What skills should I learn to build things?

Hi,
I want to build a myself a house.
I am a graphic designer in real life working with Photoshop. I get that you make a shape, then put a 'picture' (texture) on it for the colours etc. Is that right?

So I was thinking, the people who make all the lovely things in here - are they graphic designers or 3D design people, or computer games designers or what? I can't work it out.

What would you say are the most important skills to have to make great things?

I love the stuff that Aimee Weber makes.

Thanks

Clara

Try visiting the Ivory Tower Of Prims (someone correct me if wrong please all) They have great tutorials.

Sandboxes are fun to practice in. Just make an object and play with the settings There also are very helpful builders there too.

Have fun and hope you enjoy SL

I am a professor who taught 3d modeling when it was DOS based. The internet is full of helpful sites for building. Programs like 3d studio max, autocad , inventor and rhino have web sites that will give you basic tutorial. I think learning to visualize things as components are the hardest things. Also using the right hand rule XY,and Z axis are important.
SL modeling is super easy , being a graphic designer you eventually should have no problem.
Good Luck

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.
I should have been a bit more clear.
I just wondered what skills the people who make all this cool stuff have. Is it all about design and how you put the textures on which makes things look realistic?
Ta!

some are self taught and some have brought information with them

the skills you need is how to build the structure (go the the building forum)

the textures well you have the skills you just need to learn to apply them in second life which you will find not so hard unlike others may (tutorials on how to use textures in second life there is pages of links in the design forum)

ingame stops include ivory tower of prims and robin's texture tutorial (link is in the design forum i think?)

just follow the instructions and then learn lots of reading and practice is what makes you good at it hehe (yes there are many budding artists here but not all are "pros" in the rest of the world they just enjoy it a lot and find second life a great place to express themselves )

An important thing for my builds is knowing in my head what each basic shape can become and what it can't become. Know which shapes can be used for curves. Some shapes like the torus and the sphere can be quite similar when numbered in certain ways, but each one will take a texture in a very different manner. Another important thing is knowing how a texture will take to a side of a shape and use the limitations of SL to your advantage. A gradient texture applied with 6 repeats to the sides of a cylinder will appear as a hexagon. Play with shapes and try to associate the odd things you create with things in real life. It's fun and soon you will find that you will be able to whip objects around and stick them together and create wonderful things.
SL is a great platform for creativity.
Ethan

I'm one of those people who came into SL with no skills in the graphic arts whatsoever. Yet, with a lot of practice, I was able to launch a business that bought a sim a few months ago. ANYONE can learn to use the toolset. The important part is to learn the shapes, how to manipulate them into other shapes, and how to texture. As with any other skill, the more you build, the better you get. I regularly hear people say "I just don't have the creativity." I always hear this from people with fabulous looking avatars and point out to them that they chose that particular skin, decided on this hairstyle over that hairstyle, decided that the yellow dress looks terrible with that skin tone but the pink dress looks dreamy. It's the same process you go through in building. Square or circle? Twist? No, that looks wrong. No, that texture looks freaky, maybe this texture. Very few people can just build something and have it pop out completed with no adjustment, creativity is really just a series of choices, each of which leads down a different road.

That being said, the advice I've always given to new builders is to build things that you like. Don't worry about what is selling, what people want to buy or any of that crap. Build the things that you would like to buy, things that interest you. If you are into musical instruments, build instruments. If you are into planes, build planes. Build what you love and let it all flow from there. Play with the freebie textures at first while you are learning - then invest in quality textures. Sometimes a good texture pack will tell you what to build as you are flipping through it. You'll be able to imagine shapes and designs using those textures.

Most of all, don't be discouraged when your first efforts suck. Everyone's first efforts suck. It takes time and practice.

You will definately need to master shaping Prims (Ivory Tower for that), Texturing is something of an Artform, so experiment with it a Great deal (Including Alpha textures, Transparencies, Moving textures, and animaed textures)and be sure to Build up a large, and versatile library of textures. Scripting is extremely useful for any objects that you need to actually DO something (Vehicles, Music Boxes, Opening doors, Teleporters or whatever). You might also want to look up "Particle Labs" to learn how to create and use Particle effects (Useful for Fountains, Fog, Chains Fireworks).

That about Covers it.

Angel.

I guess what you meant is, what kind of typical backgrounds in digital media skills help, to what degree, in creating interesting, valued content in this world.

Well honestly, if you want to wow your customers with something that actually does a lot of something (other than clothe you, or give you pretty walls to walk/live inside, or stairways or obstacles to climb), you'll have to have a good grasp of scripting. This means that if you're good with computer languages that resemble C++, you'll have a head start. Either way, you'll have to learn Linden Lab's own commands for the 3D world, but Linden Lab tends to make sure you're able to use fairly simple command structures to do what you want to do.

