Just got offered $1500 USD for a building I'm making

I really hate to rain on your parade, hon, but someone needs to give you a little reality check here...

I can see why you moved out of the public sandbox. Most sandboxes wouldn't have enough available prims for you to continue building, even if you were the only one there!

At 10 stories, and 386 prims per floor, that's 3,860 prims so far. A completely empty sim only has 15,000 prims allocated for the entire 16-acre sim. You've already used up more than 1/4 of the prim resources for an entire sim, and from what I read, it isn't even complete yet? Not even furnished? At the rate you're going, by the time you get this project furnished and all the pose balls in place and all the other stuff, the entire sim will have to be dedicated to this one project, and the rest will be little more than a barren dessert. What you're building is lovely, spectacular even, but you're using WAY too many prims, hon!

To give you a comparison - I've built a full 16-acre sim, complete with 20 small to large homes, a water park, two observation stations, a waterfall, hundreds of trees and shrubs for landscaping, fish in the water, and even a sunken ship to explore, and I STILL used less prims than you have so far for your one building.

I will certainly grant that your building looks very nice. But I fear it will prove impossible to make good use of a ten story structure that is built as you have designed it. You'll have the devil's own time managing to make enough per month renting rooms or getting people to pay for access to the clubs and other venues to make this pay for half a sim to a full sim worth of land maintenance fees every month.

It is a really cool looking build. Even though the prims are astronomical, I say: finish it! You never know, prim allowances may change in the future, or somebody clever enough could make it pay for the sim. Hell, a lot of people will come just to look at it. I would seriously consider taking the money. You should consider requiring a signed real-life contract, however, and use a reputable escrow service to avoid getting burned.

call me a pest but, sandboxes are shared building space, isn't building such massive stuffs showing some lack of respect for the other builders?

Well, after doing some careful planning, I am going to attempt to keep this project under about 10000 prims, if I can. That way I can have a few other attractions as well on the island, such as a Marina (The Hydrosphere) and possibly a small theme park or something. Don't know yet what will happen, but I have just cut about 30 prims off each level (go me!) so I'm feeling good about some new build tactics.

Down to 356 prims per floor.

Devoran, you show great promise as a builder in SL. Seriously, I do want to encourage your efforts. Yet you seem to have ignored most of my comments thus far here. I do hope the fact that Ceera is a female avatar isn't preventing you from seeing that my advice has value?

One of the biggest hurdles that any SL builder has to learn to overcome is to learn to build within reasonable prim limits. Almost anyone can make remarkable things if they have an infinite number of prims to work with, provided they spend enough time and effort doing so. But a skilled builder in SL can do far more, with far less, by careful construction and creative use of textures.

Take a look at this example:



Now, I could build that window entirely with simple prims. If I detailed everything, even the handles on the casements and the panes of glass, I could use 30 prims or more, just for that one window. It would be remarkable in appearance, but would be very wasteful in prims.

By using moderately advanced building techniques, I could reduce the prim count to as few as 14 prims, perhaps even 12 or less, without having much impact at all on the 3D appearance of the window. I'd need a custom texture if I wanted the mitered look for the corners of the wood window frame, but that is all. I'd still have a window with real depth to the architectural elements.

However, I could also do that window as ONE prim. Simply by applying the custom texture that I used as my illustration to a single prim, and a similar texture to the back for the side that has no handles. Not only do I save a lot on prim count, but since SL does not cast real shadows for solid objects, I can use the custom texture, with its built-in shadows, to give it a far more realistic appearance than an actually 3D build made of prims. If you learn to make your own custom textures, or if you shop for textures that are already available and which can help cut prim count in your builds, you'll be far closer to becoming a "Great" builder, and not just a promising one.


The other major thing any good builder needs to learn is to adapt their designs to the realities and limitations of SL. I mentioned a lot of this in my earlier posts, and you haven't even acknowledged reading those words of advice. I design and build sims professionaly in SL. I am offering you the benefit of my experience, for free. The least you could do would be to acknowledge that offer.

