How do You Box a House?

I have finished my first house, and I want to put it up for sale. It is in three main pieces, plus doors, stairs, and fireplace, making 12 pieces.

I can select all twelve and drag them up above the house and take them that way. I know how to do that, although I don't seem to have any control over what the whole thing gets named. (And it won't let me change its name once it is in inventory.)

Now, putting the three main pieces together exactly isn't easy, and it can take me an hour to get everything just right. I figure I could sell the house in two ways - please correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstanding this:

1. Put the 12 pieces in a box, along with a notecard that says I will come to put the house together myself, if necessary, for a small additional fee.

I'm not crazy about this idea, because (a) it is more trouble for the buyer and (b) might wind up (assuming I sell any, lol) with my houses sitting around here and there looking unnecessarily horrible because the three main pieces weren't placed and matched carefully enough.

2. Select and click drag the whole thing, as I have learned how to do, and put it (regardless of what the whole thing ends up being called) in a box, along with a notecard telling the buyer how to remove it from the box and place as a group on their property. The problem here is, I don't know what to tell the buyer about how to do that, because I don't know how to do that!

So, what do you think is the best method for boxing houses?

And how is the best way to do the method you use? Remember, I've not done any boxing of houses at all before.

coco

Method 2...as like you said putting it together again, right, is hard if not impossible..

Tell customer to be in edit mode (ctrl-3) then drag the house object to the ground, it will be 1 peice, move it, place it, make sure perfect, then release it...if not in edit mode while dragging out, it will go back to how many linked parts it really is..

If you are having trouble renaming a composite object, you probably have locked one of the sections or it is no-mod in some other way. The easy way around this is to name a section with the name you want to see in inventory, then make sure that is the last section selected. You can still do an area select of everything, then SHIFT-CLICK to unselect then select that piece, and it will be the root of the multiple selection. When you take all the objects as a group, the root's name will show up in inventory.

For most purposes, I would do just that. Link thinks into as few sections as possible. Do a multiple select of all sections, then Take Copy to get that in inventory. You can then drop that into a box and sell that with a notecard with instructions. All the buyer has to do is rez the composite object and position it. She'll want to have the build tool active when rezzing the house, so that all objects will remain selected and she can then just position it. Otherwise she'll have to manually select all those objects to position, and that can be a pain if you miss one and they get out of alignment. You can help by putting the X,Y,Z coordinates of each section in the object's description field - use an offset relative to the main section, so it's easy to figure out what the coordinates of the new position should be.

The safest way to go is also the most work to set up. You create a scripted rezzer that assembles the house from pieces, all in the correct positions. You can get those positions by reading numbers manually from the build tool, or using a script in the sections to report the numbers, or with a scanner object that looks at your build and finds out the positions. I've done this before and it works great, but as I said it takes work to set up, especially since llRezAtRoot is buggy and broken. I'm sure you could find a techie to help you set this up, and there are a lot of scripters who work for hire who could handle it. The way I would do it would be to have a foundation piece that the buyer positions manually, then uses a command to rez the rest of the build around it. You can even use a combination of techniques, like having 3 foundation sections that each rez 3 additional pieces to complete the build.

Hiya, I've been doing the house thing too. ^^ My building's have to come in parts, because I have different parts that can link to them later. Makes the house customizable to my buyer. The demo's I have out now, have 8 pieces. I don't want to link those together, because I want them to be able to move them later, and easily. What I do, is I name the front door what I want to name the whole house, and then I highlight everything, making sure to highlight that door last, and then stick it all in my inventory. It will all bethere, exactly how you had it, and they wont have to move anything. The only problem I saw in doing this, is that when they want to move their house later, they have to highlight it all and move it that way, so I made a notecard with lots of help on how to propertly handle their home, and if they needed any help to contact me, and I would be happy to assist them. It's worked so far! Good luck!

do what the 'freebie' houses do...put that big ugly red/green post up through all and the buyer can just make sure that one piece is aligned correctly then remove it after it's all together!

you may have to make it modifiable for that, but it's a suggestion...

hope this helps!

hugs,
sexxxy

I would suggest, if using method 2 to make the house copy and mod but no transfer. That way.. if they ever want to move the house.. they can look to their inventory and pull out a fresh house, instead of trying to Select all the pieces and and then trying to move it.

Off subject a bit , but I am looking for houses to buy and am willing to look at any for sale. I will also list your house for others to find, for free. Please send me an IM if you want me to look at your house. I'm very interested in seeing the houses by walking around inside, but will also consider by photo.

Anita Langdon
Langdon Realty
Albion, region

how do you box a house? very carefully

Thank you for all the responses. I've successfully boxed up my Tiny houses, but my Green Gables house - the large cottage - I can't even get to the point where I do as everyone has suggested because

a.) I used smoke particles by Nexus Nash and a door by Branduff and now those three parts of the house are ALL COMPLETELY by one of those two, lol, and

b.) Something in there, and I don't know what, but something in two of the portions is making the whole portion say it's nonmodifiable. I've checked textures and everything.

However, thanks to your help, I was able to box up my Tiny houses with no trouble.

coco

Coco,

I've had that no-mod deal (as well as no copy/xfer) really mess up a build on me. I've checked & rechecked textures, pulled my hair out, etc.

Come to find out, while trying to decide on a texture for the walls, I was draggin & dropping texture straight from inventory right onto the prim. As it turns out, some of those restricted permission textures ended up in the inventory of the prim (probably the no copy ones, that makes the most sense).

So while the face of the wall showed the full permission texture, it actually had a no copy texture in the contents of it. And your scripted items (doors, smoke) could have no mod scripts as well.

Good luck on your hunt!
Syn

More has been determined on this, and the problem was solved. There were also a bunch of textures in the content of some of the walls (for no reason), and somehow the window scripts had messed themselves up. All this has been solved now. The problem of objects being named to the wrong person was solved by creating one small new object, with the right name, and linking it last to the rest of it.

Thanks all for your help, and I will get in touch with you, Anita!

coco

Generally I start with a little rope-a-dope, playfully jabbing with my left to keep the house off guard. Then, I start taunting the house, telling it it's gutters are dirty and it's eaves need care. Then it's WHAM a rabbit punch to the front porch, and WHAM BAM two hard rights between the shutters. Now it's foundation is shakey, see...but I don't let up, no siree. Yeah --we're dancin' now, and I go in for the clutch. The house is leanin' on me for support, but it doesn't expect a series of POW POW POW POW in the hotwater heater,
and a fierce left hook to the foyer.

rofl!

coco

P.S. danged if that isn't just what it feels like sometimes, too! Tonight the whole think keeps unlinking when I try to unlink one piece. I'm gonna go back in there and box me some shutters!

I've boxed up houses and pyramids as tiny doll house versions..then u can link as one object..Doors are a pain...

once dragged out of inventory the house is "Stretched" to full size..u control this by clever placement of 10m or 0.01m objects to control the sizing..

Noone ever understands it when i give them in this fashion though..and i end up dropping by and expanding em.

***why dont people use the old fashioned ways***

when we paid a fee for prims that were in world people used to rez and derez whole houses on command..a script placed the sections relative to the script object..therfore correct alignment was ensured...some of these old ways are still good today.

I so wnat my house to rez when me or my friends are near and be a forest when I am away !!!

Kendra, I dont think I've laughed so hard in a long time LMAO thanks!

I was still - literally - laughing about it after I got off the computer last night. You know the feeling: Doing something else, remember a phrase - and just can't help laughing!

Not laughing this morning. Everything unlinked itself overnight.

coco