I'm hoping to create authentic one-of-a-kind buildings...

...and possibly sell them or put them up for rent.

I will be doing some research on some architecture and see what I can come up with.

If anybody can assist me, that would be great!

If you've got a specific question on how to do something, ask, and you'll get a specific answer. But just saying "assist me" is pretty vague. What exactly do you want to know?

If by "assist me", you weren't asking for information, but for labor, then you should post in Help Wanted, not here. This forum is for education, not for recruiting, which is why it's called "Building Tips", not "Recruit Builders Here", and why its description says "Discuss techniques, ask questions about using Second Life build and edit tools," not "Recruit builders here." The Help Wanted forum, on the other hand, IS for recruiting, which is why its description says "Recruit employees, post requests."

Hi Pyrite, basically what Chosen says, but not so blunt. Is there something specific you want to build, do you have any knowledge of building and do you mean assist or 'do everything for me' and if so it wouldn't really be assist it would be their build.

And "I'm hoping to create authentic one-of-a-kind buildings...", well we all want to do that.

Pyrite, if you haven't already mastered the basic building skills solidly, I suggest spending time at the Tower of Prim. They have great tutorials. Also, use your SL Search function to look for building classes. They are under the "Events" tab in the education category. Usually there are several a day to chose from. Then devote some time to scouring the archives of this forum for points of interest.

The basic structure of a building is certainly important, so put a lot to thought into how space and form are used by RL architects, and visit a lot of builds in SL. In the end, though, you can turn a great building into trash by not paying attention to texturing. You can buy a lot of excellent building textures in world from talented designers. You will find, though, that it's a challenge to make all of the textures look like they fit together and "belong" to your building unless you do at least some of the texturing yourself. It's one of the features that, I think, distinguish an "authentic one-of-a-kind" building from a very nice but less exciting one. For that part of the business, get yourself a good graphics program, learn how to fly it, and start prowling the Texture Tip forum when you get stuck.

Sorry for my "assist me" comment. I misperceive things easily.

Anyways, how long could it take me to construct a building in SL? And where could I get some good textures to?

And it doesn't necessarily have to be "authentic" - I must have been misleading. But if I could create a home and sell it or put it up for rent, could I make lindens out of it? And how much does an average home sell for in SL (not just authentic)?

Ah, well ..... The answers to most of those questions are "It depends."

It depends on how good your building skills are, how big and complicated a structure you want to make, and how much you care about the quality of your work. I can make a decent outhouse in a few minutes. I'd suggest that it's a little early for you to be asking those questions. It's better to sharpen your building skills first and do some serious research before you worry about how long it takes to build a good building and whether anyone will buy it.

The easiest way to get a good feel for the standards of quality that you should aspire to is to spend a lot of time wandering. Visit major showrooms where builders have pre-fabs to sell. See what prices they set. Visit sims where there are buildings you like. Take pictures. Use your Edit function to see how buildings are put together. Pay attention to details ... how well the prims are aligned, how effectively the textures tile, etc.

If you want to buy textures, do a Search in world. Prowl the Products forums. There are LOADS of places out there.

I'm being deliberately vague instead of giving you answers, because you really need to do your own homework and discover the answers for yourself.

Hi Pyrite. People who make buildings for sale (usually called "prefabs" in SL) do indeed make money, but it varies according to the quality, usefulness, and price of the builds.

Sounds like you're just beginning to look into this market. There are lots and lots of builders who make buildings for sale from castles (now a little out of fashion) to skyscrapers. The sweet spot of the market appears to be residential homes. To get an exposure to a range of residential home prices and builds, pull up the following avatars' profiles, and go to their store, which will be in their picks. I may be wrong about the exact wording of some of the store names.

Julia Hathor, "Creative Fantasy"
Ace Albion, "Ace's Spaces"
Cocoanut Koala, "Coco's Cottages"
Cory Edo, "Trompe-Loeil"
Ingrid Ingersoll, "Homestore"

Then learn to build, if you don't know how already

Good luck!

houses sell between L$0 and LS15,000 there are some that cost more but they come with land. all I can say is that some L$500 houses can be ten times better than a lot of the L$15,000 ones.

some builders seem to charge by how many prims they've used (probably relates to time to build too), I don't get this, imo really good builds with less prims should sell for more. but also sadly the general public don't seem to understand this and I am always amazed how blind they are to terrible texturing (oh this is like a rant sorry LOL).

Well, it's all a matter of the quality you plan to make.
If you want high quality, I'd suggest searching for House Jack Built, that's pretty close to topnotch for houses-in-a-box you can buy. There are better, but not many really. But if you plan to make them unique, it's safe to say that that's going to be the minimum quality you're competing with.

First problems start with prims. The only advice I can give here is to figure some standard measurement units, and set your grid to match those. Just to make sure prims don't overlap all the time, and you don't spend too much time aligning them to eachother.

Next: most time of building actually goes into texturing. It takes maybe 20 minutes to build a house. Getting the textures right is easily going to take you another day, even if you're experienced with it. There are also good and bad textures. I've seen seemingly solid textures which had alpha channels. This doesn't seem all that important, untill you walk around in such a build, and find your floors replaced by walls behind them from certain angles. There are many very nice freebee textures around. But at some point, you will probably get sick of having to actually try them out, and will use more expensive ones.

Then there's the primcount. This is something you'll want to work with during the first 20 minutes, but again when you're done texturing: is there any viable way to reduce the amount of prims, without reducing the quality of the build? Think of repositioning some prims, so you can combine other prims into less prims. Think of using sculpties for small small pieces that take way more prims than the rest of your build per m^3. Think of replacing some parts with megaprims. (I personally try to stay clear of those, but AM running into builds where I have to get my allocation target from somewhere!)

