

Hope this will help and complete your desired answer, take care and feel free to IM me inworld if you have problems you cant solve, i ll be doubleglad to help you.

Exactly. Worst that can happen is you send a prim into space, underground or someone else's land, in which case it will be either deleted or returned. Make backups and you'll do no harm. Except maybe to the prim, which should be screaming for mercy by the time you're done with it.