windows and skirts!

Two building/creating questions from a relative beginner.
1: Is it possible to create a wall, with a rectangular hole in its middle ( for a window) using just one prim; ( in other words, create the wall then cut out the rectangle). i know I can build such a wall using 4 prims joined together.

2: tried my hand at making a skirt, using a pic from Paint shop Pro and a skirt template I found on the net.
however, when i made it, and wore it, I find that there is a gap between front and back of the skirt.

1 use hollow, or a sculpty, or an alpha texture
2a template sounds like your using the avatar skirt theres sliders for slits on all 4 sides in the appearance menu

Use 'Hollow' which is on the 'Object' tab of the 'Edit' dialog as Lightwave suggests. Two things to watch out for are that the 'hollow' will pass through the prim on the 'z' axis so you will have to turn it 90 degrees and set the height and width of the wall along the 'x' and 'y' axes. Another thing is that you can change the shape of the window to a circle or triangle if you want, using the drop down menu under 'Hollow Shape'. This is set as a square by default.


This is really a question for 'Texturing Tips' so you would be better off posting it there. Also post a pic if you can because it's hard to understand the problem from your description.

1. Try doing a search of this forum's archives by using the "Search This Forum" feature at the right hand side of the top of this forum (NOT the top of this thread, and NOT the "Search" pulldown menu that searches ALL forums). Look with key words like "window" or "door." You'll find dozens of threads started by people asking your question.

The short answer, basically, is that you have the three choices already mentioned here. Most windows and doors in SL are made by stacking prims, Lego style, to make openings in walls. That's a primmy solution, but the advantage is that the opening is the size that you want and it's where you want it to be. If you use the hollow prim solution, you'll use fewer prims, perhaps, but the dimensions and placement of the opening are heavily constrained. Finally, if you dispense with the opening entirely and go with a alpha texture solution you can put the window/door wherever you want it and save a passel of prims. The downside is that unless you're a good texture artist it will look like a 2D window/door painted on the wall, and you may end up with annoying alpha sorting issues. As I say, all of these advantages/disadvantages are discussed in great detail in previous threads, as are many clever ways to work around them.

2. This really IS a texturing question, so it's better to post over there. You may have bought yourself some problems by getting a skirt template off the web instead of working with something you designed yourself, using SL resources. UV mapping on the avatar body in SL is quirky, to say the least, so you can run into a variety of design problems unless you understand what you're doing. In addition to posting your question in the "Texturing Tips" forum, I strongly suggest that you read the sticky threads at the top of that forum -- especially the ones that look technical and boring -- and that you grab copies of the avatar body templates and the SL Previewer that you'll find in those sticky threads. You may also want to get a start with designing for SL by looking through the great tutorials on Natalia Zelmanov's blog at http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html

My guess is that you have either set the sliders for side slits incorrectly, as suggested by one of the posts above, or that your off-world skirt template has been placed oddly with respect to the avatar UV map. When you post to "Texturing Tips," include a photo or a link to one on Flickr or Photobucket so people know what the problem looks like.

Good luck, and welcome to Second Life.