Very Newb Building Question! Wall Cutouts!

Hello all!!!

Okay... I'm working on my first house build and learning things slowly but surely. Right now I'm stuck as to how to make a cutout in a wall to install a window. Anyone who can explain this to me... in newb builder terms... please help me! I'll even slip ya some free giant prims! =) Thanks! X

You might in some cases be able to use the hole size in the build editor to make a hole. The hole would be in center of a normal prim.

More likely you would end up using multiple prims to make the wall, allowing you to leave window holes where you want them.

In some cases you might be able to achieve your goal using textures have transparent areas for windows. For information about using transparency see the transparency and alpha channels sticky in the texturing forum.

Yeah. I was spoiled because in VRML I could make die cut shapes and holes into nodes. It's a little trickier here, but you can at least pick a few shapes for your hole in properties.

Use a cube prim and choose hollow. Then flatten to your wall size. The shape and size of the hollow can be adjusted. As well, as mentioned above there are textures with a transparent window included.

perhaps one consideration in respect to this should be the prim-count.
true csg would be 'nice', but the resulting blocks would in sl count as seperate prims. -eg each csg-cut would add severely to the overall count.
The most 'economical' way would be sculpted faces -but i doubt sculpties allow for openings?
Almost all houses in sl uses transparent textures -unless you need to be able to physical 'open' the window, i would sugest you do the same, and there are 100's of free wall textures with windows available in sl already :)

Hmmmmm..... I'm not sure about "almost all houses in SL," but certainly a lot use windows created with alpha-generated transparency. You should always remember, though, that convenience comes at a price. In the case of this low-prim alternative, the price is potential alpha sorting problems.

A large house on a sim that I manage uses alpha textures on all exterior walls. The result is that we cannot place potted houseplants near any of them, and we have to be very careful about where trees and shrubbery outside are placed. The alpha textures on them clash with the walls and create an annoying flicker effect that is our price for using alpha textures to stay within prim limits.

The lesson here is not to avoid using alpha transparency -- sometimes it's the only way to keep from using an incredible number of prims -- but to realize that you WILL pay a price, even if the price is only that you have to be careful where you put house plants later.

BTW, this forum discusses the how-to-make-a-hole-in-a-wall question several times a year. Try doing a simple search of forum archives to find all the answers you could ever hope for. And more.

Alpha textured walls are great for keeping prim counts low, and are a common way to make walls with windows in them for low-prim builds designed for small parcels. But as already mentioned, you are trading low prim count for alpha-sorting problems. Bushes that are outside may show through the wall. You'll find that hair, high heeled shoes, tails on furry guests, and other things that use alpha textures or invisiprims may look strange if an alpha-textured surface is behind them.

Buildings designed for larger parcels, where prim count isn't such a constraint, will normally build the wall out of prims, and use alpha textures only for the window frame area, as I described in detail in this post: /8/8d/261971/1.html#post2011021 . This avoids these issues.