Show Off Your Best Prim Builds!!!

[ChinRey]

How could we forget to add a thread like that???

But finally, here it is. Post pictures of your best prim builds. No meshes, no sculpts - prims and prims only. Unless you can come up with some good use for system vegetation - that's ok too.

Two categories: single prim builds and multiple prim builds.

I'm going to start simple with one of the classic prim twist all old hands know. It's a one prim lamp.

[Phil Deakins]

HEY! YOU STOLE MY DESIGN!!!

I used to sell lamps like that, but only floor lamps They weren't very good because you can't light up the shade without lighting up the stem as well, so they can't behave like a lamp.

Good thread, btw.

Edited August 25, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[ChinRey]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

HEY! YOU STOLE MY DESIGN!!!

I used to sell lamps like that, but only floor lamps 

Yes, I've mostly seen the design used for floor lamps. I think it works better as a table lamp though.

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

They weren't very good because you can't light up the shade without lighting up the stem as well, so they can't behave like a lamp.

Oh. You should have told me before. I didn't know it was impossible so I did it anyway.

[Phil Deakins]

hmmm. nice

[Phil Deakins]

Never having included a pic before, I'm going to give it a go...

 

Celtic iron fireplace (3 prims)

Chesterfield sofa (6 prims - the most prims I ever used for a sofa)

It cheats though because the feet are a 1-prim scuplty.

 

Edited August 25, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[MattEagleson]

Custom fire station i did. In total it's 143 prims but once linked it comes down to 72 and only took 3 days of non stop work.

[Coby Foden]

Another type of one prim lamp.
I still have saved this Ultimate guide to prim twisting .

[Rolig Loon]

I've always been mildly proud of this box airplane that I made in about 2012.  It's almost all prim (I think the propeller was one of my first attempts at making a sculpty) and it flies like a bewitched lawn mower on steroids.  It's not particularly artistic, but it has a kind of funky charm.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

Here's a couple of old prim builds from yesteryear that are among my favourites.

This is a random build (189 prims) that sprang out of me experimenting with prims one lazy sunday afternoon.

  

I think the thing I loved most about this one was the way the moon in the center would "burst into flames" each time the SL sun came up and the particle system triggered.

 

My other favourite is the willow tree (188 prims) which was made during the first week that flexiprims were introduced to the main grid.

  

The entire thing is made from cylinders and torii with flexiprim leaves, and about 90% of the time it took to make was spent trying to align the seamless texture on the branches. 

[Pamela Galli]

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Never having included a pic before, I'm going to give it a go...

 

Celtic iron fireplace (3 prims)

Chesterfield sofa (6 prims - the most prims I ever used for a sofa)

It cheats though because the feet are a 1-prim scuplty.

 

I remember that sofa, Phil — very impressive!

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

I remember that sofa, Phil — very impressive!

Thank you, Pam. It's one of a range of chesterfields that I made. I posted that one as an example.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

On 8/25/2018 at 5:06 PM, Rolig Loon said:

I've always been mildly proud of this box airplane that I made in about 2012.  It's almost all prim (I think the propeller was one of my first attempts at making a sculpty) and it flies like a bewitched lawn mower on steroids.  It's not particularly artistic, but it has a kind of funky charm.

I love the aesthetic of these kinds of builds, whether they're delightfully charming or exuberantly creative. They feel like they come from the heart and share some of the creator's/s' personality. ?

[ChinRey]

OH NO! It's the...

the...

Mandatory MMPORG Background Crate!!! ?

Yes, I know, I know. But there is a reason why it's mandatory for MMPORGs and other computer games.

Building in SL is very much about individual objects. Each and every item is supposed to be the star of the show. I sometimes compare it to a band where everybody plays the solo guitar (and often where they can't agree which tune to play). Building for a computer game is all about context. You have to try to make a scene where the total effect is more than the sum of its parts. For that you need the "drummers and bass players" of 3D modelling, simple, unassuming items that does most of the grunt work but don't steal the limelight. It's a completely different approach to 3D modelling and sometimes we want to do it that way in SL too.

The crate is so brilliantly suitable for backup. It's marvelously low on load and it fits just about everywhere.

This is more of a lesson than a showoff so I'll start with one I didn't make myself. It's by Aley - or Arcadia Asylum as she was known as back then:

Aley liked to use texture atlases, combining several textures into one, probably to save upload fees. She did that here, all four crate sides are on the same texture:

That's probably what gave her the idea to do this:

Eight crates, made from a single prim and a single 512x512 texture. It's so simple and sooo effective.

---

I have a few alts who sometimes fancy themselves as builders just because they happen to share an RL brain with me. One of them, Lynx, thought she could do better than Aley herself. She made this:

It's only six crates, so not as good as Aley's eight. But yes, it's still only one prim and unless it's intended as cargo onboard a ship (which Aley's was), it does look a bit more credible.

Lynx took it a litle bit further though. Each of these groups, with 6-30 crates, is made from a single prim:

 

You want more? If we're careful with the physics shapes, modern land impact calculation lets us have two prims for a single LI. These twelve stacks are made from two prims each but they are still only 1 LI: (Edit: make that ten stacks - seems there may be some duplicates there. I guess I will need to have a stern talk with my alt.)

 

Anybody who are interested can pick up a package with both Aley's originals and Lynx' hacks at the Arcadia Asylum Library in Kesiwck or the GTFO hub in Buttermere. They're listed for sale but the price is only 0 L$ so hopefully most people can afford them.

