How can I make a beach

[DelizaLove]

How can I make a beach when the ground texture is grass ?

 

I tried to lower the terrain until water showed up which is good, but the texture is still grass. I would like to have sand. Someone told me to make a layer with sand texture and put above it, but I cant get that to work.

 

Thanks

[GTASkinCentral]

I highly recommend searching 'Land Map' on the Marketplace rather than changing the texture levels in land options, there is a tool that scans the terrain and generates a series of sculpted prims based on it, it will fit perfectly to your land.

Included a picture of the final result when I used it. It's really useful as you can do in and change the texture at any time too! 

If you wish, add me as a friend in-world and I can help you

Apologies for the awful graphics on these pics, they were taken years ago when I had no idea about SL photography

 

[Rolig Loon]

That's exactly how you have put the grass on much of your parcel already.  It's just a prim with a grass texture applied to it.  You can do essentially the same thing to make a beach, since you have the advantage that (1) your parcel is flat, (2) there's a prim sidewalk at the edge of the grass, so you can hide the boundary between glass and sand under the sidewalk.  You can buy sand textures at almost any landscaping store in world.

That will at least get you a simple beach, which you can tilt gently so that is oceanward edge is underwater.  It's not a very exciting beach, since it will be a flat surface.  If you want something fancier, you can either take the route that GTA suggests and use a modeling tool to create a beach shape that fits your land or, again, you can go shopping for prefab landforms in Marketplace or in world. 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Unlike GTA I would begin with looking in the land options. With those you can blend the sand into the grass, rather than having to use objects that will not only leave a sharp edge, but also raise lag and lower your available amount of prims.

If you don't have the rights to edit the terrain textures and their height, you could ask your landlord (assuming you're not on Linden Land, in which case you can forget all the above).

[ChinRey]

I have to agree with both GTA ans Kwakkelde here. the JVTEK Land Map is a great invention and can be a great help for any SL landscaper but it comes at a price.

The prim count shouldn't usually be an issue, it only takes 64 sculpts to cover an entire prim and you shouldn't get any noticeable sharp edges between the sculpts if you're careful and follow the instructions. Lag can become a serious problem though, especially if you're careless with the texturing, you'll have to make new sculpts every time you reshape the ground, you can't rez on top of them and there's no way you'll ever get them to fit exactly so be prepared for a little bit of sinking into the ground (actually, come to think of it, on a beach that may an advantage, not a problem).

 

My advice is don't be afraid to use Land Maps if you really need them but check if you can retexture the actual ground first.

[dd Temin]

If you are the region/estate owner  or if you have Estate Manager  permissions....;then you can set the elevation at which the different terrain textures such as  sand and grass begin and end. However  for terrain  textures each region is divided into 4 quadrants (NE,NW,SE,SW.)   You can see this  by choosing World...region/estate....ground textures. But you do need estate manager permissions  to make changes.

dd