How can I build a basement under my House?

Hello there !

I would love to have a basement under the groundlevel of my house. Is that possible? When its possible can anyone declare me how I can do that?

thanx in advance

Ephraim

It's possible if you have permission to do the digging (you need to make a hole to put your basement in). If you don't maybe your sim owner can help prepare the ground for you? Always good to make friends with him/her anyway...

Ricci

it really depends on how high the ground is too... basements have a nasty habit of being flooded in SL. THe only way to not have a flooded basement is to have a house on a hill.

Either edit the terrain or use prims to fake a hill...

*X*

Best way to make a basement, it to actually put it 500+ meters in the sky.

Give the sky box (basement) the feel you want, and TP to it.

If you do dig it out, it will look flooded or chunks of ground will haunt you forever.
If you want a dungeon, that is one thing. If you want a basement (man cave) that is another.

If you want the feel of walking down stairs to get to it... put a TP at the bottom of the stairs.

1: To excavate a basement, you have to be able to terraform a hole of sufficent depth. Mainland has a +/- 4M limit on how far you can terraform from the saved terrain profile, which is almost always NOT the current ground level on any "level" looking lot. On some parcels you may find that the terraform limit is reached before you can dig deep enough, and you will end up with bumps you can't get rid of.

Private island sims have wider range limits, often +/- 100 M from the saved terrain profile. But some private sims will require you to get permission from the sim owner to do any terraforming.

2: Holes dug in SL NEVER have vertical sides. Select a 4M x 4M square and lower the terrain, and that square goes down, dragging a 2M margin around it down with it. So your 4M x 4M "well shaft" will be 8M x 8M at the top. This means you must either make your basement smaller than the foundation of your house, or you must cover the edges of the excavated area with prims. (Prim flower beds work well, as to prim decks and patios and walkways.) The 2M margin is all that you get, regardless of the size of the selected area that you lower.

3: If you are on a "pancake island" or a beach, and your land is just 1M above the water level, you will have a flooded basement if you excavate one. The water table in most sims is at the 20M level. In all sims the water level is consistent throughout that sim. So to have a basement, you need land that is high enough above the water level to dig down and still not hit water. (On the other hand, I used this 'flooding' intentionally in my home, to make an indoor swimming pool filled with real Linden water). If you are high enough above the water plane to dig down and not hit it, there will be no water in your basement. Anything over 25M elevation is probably fine.

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I do a lot of underground building. I am working on a "basement" under a large build right now, that will be multiple levels deep. The excavation for that mega basement is 60 M deep from the ground level of the plain the palace above it is resting on. The sides and floor are nice and smooth, though it took some effort to make it that way. The levels of caves and basement rooms that will go in there will all be built with prims. Access to the lowest levels from outside will be by ducking behind/through a waterfall, which masks a vertical slit in the clif face. The waterfall and the clif face above the cave mouth are made with prims.

The suggestion for making a "basement" that is really a skybox is a really good one for most mainland parcels. It will work on all land types, and eliminates the terraforming issues.

Basement in the sky is a good idea. Underwater is also good (darker). in either case, as Gene says, you TP to the basement and just get the illusion it is underground.

You cannot put things below ground level in SL. If you want a basement, you have to lower the ground first.

I'm thinking of doing the same thing - or rather to build a home "under" some romantic ruins. I would never have thought of putting it in the sky! You guys are brilliant.

Is there a way to build the stairwell TP so it's automatic when you step on it? I haven't yet seen any automatic teleporters in SL, but this would aid in the suspension of disbelief. Not that I expect to bring any visitors. I'd just like to try my hand at a something beautiful that people might want to explore when I'm not there. Thanks. -- KC

LL doesn't like the idea of an involuntary teleport, so it is unlikely you'll ever find a way to "automatically" teleport someone. But here's a trick to try.

Make a stairway that leads down, to a door that has a prim doorknob. Use a sit teleport script in the doorknob, with the sit pie option named "Open Door". They touch the door to use the doorknob, and get teleported to an identical stairwell that opens into your "basement in the sky". The doorknob on the back side of that upstairs replica is a similar sit teleport that takes you back down...

Of course! Brilliant again. That's still kind of sneakily involuntary, but the suspension of disbelief is as much for me as for anyone so I'm looking forward to trying that. Now that I know it can be done, I'll get started on those ruins.

Thanks. -- KC