Things every newbie should build..

Well, assuming they're interested in building and they've been to the ITOP, that is.

What would you recommend? What things did you build, early on or later in your SL, which taught you most about building?

Hmmmmm...... That's an interesting question. I think I'd look for a project that involved making many common objects that have complicated shapes and textures. Try making all the stuff to go on a dining room table, for example (silverware, glasses, tablecloth, salt and pepper shakers, centerpiece ....), or maybe everything that goes in a bathroom (the toilet, sink, bathtub, and associated plumbing, towel racks and towels, TP holder, cabinetry......). By comparison, big things like buildings are actually fairly easy, so they don't necessarily force you to focus on details and deal with combining tweaked prims to make realistic objects. One idea, anyway ....

A good chair with a non pose ball sit anim. Will teach you how to build to scale and how to use free scripts and free anims as well as how to texture a complex shape.

Next, a door with a glass window. Will teach you how to create a lockable entryway (free scripts), how to texture with a taste of alpha in a texture and introduce you to touch in scripts. Can add sound scripts for door open and close.

Next, a fountain or a waterfall. Will teach you how to use texture anim (free script), texture and particles for the mist (free script in Library).

Environmental sound prims to learn how sounds work. (Free scripts available)

Plants and fire to learn how to make 3D appearing objects from rotated linked prims.

Whew...that should get most new folks started with a few challenges.

But really build what you feel passionate about first.

Mmmm.. International Tower of Pancakes.


I think the first thing I built isn't something we can talk about here in these forums. It chased people around, too..

This is a really tough question, Yumi. Some will want to build a chair or couch or some such. Others couldn't care less about that - they want to make a gun! Others will do more organic stuff. It's really a personal preference sorta thing.

A friend of mine tells new builders to build whatever pops into their head, always. Doesn't matter if it comes out totally horrible or if it just ends up in their trash later. Build, build, build is what she says. The sillier the better.

Get involved in Blitz Build and Speed Build events. There's usually an announced theme or a required object to build around. You can get the idea of how to work around prim limits and the pressure helps force you to discover the most efficient building methods possible. On top of that, afterward, any other building project will feel quite relaxing and even more enjoyable. (^_^)y

Hmmm. One of the very first things I tried to build was a 1963 Studebaker Avanti.

A scripted greeter prim that can:
- Record the names of nearby avatars
- Deliver landmarks on touch
- Kill Sarah Connor

Oooooo! That's more ambitious than the flexi ball gown I tried to make for my first project. Probably looked a whole lot classier, too. Of course, neither of us could run with the top down ....

Wow. I'm getting kind of confused here, because almost everyone's posted examples that seem to be more to do with learning to script, or to use scripts, than to build.

What I was more interested in is the items that, by building them, taught you most about the _artistic_ side of building. Ie, how to get over the "I know how to cut this prim, but what do I cut it to?" sticking point.

It's entirely individual, Yumi. Each person has interests and aesthetics that lead into a project. What is interesting to one can be uninteresting and not pleasing artistically, to another.

That said almost everyone builds a waterfall of some kind in their early days.

My own absolute first build was hair... Because of the way it turned out in the end... I don't suggest it. (=_=)y

Both are important. Some people will attach more importance to what an object can DO...and hence the emphasis on scripting. Others will want to concentrate on how it LOOKS, leading to an emphasis on prim shaping, alignment, texturing, etc. I've been building, off and on, for a year now and I am still learning new things all the time. Sometimes, I'll just rez a prim and start fooling around, and see what happens...the SL equivalent of doodling on a scratch pad.

Learn to make clothes, as it will teach you how to accurately create custom textures. T-shirts are one of the first things I made and sold in SL.

Learn to make basic futrniture that is scaled to actual avatar sizes. A chair that doesn't make a Ruth avatar look like a giant or a baby doll when they sit on it. A couch that has your back against the backrest and doesn't embed your legs in the front edge. Basic furniture teaches you how to scale your buids so they look right around SL avatars, and can be used.

Learn how to adjust a chair design so a child-sized avatar can sit on it comfortably. Do the same for an avatar that is as tall and lanky as the appearance sliders will allow.

Can you make a chair that works reasonably well, no matter what size or gender the avatar is? (excluding tinies and prim giants, which are special cases.)

Make a basic low-prim cottage. A simple one or two room building with a door and a few windows, that is scaled so it looks right when used by typical avatars, and so the camera doesn't go crazy when you try to move around inside the building without switching to Mouselook mode.

Make a house that does not use alpha textured walls, but only uses alpha textures whee they are actually necessary, such as the panes of a window.

Make a very basic vehicle, like a boat, that seats more than one person.

Make a house plant, in a pot. Use your own texturs for the plant.

I started with houses - and I still do my fair share of those. Building houses taught me the basics of texturing multiple sides of a prim (which I didn't even learn until my second house - lol), texture alignment, basic prim alignment, and "prim torture." Houses are big enough that you can see the different parts easily, and it's pretty hard to "misplace" prims (which I've done a zillion times with smaller objects). It's perfect for learning to build by grid/math too, which I find I go back to even for the smallest projects.

