Screens and such: Rules on area beautification

[Valareos]

I am curious on if mainland rules will allow the following: Im creating a themed area, and  wish that when your in the area, what you see meets the theme.. I got neighbors with sky boxes at 250 or so meters, which means some of them are visible from the ground under certain settings. This isnt a real bother, nor something I want to raise a fuss about.

 

What I want to do is the following:

Surround my land with a privacy wall that extends about 500 meters above the ground. This privacy wall will be transparent on outside, and phantom (people can just pass through it without any trouble) When your inside, it shows a scene more appropriate to the theme.

 

As the screen will not be an eyesore for neighbors, AND will not interefere with free movement through the region, do the rules on mainland allow it?

[Cerise Sorbet]

It might be allowed, but it will be an eyesore to the neighbors. If you are going to surround all sides of the parcel, the insides of those screens will be visible all around, even if the outsides are transparent.

[Valareos]

I see what your saying.. even if this one side was ransparent, they would see all the way through to the other side. Not an issue except for near corners where the two sides are closer together... only other option then is on that other side of the screen im simply displaying a picture of my kingdom on the other side or move it all into a skybox, but i wanted to make use of terrain

 

[Isabelle Mavendorf]

500 meters seems an excessive height and making the walls invisible on the outside would still be an eyesore because the insides of the walls will all be visible from any opposite side. Does that make sense? There are other options, but since you are on the mainland, absolutely everything is allowed as far as what you have on your own parcel. So if you want to build a 500 meter wall that has invisible outside walls, you certainly are allowed to do so. But 500 meters?

 

I'm not sure how big your parcel is, but there are other options such as domes (which are kind of hideous, actually, except they are often textured with clouds on the outside) There are some pretty cool all-season domes that offer full privacy inside and from the outside...well, I've seen worse. But again, it depends on how large of a parcel you have. The biggest dome I've seen is 100 x 100.

Having said that, thank you for caring about your neighbors enough to ask the question. I'm sure whatever you do will look so much better than what I've seen :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Indigo Mertel]

I suggest not to take that path, Valareos. While placing very high walls will screen off visual clutter you won't contribute much to make your corner of Mainland better for everyone else. What you want to achieve is very much feasible in different ways. You are in a similar situation to what we have in the East River Community. Our community is themed and one of the goals we have in our charter is to improve the visual quality of Mainland. We screen off visual clutter through landscaping, by placing large rocks, plants, etc. We also have some buffer zones which keep some distance from neighbors. Very little clutter is visible within the community, only some peripheral areas are marginally affected.

Admittedly, the landscape and the size of our community (6 sims) helps. And if your land is located in a very cluttered area it may take time (and perhaps money to buy land, though that comes cheap nowadays) to get to a satisfying result. One way to increase size rapidly is to federate your group land with other groups of people who share your idea. This is the model we use for our community and it works pretty well. You may want to take a look at our charter to get an idea.

You can see some pictures of our community here to get an idea of what I am talking about.

[Valareos]

Yea, mine is a 144x144 meters, so not able to do spheres, but got a few options...

 

Dont really have neighbors at the moment, one is workign with me to my plans, and another just uses their sky box....  so the entire region is pretty empty as far as direct neighbors. I just dont want to take away from the look.... and 500 meters was without a top on it.. may do a top and can have it less.

 

if I do something like that, would have to make it so people on other side have something to look at.. perhaps making it look like a forest?

 

Or doing the landscaping trick... Hrmm. will have a good think about it

[Qie Niangao]

Screens are almost always better for sky builds than for ground level. I've used them on the ground myself, but only as the least bad of dreadful options.

The thing is, if you're going to screen out the rest of the sim anyway, you might consider making your own terrain in the sky. You can get much higher quality ground textures using mesh terrain, and getting away from the ground almost always reduces lag even if there's not much happening at ground level.

[Valareos]

So, what im looking at here, is wanting to have my area at ground level because im WANTING people wandering around to see it and come in and visit, but got people near that has their skyboxes at a  level of around 300-500 (was certain somewhere they are supposed to put them MUCH higher). Its actually that part which im wanting to find a way of hiding (as anything on ground can be done with strategic landscaping)

 

Wish there was a good way o having best of both worlds

[Qie Niangao]

Now that's an interesting challenge. In fact, I have a similar problem adjacent one of my parcels.  Hmmm.

I wonder if particle clouds would help, or just draw attention to the skyboxes. Not all that long ago, there were "system" particle clouds at about 150m, generated by the sim and a holdover from pre-Windlight skies. If they're old enough, your problem skyboxes may have been largely obscured by those.

In your case, the skyboxes are considerably higher than mine. That's a pretty deep draw distance, at least for those of us Mainlanders who also use vehicles, so there may not be all that many visitors distracted by the skyboxes at that altitude.

Depending on the terrain elevation, it should be possible to mask a lot of the sky with particle clouds much lower than the skyboxes, without their needing to appear truncated abruptly at the parcel edge. Particles won't lag the sim, but they will add to the complexity of what the viewer has to render.

As to the altitude of skyboxes, on Mainland there's no minimum. Generally, the owners are more likely to be newbies the lower the skybox, because viewer lag decreases the further one is from the ground. (An exception to that rule: long ago, the maximum build height was 768m, so there are still some lower skyboxes from that time. Even lower sky builds may originate from the days when unassisted flight was limited to... some even lower number.)

[Curious Hazelnut]

---

Valareos wrote:

So, what im looking at here, is wanting to have my area at ground level because im WANTING people wandering around to see it and come in and visit, but got people near that has their skyboxes at a  level of around 300-500 (was certain somewhere they are supposed to put them MUCH higher). Its actually that part which im wanting to find a way of hiding (as anything on ground can be done with strategic landscaping)

 

Wish there was a good way o having best of both worlds

---

I would start by talking to the neighbours with the skyboxes and ask them if they would be willing to either move their skybox higher (up over 1000m) or to paint the outside sky blue.

