Roofs and doors: For God's sake, someone help me :D

Okay. I've got a confession to make

For the last year of building, I've made over 50 buildings for various clients. Most of them have been overwhelmingly satisfied with my handiwork (at least in public ).

However. There are two parts of my designs that are, in my opinion, failing miserably. Those two vital pieces are doors and roofs.

Ha! you say, Lordfly, you're a supposed master of primology! How could you suck at roofs?

Have you seen them? They're atrocious

Every roof I've done has been a hack job, in my opinion; flat slabs, or janky angles, or even boring steepled roofs using one prim. They're horrible.

Doors are another Achille's heel. Granted, at the most basic concept it's a rectangular hole in the wall, but for some reason I'm not satisfied with that.

So what do you other folks do for roofs and for doors? Teach me, please I want to haxxor no more!

LF

When buildings have always been something that other people are good at, I have absolutely no advice to offer you, but I've never found anything wrong with your buildings Besides, how complex can you get with a door? It's a rectangle. Although sliding doors are nice. I have yet to see some really impressive French doors too (which I assume would be mainly textures).

Roofs are the bane of my existence but at the same time it's tough to be creative with them, especially when in RL everybody neglects the roofs anyway because no one sees them. The neatest buildings I've seen (which weren't really based in reality) usually don't HAVE real roofs; although I have always enjoyed the Asian-inspired buildings with the upturned corners and also I think someone made a sort of Taj Mahal building with those types of pudding-drop-shaped roofs.

It would be nice to see a real Spanish tiled roof instead of just a texture but that would be HELL on the prim allotment.

Ahh the dreaded roof.... How many hate the...

I included HATE building roofs, but as most people know, it's what makes alot of homes.
I'll run though my normal method of building a roof..

1) Scratch head and think of roof design
2) Make ugly roof out of normal shaped prim
3) Get beer and watch tv
4) Come back and begin to cover my roof with good looking prim
5) Get mad at self for thinking of something with so many angles
6) Get another beer and stare at it (roof) for 15min
7) Go back to fitting neater prim on top of ugly prim "patterns"
Get general shape of roof with "prettier" prim
9) Curse at roof for having so many angles and get another beer
10) Take Advil
11) Come back and finish off rough "pretty" prim the old fashion way (by hand) to line up all angles.
12) Stand back and marvel at work
13) Fix all annoying parts I missed and saw while marveling
14) Link and take 400,000 copies
15) Clean beer bottles off desk


Now while I may curse the day I ever decided to build a fancy roof, the outcome always outweighs the cursing, hurt feelings, and beer bottles on the desk.
If you want to see an example of my roofing that had caused me alot of cursing, visit my lot for a up close look of my "New Mexico" prefab.


Doors - My old fashion way of building doors consisted of 3 prim. My new way consists of 1 prim. I'm not fancy or that creative with the basic door facing, as they seem to work fine as rectangle portals to the outside pixels. Playing with round doors and strangly opening doors is always fun, but most of these will never make it on a prefab build by me. As they tend to confuse customers who have to set them up, and they have been known to malfuction after an update.

My trademark secreats to the building world.
- Sam
Dominion Custom Homes

I as well hate roofs with a passion. But, since I hate flat roofs even more I tend to dive in & try anway.

For example, lets say i have a 10x10 opening that needs a roof. Fist step for me is to take a 10x10 cube, scrunch one side to .250 (the thickness) and angle it to either 22.5 or 45 degrees. Place one edge at the wall and center it (this method isnt allowing for roof overhang but can easily be done by sliding the roof prim down on its local axis)

Next, copy it, rotate it 180 degrees, and line the copy up with the opposite wall. Hopefully the roof prims now overlap and you've got a funky lookin X shape. Pull the top edges of one roof prim down until it just barely disappears inside the other roof prim. Now pull the edge of the other one down to meet it.

Place triangle shaped prims in the holes and you have a peaked roof.

Simple enough, but also looks simple. A gable is needed here!

Copy the 2 roof prims and rotate them 90 degrees.

Line each new gable prim's top edge up with the point where the 2 previous roof prims meet. Stretch the opposite corner of each gable prim until it meets the bottom edge of the roof prim your gable is touching. Now use the cut tool to make it cut in half (one of the prims may need rotating b4 this works for it).

Voila, a gable that doesnt intrude into your roof/ceiling area (always good for vaulted ceiling builds)

If you or anyone needs a visual walk thru feel free to look me up IW anytime after 4:30 game time and I'll be happy to show you.

-Syn

Why do you guys hate roofs? They're often the best opportunity for uncluttered design in a structure because they can be seen silhouetted against the clean backdrop of the sky, or seen with a background of trees. And roofs in SL don't have to meet many functional requirements -- no snow load computations required, nor does it have to drain. So it can have a sculptural form or establish your selected style motif for the building.

I've been having fun with a swept roof originally inspired by Japanese shrines, but modified a LOT to give a long gracious sweep. The small version is on a tower segment currently suspended in the middle of my speed-maze in Zoe(92, 232).

Lordfly, one way you have solved the roof problem is by putting beams and empty space instead of a roof on some of your houses, so at least that way, there's less roof to worry about LOL. I'm fine with that.

I always dread opening up a pre-fab. Will the builder not bother to put in the doors and windows because they are just too much of a chore? Will there be a roof that has to be fit on it? Under the guise of "needing them to be unlinked to open with a command" will he not bother to locate the doors and tie them to the building so I don't have to? Yes, I realize that doors need to be unlinked due to the way the numbers and script work, but it's a chore, and I see some builders manage to get doors that rez out with the whole building even if technically unlinked, and others just leave them in a folder for you to pull out.

