How to build a house ?

Hello,

I am total newbie in SL and I would like to build a house which will look like a Mage Tower from fantasy books.
Can anyone please tell me (or post a link to some FAQ) what are the limitatons of 3D modeller inside SL ? I read in some other discussions that there is some limitation for total amount of primitives per land unit etc.

I am programmer (scipting should not be a problem) and 3D graphic is my hobby, so you can use terms like UV-mapping, textures, normals, primitives, faces, free form deformations etc.

Also, I do not want to sell anything (at least not now). I only spent some real money for the Premium account and I bought something like 26.000 L$ because I want to buy some land where I can build my house and where I can try to build things.

But I am a bit confused by SL terminology etc. For example, if I buy 1024 m2 of space, what does it means ? Is it 1024 m2 of land in X-Y plane ? Or it means that I can have 1024 m2 total (for example 8 floors, 128 m2 each) ? Etc.

Thank you for any help.

Eudoxus

P.S. Excuse-me my mistakes. English it is not my native language.

one of many threads to start you off: /8/18/148835/1.html

With 26K you should be able to buy a decent 1024 or 2048 block. Although land is divided into 4 x 4 (16 m2) allocatable blocks, most have sides that are multiples of 16, so a 512 is often 16 * 32, a 1024 is often 32 * 32, but there are of course many exceptions.

The basic prim allocation is 117 for each 512 M2.

You own all the space in the z axis, but you cannot fly unaided much above 200 M or build non physical things above 760 M (not sure of the exact height).

Buy 1024m means '1024m of ground/land area'.
You may build UP as far as you want.
You get a "prim" allowance for the amount of land area you own.
A 1024m area would have a prim allowance of 2x117, or 234 prims.

Each primitive object counts toward the allowance, so a complex building will take more prims than a simple one. Don't forget that furniture, plants, etc. also are made with primitives.

Start simple. Practice your building. And read about 'Textures'. A good texture can eliminate the need for a lot of prims. (For example, a texture that is a wall with a picture of a window in it, can be placed on a single prim. To build a window with primitives might take dozens of primitives.)

Some quick-tips from a newbie-builder:

- Use the green, red, blue triangles to align primitives roughly (you will see a grid) or...
- Type in figures to position stuff precisely.
- Only use arrows for precision-work when you're too lazy to calculate the exact position in numbers (like complex circular, tilted shapes).

- Try the more advanced shapes, they have more options. Making holes, cuts, taper, twist a.s.o. can create more shapes than you can imagine

- Also, try to find the crafting center for a quick tour in building. It's like a museum were all stages in building are presented. Really awesome place. Sorry I can't remember the name or location (cant login to game atm).

Have fun!

The Ivory Tower?

~Ari

Yes! That's it

Since the search obviously isnt working at the moment, can someone please give me the coords of this Ivory Tower location? Sorry for bumping the thread!

The Ivory Tower is in: Natoma 209.164.27

Have fun!

If you want to design a round tower larger than 10 M in diameter, there is a very informative thread on "Large Cylanders" here in the Building forum. Pay particular attention to what Chosen Few says about his method for this. Using his methods I was able to maka a 20M diameter round tower, and clearly could have made larger ones.