Once aesthetic appeal comes into play, there's almost always the matter of texturing. You get up to 9 textures for every single primitive, and while anyone can learn how to take a texture and map it onto a prim, it takes some real outside practice in graphical skill (e.g. Photoshop artists and designers) to come up with your very own customized textures to map onto these surfaces. Those with great enough skill can even help to make the 3D look more 3D, if they can simulate the right lighting effects to make flat surfaces look rough. I've lately read of some great praise for the creators of "L-Word Island", where the structures supposedly are physically simple in shape, yet beautiful thanks to the great textures.

Now of course, in order to give your creations a nice physical presence in-world, it's also important to have a handle on 3-D shapes. Building, however, is kind of a funny thing in that, while experience in various software like CADD or especially Blender may help, you'll still very much have to learn to do shapes SL's way. Every physical object is built of "primitives", which come in 7 different types and can be twisted and deformed in a diverse but limited set of ways. Thus you must learn to break everything down into pieces and fit them together almost like Legos. If you know how to calculate geometry for yourself, it's this skill that should help greatly. If you're into architectural design, this world could be a great place to to exercise your abilities without using up any real wood, but you'd have to keep in mind that the needs of SL avatars can be very different from from the needs of real people, even if the residents themselves don't always realize it.

I have only one suggestion for the building you intend to do. Learn what causes lag, and aviod it even as you get adventurous with prims

Yes sometimes its the textures, other times its combinition of placement layers, textures and scripts.
I have heard as far as placement cardsian cordinates help but I am not very good with math.
Just practice and explore the tools.
All objects are basically wood that looks like ply wood until you texture them what makes the image look better and finished is the texture.
I build because I can.
Texture creation can be expensive if you do lot of snapshots and uploads.
Sometimes I practice on strange things to just build for sec of building and learning i.e like how high can a waterfall tower can go and how many scripts to animate it without having lag issues. How many hollow shaped eggs can I make as tower and fricking why this design is really to complex and hard to link?
Edit One of special needs avatars have special when new is how to see, move through builds. Its often very difficult to see and not get stuck in textures, to move camera when you're new.
Closed, tight places are difficult on the camera when you're starting out. You end up with your vision stuck in textures not able to see very well.
Another is how many prims can I use or will buy for a design that will be left over if I use t his product?
Good texturing and digital drawing can provide greater detail then just using just prims. Less prims often sell because there is so few most people have or its limited commodity.
Yet if the graphic size is too big image will be greyer for longer time.
Check out design, texture and building forums here if you can.
Know and understand your permissions.
If you're selling textures at no transfer less people will buy them.
There certain items I won't buy unless I reall like them that don't allow me to mod or copy yet some people don't allow that.
I don't like selling my fabrics and textures as transfer because I don't want someone selling something I made but most people won't buy textures at no transfer even at 2L a texture.

I've seen friends who had little interest in computers outside of internet shopping and being dragged onto SL make some truly cool things. It's one of the very best things about this virtual world, the way it enables people to create. Building, at heart, is just arranging boxes of various types and wallpapering or tiling them with images.

I push spreadsheets from 9-5, in the evenings I chop at prims.

Having a good eye for space and proportion is a big plus. Being able to visualize a form in your mind and then create that form out of simple prims is a learned skill, to an extent, as you learn what the limits of the SL building environment are, and how to work around them.

Skill with Photoshop or something similar so you can create custom textures is a HUGE benefit in SL. Being a texture artist is an occupation in itself in SL, but high-quality textures can make an order of magniture improvement on an otherwise ordinary product.

Learning to script in LSL can allow you to add function to your creations, and to differentiate your work from unscripted items. An unscripted chair might be a lovely reproduction of a Louis XIV original, with exquisite textures, but if it isn't scripted with at least a pose ball so you can sit on it, it doesn't do much good.

The people who seem to do best in SL are the artists and programmers from the real world. People who have an intuitive sense of design, fashion, and "what looks good".

All my 3D building skills have been learned within SL. Before I came here I had only old fashioned pencil and paper type skills!

The most important skills one can have are: self determination and patience combined with practice resulting in interesting if not palatable results.

Ditto Tower of Prims and Texture links.

It is also worth while looking at very large prims and what (and how they behave) although this is an area of debate as to mainland use.

If it was me I would focus on prims and textures first before looking at script language, unless you have C++ skills, unlike myself.

On the large prim issue there are some free ones available in the Caledon sims thanks to Desmond Shangs kindness.

Also SLExchange sells around 1,800 textures in a box full permissions, prices seem very worthwhile.

Finally look at sound, which imho is another separate skill. Adding a sound file to builds and land really do make it feel 3d as far as I am concerned. However like anything else they need careful placement

Regards

John