Is there an external building program for Second Life.

I was wondering if there is an external program for building with the common prims. I tried Sketchup with Sketchlife which is terribly lacking and almost as completely useless as building in SL.

When you try to build in sl you cant resize a prim in one direction unless you are in the center of the prim. This makes it impossible to size something correctly unless you are zoomed 50m out.

Please tell me after 7-8 years there is something less pathetic than this 30 year old modeling method inside Second Life.

You're doing something wrong. Resizing a prim is incredibly easy. I suggest that you take time to visit the Ivory Tower of Prims and work with their tutorials. SL's tools for working with prims are remarkably versatile and simple to use. There ARE external modelling tools, especially if you are interested in creating sculpty prims, but a very high proportion of the objects in SL have been made in world using SL's native tools.

I think you are trying to work from a standard camera view.

You may want to practice your Alt+Mouse, Ctl+Mouse, Shitft_Alt+Mouse and Alt+Ctl+Mouse zoom techniques.
Hold those buttons and "click and hold" the mouse down. Wherever you clicked will be centre-screen.
You can zoom out a long long way and see all you need and then some. Even cam-walk to another sim.

Thanks for the replys.

Is there such a tool for working with regular prims. I cant argue the fact sl is lacking if you have never used anything else than SL it would be hard to understand how SL is severly lacking.

I typed up a whole thing explaining my problems and ofcourse sl could not find the php server when you click post.

Ok there is no way to snap to another prim. So you have to zoom way in as far as you can to see if it is aligned right. Then when it needs adjustment if your prims are bigger than about .2 meters you can not see the resize tabs while zoomed in. So you have to zoom out and try to adjust .01 meters while you have a birds eye view. Then zoom all the way in to see it is way off still.

You cant just resize with the build window because it sizes both sides together so you cannot use this to align them like Shift+Drag (From the exact center of that side)


So for example maybe you can tell me another way.

You have a 10m prim trying to align it with another. You zoom in co you can see the .01 meters it is off. All you see is about 1/8 of the prim at the corner. When you hold shift you do not see any clickable parts to drag. Also if you want to move it just a bit the moveable arows are in the exact center. So your choice is always this. 1) Make adjustments. OR 2) Seeing what the hell you are doing. Yea I call that severly lacking sorry maybe I am just noob.

There are a couple of offline tools you can try.

For Blender (I believe that this one is kind of dormant and in need of a maintainer):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/primdotblender/

For 3ds Max:
http://liferain.com/downloads/primcomposer/

Thank you for the links.

I dont see how the blender one is an imporvement at all. Blender is hard to work with and you cant seem to build objects out of prims. It just gives you the ability to make prims.

3Ds Max--- is there anything I can use that doesnt cost me a ton of money?

Thanks for the help.

I think there are/were a couple of offline builders for Maya too. There was a free one that was in a rough alpha stage when I used it a couple of years ago (IIRC not all the prim parameters were supported and it certainly didn't support sculpts at that point as they hadn't been implemented yet) and one that costs money. I have not heard reports of anything new having been done on the freebe one and no user reviews on the other, (or the freebe one for that matter).

Perhaps Chosen Few will be able to shed more light on those though. He's the resident SL Maya guru.

I'm a 3ds Max shlub so I will second the Prim Composer recommendation above. It is a nice set of free tools that supports offline building, among other things.

I will suggest that you still practice with the SL build interface even if you use an offline builder though.

edit: you posted while I was typing: I don't know of any free, as in both the 3d application and the SL builder cost nothing, offline tools other than the Blender set. Prim Composer itself is free, but obviously Max isn't.

And if you don't like the Blender tools you probably won't be happy with any of the others anyway.

Im shocked SL wont create a offline program that utilizes the SL method but also gives it the much needed imporvements. Many of my builds in SL are impossible to line up because I cannot get the view I need and the ability to adjust at the same time. And as far as snaping to other objects that technology is so freaking old. Why dont we just use sticks and stones and build like cave men.

Many tens of thousands of people use the SL build tools every day.
Maybe you might want to try going to the Ivory Tower of Primitives where you can learn many tricks to make life easy.
Read the sticky threads at the top of the building forum.
SL build tools are simple to use and very effective but you must use them as they were designed, not as you wish them to be used. Good luck.

AC3d is one offline building tool and is under 100$ i believe. There are several ways to connect prims together seamless that are fast and effcient. I agree ,a trip to the ivory towers will help immensly. There are also scripted tools you can use if you so desire . I personally like to build in world just using the sl building editor and have found i can produce desirable results .

As others have said already, people can and do use the in-world build tools to great effect. They certainly have their limitations and frustrations, but there are many tricks to help mitigate them. As you gain more experience using the tools, you'll discover different ways of accomplishing a given task more effectively/easily.

To offer some advice with your particular example of precisely aligning two prims: it's often possible to rotate your camera position such that you can see your 'seam' line *and* the require re-size handle at the same time. However, for such tiny adjustments, dragging the re-size handle is often a bit cumbersome. It's often easier to adjust the numeric values in the Object tab.

You're correct that re-sizing a prim that way keeps the center fixed, effectively moving opposing faces. When that's not what you want, you need to make two edits: one to the prim size, and one compensating one to the prim position along the same axis. With a little maths, you can eliminate trial and error, too, and get exactly what you need in one shot.

