Total Noob working at carpentry here

Hello all,

Well, it did't take me long to get hooked on this game! Tried the trial over the weekend and upgraded to premium yesterday.

Now I have myself a little plot of land that I want to build a home on. Nothing fancy, just a few rooms to hang out in. My questions are:

1) What I've done so far is to make an object, basically a big board, and then copy and rotate it to make walls and floors. Is this what I should be doing or am I missing something?

2) If that's the right way to go about it, how do I get windows and doors put in after I have frame up?

I know these are really basic questions and I feel like a total noob, but I can't seem to find a walkthrough anywhere. Thanks in advance.

Hi Summer-

Welcome to SL.

To make windows -
You can use textures with alpha'd windows in them (less prim usage)
or
Make a cube and hollow it to the size of window you want (Hollow should be on the right hand column of numbers below CUT. You can set it to Default or Circle/Square/Triangle for different looks.

To make Doors -
You'll just have to make a space for a door (cube sized down to door size)...or create a hollowed cube as well to sit the door in. There are free scripts on the forums for them...to open/shut/lock.

Prim saver tip-
Make a cube, hollow it to 95%, cut two sides...it makes a corner of a house, and saves you at least 4 prims.

Texture tip -
to texture faces of a prim differently, select SELECT TEXTURE button in editing tool, select face and apply texture to that face only. You can set transparency on this face alone as well.

Hope this helps!

Ciao-
Jacq

It certainly does, thanks!!

Hi Summer. Welcome to SL.


Generally speaking, I'd say you're doing things properly. However, there's really no "improper" way to do it. Building in SL is like playing with Legos. There are a million ways to build any one thing.

The most important thing to concentrate on is just making sure that whatever you're building uses the least possible amount of prims, as prim allowances are a small, finite resource. If you've got 512 square meters of land, then you only have 117 prims to play with. That can get used up pretty quickly if you're not careful.

As you get more building experience, you'll discover more and more ways to refine your technique to use less and less prims for any given project. For example, rather than using two individual cubes (walls) to make a corner, you could hollow a single cube, cut it in half, and then you've got two walls made of just one prim. Hollow it without cutting it, and you've got 4 walls (although the space inside won't be very big, 9.95 x 9.95 at the most.) By cutting, hollowing, twisting, skewng, and otherwise torturing prims, you can make many seemingly complex shapes out of just one or two prims. Keep playing around, and you'll discover lots of little tricks.


There are several ways to do windows:

1. You can just cut a hole in a wall by hollowing the prim. You'll end up with a window that sits in the exact center of the wall, and is the same proportions as the wall itself. In other words, if your wall is 10M wide and 5M tall, a 2-1 ratio, your window will always be 2-1 as well, since the hollow works as a percentage of the prim size.
   
   
   
2. You can use multiple prims of varying size to construct your wall with a hole in it. This is more expensive, prim-wise, but it will allow you to put a hole anywhere on the wall.
   
   
   
3. You can texture the window onto the wall. This is how it's most commonly done. By applying a texture that contains an alpha channel (alpha channel = transparency map), you can make windows that look like real windows, not just simple holes, while keeping your prim count really low. See the Transparency Guide on the texturing forum for more information about how to make transparent textures.

For doorways, you have all the same options that you have for windows. For the door itself, usually people use a cube that is scripted to rotate or slide when someone bumps into it or touches it. I think there's a sample door script in the library in your inventory, but if not, there are plenty to be found all over the world, and in the scripting forum.


Hey, don't worry about it. We were all new once. You'll find that in general, SL is the friendliest place on the internet. Sure, we have the occasional impolite jerk, no way around that, but for the most part, people are very willing to help in SL. It's really unique in that way, has been since the beginning.

Any more questions, ask away.


EDIT: Once again, my slow typing and long-windedness does me in. Jacquelin pretty much said everything I just said, only way faster.

Welcome to SL, Summer!

For tips on Building, type "Ivory Tower" in search, and go there. It's a fantastic in-world tutorial on building tips and tricks.

For info on texturing, search for Robin Sojurner, and check out the texturing tutorial that she set up next to her store. There should be a pick in her profile that will take you there. Fantastic information resource. (And her clothes and hair are great, too!)

For textures for doors, windows, and the like, check the various places that give away free stuff - there is a lot of free texture material available. Search for "Free" in search, and pick up all the goodies that look interesting. Or seek out a texture store like Textures-R-Us, where some of my work is sold, and you can purchase higher-quality textures for use in your building projects. Texture artists like myself can also sometimes be hired to make specific custom textures, or you can learn to make your own texture images in Photoshop or similar applications, and upload them yourself.

Also, read what is in the Building forum and the Design and Textures forum. Lots of great information there, especially Chosen Few's sticky-note on alpha textures, at the top of the Design and Textures forum.

There are a lot of free houses available, too. Throw one up in a sandbox, and then take it apart. See how it is put together.

If you IM me in game, I can send you a couple of houses.

lee

Welcome Summer,

The others have already given you some very good tips. I would like to add to them concerning a door. You already know that a window can be done using a texture. So can a door. That is a trick that Damani uses in their wonderful 18 prim 2 story house. The entire front panel is a single prim, with alpha textures for windows and a door texture. As you approach the door, a script senses you (owner only unless you tell it otherwise) and changes the prim from solid to phantom. This is just one more way to save on prims.

As Chosen said, there are just all kinds of different ways to do things. If you want a real door, you could do the same thing but have the script do a temp-on-rez to generate a temporary front wall and door.

I also recommend that you visit the Ivory Tower. It is the single best source of info on building, with step by step examples that you can see.

Well thank you all for the information.

Last year I tried playing World of Warcraft with my fiancee and got killed by some 14 year old every time I left town. This seems like a much nicer crowd!

This would be a good idea...except wouldn't that mean you could walk in through anywhere on the front wall? I'm not super familiar with sensors as I haven't used them yet, but would this turn it phantom no matter where you approached the wall? Or would it just be the center of the wall?

If it's the latter, then I can see this working if you put the door in the middle as well, because you could just cut down the distance you had to be to it for it to go phantom to almost nothing so that it would go phantom a split second before you went through it.

Otherwise if it's the former, then I'd want a separate prim to do the sensor and I'd alpha it right in the middle of the door.

There are some bugs with displaying two objects with alpha channels together. So it is a trade off. If you intend to have low prim (=lots of alpha channel work) furnishings and , in particular, paintings, then you really need walls, doors and windows with 24 bit textures. Of course, if your furniture is all solid, then alpha is the way to go with your building.

Yes.... unless you limit the size of the front wall and allow the scripts to link/unlink.
I won't pretend to know the details of what happens in Damani's scripts... I can only describe the effect that I see happen.

The prim with the door is not the entire front of the house. It is big enough to hold a door and 2 abutting windows; that's it. It is linked to the house and is otherwise solid. As the owner approaches the door (just a few meter sensor range) this prim de-links from the house, and changes to phantom. The door changes to an alpha texture (I believe it simply rezzes a new prim, a temp, that is phantom with the alpha door) so that the door appears to be open. Technically, yes, you could walk thru what appears to be a window. You cannot walk through any other portion of the front; those prim are still linked and solid. After a few seconds pass, the front prim is replaced by the original solid prim which re-links. It's a very interesting mix of sensors, scripting, textures and prim usage which keeps his houses so low prim.