New builder questions...

I'm totally new to build in both SL and outside, so I'm not used to any of the tools, yet.. But I'm willing to learn.. I have the prim aligner in world, and outside I have 3DS Max 9 and the SL plugin.

I currently have 2560 sqm of land, with 2048 more coming up soon, all in one plot. On this, I want to have one big building in several stores (right English word) or levels.. The lowest will be partly under ground. On ground level, I will have my store, and on top of that, my residence.

I would very much like to try to build this myself, so now I'd like to ask you experienced people, which way would be the easiest for a newcomer like me? In world, or in Max? (As mentioned, I'm not used to any of them, I'm a Photoshop girl myself).

Should I build full sized, or scale it by ten and then stretch it into place? (I'm thinking of the linking distance problems.)

Finally, is there anyone here who's interested in helping me out? Preferably for free, but not necessarily.. If so, feel free to contact me with PM here, or in world.

Yours,
Suz.

Go to Yadni's junk yard or the free dove or anyone else offering lots of freebies and pick up a free box of houses. Then rez them one at a time and see how they are built (use edit). That would give you an idea what in-game building is all about.

Yes, I've done that.. Also looked over all the ideas in the Ivory Tower... But I would like some more ideas and thoughts..

First question is genre, what type of building scifi, gothic, roman, greek,, whatever.. once you decide on that

search the internet for some ideas on builds there is TONS of very good photos of some very kewl builds in the world. once you find the type of build you want.

Try and visulize how its going to look on your land.. in space wise. decide on how tall you want it.. you say you want your residents on top.. why.. for showing off your buildling skills.. or showing off your house.. most people put thier houses in those situations in the sky so they can have a bit of privacy. you can always put your house in the sky. use a few really well placed Mega prims 20x20 and some well placed textures to create any time of house you want along with some pretty kewl landscaping.. hope this helps..


Flix

Custom builder and Texturer.

Flix gives very good advise. Find your dream house and build from there.

I'd be happy to help, if you still need some. I'm on usually 6:30p-9:00p SL time.

A

ETA: Free is how I meant to make that offer of assistance.

If you are learning to build from scratch then learn to do so in SL rather than using an external application. SL has a lot of quirks and part of learning to build in world will allow you to identify these and learn to work around them. Once you are profficient you should then explore the option of using external applications to import in.

With regards to scale, if you have the land then build full size. this will allow you to get a feel for the build as you go, i.e. is everything in proportion to your avatar. Do not build to real life proportions as they will be too small.

Obviously everyone uses different styles and techniques in order to build. Personally I generally have a vague idea in my head what I want the build to look like at the end but they rarely turn out how I envisage. I tend to find a start point, A nicely shapped roof, or interesting windows etc and then just go with the flow, constantly trying out ideas as I go. If I build a section and it's not quite right I raise it in the air and then try again, playing around with different ideas, only once I am happy do i delete the 'ideas' above that werent quite right. Quite often I will revert to an earlier idea which is why I keep all prims rezzed until i am 100 % sure i am not going to use them. Also I advise you texture as you go. A build can look and feel very different once textured and building everything in the default texture of pine and texturing at the end is not a good idea in my opinion.

When i first started building I wasnt completely sure what the prims could do. Nowadays I know exactly what I can acheive with each shape but to start with I found that my lack of knowledge was stiffling my creativity. So I started to just build without any regard for the prim count in order to let the design 'flow'. Once finished I then went back and reviewed the whole structure, looking to reduce the prim count in addtion to adding custom textures to also help reduce the prim count which you should find easy if you are experienced with photoshop.

Other than that the best advise I can give is to just perservere. Creating (quality) builds incurs a steep learning curve but at the begining the results are almost instantaneous and very rewarding if you put in the hours. If you are totally stuck then visit the Ivory Tower for guidance or advice, ask your friends for opinions or maybe post in this forum.

Thank you all so far!

No, the residence on top wasn't a way to show off, but more just an idea. Nothing is static anyway..

Skybox has already been considered, but nothing decided.. And now I've seen too many posts all over about the huge/mega prims. Some say they'll stay for ever, some say Linden Lab will eventually kill them off. So, I'll build with whatever is available to create now.

I've also browsed here quite a bit to notice the "scale problem", so I hope I'm enough aware of it..

At last, thanks to you Abba, for offering some help, I may well take you up on that!

I think I'll go for building in-world as you suggested. It won't make me learn Max, which seems to be quite a challenge to learn...

