Stairs, Elevators or Teleports?

I am exceedingly fond of multilevel buildings that have open centers so you can fly between the floors easily. Another VERY cool solution is a TP unit that Cua Currie has designed that lists all the floors and what is on them. You can TP to any floor from the wall unit.

Oh, yes, I like that -- it reminds me of malls, how they have directories and stuff... and you can get from one place to another easily.

An example of this in SL would be the Beverly Hills sim -- it has a visual map of the store, complete with right-click Teleport links. Problem is, right now, that some of the stores have moved or changed hands, so it isn't up-to-date. But I hope it will be!

Note to people who use spiral stairs or slopes between floors:
1. put in railings so we don't keep falling off.
2. make the openings big enough so a 7' tall goonette like me can get through them.

I do agree that it's nice to have architecture that lets you fly in. Balconies everywhere!

No preference from me, it really does depend on the build. For my house, I have scripted retractable stairs to the "loft" area. Prim heavy, and clearly not realistic (unless you assume each step has an antigrav generator), but they look more in place. Ramps can be handy (and that alpha ramp over prim stairs tip is AWESOME). Ramps are better for walking, but the big honking ramp prim can look out of place depending on the build. Teleports are best for longer distances or moving about a compound (or the build is high tech).

I don't like elevators (physics or SetPos based) generally. If you wanted the look of an elevator, guess you could put a "cab" at each floor and teleport to it with the elevator controls being the teleports. But when you have to go REALLY far up, think skydiving, it's the only game in town, unless you consider push tubes.

Needed another option, depends...

I like teleport the best, but depends on building style, some look good and make more sense with Elevator or stairs.

But I always like a teleport option, nice, quick and easy.

I vote for teleports.
Ramps are ok if they're easy to navigate.

Elevators are good when they work- which isn't always.

As for steps, I usually get stuck in the stairwell

Stairs and ramps are great if they're navigable, but they take an awful lot of space (and prims, in the case of stairs). They're my usual preference, because they appeal to the dinosaur part of the human brain that doesn't have an instinctive grasp of flying.

Elevators aren't bad for large structures with many floors, but they aren't comfortable to ride (particularly fast elevators), and having to wait for it to get to your floor is an unnecessary convenience when you can just take wing on your own to get to a higher floor.

Teleporters are highly convenient, but they do strange things if you're teleporting over a long distance, particularly if you're going straight up a couple hundred meters. I've taken teleporters to sky platforms, and then been mercilessly thrown off the edge while my avatar flits around looking for a place to land.

Overall, I love the idea of flight-friendly architecture. Certainly entrances for fliers should be considered, particularly in public buildings. However, flying between floors within a building is rarely a pleasant experience. Holes for flying are usually too small, usually located in a corner somewhere that the walls get in the way of the camera. Most are not nearly obvious enough, and I only discover them by falling through the hole from an upper floor.

Flight is usually best reserved for exterior entrances, like through the roof or on exterior landings. If you really want to build for internal flight between floors, your best bet is a wide central atrium, with plenty of spacing between floors to make it easy for imprecise flight controls to get you where you're going without any ceiling-induced concussions. The main mall building in Avalon does a good job with this model, though it also supplements the central flight-friendly area with wide, easy-to-navigate ramps.

One tip for making stairs...

put the grid size from 0,5 (standard) to 0,3 m and and ur sure the stairs is realistic AND walkeable

ow.... turn on snap to grid ofcourse

Ramps!

Escalators!

j/k

eehm... bungalows!!!

you can reduce primcount of stairs by using a cutted and hollowed cube, two steps in one prim!

My significant person and I are in the process of building our first house, and it seems to me like teleportation is the only way to go. It's a large, 3-story, futuristic, cube-looking house (God, that sounds griefing..) with a big round teleport pad on the roof that will, hopefully, let you choose what floor to go to. Also, you can navigate between the second and third floors by flight, since the third floor overhangs the second like a loft. The bottom floor is completely sealed off, though. The only way to get in there is to teleport or ride a prim in.

Teleportation was an easy choice, since the build is so modern, but I would have been loath the build it any other way, if only because I really hate most of the other forms of inter-home travel.

My computer is a modified Easy-Bake Oven (with a burnt-out light bulb, no less), so lag and camera angle are really big factors, bad camera angles, of course, leading to more lag. The first time I was faced with a spiral ramp, I had no idea what to do. There was a railing, but I had no idea where the thing hooked onto the floor, because it was all one color, so I ended up flying up to the second floor through the little ramp hole, not being able to see where I was or what I was doing. It took me at least 15 minutes to get up there, and by the time I was safely on the floor at the top, I was thoroughly annoyed.. (Also, I should add, the second floor ended up being totally empty, and the whole thing was for naught.)

Stairs add lag two-fold: camera bumpiness and a prim-tastic rez time. Not to mention when you fall off. There's nothing better than standing in a heap in some dark corner and waiting for the lag to stop so you can try again.

Elevators seem to generally not be big enough for cameras if they're enclosed, they sometimes take a while, and your av looks weird when you ride them occasionally.

Ramps are alright, but there needs to be railings, because my camera tends to go through walls when I'm going up them and I fall off, otherwise.

The only real problem I've found with teleportation is that my camera doesn't follow my av when I teleport, so I have to turn when I reach my destination. That's not that bad, considering I would turn and move off the teleport pad if I could see, anyway.

And that is my piece. All the poor, lagging bastards in the house, throw your hands up! Vote Teleportation for 2005.

Teleporters are it. Flight friendly is great, but getting people to use mouselook so they can fly accurately is like pulling teeth (maybe it's a skill that you need to learn, I dunno). I put a landing platform outside of my all of my structures (call it a deck), and then use teleporters for everything else.

Stairs are great cosmetically, but until someone releases the appropriate dimensions for what individual stairs are so they don't behave like a booby trap, I'm not going to bother.

Slopes are great for a straight stair, but if we start talkin' about spiral stairs, they don't end up working because you need the camera to spin around the outside of the stair behind your avatar to navigate.... which in a house will put your cam outside somewhere.

This is prolly WAY late for this but I can't help but laugh when I read this. I have my best friend in game with me, Kelsie (shhhh we won't tell her I'm telling you this) But she has GOT to be the most mobility challenged avi in the history of SL. If you doubt me, come to Butler - you can't miss us.

For the longest time she would travel around world SITTING from object to object. Flying was something that she just couldn't get down and to walk??? *gasps* Just say it ain't SO!!!

After many attempts I've managed to learn her the basic concepts of walking ... but more like walking INTO things: buildings, vehicles, trees, people - yanno ... basically anything ever made. So when I read this I couldn't help but think of the whole topic vs muh girlie Kel. We have 2 separate properties in Butler, one for our club and one across the river to her studio and a store me and my Partner have set up. I have then entire land mass set up with Teleporters for her so she can get from place to place. It's truely a riot. Every now and then you'll see Kel venture out and try to move about, but you can guarantee that after a few feeble attemps she will be "arse plunkin" all over SL again since she's moved outta "home TPer" range LOL

((<3)) Muh Kel!

yeah I can't vote, because I build Esculators