Painting the outside sky blue isn't perfect but it will at least reduce the contrast with sky making it harder to notice.

 

I don't know very many people who have their draw distance set much above 128m. I'm surprised the skyboxes are that much of an issue unless your land is on top of a mountain.

[Valareos]

---

Curious Hazelnut wrote:

I would start by talking to the neighbours with the skyboxes and ask them if they would be willing to either move their skybox higher (up over 1000m) or to paint the outside sky blue.

Painting the outside sky blue isn't perfect but it will at least reduce the contrast with sky making it harder to notice.

 

I don't know very many people who have their draw distance set much above 128m. I'm surprised the skyboxes are that much of an issue unless your land is on top of a mountain.

---

 

That actually comes into the heart on why I looking at this. There is one building that is accessable from land, thatn when your on the top is at a height of 200 meters, so any solution i make has to go to a height of that to enclose my entire place.  Yes, you can turn the draw distance down, but the ladns is 144m x 144m and means some place will be inevitably within vew distance of at least one place that has huge billboards on their property. As it is a fantasy/midieval theme, I want to ensure that the rentors and patrons of my place can have a good immesion sensation.. But without causing detriment to any current or future neighbors.  And when I advertise adn want to take shots, I have t set a draw distance of at least 200 if I want to capture the castle from the ground, and dont want to have floating objects in the way of the view lol

it is also withing sight of a road that invariably seems to have a pileup of cars on it

 

im thinking my best option is a double sided screen. Outside using what is normally an inside panoramic view to surround the area, maybe makign it look like a forest or a lake... those far away see a lake, those closer have a ready made backdrop to build against, and would be buying into the area with the full knowledge it was there...  Talk to all immediate neighbors to see if they have an issue against it, and show what im wanting to do. if they fine with it, then thats that problem solved.

Inside then can be whatever I want. and making it so the scenery on both sides is phantom so people CAN walk through it back and forth.

Thanks everyoen for your opinion and input it is greatly appreciated. ill be sure to add screen shots to this thread once i finished so you can see how well it worked

[jwenting]

Tall trees along the borders can block everything from ground level, and look stunning. Create your tall buildings so they block the view towards the outside from each other. E.g. you have 2 tall buildings, put them on the outside edges of your parcel, facing each other, and with (most) windows only facing the interior of the parcel. Helps a lot.

You're somewhat limited as to terraforming, but putting up a line of (lowish) hills near the edges of the parcel can help as well, and make those trees go up even higher (a 10m tall hill with a 25m tall tree on it is already 35m high, higher than most things people build in SL, higher even than most of those ugly privacy screens we all hate).

So now you have your big buildings blocking the view of eyesores outside your parcel from each other, and landscaping blocking or masking things for people not inside those buildings.

If you're medieval or similar, a wall or pallisade around your area can well be in theme. Of course it won't be 500m tall, 10m is more reasonable, without looking out of place to people outside your land (especially if you keep those trees as well a few meters outside of it).

As to those 500m walls, that's just ugly for all the reasons mentioned already, and would cost you a lot of prims. Also, they're ugly from the inside as well (there's a reason any decently designed sim hides its border walls from view with landscaping).

There are special border walls that do look decent and are designed to look like rock faces from inside and out. Might be another option.

[Curious Hazelnut]

---

Valareos wrote:

... As it is a fantasy/midieval theme, I want to ensure that the rentors and patrons of my place can have a good immesion sensation.. But without causing detriment to any current or future neighbors. ...

---

Can we come look? I love seeing what other people build. You are welcome to come visit my somewhat unimaginative little village in Sun Trap.

 

[Valareos]

Thanks again for all your advice! Ive decided on the following:

 

My kingdom will be located up in a skybox (which has avery very nice landscapign screen around it)

Ground level, Ill be designing the Ruins of that kingdom.. bqasically decorated landscame, trees, overgrown castle walls, that sort of thing... its more for look and get peopkle to come and see what is there.

But there will be a throne chair somewhere in that ruins, that when sat on, teleports them to the kingdom.. I feel this will give me best of both worlds, and will be glad to link it to you all once I get more on it done!

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

Hi Cerise,

I have a question, when you all say "it might be allowed" and refer to rules for ML, allowed by whom? Are you talking about community standards? Or are you talking about full regions owned by someone who sets the rules? I don't quite understand, when I've owned (some large and some small) ML parcels, there's never been a covenant.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

 

As to the altitude of skyboxes, on Mainland there's no minimum. Generally, the owners are more likely to be newbies the lower the skybox, because viewer lag decreases the further one is from the ground. (An exception to that rule: long ago, the maximum build height was 768m, so there are still some lower skyboxes from that time. Even lower sky builds may originate from the days when unassisted flight was limited to... some even lower number.)

---

Going back to the days of Viewer 1, I actually preferred keeping my SkyBox lower.  There was a distinct difference in the Sky, clouds, and lighting.

I still prefer being below the clouds so I can see them.

[Valareos]

Must say I am REAL glad i went with that option! its still a work in progress, and juggling prims gets interesting, but.. here is a view of the land on the ground

And here is a look from the Town Square up to the castle in the skybox

 

By the tiem im done the ground will look like a place people want to live next to! and still get myimmerssion effect!

[Tiffy Vella]

That is so much nicer than the original screen idea- you've been given good advice here, and I'm happy to see the outcome. The teleport idea is a great way to get the best of both worlds, and you haven't mucked up the area for anyone else. Love the trees!