Lexicon of SL Architectural Language

It encourages you to work efficient and to [K]eep t imple tupid and thats a good thing.

Aaaah i need discipline, hand me the whip fair lady

Prim limits are generally never a problem as you don't really want to build too many prims in one place because of bandwidth constraints.

I think the problem that I see are the limit on the sizes of prims .. 10/10/10 seems rather odd. It basically means in order to send across a 50/50/10 wall you have to send the 10/10/10 wall 25 times. I wish LL would communicate more clearly why they have such limititations.

Another reason why prim limits aren't really a problem is because of the reasons stated above. Open air access and little to no walls means prims aren't really required for a lot.

I think good SL architecture provides hints of purpose and theme rather than rigidly defines it.

I'd really like to hear what other purposes that SL architecture is meant to provide other than the ones I meantioned above.

It forces me to become creative in my uses of prims. I experiment with various way to try to use a single prim where 2 might ususally be needed. Sometimes it will affect the original design, but usually not. I'm a stickler for trying to convey a realistic look/feel to my builds and I will only sacrifice that up to a certain point.

Absolutely - how many dreary looking bungalows or blocky apartment buildings have you seen in SL? Tons of them. Maybe it's just that most people havent seen much really interesting design for them to be inspired enough to copy it?




It's inspired me to try and make low(ish) prim designs from the more interesting shapes; toruses, spheres, cylinders etc. rather than just using boxes and triangles. I'd post a piccy if SL wasn't down and I could log in

Interesting thread. : ) Here's a contribution to the list:


--> Minimize server load due to unnecessary active scripts in decorative elements

The default for a script should be to terminate after a given time interval. Let's take the pervasive fire as an example. Most people leave all decorative fireplaces, torches and braziers on all the time. Yes, it would be a nuisance to restart your fires, particle effects, etc., but less annoying than having the sim lag to 200 fps or worse due to someone else's sfx being active when there is nobody on that lot.


--> Minimize visual clash.

An invisibility-prim sleeve around your neighbor's build would be nice -- when his build is six free linden houses stacked one on top of the other! (Hopefully that owner is actually a good neighbor type, just clowning around for a day.)

A freestanding scrim can mask a neighbor's build that interrupts an otherwise serene water view. I've experimented with a 50 meter high curtain rising out of the water. The low-saturation sea mist color gradient faded into 100% alpha at the top. Since the neighbor with the huge cutely-decorated factory enjoyed her view of my build, the scrim was transparent when viewed from her side.

Trees are a good-neighbor device to mask a nearby build that interrupts a wilderness view. I've experimented with a mass of Linden palms and eucalyptus carefully arranged to simulate a steep wooded hill. The topmost foliage was high enough to mask my view of a spinner advertising a lot for sale.

Fog of distance -- the best! But it's expensive for people to buy enough land so that neighboring builds fade into the distance. I've experimented with temporary structures, flying back and forth to see how various neighbors would be affected. If I built low the temporary structure faded from sight. Raised 40 meters, the same structure could be seen against the sky, interrupting an otherwise serene view. Parked behind the mass of a small island the structure's steeply pitched roofs were still visible against the sky, but didn't look intrusive because they blended into the linden conifers on the island's ridge.

Complimentary architecture. Imagine approaching your neighbors with a suggestion that we could all rebuild our properties in one harmonious style with the landscaping and builds flowing into each other. [ /joke ]


Back to your practical suggestion, Damien:



If you're making a project proposal I'm interested. It sounds like a full sim would be best, and on the grid would be best for the visiting public. Is anyone else interested?

I have a fair amount of paid-up tier I could put into this project for at least a month if you could get it going quickly. What probably should be done is to make a group of people willing to volunteer their tier and make a group purchase of a new sim at auction. The new lake sims such as Huron, Superior, Louise would perhaps make good ground for building? Louise isn't at auction yet but looks promising.

I'm not sure that an island with a steep hill is the best exhibit space for such a project but I have the Ravenglass Island of 12000 acres which could be devoted to this project for say, 60-90 days. Perhaps with platforms in the water and along the hill it could work. It's a new sim with great FPS. Some large lots on Ravenglass mainland may also be used temporarily.

I would love the SL public to become more thoughtful and educated about what constitutes "good architecture".

As in RL, I notice that some of the classiest and "modern" architects in SL are also liable to make what amounts to sculptures that are uninhabitable. They are beautiful, but either you can't decorate them or your head bangs on the ceiling. I really enjoy structures that take into account all the considerations of the actual avian creatures of SL.

However....so many people want an exact, even more-perfect replica of RL. As a player who has experimented with developing real estate and selling land and houses, it's a fact of life that many people want quaint, cute, familiar, liveable, private, walls, roofs, decorating space, furniture -- everything that runs against a classic SL aesthetic view. They want realistic miniature versions of RL in their SL boxes. Their second lives aren't about sculptured beauty and elegant lines, they are about a private place to have AV sex or hang with their friends or even put up pictures of RL people important to them. Any study of form and aesthetics has to be willing to take an unbiased look at how buildings are actually used in SL, tracking where people really go and what they do in the spaces. No logic in the world, let along aesthetics, explains why dozens of people are willing to go to laggy, box-like clubs where there is such a thicket of AV names they can't even click on somebody to send them an IM or rate them. And yet, that's exactly what they do, night after night!

I would support this project in any way I can.