In-World Editor: Arcs & Holes

Hello all, am new here and want to ask a few newby questions. These questions have to do with the InWorld Editor, at the moment am getting the practice of using it...anyway, here are my questions..

- How do I make holes on prims? For example, a window, a doorway....Is there a boolean
function somewhere?

- How do I make arcs? For example, arcing windows or doors....Can vertices be manipulated?

Any suggestions on books or video tutorials that teach building with the InWorld Editor?

Thanks,
Gus
P.S. Are external 3d applications ready for primetime?

Search for the Ivory Tower of Primatives. Go and wonder. All questions will be answered there. And you can leave with a wealth of building knowledge.

As for 3D primetime. I use Blender. It has all the bells and whistles now, is simple to use and creates all that you need. For free. Can even make a 3D movie if you have the time. But with one caveat. Many hours buried inside tutorials which are a plenty and very useful.

It is exactly the same with an $8000 program but you have to use MS windows for that, thatś the biggest turn off for me.

Hello KornScope, Ivory Tower of Primatives was very very helpful! Thanks for that....

So you can model normally in Blender? No special rules? Then export to SL?

In general, you build around the hole. You can use cut and hollow sometimes to get what yo want, but you will have limited control over the details.


Cannot gerally manipulate vertices. For an arc, you can make a flat cylinder, hollow it, and cut it. There is no intersection or subtract function.

Definitely take a look at YouTube, there are several. Look up Torley Linden and Robbie Dingo, for example.

Ivory Tower is a must see. It is a tutorial that starts at the bottome and works slowly up to the top.

Also, go to Yadni's or the Gnubie Store, or some other similar place, and get a box of free houses. Then, go to a sandbox, and put one up. Then, take it apart little by little, you will learn a lot.

There are also 4 years of posts right here in these forums...use Search.

honestly, th best advice besides what has already been given that i can think of is this::

play with the editor. Rez a tube. The see what EVERY option in the Object tab does. Then do the same with a box, a cylinder, a cone, a sphere, everything. You may end up finding out something that you wont learn anywhere else, and havingyour own unique way of doing some things.

No you need a plugin for it to work. But personally, its easier to wack your head on a cinderblock wall 4 times. You'll get the same amount of productivity.
Seriously, you do need the plugin.

Within a few hours I already made my first In-World structure..." Wells Fargo Overland"....seems that using the In-World editor is the most economical way to go! I mean for every upload you make thats $10!!

Thanks for the tips!

I'd suggest going to freebie places and stocking up on freebie textures wherever you can find them. There are a TON of good free textures out there, just have to go find them!

But I have an inventory of 9000 items, and at least 7k are textures, and I haven't bought a single texture yet (Maybe 50 Uploads)

It will save you alot of money in the long run, so there ya go!

- How do I make holes on prims? For example, a window, a doorway....Is there a boolean function somewhere?

No Boolean functions, no. Wish there was. You can make a hole on the Z-axis of a prim, centered on the axis, and can make it up to 95% of the size of the prim. You can also change the hole shape from a default that matches the prim shape to a couple other options. But in most cases, you make doors and windows by stacking multiple prims.

- How do I make arcs? For example, arcing windows or doors....Can vertices be manipulated?

No vertex manipulation. An arch can vbe a cube prim or cylander prim with a hollow center, cut in half by using a path cut begin of 0.325 and end of 0.875, then rotating that 90 degrees on X or Y to get it upright.

- Any suggestions on books or video tutorials that teach building with the InWorld Editor?

The Ivory Tower, for prim editing.

For texturing, look for Robin Sojurner's profile, and go to her store that is listed in her picks or classifieds. She has a free texturing tutorial outside her store that is fantastic.

-----No vertex manipulation. An arch can vbe a cube prim or cylander prim with a hollow center, cut in half by using a path cut begin of 0.325 and end of 0.875, then rotating that 90 degrees on X or Y to get it upright.-----

Also, for slightly different arcs, you can just stack a tube or torus (Cut to .5 on either or .25 and .75, for both shapes) on top of two same-shape boxes or cylinders. Results in a 3 prim arch that is more useful for some things, since it doesn't have the limitations of cut and hollow (Such as a square/rectangle outline from a hollowed box, and the angled corners that I hate so much...)

Slightly more prim-heavy, but works better for some things. Main problem is that it's harder to get textures to match up this way.

Just a note, I believe the majority would say blender is not easy to use. Unless you have 3D modeling experience it might be intuitive but some still find it somewhat challenging. Don't get me wrong it's a very powerful and can roll with the best of them and it's free.

No 3d modeling program is easy to use without experience though. But, with blender, if you have a little experience it's pretty easy, and it has a generic interface, so even if you have experience only with one program, you should be able to find your way around, and get used to i rather quickly. As 3d Modeling programs go, it could be MUCH harder to use