Any Skybox How-tos?

I've been searching around on the SL Wiki and the forums here, and I've not been able to figure this one out. I just bought my first piece of land, and here's what I want to do (but don't know how):

I want a skybox over my property, just high enough that it's out of natural flight height. How do I get a box up that high? Just drag it to the ground and use the position sliders to move it up?

Is there a best known method for setting up a teleporter to go up to a skybox? I'm concerned about getting the vertical coordinates correct on the ground-stationed teleporter before I get my skybox out of reach...

Thanks for any tips, how-tos, or pointers to FAQs that might explain...

To move an item, linked items or all selected items up high all you have to do is get into edit mode with them and change their height position. If it's currently at, say, 18.004 and you want to move it up to 300, just change that value to 300 and poof it appears all the way up there.

For teleporters out of the normal 300 range, you have to stack them as far as I know. To do that I would create a couple flat prims or even bowls maybe and put the teleporter script into the prim itself. From the ground you hit your TP prim, whatever it is. You go up to the first TP platform/bowl, click it and you TP up to the skybox or the next TP Platform/bowl, etc.

That's the easiest way to do it that I've found. The reason I will use a bowl for it usually is because quite often you don't land flat onto the platform, and if you don't have barriers around you may fly right of and fall. The bowl keeps you from falling off if you move around when you land. Just use a big half-sphere and hollow it out. Use a glass texture and make it a bit transparent so it isn't seen as easily or heck you could even make it completely transparent if you wanted. NOTE: I understand you can solve this problem if the item you teleport to has a sit script in it, or possibly by giving the person a little push, but this is the "easy" way.

Hope that helps, not all the "technical" specifics you probably would get from others, but if you already know how to do the basics, you should be able to figure out what to do from there.

BTW - I have a small shop and sell a few skyboxes (Quality Designs by Drake). If you ever have any questions, just drop Me an IM in game.

-Drake Lemieux

Excellent advice. Thank you Drake!

If you don't want to hassle with teleporters, you can also set a landmark at the place in the skybox where you want to arrive, then just use that to get up there. That's also good for preventing casual passers-by from teleporting up there. I've had no problems with teleporting directly to landmarks at high altitudes.

Hi Wildefire,

IM me in-world, and I'll help you out.

I am about to install an elevator script to get to my skybox, which gets around the 300M limit. It also doesn't have to be right under the box to work. It's a free script by Seagel Neville, which I will be glad to give you a copy of.

The easiest way to build in the sky is to make a large flat prim on the ground, sit on it, focus your camera on yourself, and then edit the prim's Z-position for the altitude you want. You and the prim will zip up to that altitude. Then you can make prims on the platform and position them as you wish. Personally, I would link two prims for this. A platform to stand on, and a cube set in the middle of that platform to sit on. Just to ensure that when you stand up, you don't fall off your platform.

BTW - The landmark trick will not work if the parcel restricts teleporting to a specific landing zone. Likely not an issue with Wildefires's new plot of land, but something to consider.

Cubey terras mk 3 tp, available at the aerodrome has a much greater range
any set of points in the same sim, less than 700m up, its a beauty

Often handy to sit on the object before you change the height position (in case that isn't obvious).

Edit - Oh, someone already mentioned that. I should learn to read b4 I post.

When you fall off the platform, wait until you get to 60 or 70 meters and click the Fly button. You'll be able to land normally. Falling from 600 meters is a lot more fun and you'll have plenty of time for a snapshot.

The floor of my skybox is at 710 meters. Landmark works fine there. Lag is supposed to be better above 700, but I don't see much difference (probably because there's no serious lag problem in my sim). If you're in a First Land area, you probably won't like the view at 300 meters - there may be a lot of builds, signs and other junk around there. Higher up the view is interesting - stars, moon and sun - but you won't be able to see the grid through the smog.

Make sure your sky build doesn't cross over to your neighbor's property. A simple way is to stick a prim in each corner of your property and edit their height to whatever level you'll be working at.

Another option for riding a prim up to your build height: On the ground in the middle of your lot, rez two prims. stretch one to about 6x6 or bigger. leave the second prim as a cube shape and place it near the center of the stretched prim. link the two prims. sit on the cube shaped one. edit the linked prim hieght to 300. stand up and start building (the stretched prim gives you something to stand on).

If it doesn't look so good at 300 meters, sit down again and try 400, 500, etc. Don't go much beyond 700 because above (I think) 768 meters prims will vanish if they're not attached to an AV. And you'll have more TP options below 700 meters.

Cubey Terra has a store at Abbotts Aerodrome. He's got prefab sky house modules, a HUD flight booster (so you won't need to sit on any more prims), and a lot of other absolutely essential stuff. Like a sky diving platform that drops you off at 4,000 meters.

Wow some great information folks. Thank you. I ended up finding a teleporter that would shoot me 500m up from where I was standing and auto-rez the destination teleporter and a lil round platform to stand on while I was working up there. I'm actually using the platform as part of my build now even though it's an ugly yellow, just because my house's ramp just runs down into air otherwise.

I was quite disappointed because the skybox I bought is too wide for my plot. (The plot's rectangular, the box is square...) I ended up tossing a freebie house up in the sky, using some tips I got here, and started decorating.

Oh yes, and 117 prims is simply not enough. I had to delete my house on the ground in order to furnish the sky house. Now the only thing you see on my property is an unmarked floating teleportation sphere. Hmm... now I'd like to secure that 'porter... maybe put it in a little shed that only has group access- but that's a topic for another thread.

Just because you have a teleporter, doesn't mean that others have to see it. Just make a small prim somewhere, make it transparent and then hide it somewhere. That works great. If it's to a private skybox, then you can easily hide it.