a 1-prim fence

Hi, first of all I’m a newbie so go gently on me. Now, I am attempting to build a little fence that goes around my property. I know how to build one, that for sake of simplicity can be described as 1 wooden plank running across the top, 1 plank across the bottom (on the ground), and say 5 shorter planks running vertically, equidistant from one another, connecting the top plank to the bottom. So, my five plank fence is made of 7 “pieces of wood”, 7 prims (if I understand the system correctly).

But, ideally, I’d like to make one square (or rectangular) piece of wood, and CUT OUT four vertical, rectangular holes, so that I appear to have the five plank fence described above.

Let me know if you have any ideas, the point of course is to minimise prim usage. If you want me to invite you to my land so you can have a look at what I'm talking abou, let me know. Thanks in advance for any advice...

you would need to use textures to get the effect your looking for, basicly a image of a fence with the inner parts between the slats being made transparent (instead of grass or whatever)

that way you could use 1 prim for upto 10meter streaches

thanks mate, that could work.. but how do i go about making the inner parts transparent? I thought a texture applied to an object "coats" the entire object? I didn't know you could "spot texture"? Thanks again, that's progress!

You need a 32 bit TGA with an Alpha Channel

How.. involves knowing your program and operating system. The forums here have a NUMBER of tutorials on how to get good alpha channels on TGAs... the process is counter intuitive in Photoshop (uses the old Photoshop alpha method.. pre-layers.. using the "Channels" tab, rather than layer transparency like you'd use on a PNG.)

Google can also be your friend...

["alpha channel" tga photoshop]
["alpha channel" tga "paint shop pro"]

etc.

1. you might want to ask how to make that fence texture in the design and textures part of forum. they talk constantly about making textures with transparent parts.

2. you might want to join some of the large building groups in SL and ask if someone has a fence of that type already made.

In case it wasn't made clear to you, the reason we're talking textures as a solution to your fence building is because Second Life does not allow for boolean solid operations, i.e. you cannot subtract one prim from another to make a different shape (you can however cut, hollow and so on using the edit window). This is due to the nature of Second Life's Primitives (or Prims). Many have asked for boolean solid operations and for vertex editing but Second Life continues to use it's primitives until such times as internet connections and the computers on either sides (servers and clients) can handle the sheer amount of data required to maintain a world using these solid modelling archetectures. My advice is to play around with Second Life's building tools, figure out whats possible and continue to try and work around the 'limits' imposed.
Oh and spot texturing, if you edit a prim or object (link-set) and choose select texture (which is a radio button on the edit window) you can click on a surface to change it's texture or multiple surfaces by holding shift and clicking on more surfaces.

If you would be happy with 4 or 6 short vertical planks, you could make the fence out of 2 or 3 hollowed cubes. It is not one prim, but neither is it 7.

There are instructions for making textures with transparent areas here.
There are also texture stores in SL where you may be able to buy a texture that gives the effect you want.

thanks for the advice everyone... I'll see what I can sort out and post back. Looks doable in some way, so i'll have a look around.

I DID IT!!! thanks everyone! well... very nearly did it.

I am on a Mac, and opened Graphic Converter. I found the wood texture I want from some guy giving them away. I opened that square image of wood, selected a smaller square in the middle of it, and went to Edit/Make Selection Transparent. I then Saved As a TGA file, and uploaded to SL.. and it worked! I know a square with a hole in the middle isn't the fence I described, but conceptually it's no different: it's a portion of fence with just 2 vertical railings.

Now, for the "sort of" part: when I stretched my little square, the Top and Sides of my box stretched out too, of course, but they also became transparent. But, I'm not too concerned, as I think that I can just apply the same wood texture to the top and sides, to be opaque, and then I should be there, yeah? Just need to sort out if/how I can apply a texture only to individual areas of an object, but I think I saw something around here about that.

I'm sure it's the easiest thing in the world for some of you, but for someone who has never done any of this before, it's a major accomplishment. so thanks again for your help everyone, any other tips or advice of course are appreciated.

Edited to add just saw NandNerd's comment about spot-texturing, that's what I'm looking for, thanks...

don't forget, you have the capability of "repeating" your texture across the surface of the prim.. so although the original image is just your two vert/two horiz boards, you can repeat in each direction and with enough repeats give the two horiz/5 or 6 vert posts for your fence.

I'm still new at all this too, but repeat has been my friend already, turning my basic hollow-cube walls with redwood panel texture into a pseudo-log cabin look

that's an excellent suggestion, I hadn't thought of it... i can make a 10m long box prim, and slap/repeat the fence texture on top, and save myself about 5 prims. Beautiful! thanks for the tip.

You could try Yadnis junkyard. pick up all the texture boxes there. There are plenty to choose from and if i remember right there are some picket fence ones too