How do you build 'into/through' land

Is it possible to build into the side of a cliff? For example my property has a small beach leading onto a large cliff. I would like to build as if a bit of my building is on the beach but goes into the earth through the cliff.

Are there special techniques for this? so far I've tried and failed. I just keep loosing prims under ground, or my entrance is blocked by the cliff face.

Thanks for any tips and advice you can offer.

The root (geometric centroid) of a prim must be above ground level or it will be read as "off-world" and returned to you.

The only way to make caves in SL is to pile up rocks to simulate it. No"digging" allowed.

Thanks for that Malachi,

I'll do that then, level the land (cliff) then build it up again with prims using land textures to simulate land.

You can terraform to make an open-topped notch or trench, and nestle your building into that. I once made a huge cave system. The terrain was shaped like a volcano caldera, with a notch cut out of one side for access. Above the notch and on top had to be done with prims, but real terrain formed 95% of the enclosing wall around the caves.

Of course, any sort of ambitious building like that has to be done in a sim that offers wide terraform ranges. The typical mainland +/- 4M range just won't do.

I have some snake things that sometimes burrow underground. Don't know if they're allowed because they're temporary but, if it's not, I'd say it's technically possible but complicated (and might require using animation offsets to put the avatars there).

Thanks Ceera and AJ.

The trench idea sounds like a great place to start

Don't thank me, I haven't checked anything with standard prims, chances are you'll have problems actually getting stuff to stay there. Hell, I didn't even tell you how the snakes get there: they rez their segments ahead of themselves while the old ones disappear. And, like I said, they might be skipped by garbage collection because they're temp or something.

You could use a linkset and keep the root prim above ground though.

Surely someone must have actually built underground by now? I mean, it's certainly possible to go at least as far as the maximum link distance.

Oh, should point out that anyone wanting to see underground will have to disable camera constraints on the debug menu.

You can also build something of a cliff shelf. (visit the northwest side of TEAL for an example)

Nice thing is... the terrain textures are in our inventory's Library, you can actually paint prims with the same textures as the ground itself to have it all look a little more 'land' like.

People can't go under ground... so if you want to have subterranian areas, it's usually more effective to build fake land overhead. Terraforming is helpful, but not always a requirement. When in doubt, plant trees to hide ugly land/prim seams.

My avatar, sitting 10m underground, says different.



Done some investigation on underground prims too, they seem to be fine up to around 8m under the surface patch on their own. Can't give anything more exact at the moment 'cause I've got stuff to do.

Odd... I can't sit on a box and drag, edit location or use a script to llSetPos() it under ground. It stops at ground level.

Did you terraform the ground up over yourself to accomplish that effect? Or... link it to another prim so that the center of the prim is at ground level?

It's a linkset. Technically you could get an agent as far down as the maximum size of a linkset (I forget what it is), avatars could be put even deeper using an animation offset but it seems a bit pointless if there's no way to get prims down there.

Objects can be rezzed up to a certain distance below the ground using a script. Oddly, raising the ground above them makes them vanish.

Okay okay. I'll concede. "It's possible but bloody awkward and difficult for avatars to go underground."

Heh, wasn't trying to convince you, I was just dropping the info for anyone who wants it since I'd played about a bit and checked some stuff.