When you're done reducing that primcount, you're probably going to retexture a bit again.
It'll take less time, but still, you'll spend time on it.

Other matters along the way are doors, tintable windows, sound effects, possibly teleports, hidden rooms.

I'm not trying to put you off from your idea, but the reason why so many builders try to sell the same build multiple times, is because it takes so much time, and it's easier to sell 20 times 1 build for 100L$, than it is to sell that same build only 1 time for 1500L$.

It's an entirely other matter if you build because you like building, and don't give a whatever about earning anything. In that case, you'll be charging high rates so people won't hire you all the time, but you can perfectionate one single thing at a time. If you're looking for something to do: drop your rates. If you don't have time or get too many requests at once: increase your rates.

First to build something unique or one of a kind, I would follow these steps:

(1) Sketch your building in RL first. Ensuring the understand the flow of the building, the purpose of each space, how the person living there will interact with it. Remember in SL camera limitations so you will want the ceiling to be slightly higher than a normal RL building and remember tricky areas like enclosed staircases.

(2) Take inspiration sure, but remember anybody can copy something somebody already created (and therefore unique is out) so think about what style will be your own and ensure you "brand" your building in your chosen style. Perhaps create a mood/design board to drive your thinking on this.

(3) Define a palate for the building. I agree with some of the comments above. Stay clear of awful textures and have a palate with perhaps 4-5 textures you will use throughout the building. Stay simple to start with. Invest in a Jextone Texture Tool, and master it. This will ensure any texturing you apply is consistent, and lined up across multiple prims. Ensure your textures are legal and licenced for the purpose you wish to use them for.

(4) Build it using prims/sculpties etc (see above if you need building skills). Also remember people want scripted doors, access and privacy so you can buy many of these tools third party (I use the Mind Control Panel for Builders and we built our own blinds etc).

(5) Pack it into a rezzer box (I personally still use Jack in the Box Pro purely as I like the dev hud for changes to buildings but there are many out there cheaper which do the job). Test the building with rezes and solicit feedback from friends etc before you put it up for sale. (Helps you know whether you are on track)

(6) Stage it and Advertise. Package for SLEX and OnREZ too if your land is limited in SL.

(7) Ensure you have a policy for customer support, help for people to rez your building and ability to give feedback and request upgrades/changes.

That sounds a lot, but don't let it put you off.....there is a huge demand for good unique design in Second Life and talented designers do and will make a good profit.

What exactly are "prims"? Could someone please explain it to me?

And also, do prims affect the value of how much the houses or structures sell for? I must see if I can assess some locations over the coming days. Seeing that August is the dullest month for sales, I will take advantage and see what I can do to learn how to create houses in SL.

BTW, how long do the classes run for? Should we be able to learn how to build structures in just a short amount of time?

I advise you get some good architectural magazines and study structure. Also, you can do some keen searches online for architects, architecture, etc. Live it, learn it, love it.

It isn't really illegal to copy actual buildings from the real world, but instead of doing that, I suggest you only be 'inspired' by bits and bobs of each unique build, and fashion a singular cohesive piece on your own.

And like mentioned above, slapping a bunch of pre-made textures onto a build is one sure-fire way to destroy an otherwise inspired structure. Take a lot of time learning and placing textures...this is what separates the men from the boys.

And the women from the girls.



Prim = Primitive building block. All objects in SL (other than sculpties) are made by shaping and linking prims (cubes, cylinders, spheres, torii, etc.).

In general, the more complicated an object is, the more prims it takes to build it. So, a house with many walls, odd angles, a complex roofline, and a host of extra details uses more prims than an outhouse. Also, generally, it takes more skill and time to build an elegant house than to make an outhouse, so it sells for more. HOWEVER, prim-heavy objects consume a lot of the buyer's potential prim allowance on his/her property. That leaves less flexibility for landscaping, furnishings, etc., so an elegant house that is low-prim is prefereable from that perspective. ALSO, from an artistic point of view, it is much more satisfying to make something simple look elegant than the other way around. A REALLY good builder can do wonders with excellent texturing to make a low-prim structure look like a palace.



Usually classes are an hour or so in length. It depends on the teacher. They often run in series, though, so you may find a beginners' class, followed by one or two advanced classes. If you can find a tutor or a talented friend to work with, that may accelerate your learning. Can you learn quickly? I don't know. Some people can, and others are still building outhouses a year later. It all depends on your patience and how much imagination you have.

I started my first building project in SL this morning (after viewing the beginner's tutorial on YouTube), and I do have one question: How do I save the series of blocks as one object? And if I choose to add furniture or walls, how do I add prims (like linking the objects to the house)?

^ Figured it out myself. Gotta love trial and error.

Ooo... I forgot about Torley's video. Nice catch. And I'm glad you figured out linking, too. Especially while you are learning, it's a good idea to build some things in modules -- a few linked prims at a time -- and to save them as you go along. That way, you don't lose a whole structure when you inevitably screw up, and you get in the habit of thinking about portions of your structure that you might want to move or duplicate as units (a roof, maybe, or assembled windows). When you are all done, you can link the modules to make a finished structure.

I will also be making luxury homes as soon as I get my sim built. I love to build things, ppl say I do a wonderful job and did all the structures on our sim. (Rental homes, party areas, stores etc)

But I know little of putting artistic design into residential homes, and one big help has been to buy a couple floor plan magazines. These display not only the floor plan, but the artists rendition.

Not to copy the artists ideas wall for wall, but to inspire new ideas regarding both appearence and flow.

I hope to build very nice homes, to contrast the cement and glass ones which are so common in SL. Oddly, my wife requests I build a new cement and glass home for our new residence :-/