Another things that's very useful for getting exact alignments is to always build to the grid. The more you're able to keep your prims' size and position grid-aligned, the easier it is to get the alignments correct.

There are some tools for 'snapping' one prim to another, using Copy Selected, which can also help depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Again, these have their limits and frustrations and are o panacea; they're great when they give you what you need, no use at all when they don't

The short story is that the tools we're given aren't perfect, but they are adequate to get the job done. Learning how to use them effectively and efficiently, however, takes practice. If you can work through your frustrations, things will get easier with time.

Good luck with your building,

L.

Thank you everyone for your posts. I guess I should have started off by saying I have been to Ivory Tower. That is where I started. I even went back and I did not see anything that woulc help be further. I know the in game tools can get it dont but I spent alot of time trying to get it perfect so it looks good. With the hassle of textures and shapes and everyting else it would be nice to have some of the more basic problems eliminated. thanks again.

That's when you open up the object tab in the edit window and start moving the prim by entering numbers.

Not if you uncheck that option in the edit window. Yes, you are.

Some of the builders HUDs that are available make things really easy, once you take the time to learn them.

Personally I just use the copy and place tools in the build window to get two prims perfectly aligned, or start at a perfect grid spot and work from that (if its possible with the build)

ie I want a 10m and 2m prim to make a wall.

Place the 10m prim at co-ords 150,150,30 and I know that the 2m will need to be at 156,150,30 to line up perfectly.

You can also use the snap to grid functions to make things line up

Thanks for the hints I do alot of that too.


Is there any in game building helpers that dont cost a fortune?

Hire a builder...

It's definitely an issue on your end, I have no trouble doing any of the things you're complaining about, and if you look around, neither do others. Talk to builders go gain knowledge, explore in-world helpers like prim docker, learn how to disable camera constraints and control your view and learn the editor. It's nowhere near as hard as you're saying to build in world.

Sorry for the late arrival. Let me see if I can clear a few things up for you, Sneeker.



The in-world building tools are actually far more powerful than they first seem. The irony is, the more outside experience you've got, the harder it tends to be to learn how it all really works. SL isn't "lacking" at all. It just seems that way at first because a lot of its tools work differently from their counterparts in more traditional modeling programs. It's all there, though. You just need to learn the how-to's, which is what this forum is for.




This is explained in the sticky at the top of the Resident Answers forum, entitled "Can't Post? READ THIS! (403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found errors)". There are certain combinations of words you cannot use, due to some confusingly implemented security features in the forum software.

The most common trigger for it is when you type the word "from" in a post after already having typed the word "select". It's a good idea to get in the habit of typing "fr0m", or else just reword things to avoid those two words altogether.

Read the sticky for the full listing of no-no wordings.

Yeah, it's annoying.





Sure there is. As I said, the tools are far more powerful than they first seem. It's just a question of learning their particular quirks. Here's how to snap one prim to another:

1. First, in the editor, make sure Use Grid is enabled. This will put rulers on the screen, for snapping, whenever you move a prim.

2. Select the first prim, and press shift-G (with chat closed). This will "reference" the prim. The ruler mode will change to Reference, and ruler units will now be based on the prim's size and rotation. Things will stay this way until you change ruler modes or reference a different prim.

3. Now that the first prim is referenced, grab the second prim, and snap its center to the edge of the first prim. (To snap, simply move the mouse onto the ruler ledger lines, as you're moving the prim.)

4. With that second prim still selected, now change the ruler mode to Local. Move the second prim over by half its own width, and snap it in place. The edge of the second prim will now be perfectly flush with the edge of the first prim. All done.

Note, you can repeat the procedure on multiple axes, if you need the two prims to be flush or level on more than one side.

It may look like a convoluted process, all written out like this, but really, if it takes you more than 1-2 seconds, you're doing it slowly. After you've done it a few times, it just becomes habit.




Man, I'm sorry to hear you've been going through all that. Start using the rulers, in their appropriate modes for appropriate tasks. That's what they're for.




Uncheck "Stretch both sides" in the editor, and you'll be able to scale prims asymmetrically, by dragging just one side at a time.




Yup, you're just a noob right now. But that's not a bad thing. Don't worry, you'll learn the tricks, just like the rest of us have. As I said, it can be particularly frustrating if you've already got outside 3D modeling experience, since a lot of the instincts you've developed won't be directly applicable. It's harder to break old habits than to form new ones. But you'll get it.

In the mean time, keep right on asking questions. If there's something super obviously important that seems like it's missing, chances are it's there, but it just doesn't work quite the way you were expecting. Don't assume "there's no way" to do it. Just come on back here and ask how. Happy building.




Well, nothing in SL costs a fortune. I think people tend to forget that thousands of Linden dollars can be bought for just a small handful of US dollars.

But regardless, don't waste your money, no matter how small the amount. With no disrespect intended to the exceedingly clever resident scripters who have created them, those building helpers are absolutely worthless, in my opinion. All the tools you need are built right into the viewer. Again, it's just a question of learning how to use them. The only thing the helpers really do is allow you access to the same set of tools in a different way.

If you're for some reason averse to learning the native setup, then by all means, buy something to rearrange/relabel it all. But I think it's important to remember that none of those helper thingies yet existed when a lot of us started, and we all managed to do just fine. You will too, if you're up for it.

that was a excellent reply Chosen i remember having them issues and its nice to read them and refresh my memory . thanx for the time explaining all that

You're welcome, Jack. I'm glad you found it helpful.