Alignment is important... help?

Primitive manipulation aside, I've found that simply aligning my pieces can be frustrating when I'm trying to work symetrically. Even when I come close, sometimes I get irritating flickering edges (seams). Does anyone have advice on this?

A few useful things I've learned thus far:
-Using the numerical rotation inputs makes symetry much easier.

-The grids are useful, but seem a little inconsistant. Its as though they are operating on aligning object centers, when I'd much rather they assist *edge* alignment.

-If you have something cut to where only 50% is showing (ie a half circle), cocked at some odd angle involving all axis (x,y,z), and you wish to copy it to an opposing/symetrical position, just reverse the cut instead of messing with rotation (ie if it was start:0 end:50, change the copy to start:50, end:100)


Oh, and another question involves creating small items for avatars. Is there any way to stop 'the hand'? Its irritating as hell when I'm trying to scale an item properly and my Av is dancing like a twit just so he can keep his finger pointing. The only exception is when you edit an item you are wearing- then he finally holds still! *BUT* your toolset is also largely unavailable in this mode! >.< Suggestionis?

Thanks!,
Seph DaSilva

Many builders would say that this is cheating, but I put my snap-grid to 0.125m and make prims in multiples of 0.5m. This tends to make alignment a snap (ouch!).

For seam flutter there are two possible causes. If you overlay prims that have a face in the exact same plane, the renderer gets confused as to which prim to display, thus flutter. Failing graphical demonstration, imagine two sheets of paper with zero thickness, one black the other white. Put one sheet halfway covering the other and you've got an area of white/black. The solution is to ensure that there is no overlap or to move one of the prims off the plane of flutter a little bit.

The other seam issue comes from abutting prims, such as a floor made of multiple prims. You can sometimes get edge flutter at the point of contact. The solution for that is to texture the hidden faces at the seam with a pure alpha texture; this can be a bit labor intensive, but is the cure. To clarify, pretend your flattened hands are two floor pieces and put your index fingers together, to remove this flutter, the sides of your fingers need to be made pure alpha. That way there is no hidden surface for the renderer to try to draw. Drop me an IM if you need a pure alpha texture.

I didnt asked the question, but the answers were helpful

I've got a transparent texture, and I'll give those methods a try as soon as I get time again. Thanks very much!

(wish I had more time... darned bills... darned work... )

There is a free "precision desk" in Tavarua (137,22

all you do is sit down at it and build over the work area. once you are sitting, use the camera pan keys to look at your work and your hand shouldn't get in the way while you are editing. hitting escape will take you back to the default view. touching the set before sittig down cycles it through 3 possible default views (cannot change it while seated)

second choice is find a posing stand and stand on it while doing your editing so the av is not moving. There are free ones and for sale ones scattered about SL.

Third choice is to take any 'frozen/static' pose/animation you have and "play localy". It works by locking the av in place so the limbs are not flailing about. if you play it localy, only YOU see the pose in your local client. anyone else just sees you standing there. "Play local" is like a test mode so you can find out what stuff does "in private" before doing something embarrasing in public...

Hope this helps you out.

Racer P.

Cheating? This is a smart building practice. 0.125 is a bit too tiny for my tastes because its a little harder to see the "snap" and know for sure if your lining it up right. But, its about preference and finding a way that works for you. The snap to grid function works brillantly if you have the right size prim to work with. If your grid is set at .25 or .50, it will do you no good if your working with a prim that is 6.734 in lenght. Simple alignment without overlap is very important to having a clean build.

Texturing is really important as well. If you texture properly, the simplest build can really look great. Pay attention to detail and make your repeats on various size prims match. I see many excellent technical builds that wind up looking awful because of poor texturing. Texturing is just as important as the building, if not more important. It should never be an after thought just to get finished up.

Practice, practice, practice. And have fun learning. Experiment, try new things, change the texture repeats dramatically to see how it looks. A great texture can ruin a build if it is not applied properly. Dont be afraid to try something you dont think will work, you may surprise yourself.

Building and texturing is just like anything else in life. The more you do it the easier it will get.

I agree with this.. but not the 0.5 amount. Since the grid is aligning using the centre of the prim, the minimum width you can have is grid_size * 2. So that means the minimum you can have with a 0.125 grid is 0.25 not 0.5 but the principle is the same and I use 0.125 grid as well.

Example:

   

-0.125           0                  0.125
|---------------|---------------|

The block aligns on the grid at the 0.

Another thing that helps is to color those sides a similar color to the top. I had a huge foundation that had to be under a house, and the top of the foundation was a rather dark green grass.

I found that no matter how exact the alignment, there were little white dashes showing up on the top, where each foundation segment abutted. I pulled the segments apart and colored each side a similar dark green.

When I put them back together, those little white dashes were gone. I figure it was the previously white sides, inside, that were competing with the green on top and trying to show up (even though they shouldn't try to).

coco

You can avoid seeing your avatar's hand, and the line of glowy majickal power that connects your hand to the current object, by using the debug menu. Turn it on, then go to the "Rendering" item of the "Debug" menu and turn off "character" and possibly "alpha" as well. (The latter isn't a good idea if you're using alpha textures in your build, of course.)

No more hand in the way!