Also, please continue to post ideas and thoughts, the more input I have, the better... At least that's my experience..

Again, thank you!

I was wondering exactly where you got that SL plugin for MAX 9. I have searched the forums and the internet and I keep comming up with vauge references to alphas and betas that don't really work. Where did you get yours? Does it work? Who wrote it? I would really like to know as my native format is 3ds MAX. Thanks in advance.

Friar Aabye

I did the same as you did.. I saw references here, and followed links and posts.. Finally I came up with http://www.windyweather.net/smf/index.php?topic=122.0

The guy who made it has SL name Windyweather VanAlten.

It seems to work, but as I mentioned, I've never used Max before, so I haven't tested anything "real", I made 4 prims, and imported to world, looked just fine.

Thank you for that information. Windyweather VanAlten is one of the names I ran across while searching. I just wasn't sure if there was another one or not.

If you need some instruction in 3DS Max go to www.3dbuzz.com. There you will find a host of video tutorials on how to use a multitude of 3d programs. 3DBuzz is actually the first place I go every day for my 3d needs. If you don't learn what you need to know there then you are doomed. Aslo, the help file with Max 9 is one of the best written help files I've ever seen; use it. If you got the manual with Max 9 READ IT! it is one of the best written manuals I've ever seen.

Again thanks for the information and good luck.

Friar

Thank you for the tip about the site!
Yes, of course I have access to the documentation, my company has an enterprise license and with that came 18 sets of books.. I'll just borrow a set to look it all over.

However, I do think I should follow the previous ideas on learn the in-world building first, at least to get a grip on how things interact and behave in world.

Suz.

As for the underground part you mentioned earlier, you might have to "cheat" that a little bit. Like, adjusting your land to make a big hole below your residence, just big enough to fit the cellar. Or, if the cellar stretches outside your house, make some fake ground prims around your house with a texture matching the landscape, with an actually lowered ground below it.

Great hint about the "fake", thank you! Actually the plot is in a down hill, so in the upper part itäll come out completely under ground, where in the other end I may have to use the cheat..

Yeah - if you want to make things in world, learn how to use the tools in world. Unless you actually need it for anything else, there's no need to know Max or any other 3D modelling package (although experience of any will improve your understanding of any of the others). It'd kinda be like learning how to use Photoshop and finding the text tool when all you needed was notepad.

Oh, edit:



'Fraid you'll have to 'cheat' anyhow - you can put prims underground, yes, but you can't put your avatar underground - not in a useful way, anyway. Sinking a room under the earth will just fill it up with earth. You'll either need a big hole, or fake land built up around the ground floor to give the impression of it being underground.

With underground, I actually meant lower the terrain to a max depth, put in the prims, and then raise the terrain surrounding it again. I know it'll take some awfully thick walls to not have the terrain come through at sides, but that's a calculated "feature"...

If you want a basement that is the same size as the house above it, you will find you won't be able to dig the walls of the hole straight up and down. You'll end up with a 'trench' around the home.

There are two solutions:

1: Make the hole under the house and the basement area smaller, so the slope on the sides of the hole doesn't reach to the edges of the house.

2: Use prims to form things like a patio, a walkway, planters, or flower beds around the house, masking the gap where the ground plunges down. You can also use terrain textures on prims, but in general you'll find it almost impossible to match prim textures to thw actual ground. So rather than trying to match exactly, try using a flat prim textured like mulch or dirt to cover that gap.

That's what I meant by having thick walls in the basement, to avoid the terrain "looking in"..

Here's a very crude idea of how it would look. These are just cut-throughs roughly through the center of the house though. And phear my leet paining skillz, lol

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/7601/houseinnahillam6.jpg

Coming to think of another thing.. Can I duplicate an object easily when it's created? So far I've used "Take a copy" and then dragged that into place. Seems like one step too many?

Hold the shift down while you move the object to a new position. The one you move will be the original, a new copy is created at the point you dragged from.

Thanks

I would love to help you or anyone build your structure. I am very stylized when I build and need some direction as to how you would like things. Feel free to contact me for free help.


At RL work so I need to zip out of here for now.

Also, if you need the prim to be copied and back in the same place, follow the shift drag with a ctrl-z. That will put the prim back at the start point. Thus, if you shift copied to the side and it's actually supposed to be above the original, you can then just drag it up (or number crunch it up).

A

For once, an undo feature in SL that works, and is even usefull at that too

I have tried the shift drag technique for copying and it does not seem to work. Does anyone know if there is a different command needed for the Mac?