Terrain retexturing for the city?

When Eric Linden stopped by with the Linden textures for Nova Albion (see post in infohubben thread) I saw that they were full perms and he said we could do what we want with them. That was way more than expected so... may as well ask about the *other* texture issue -- could we get the dirt terrain retextured. He said he'd look into it.

I'm assuming that we're all sick of dirt....

I don't mind the dirt texture in the city. I figure that most city land would be covered/paved or developed anyway and dirt in an empty lot would be normal. I can always lay down some sod if I need to.

One thing to keep in mind is that the dirt texture, the texture at that elevation, is the texture that appears underwater. So it is sort of dirt/sand. Instead of changing the texture, perhaps they can adjust the boundary of it a bit lower, the elevation where the dirt meets the grass, so that grassy areas would be more likely to show up on the level parts of the city properties instead of having mostly dirt. The grass might extend closer to the water, but we would still have our dirt/sand texture in the underwater areas.

Great suggestion. I was wondering about the underwater effect too.

I just thought about this point too...

If we were able to lower the place where the grass starts then we wouldn't have to lay down sod at the infohub area and we could save on prims... plus it would be easier to just point at the ground and sit, rather than trying to sit correctly on a grass textured prim.

This change (lowering where the grass occurs) would affect all four city regions, so i think it would be a good idea to make sure this is a unanimous desire on the part of city landowners before we pursue it.

I'm all for the change you suggest, Salazar. What would really help (and I know I'm extending a wish list here, probably not being realistic) would be for residents to get a chance now and then to level the ground with the walkways in order to make a finished edge of urban park up against the walkways bordering our lots. The uneven terrain we have right now looks more rural than urban, and we have to prim over the ground to get a finished edge.

And if prim masking is for grass we might have to spend extra prims to combat astroturfyness. : )

I do not want to change the city turf at all. Surely the astroturf Sal made with the model was very nice looking. But, I assumed it would go on the land as it is.

I dont like my plots as high as they are, or having to make steps to go up to my builds. But it is how the city is and I have built with it.

Yes I really like the park areas on Sal's infohub model (see infohubben thread), but this thread comes from something totally different: the rough edges on my own lot.

I'm new in Miramare, and this is the first time I've ever built on a no-terraform sim. Sure is different! Having extensively terraformed three private islands for clients I'm used to terraforming to give polish to an installation. The only time a PI sim absolutely requires prim masking is if you want to blend away that awkward 'edge of the world' effect where seabed stops abruptly at the edge of the sim.


That could easily be the majority opinion. My own wishful thinking comes about because I don't like having to do prim masking of the rough edges on my own lot. Other people might feel quite differently, and I agree with Sal's point about requiring unanimous support by all City landowners.


Personally I don't mind steps per se. This is purely a matter of individual taste of course, but sometimes a set of entrance steps can help to give a commercial or civic building a sense of presence. This just my opinion -- all I've actually DONE in RL is some residential design on the side, using a CAD system. SL is a great place to experiment with large scale projects. Free construction materials. : )