---

But it doesn't end there. I couldn't let one of my alts believe she's a better prim builder than me of course. And she did overlook one very obvious variant:

Two separate crates made from a single prim.

---

And it's still not the end. There are countless other options but I leave those to others to make.

This is one of the palces - one of the many places - where the prims really shine. You don't have to worry about LoD. You don't have to worry too much about lag. You don't have to spend Lindens on upload fee. You don't have to spend hours of broing work in Blender or Maya. You don't have to leanr all those ways to work around the many flaws in SL's mesh implementation. A few minutes of basic prim twisting and a well chosen old stock texture and you have an object that works at least as good as - probably much better than - the most elaborate mesh.

So, if you want to make a scene in SL, go out and twist your prims. Only, make sure they are properly sedated before the oepration - we don't want to torture those poor little things.

Edited August 26, 2018 by ChinRey
Typos

[Rolig Loon]

1 hour ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I love the aesthetic of these kinds of builds, whether they're delightfully charming or exuberantly creative. They feel like they come from the heart and share some of the creator's/s' personality. ?

Thanks, Bitsy. It's been quite a while since anyone bought this airplane from me, but I like to think that's a commentary on the waning popularity of prim items rather than my artistic genius.  You give me hope.

[Hintswen Guardian]

It all starts with a cube...

Then it turns into a QR code:

Where to go from here? How about a QR code that covers an entire region:

This code changes daily so when the map generates (every few days) a new code is captured. Haven't worked out why some parts are grey yet though.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

Haven't worked out why some parts are grey yet though.

I may be able to explain that.

Look at this:

 

Yes, this is a scaled up picture of an actual texture created for Second Life, except the black bits are supposed to be transparent. 10x7 pixels was all I needed. But 10x7 is not supported by SL so I had to expand it to 16x8:

 

 

Uploaded, it looks like this:

Textures are always blurred in Second Life. And map tiles are just regular texutres. The only thing special about them is how they are generated.

[Hintswen Guardian]

13 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Textures are always blurred in Second Life. And map tiles are just regular textures. The only thing special about them is how they are generated.

I had thought of that but the picture I posted is the map image itself... the first one doesn't do it on the map (I don't have the image handy but it's perfect) I believe the issue with the full size version is due to me using cut/hollowed prims (5 faces per prim to reduce the LI). I haven't had a chance to do further testing with it yet to see if there is a way to make all the white faces show as 1 color. I tried full bright but that made no difference.

[Peony Sweetwater]

Not sure if this retaining wall is my best, but it's my most recent prim build.

My store in Bay City is on the edge...literally! And in Bay City that means the surface of my land floats several metres above the water with a void under it. For a while I'd filled it in with a curved chunk of a cylinder with a grass texture on it, but I think this retaining wall looks better. I might remake it in mesh one day...when I can be bothered.

And yes, my store is still predominantly prim - a heavily modified version of an old Four Winds build. Mesh builds these days can't be modified like the old prim versions could...and none of the prefabs work for me as they are.

[Love Zhaoying]

Columns I made for the “goth mode” of my giant club.

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

This has sentimental value to me, I was working myself like a mule in our biz startup and was gone from SL for many years, when I came back last year I got a premium account because I was so impressed with all the new additions, mesh, bento, etc.  So those premium homes are boring tho right?  lol... Nothing some prims and textures cant spruce up!  I wish I had saved more pics, it was a lot of fun to build.

[Hintswen Guardian]

On 10/31/2018 at 4:25 AM, Macrocosm Draegonne said:

This has sentimental value to me, I was working myself like a mule in our biz startup and was gone from SL for many years, when I came back last year I got a premium account because I was so impressed with all the new additions, mesh, bento, etc.  So those premium homes are boring tho right?  lol... Nothing some prims and textures cant spruce up!  I wish I had saved more pics, it was a lot of fun to build.

Woah that looks amazing! I don't think it's actually allowed though, I recall something about not being able to change the external look of the houses.

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

16 hours ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

Woah that looks amazing! I don't think it's actually allowed though, I recall something about not being able to change the external look of the houses.

There was no problem whatsoever, nobody bothered me about it even once for all the time it was there for many many months, and there are others putting things on their roof and such, its common, though mine was more elaborate lol.  I used the ll-houses roof-top deck which had a door to the inside to build my elevator shaft and connect in the two additional floors and rooftop deck.

So long as you stay in your prim limit and boundaries, and dont break Adult/Moderate rules, you can do anything you want to the linden home.  I needed more space and moved on eventually, but it was a nice starting point for me having been gone so many years.

I actually found a copy thats not distorted, I cant find any of the furnished pics, i guess they're gone.

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne

[ellestones]

@Macrocosm Draegonne

i can't remember exactly the wording, but am pretty sure there are some conditions in the estate covenant in About Land dialog

 

[Cube Republic]

Old prim build

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

On 11/6/2018 at 5:33 PM, ellestones said:

@Macrocosm Draegonne

i can't remember exactly the wording, but am pretty sure there are some conditions in the estate covenant in About Land dialog

Oh, well... you know...  Asking forgiveness is far better than permission with creative endeavors!   After a while I tore it down and bought mainland parcels so I could have more prims to build with, got double prim lots in Horizons.