As I said, your project is an ambitious one and shows great promise. It may well be that you will find a way to make it self-sustaining, and to make it profitable. But at present, it will require an entire sim to host it. That means someone will have to pay $1625 USD for a sim, and $295 USD per month to maintain that sim. (Or that person has already paid $1250 USD to obtain a sim prior to 11/15, and will have to pay $195 USD per month to maintain it.) Your business plan needs to cope with the reality of having to pull in sufficent income to cover those expenses. And remember, at full capacity, only 40 people can be in the sim at once.

Good luck with your project. I hope you do find a way to succeed with it. Even if you don't, the process of building something on this scale should teach you a lot about the builder's art in SL.

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but this sounds like: "listen to me because in real life I'm a man" which is terribly sexist

Do you have any specific suggestions, or links to specific suggestions or guidelines, for improving prim economy in this kind of large build?

@ Smith - Actually, my point was that my gender, in SL or in RL, shouldn't matter. But it seemed so far that the only comment of mine that the original poster had mentioned was about the audio stream issue. Perhaps it was inappropriate of me to ask if my gender was part of the reason why the rest of my comments were not, apparently, worth considering? It is, unfortunately, all too often the case that young males are ready to dismiss what they hear from females on 'technical' subjects, even if the same words from a male would readily be accepted. So I did sort of wonder if making the same observations and giving the same advice from my male alt might have been better recieved, that is all.

@ Yumi - I think any Builder should start by checking out the Ivory Tower of Primitives. Search for Ivory Tower in-world for a teleport link. Study what is there, and learn how to do more with less by using cut and hollowed prims. They should also study the tutorials on texturing, such as the one that Robin Sojurner offers in-world.

Ceera, I'm taking your stuff seriously, trust me. It's just in a different kind of way.

Every time somebody gives me some advice, I take it and run to my building trying to apply it. With the windows, since the building has curvature (at 15 degrees at most angles) it is difficult to make one prim "texture" that sort of effect. But, maybe I'm missing something.

Other things have me uncomfortable as well, such as 40 people to a sim, and the money thing (which I was aware of).

So yeah. Nerve wracking. If anyone has a $190/mo sim I'd <3 you for it

Textures can be applied to curved prims as well, of course. So if you did a texture for the windows and frames, you might be able to use a two window high by two window wide repeating rexture on long, curved sections. I did a hillside vineyard a few months ago with winding, curved walls that followed the contour of the steep hillside that the vineyard was on. I used large sections of hollowed cylanders to make the rock walls.

Kind of a peculiar behaviour to get offended when you think someone isn't listening or taking your ideas. Even more peculiar to attribute it to gender.

I think this is whats wrong with some folks here who give advice. It is like they want a boost in their ego as payment in return for helping people by them acknowledging their presence.

some people are lucky, most are not.
I am the later

SORRY, BUT NOBODY EIGHT DAYS OLD BUILDS LIKE THIS...

...all of this thread sounds very very fishy. I agree with chosen on this one.

I do think it is fishy that he's offering $1,500 USD for a hotel. You should find out more about this person, and see if they are a scammer, or if they are just another SL Fanatic spending alot of money on SL.(No offense intended in SL Fanatic.)

Sorry dude, I'm a newbie. (to burst your bubble even more, the ground was designed at 4 days in ) Remember, all this stuff is is math. If you know math, you can make curves.

edit: I have some news. The guys has decided not to buy, he's more interested in hearing a business plan. Oh well.

There is this sense in online communities that anyone fresh off the boat must be somehow dumber than a box of rocks

Of course, I'm *horrified* at the number of prims in use but I have an irrational obsession with keeping prims low - that said I would definitely heed Ceera's advice about textures, and always cut/hollow wherever you can for advantage. I made an appartment block once (it was modular, but I rezzed it up to 10x2 storeys for giggles) then as was mentioned, when doing the maths found it would be easier to just rent out seperate 1024m2 parcels due to prim quotas alone. That said, with a build like that you could have one hell of a boating lake with the land left over!

If you can do this once, you can do it again!
and again
and again