I have to confess that after dealing with many hundreds of doors and door placement problems I just tell some tenants to go buy a door and hand them a free door-lock script.

I was pleased to see that the doors in the Linden pre-fab of a Frank Lloyd Wright model worked like a charm. They had a pinion to place them which was removed upon completion, and they were sliding. Sliding makes sense in SL because the camera angles, the optical illusions involved in being in a kind of jerky 3-D world that doesn't resolve as quickly as RL does, means that doors that slide are just easier to handle. Doors that open out sometimes get away from you and you click on them in vain.

I guess the most wacky door I ever had to install were Barnesworth Anubis
Musasae home doors. They literally were alive. They moved across the sim *on their own* when I rezzed them. They kept going *and crossed sim lines*. The sheriff called them in. I have never seen anything like it. I chased them across two sims, they were fast as lightning. They were in search of some number or some rotation only known to themselves. OK, I didn't recompile them but....

I spent an hour trying to get a roof on last night. The house is really pretty. But a real-life kind of 45-degree angle roof just doesn't seem to work in SL -- not sure why that is, could be due to the funny angles you fly around at it.

In that sense, the swept roof offers a good solution, especially if it can be placed easily.

Lordfly, I wouldn't do away completely with the dead flat roof because in fact what people do is live a lot more on their roofs, they put hot-tubs and chairs and all kinds of things up on their roofs in SL way more than they do in RL because it's so easy for them just to fly up on them and often it's the only way to access views that have been blocked.

I use mostly flat slabs at janky angles, or even boring steepled roofs using one prim.


I haven't seen a ton of interesting roof lines in SL. Anyone have any good pics?

Ingrid, your flat roofs fit perfectly with the style of your houses. There's a technical problem with steepled roofs using one or more prims...well, maybe it's only a problem to me.... It has to do with the way the textures map to the box prim when you reduce its top to a zero. You know that screwy region on the prim face where the texture gets jammed together? It's great if you add an interesting gradient for an overall tiled effect, but that's fairly specialized. Most roofs have shake, shingle or tile textures. Even with a solid white texture you can see that jammed-together effect. I'll post a pic of my current experiment in Windermere if you promise not to laugh at the *decorative* thingies on the floating roof.

I feel your pain, Lordfly.
I've been building all kinds things, but only recently have I dabbled in building, well, buildings. Much tougher than I thought it would be, especially the freaking roofs. Two observations:

As others have suggested, consider building without a roof, since you don't really need one and it makes the build easier ascessable for avitars to enter and leave.

If you still choose to have a roof, remember that you have an advantage over RL builds and can fudge a little. For example, the basic linden cabin has a gabled roof, but no gables. The walls are rectangular and don't rise up to meet the roof. It's almost as if it's a seperate shape floating over the box of the house. In other words, the roof and the rest of the structure don't need to fit like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Hope it helps

I built this Lighthouse and attached store last spring. I decided that I really wanted the Tuscan look. I did okey with the roof till I got to the end triangles to fit the quasi octogon! I had a hell of a time fitting them in place but Garth came to my rescue and tweaked them into place. Of course the one problem is getting the tile texture to properly tile!!

You can see it on FairChang Island in the Oceana Sims.

Nice work, Pituca. You and Garth have more patience with those triangles than I do. After a few unsuccessful tweaks I'd probably delete them and say and rationalize that the gaps made nice skylights

Remember that we design for flying creatures. We don't *need* roofs as there is no weather to protect them from.

I admit that I only make shops - but if I need a roof I make it phantom.

Start with the roof. And use no straight lines or flat surfaces. Treat the roof as the "main wall". Build everything underneath to "fit" the roof. Be surprised how liberating that can be.

Tequila and beer, in moderation, can help.

Two words:

Dormer window.

My last roof was one of these: (done in 40m diameter if I recall correctly.)

Barrel-Vaulted Roof

After that, everything else seems easy.

Flat tar paper with gravel. Works for me! Ahh, simplicity!

LF, the next time I'm on, I will drop you a giant pyramid I made, which exemplifies an interesting way to build complex roof shapes.
Basically, cubes, hollow, cut, top size, rotate. Ad nauseum!
I should build a rezzing script for this.

I made a few samples showing people how to build roofs, and bundled them into a free Roof Kit.
I gave a bunch of copies away at the welcome area.
Let me know if you want one.
I am open to requests on specific roof / door shapes you might want me to make.
I'll probably bundle up a bunch of door samples soon.

So, I've been using what Sam calls the old fashioned, 3-prim door model. Can someone please explain the 1-prim method? I'm befuddled...and I'd be much obliged!

A solution: rounded roofs. Putting glass windows under them may cause hours of pain tho.

roofs and doors get in my way. not building them at all solves my problem. i take that back; i will occassionally roof a space with flat prims to build something on top of it. does that count?

gee i hope it doesn't rain.

cool.

Very easy to do, and not a trade secreat

Step 1) Rez a square prim and rotate it 90 degrees so that it is on it's side
Step 2) Fit the single prim to your door opening
Step 3) Double the width of your door, (If it's 2m wide, make it 4m)
Step 4) Cut the door in half, using the "Cut begin" tools
Step 5) Add your door script, any swinging door script will work.
Step 6) Add your textures
Step 7) Enjoy

If you want an example or need help, just Im me ingame.

- Sam
Dominion Custom Homes

Thanks, Sam. I'll try it and let you know if I have any trouble!

The incredibly easy method of making a single prim door can be found in the wiki script library.

Just drop the script into a default rezzed cube, and it takes care of the rest. Sound effects, too.