Path-cut box edges and texture flicker

Trying to keep prim number down to a minimum, I figured I'd hollow out a cube 95%, set the path cut to B:0.250 E:1.000, and rotate it so I get two walls and a ceiling from a single prim. But because path cut edges are angular, they overlap the foundation prim and I get 'texture flicker' where they meet.

Is there any way to resolve this, or is it just a bad idea to do walls and ceiling (of a 10 metre wide structure) this way?
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Dillon

It's a nice trick, but I am afraid you're stuck on that one. The best you can do is to have the foundation a hair larger than the "walls and roof" U-shape, so the cut ends are embedded in the foundation, and not flush with it's edges.

If you don't mind the roof being lower, another trick is to use a different cut, (B:0.125 E:0.875) so the cuts end up at the half-way points on the walls, and settle for the walls being only 5M high on the outside. That can get you a 10M by 10M roof and 10M wide by 5M high walls, and the base of the walls is square.

In my best low-prim buildings, I usually will use a hollowed and cut prim to form two adjacent walls at a corner, leaving the orientation on the initial Z-axis, so the height in the direction of the hollowing becomes my wall height. I sell a 9-prim cottage that uses that trick for a couple of the walls and for the peaked roof. In one of the corners I still have a diagonal cut, which makes some texture flicker. But that is a reasonable trade off for having an ultra-low prim count in a house that has overhanging eaves, a door that works and a window that you can look out through.

Thanks Ceera! So many useful tips here beyond the slightly larger foundation solution which I'll probably opt for in version two. (Too far ahead with version one now...and reluctant to see it finished.)

When you say a slightly larger foundation, I assume you mean that the floor is 10m wide, and the walls/ceiling prim is actually a 9.9 cube hollowed out 95%. This is good... but sometimes you have even more overlaps, such as at the corner of a building. Perhaps you should hollow it 93% instead. That allows you to use a 9.818 cube hollowed 94%, and a 9.73 cube hollowed 95% as well, if needed. (numbers not perfectly accurate -- calculate them yourself).

The most interesting thing about this arrangement is how you do the texture on the inside surface (unless you leave it mostly blank). You need a single large texture divided into thirds (wall, ceiling, wall) and position/scale the texture so it looks right. You won't find many divided-into-thirds textures at texture stores, so you'll need to make a custom texture.

When I do this, I prefer to do floor-wall-ceiling as a single prim, and then do the other wall seperately. This works better for 20x20 or 30x30 rooms, because there is no other wall. But a 95% hollowed cube does not produce a stable floor -- it's too thin and people can fall right through it! A 90% hollow is very stable.

I'm doing the same thing. North west corner of Nangirm if you'd like to check it out (bottom floor is an example of the below info; the second floor is from an earlier version of the building.)

It helps if you align the boxes carefully. I've found that a 10/10/10 box at the outside has an interior of 9.75/9.75/9.75. So, if you are putting the path cut end of on box along the side of another box, they line up better if the width of the path cut box is 9.75. Then just nudge in place you you don't see the angle where the cut is, just the remaining floor.
This makes the interior of the boxes look great, the tops will still flicker. To remove that, take every other box and nudge it down just a smidge (one to two clicks on Z usually does the trick). Visually this will make the main floor and the second floor look good when walking on it, but does reveal the path cut corner if looking up. The difference between the levels isn't very noticable, and you still walk across the whole area as though equally level.

If you are using whole flat boxes for the center floor space, having it slightly deeper then the cut boxes again provides a better visual effect without creating steps. I'm trying 0.150 and it looks ok, but is a bit too thin, am going to play with 0.160-0.180 to see if that gets me just enough depth to obsure the edges to prevent flicker.

Depending on the texture, when using the same one on the ajoining boxes the flicker is less noticable.

Hope this helps