A question or two

Im sorry if these have been asked before...I admit I have no patience for searching through page after page of forum stuff...but hopefully someone can help me out here....I just bought my first piece of land and was working on a house when it very quickly got to the 117 prim limit...My first question is...someone told me you can make a window hole out of 2 prims by making a prim a L shape using cut and hollow...I tried this and couldnt get it to work right so any help on that would be appreaciated. Also is it possibly to map multiple texturs to a single prim? To make windwos and such without having to have a bunch of prims? Thanks in advance for anyhelp.

As Pituca said, the simplest method for cutting a window is just to cut a hole in a cube. That having been said, I'll answer your specific questions.


To make an L, you have to cut away 25% of a cube. Since the origin of a cube is at a corner, that means you need to remove 12.5% from each end. So, start your cut at .125 and end it at .875. Voila, an L.

To make 2 L's fit together, simply flip one of them over. Now hollow each one whatever amount you like and you'll see your window emerge.

The L method offers a little more flexibility in the placement and dimensions of the window than the single hole method, but it also doubles the amount of prims you need. Choose you options carefully, as prims add up fast. It's easy to run out.


Absolutely. This is usually the best way to go. It's almost always better to use textures to save prims whenever you can. Just be careful with texture sizes. Always use the smallest textures you can.

To texture object faces seperately, right click on an object and select "Edit". The editor dialog box will open. On the left hand side of the dialog, check the radio button for "Select Texture". You'll now see the a white crosshairs pattern laid over each face of your object. This indicates that textures are selected. Click on any face, and you'll see the crosshairs disappear from the other faces, indicating you now have only one face selected. If you want to select more than one face at a time shift-click each one. Now on the dialog click the button that says "More", and click on the texture tab. Make whatever changes you want to the texture selection, color, repeats, etc. You'll see that your changes only affect the particular face(s) you had selected.

If you are trying to optimize for download speeds, there are always tradeoffs to consider. Builds with dozens of textures can really degrade peformance. I usually go for a slightly primmy building style with only a handful of textures, which results in builds that are very snappy to appear and almost never have to re-bake textures when they move out of and back into view.

Big textures are bad. They are slow to download, and can exhaust video card memory. You should almost never have to use a texture that is bigger than 256x256. Even 128x128 is find for lots of simple textures like tiles and bricks.

However, a few custom textures can really make a build. A great example is railings or fences. It would be awful to build a picket fence from prims, but pretty easy with a custom texture. And with a repeating element like that you can get a lot of milage from those textures. Just try not to have a different texture for each prim. That way lies madness - and slow downloads.

A few more thoughts on textures...

If you have an odd shapped texure that will have blank areas in the corners, use those corners for any small textures you have for the same build.

By using scaling and positioning, you can slide the parts you need onto other prims.

This way, a single texture download to the client covers multiple prims...

Also, reuse the same texture as many times as possible. scaling/rotating and sliding the texture around on prims as needed.

Both are simple ways to keep builds as lag-free as possible. And as a side benefit, it keeps texture upload costs down.

If you DO need to repace a texture 1/2 way through a build, make SURE you replace it EVERYWHERE you used it the first time. Otherwise, you could end up causing extra downloads of large textures! Be carefull doing this or you might end up generating more lag than you saved in the first place!

Racer P.

Thanks a million for all your answers it has cut my prim size in half...I have another question...is there a low prim solution for stairs? other then just cube after cube stacked up?

Ramps

Stairs are difficult. You can sometimes save 1/2 the prims by using a cut hollow box prim to make the treads and risers, but the geometry can be restrictive.

One way to save prims on stairs is not to have them. Avs can fly, after all. If you search this forum you will find many discussions on how to optimize stairways or alternatives to stairs, from ramps to push tubes to teleporters.