Newbie Question (..sorry...)

Hate having to ask this, but could someone take a minute and explain for me what a "prim" is, exactly... or point me towards a helpful glossary?

I did search around in the forums but everyone seems to assume that the reader already knows what a prim is, and so I'm finally going to break down and just ask before I go batty.

I've only been around most of a week but have played with objects (such as hair) a bit, so I know they've built on various shapes (torus, sphere, etc.), and I've got decent Photoshop experience in case that would help...

Thanks!

Wiki Link

Short answer - They're like "legos", building pieces that you put together to make things. You select a group of prims by holding shift and clicking on each one and then link them and you have an object. Take your photoshop skills and you can apply textures to paint detail onto the prims, or paint on a skin/clothing template to make skin or clothing for your avatar.

"Prim" is short for Primitive. They are just the shapes you make things out of in SL. (Cubes, Spheres, etc, as you've noticed.)

"Legos" is a good way of visualizing it (thanks, Logan except we can cut, twist, and otherwise torture our legos.

You get one by right clicking on the ground (or somewhere) and choosing "create" from the Pie Menu. Your cursor will change to a Magic Wand, and a dialog will appear that lets you select which kind of prim to make.

Take your pick, and click, and presto! You'll have a prim, in plywood.

To make it go away, right click on it, and choose More > Delete.

I recommend that you go to the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives, at Noyo 207,189, if you want to learn how to work with them.

(And never be afraid to ask a question around here. We live to answer questions, like the torus in that old Star Trek episode. )

Thank you so much everyone for all the good advice, I appreciate you all getting me started off on the right foot.

(And it was a thrill to see your post, Robin -- I knew of you and your art from a few years back, so it was serendipity to run across you again as a contributor to SL. Small world, isn't it?)

Torturing Legos... oooh, I think I'm going to like this. [malevolent cackle]

Hehe, Robin. You've obviously never been or parented a little boy. Legos in the oven are a rite of passage. Cutting, twisting, and otherwise toruting all toys is what boyhood is all about.

Btw, Rhyn, don't be sorry for asking a newbie question. That's what this forum is here for. There's no such thing as a dumb question. Welcome to SL.

Welcome, indeed! Jump right in the water's fine.

sounds like you ought to be able to perform boulians like i'm used to with solids in autocad, which incidently i've a prety good reptoir of geometry i've created in it over the past few years (pagoda lanterns, mini and micro rail vehicules, structures and furnishings, and so on). with textures converted to tga's from sources like free webpage background texture libraries.

haven't found a sandbox and started playing yet. i'm having a hard time making heads or tails of how build is supposed to work from the wikki, but i suppose that will come to me in time.

i've never used paint shop or any 2d programs other then the what comes with windows opperating systems. i've always just done every thing other then a little post render tweeking of rendered immages in autocad itself.

so this raises for me the questions: can my .dwg geometries be uploaded and 'rezzed'?

and can i make things, once i learn how in your build engine if that's how i have to, without having to buy land?

and is performing boulians on solids a way of doing things in your build or is it all with this script bussiness that may take a bit of getting used to?

i'm really interested in basicly three things in life, both outside in the diversity of nature and even here or someplace like here, and that is creating, exploring, and the kind of world we all have to live in.

i ought to explain that i'm too impoverished in the outside world to afford to pay a monthly or have broadband. the only reason i'm blessed with having autocad is it was given to me as a wedding present (r14.0), ten years ago.

=^^=
.../\...

Hi Fingol. Good questions. Here are some hopefully good answers for you. Note, I didn't quote your first paragraph for response since everything it said was covered again later in your questions.


Don't try to learn to build from the wiki. Just press the blue build button at the bottom of the screen, and take a look at the editor, most specifically, the object tab. Its use is pretty self explanator. All the possible primitive geometric shapes (prims) are listed at the top. Click on any one of them to see all its available parameters. Select one, and click somehwere on the ground (or on top of another object) to rez it. From there, play around with the manipulator tool (the colored arrows, boxes, and circles on the object), and the parameters on the editor to see effects they produce.


You'll need to use a proffessional grade raster editor if you want to be able to texture well for SL. You'll also find that using one will greatly enhance what you do in Autocad too. Photoshop is best, but Paintshop Pro and GIMP are very popular as well. If you're on a budget, GIMP is free.


Unfortunately, no. All geometry in SL is built inworld, through your avatar.


Yes. Technically, you can build anywhere in the world, as long as the landowner hasn't disallowed it. The polite thing to do though is to use public sandboxes to build in, unless you have permission from a landowner to use his or her place. Note that your creations won't remain on display permanently except on your own land (unless a landowner is boneheaded enough not to turn on auto-return, which would mean his or land would get filled up with litter pretty fast).


No. SL's modeling system is entirely additive. There is no subtraction whatsoever. Complex shapes are made by adding prims together. Individual prims can be hollowed, cut by reducing the sweep angle, and twisted, but they cannot be subtracted from eachother.





Wow, 10 yr. old AutoCad. That's going back. You might be pleased to know a lot of advancement has been made in open source free applications since then. If you're interested in 3D, Blender is fairly full-featured, completely free 3D modeling and animation program. It's surface modeling, not solids like you're used to, just so you know. For solids, the free aps I know of are BRL-CAD and Open CASCADE, although I can't comment on them since I've never used them.

Anyway, back to SL, all this unfortunately might be moot since you can't do SL without broadband. It is absolutely required, no if's and's or but's. The good news is DSL is pretty cheap these days in most areas. With Verizon, for example, if you do your local and long distance phone service through them, ofthen they'll include DSL for less than you'd pay for many dialup services.

Full of piranhas, but otherwise ok.

Oh, good... I'm very relieved. (At least the pain will pass quickly.)

Very nice name, btw. If the word(s) "Cellar Door" is the most beautiful phrase in the English language, I suppose having it twice is twice as good! [Was it Tolkien who said that? I've seen it attributed to a variety of sources.]

Anyhoo, thank you, everyone. I will check out the Ivory Tower tutorials today at some point for help with creating things. The first dabbles are always a little intimidating, but after I do a few things and cross the hump, things will no doubt click.