Building Tips for Novice 201

The second part of the Building Tips for Novice Series:

Design and Build Basics 202

This simple tutorial is designed to assist the novice builders in Second Life. A Novice Builder is an individual having a solid understanding of basic prim shaping, aligning prims so there's no shimmer when textures are applied. A solid understanding of elementary texturing and the ability to incorporate basic applications of scripts into a build format.

If you do not as of yet have these elementary skills, this tutorial will not help you with those skills. Please look at SL Wiki for tutorials and information to assist you. Also doing a search in the SL search tab for Building classes will find several good building classes you can attend in world to learn the basics.

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Inside the Prims:

Inside the Prims is a term I used to describe the times I would have to go back and correct textures, be it glimmer. color bleed, texture stretch or a wrong prim size. As a novice builder I spent a lot of time Inside the Prims fixing things I should have done right the first time. I was only covering the sides of the prims with textures as a new builder that I could see and this got a little better as a novice covering all the sides or most of them. Tended to not do the base of objects for some reason for a while and always had to go back.

Please read the whole tutorial before attempting this process of internal prim tweaking.

The art of being Inside the Prim is when you cam along the face of an object and then turn your view from the side or top of the prim into the interior of the prim itself and see the hidden sides of the object. Remember prims can have from one to nine sides on them and not all will always be seen.

Now a days being Inside the Prims only occurs when I have changed my mind on a texture application of many prims during a build. So it is a very essential skill to master and utilize as a builder.

Some helpful hints for this technique:
Camming:
The first step is to cam beyond the prim you want to look inside of and then cam forward towards it a little and then swing into the prim you want to see. The edge face of the prim will center itself in your viewer and you can then click on it with select/edit texture and change or tweak the prim face.

The hidden prim edges are the best way to move around when Inside a Prim camming. So always start at one end of a row of prims you are going to correct or change and cam back from one end to along the way you can stop in each prim center and correct the lower, upper and face wall of the prim in front of you. You can then turn at a 90 degree angle and go down the next set of prims on the build. when done with a full sweep of the objects you where correcting you can do the same process in the opposite order and correct the prim side you missed as you back cammed through the first time.

Be systematic in this process it will help make it easier and quicker. Figure out what way you cam through the build and stick to it a hit and click method will end up taking more time and you will miss prim edges.

Sometimes it's easier to redo the whole group link as a whole with the texture change and then just re texture the face edge of the prim thats being seen, that are different.

When changing floor or ceiling inside prims (usually do to glimmer or texture change on just one side of the prim) you want to take and use the same camming into the prim process as you would use for a wall. So cam beyond the floor or ceiling prim you wish to look into and then cam up or down
into the prim. Once again go along the rows of prims.

An alternative method of camming the prims in a floor or ceiling is to do a 360 degree turn from the center prim outward as you do your sweeps. This allows for more prim sides to be changed in a faster period of time.
You will usually see 2 or 3 prim sides at a time as you turn in circles that radiate outward from the center point of the object link group of prims you are changing.

*** Texture Changing Linked Objects***
It is extremely important that you make sure you do this process correctly. After changing a total build to one texture after several hours or days worth of work will help make the point to you.

* Always check to see that in the Edit box that Edit Linked parts and Select Texture have been selected.
* Visually look at the hi-lighted prims as a visual check.
* Check to see that the prim count is the right amount in the Selected Objects section of the Edit Box.

Texture Tweaking:

The number one basic you must always remember when tweaking and stretching textures is to make sure that the prims are the same size and dimensions this means height, width and length.

So take the time to divide the space you need to fill with prims so you get them all the same size, yes use the calculator if you have to :).
The quickest way to get the exact size is to place out the prim needed to fill the space let one edge stick out ot over the prim that will form the angle. Then just stretch back the one prim thats hanging over and add up the total length, height or width of the total object space to be filled with prims. This may seem like a little bit of work but in the long run when you are trying to tweak your textures to fit the prims correctly this will pay off.

The next step is making sure your prims are aligned properly.
The axis X,Y,Z and the direction that the prim was placed in world will effect the texture arrangement.
Alignment at 0/360 degrees - 0/180 - 90/270 and so on are important to have correct.
A prim spun around and/or flipped on it's axis in a row of prims all laid out will texture and stretch different than the fellow prims in a row.

There seems to be a general sequence to texture stretching when using prims of 10 meter size or 5 meter and so on.

The rules of Odd Numbers seems to work best when applying a texture across a prim;
A ten meter wide by ten meter tall prim looks best when a texture is stretched to a 1.0000 x 1.0000 setting, or a 1.0000 x 3.0000 setting
If doing a 10 x 1 or .9 and smaller width prim the rule tends to follow a 3 x .0300 setting.

The larger the area to cover the greater the Odd number setting will be. When I cut a hole in a prim or need to cover the circumference of the edge of a cylinder or inner cut sphere I have found that the setting for a what ever size prim ?.???? x.5000 width prim is 15/9/7/5 3/ x 0.300 usually the larger numbers tend to look better on the stretch, especially in side edges of holes cut for openings where you are going to place in an Alpha textured prim as a window and so on.

I have also found that for some reason making the prim out of a basic shape prim - Cube, Cylinder, Sphere, Torus there are less issues if you are using it in a grouping of complicated prims that are twists and in a grouping arrangements. You tend not to get the "Alpha Bleed Effect" which can occur from a prim that has been twisted, sliced, cut and dimpled greatly. (yes a little more complicated, a future tutorial on this effect soon).
Prims also for some reason tend to take an Alpha texture better than the SL produced shapes made from these Basic Prim shapes.

Tip*

If your into a build and need to or want to change a large section of prims textures (roof, floor ,walls) do the following edit select link/select texture and edit touch the prims you want to change and change the edges only you need to change by applying the texture to the prims selected via the texture box in the edit screen.

If changing a large section of prims and the texture stretch is not lining up properly then do the following - edit select / object and edit touch the prims you want to change and hi-light them then drop the texture on to them all and tweak the edges showing as a group. Then apply the texture to the faces of the prims you will see and tweak accordingly as a group. Just using select link/select texture options for the prim faces you are working on.

So to wrap it up, it's always best to do it right the first time. Have a system - prim size - proper prim alignment - orientation of prims right - groupings correct - textures applied correct the first time - and all sides stretched correctly.

Have fun and be as creative as you can be within the concept of the design you are building. Realize its ok to make mistakes we all do and we will always have a few as we get better, But in Sl you can delete and redo oh so fast.

Also, remember that not everyone will like your build or style or textures or methods or design its ok, listen and learn from what input you get from them and use it to get better as you develop your style and methods of design, building and techniques.

These are just basic guidelines, but applying them will make you a better builder in a faster time. So as all great builders, designers and artist use the basics and let your mind free to do the fun stuff.

Good Luck and Good Building.

Nyx Breen
Prim Pushers