By the time I got my first house mostly done, I'd built up my confidence enough that I was more than ready to try dropping in a few scripts so that my pretty new door opened and my lights turned on and off, so I went out and bought a script package for "home control" and dropped those into the necessary components.

And once my door was under control (and I mean that literally - sliding doors are not always the BEST first door to work with) and my new house had some kinda nifty bells and whistles, I figured I could tackle the world and package it. Now, the rez packager was quite an experience at first, but now it's kind of like walking and chewing bubble gum... takes a little thought, but nothing too tough.

Once the house was packaged and I had this sense of "what next?", I thought... hm... why not make some furniture to put in it? I made a nice little patio set and some garden stuff, then I moved inside to a living room set, and soon after that, a bedroom set...

... and then I got paranoid about all those "stolen" animations out there in "bundles" for builders, and how many *I* had... so I downloaded Qavimator and started making static poses. Animated poses weren't such a big stretch after that..

... then I had an idea for a product that involved minor script manipulation. I banged my head on the desk lots, shed a few tears, read and re-read a lot of stuff on the Wiki, and voila... I had my first "real" script...

... and now I can pretty much make anything I can imagine with regular ol' prims. So now, I am going to tackle sculpties soon... watch out SL!

So... I guess the answer to the question would be... start with houses? *grins big*

Good luck! Feel free to give me a shout in world if you have any questions. If I can't help, I'm sure I can point you to someone who can!

Sincerely,
Moonshy Littlething
(PrimShy Designs)

you should do what you enjoy doing. if its hard or frustrating you wont learn
if you enjoy what your doing you will learn and learn something you like to do.

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work" -Aristotle (384BC - 322BC)

For myself (and some others I've talked to) it's difficult to enjoy a "productive" activity such as building while knowing that the results will be poor. And certainly for me, there seems little point in building something I'm passionate about - knowing that, since I'm just starting on building, the result will be too low quality to contribute to that passion. Thus the desire to just focus on the learning first and THEN start following intentions.

1st thing I built was a birdhouse,
by the time I got done figuring out the stations at Ivory and was done,
a guy next to me had made a SW fighter and flew away and I was like man ...screw this!

I think you should make them build something that they can use every day. Maybe have them make shoes.

When I started I tried making hair too. I didn't know you could link prims so I had 1 flexi cone attached to my skull, another to my left hear, one on my nose, etc... I did make a set of bangs using an alpha textured cylinder. That was attached to my chin.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who does that.

Made my jewlery (borrowed a part from someone close to me) and fangs combo cause I was getting mad at attachment points (still wear them and get compliments)

Houses. I always build houses but they get taken down when people go "oh look at the silk...you must be gorean" (I love spikes, silk, metal, mable...yes in the same builds at times)

my idea is build it (or try to) or stop pissing and moaning about it (usually I piss and moan about trying to build it).

Toys. I always like building toys for mature things.

Also Yumi I think the reason you are getting non prim items is honestly nothing is just "prim" anymore. When was the last time you saw an amish furniture store in SL....cause I would so make a killing then!

scuplties, textures, scripts, animations all add to the value of an item usually and is what most people want.

Sure, but I'm talking about building to learn building (into which I would include textures and sculpties, but not scripts and animations) rather than to make items to sell.

A good thing for learning about prim building is how to make rounded rectangles, solid and hollow, and how to make rounded boxes, solid and hollow.

Another good educational thing to make is a very tall pyramid, say 50 or 60 meters tall, made from stacked tapered boxes.

Pipes with rounded corners made from cylinders and tori.

The trick of making a helical staircase from individual steps by putting one step inside a cylinder, selecting both, then drag copying and rotating, repeating, and finally deleting all the cylinders.

Regular polygons.

Giant circles. Compare the look of the joints when making a giant circle from boxes to making one from sections of squished cylinders.

Sketching a building, with floorplans, on paper, scanning and uploading the sketches, and using the images inworld to guide building.

A skull. Never know when you'll need a skull.

Put your avatar on a pose stand and build a copy of your avatar.

Cartoon characters. Build a Snoopy, a Charlie Brown, a Hello Kitty.

Antique scientific instruments are good for building practice.

Great suggestions.

I've been here almost 2 years, build as much as I can and have no idea how to do a rounded rectangle except by using Maya.

Please, please post how that is done inworld!?

Well, it's primmy, but the easiest way is to jam cylinders in the four corners of a rectangular box.

EDIT: Of course, if you meant to round ALL corners and edges of a rectangular solid .... again, one way to do it with prims is to start with a cylinder that is flattened in either the X or Y dimension, and then cap the ends with stretched out hemispheres. If you're lucky, you can get reasonably smooth joins between the parts with just a little tweaking and stretching, and you have a 3-prim final product. It's a little easier to do it by capping the ends with half-cylinders and sticking stretched spherical segments in the corners, but that raises the ante to 7 prims. If you don't want to use a sculpty for some reason, though, you have to be prepared to eat a few prims.