orienting the buildings

Hi!

Is it usual to position the buildings (houses, malls, shops or whatever), different than North, South, East or West (0, 90, 180, 270 degrees)?

or just in a few special exceptions...

Thanks a lot.

there's no 'requirement' that your buildings align N/S/E/W. But Analytical Humans seem to think of the world as a grid, and so our first reaction is to put everything in careful alignment. Artist Humans, however, realize that a grid is often NOT the most appealing design.

Its easier to build things if all the parts align at right angles to the world.
The SNAP to GRID functions work well in making complex things.

Once built, you can swivel and twist things to point any direction you want.

Well said, Sterling. I'd only add that if you're going to rotate a building after it's been built, be very careful. Make sure you have on unrotated copy saved before you begin, so you can easily replace the building if things go wrong. SL has a nasty habit of making large builds explode when you try to rotate them, especially if you inadvertently rotate part of the build over a sim border.

There are a few advantages to placing a build so it faces precisely North, South, East or West (0, 90, 180, 270 degrees).

If you are using sliding door scripts, the offsets required to move a door 1.2 Meters East and return it to the original position are a single variable in the script, if the edges of the door align with the East-West axis if the sim. Simple, and easy to change. But if the build is rotated, oh, 37 degrees? Now you need offsets in both the X and Y directions, and it requires either calculating a diagonal move, or positioning by trial and error and doing math to determine the relative differences in position for X and Y. Rotate most builds that have sliding doors to an odd angle, and the doors cease working right.

If you are doing any remodeling, or adjustments that require adding prims, or are adding furniture, it's easy if the build is facing precisely North, South, East or West. Just rez new prims and position them. But to add a prim to a rotated build, you need to rotate that prim the same way, and then switch to "local coordinates" so moving it 'sideways' does not end up moving across the room on a diagonal.

I've set up homes on odd angles before, to better fit the landscape around them. It's more realistic, but positioning furnishings becomes a chore, and as Chosen warned, a large build can spontaneously un-link when rotated. So always keep an un-rotated backup of any build you plan to rotate, and do the rotating as the last step.

Terraforming is based on a straight grid, and so it is much harder to terraform a depression for a basement or other excavation with sides that are not parallel to the sides of the sim.

ahhh.
Ceera makes a good point about Terraforming.
I've never dug a basement, but I can see that it would be impossible to do an angled one.

Sliding doors aren't too bad- mine are linked in, so it's easy to set them up on a build that's initially straight on the grid. For the couple of doors I did that were on actual angles, switching ruler mode to local and sliding them between "open" and "closed" positions gives numbers that are easy to work for the script.

Unlinked doors, though... that would take some checking current rotations and stuff after they're moved and then some headache with maths probably.

For stores, and anything with wall mounted gubbins, NESW alignment makes for quick additions to stock, without messing with awkward angles. I think a mix is nice, though- some non linear elements around the linear builds.

For positioning furniture and other things at odd angles, Tools > Use Selection for Grid is just invaluable.