Staircase / Path on a Hill

[Egonya]

Hi. I've put a home on a hill, and I'd like to put a staircase and pathway leading up to it.

Are there prefab stairs I might buy somewhere? Or should I build it myself? I'm brand new to building...

 

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

Either way works.  Making your own stairs can use a lot of prims, so buying or making a mesh staircase is going to save you a lot of the parcel's L.I.  You will find many prefabs in Marketplace and in-world shops.  Of course, a really cheap alternative is to forget about stairs, unless you want them for decoration.  You can fly, after all, and you can always install a simple point-to-point teleporter as well.

[Fionalein]

There are mesh stairs -which is what I would reccomend you to use, as self buildt ones usually eat up way to many prims... before buying stars look at them inworld, some mash is really poorly done and will collaps into triangles from far away (which would look silly)

[Egonya]

Can you recommend stores with prefab mesh stairs? I can't seem to find any.

[Rolig Loon]

In Marketplace, set your search parameters to look for "stairs" in the Category "Building and Object Components".  You will find a large selection >>>> https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?utf8=✓&search[category_id]=8&search[maturity_level]=GMA&search[keywords]=stairs

EDIT:  Or, even better, search in that category for "stairs AND mesh" >>>

 https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?utf8=✓&search[category_id]=8&search[maturity_level]=GMA&search[keywords]=stairs+AND+mesh

Edited August 9, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[ChinRey]

17 hours ago, Egonya said:

Can you recommend stores with prefab mesh stairs? I can't seem to find any.

One important tip, make sure the stairs you buy are made for outdoors use. Indoors stairs typically have reduced LoD models and will look horrible at a distance.

If you decide to build your own prim staircase after all, there's one common trick to reduce the number of prims. Rez a cube, set pathcut to 0.125 and 0.875. Then rotate and size it any way you like. That way you get two steps from a single prim.

 

 

(Edit: if you play around a bit with modern LI and such, you can even get four steps for one land impact. a really good project if you want to learn building but probably more bother than it's worth if you only want to make a single staircase.)

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by ChinRey

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

An advantage of building your own is that you'll have greater flexibility for working with the contours of your land. Plus the buzz of achievement and learning a new skill  

Like I'm looking at ChinRey's linked path cut set up and imagining the larger box stretched on one axis to make space for flower pots, maybe a wee landing for a chair looking out over the water....

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Like I'm looking at ChinRey's linked path cut set up and imagining the larger box stretched on one axis to make space for flower pots, maybe a wee landing for a chair looking out over the water....

Hmmm...

It's a bit early but I'll take the chance that the mesh collectables fad has calmed down enough by now it's possible to state one of the most fundamental rules for good SL building and still survive the flaming:

Prims when possible, mesh when necessary, sculpts for some very special cases and no rule without exceptions.

Edited August 10, 2018 by ChinRey

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

4 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Prims when possible, mesh when necessary, sculpts for some very special cases and no rule without exceptions.

/me wants to embroider this on every build platform in world