Suggestions for shapes for porch roof

I have been building a house in SL for some months and saved the best (or worst) for now: the porch roof. This roof will attach to a cylinder shape that has been widened and halved and flattened.

Since the cylinder is not truly 'round' but many sided I have made a rectangle and tried to line it up to each side, producing triangles in between the rectangles which will need to be filled in (ah, more prims used). Is there another way to do this?

If you would like to view this build IM me inworld and I will send you LM. I am usually there from 6-11pm CST building.

My two lindens. show your porch.






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Blaze I would if I knew how. I have not a clue how to post a picture here.

Use the Manage Attachments button below the edit window.

Alternatively, you might just post a SLURL here so we can have a look in-world.

Here are three pics of the house. Maybe this will give you all some idea what I am trying to tackle.
Location: Jockeys Ridge 141,24,22

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I can't seem to 'see' what a shape will look like if I were to torque, twist or manipulate it in any way. sigh

I have tried using different shapes and manipulating them but nothing seems to come together.

have you tried making a slight trapezoid shape using taper?

Looks like the 'front' two (Looks like that's what it should be called anyway..) are on even level, so could you make a longish straight section there (For prim-saving mostly), and then use cut, hollowed, and tapered cylinder sections to make the curved part, finishing it off with more straight?

This is just off of my head, haven't tried anything in that shape before..

Rebecca, I've encountered a similar roof quandry before. You might take a look at the high rise apartments I did on the Venice Beach sim. If you still have problems, I can send you a basic roof like you need inworld. IM me there. BTW, very nice house you have there.

Blaze thanks for the compliment.
I did go to Venice Beach and spent quite a bit of time there. Nice place. Love the kites. The only roofs I found that were out of the ordinary were the awnings over the shops and some corner parts of regular ones. Did I miss something? And I checked to see if you were inworld.

I played with shapes for several hours and created some interesting ones ( I didn't realize one could do all that stuff to a shape.) One I kept turned out to be kinda like a cap brim and I have no idea how it got that way. Tried it out on the porch for a little bit and didn't like the results. So I think I will go back to a box shape and try to figure out how to make it fit.

I have to say I have made two porch roofs in RL. The first was horrid and the second turned out like it is supposed to be. I have to look at the horrid one every day when I leave the house. Wish it was as easy to get rid of that one as it is in SL. Hence my determination to have the roof I want on this house porch.

If someone could just go by and look at the house and look at the picture in the yard then maybe you would understand what I am trying to do. I really believe one has to see it to understand the challenge.

I went to the site for a bit. I kind of had some luck with a cylinder > sphere: dimple > cylinder. You know, start with a cylinder, taper it. Convert to sphere and give some dimple. Convert back to cylinder. I got pretty close with some trial-n-error, but I did't like the little triangles it was leaving on the sides.

So, I took some realy quick-n-sleazy measurements. Then hacked out a sculptie out of curiousity. Pretty crappy, but only a few minutes minutes spent on it. If anything, I think it does show proof of concept or something.

I don't have anything beyond that.

edit: Why in the world was I using Dimple? Must have been a brain fart.

edit2: I remember! I was using Dimple because of the way I was using Taper.

I have made a roof similar to that and after trying to taper each rectangular piece to fit, I decided to use triangles in between the rectangles as shown in the picture. Yes, it cost extra prims, but the problem I encountered with not using them were the precision of path cut and the lengths - I could not get the trigonometry to be accurate enough to be seamless. Also, it involved rotations that introduced position errors due to rounding.

So, attached is a picture of what I did, maybe it will help.

Abu - thanks for going to the site. What you are showing is very close to what I made last night. Funny, I am trying my best to view from all angles on the forum. Habit I guess.

I hope you left the piece there so I can see in myself.

Dytska - the problem is the back side, or where it butts up against the second floor is curved and a straight piece just won't line up right.

I am not going to give up on this....yet anyway.

Becca

I didn't leave the piece there. You know, don't want to be rude and all. If I remember, I'll toss you a copy next time I'm in-world, like next day or so.

I'll probably return to the site and take some more accurate measurements (again, in a day or so). The idea of solving this architectural conundrum with a sculptie has really picqued my interest for various reasons.