Building tips for a beginner?

[gianguy82]

New to SL and ready to fully jump into all it has to offer. Downloaded the game out of curiosity thinking it would be a one off thing, but I'm actually really enjoying my time here so far and want to try my hand at building. I'm a recent architecture graduate in RL so all the building / modeling aspects of SL seem to be right up my alley. Problem is, it's all so overwhelming and I have no idea where to even begin. Not sure if I'm necessarily posting in the right section, but I was wondering if anybody could share some advice for a newbie on where to start with this sort of thing.

For context, I really want to purchase a parcel of land and build a bar. I'm aware it's not the best business model and that everyone and their mother on SL has already done so, but I'm solely doing this for fun and not necessarily looking to profit off of it. I don't mind pouring a bit of my own money into it either, as I imagine it's inevitable that I'd have to, but I am still trying to budget myself without spending hundreds of dollars a month. My biggest questions right now are:

-What land is best for commercial use? Are there any particular rentals I should be looking at? Size, prims, etc. for what I'm trying to do?

-When is it more practical to upload custom meshes vs. building with prims in game? For example, if I were looking to create a custom bar counter - is that something that I'd be better off modeling on my own in another program / purchasing a mesh off the marketplace? Or is it something I can just build in game using prims and still have it look decent?

 

I realize I may be going in way over my head seeing as I haven't even been in the game full week yet, but this is something I'd really like to start soon. If anybody has any other advice they're willing to share to help me get started, I'd be very grateful.

[Rolig Loon]

Regardless of what you may end up creating with mesh,  you'll need to be able to handle the basic building tools in SL.  Prims are always handy for making quick mockups of things, so can get a feel for scale and proportion, and they are useful for making simple items, so it's good to understand how the tools for prim manipulation work.  Those same tools are important for assembling more organic objects that you create in mesh, and for placing them in world. Then, no matter how you create objects, they look lifeless until you texture them and manipulate surface properties, so that's the next step. Beyond, there are the challenges of making your objects react to the world around them -- writing the scripts that move them and the animations that control complex motion.  It is rare for a creator to be skilled in all of these aspects -- we tend to focus on the parts where we have native talent and the patience to flourish -- but it is important to at least know enough to work constructively with people who have other creative skills.

I'd start hanging around Builders Brewery, perhaps taking a few free classes.  Find a quiet sandbox with enough open space to experiment in, and to get a feel for how much space you need for the work you plan to do.  It's hard to know what sort of land you will need until you have explored and experimented for a while, but it's good to at least read through the land articles in the Knowledge Base so that you know the language of land ownership and management.  

Edited November 4, 2022 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Your grasp of the local terminology is excellent for a new beginner. I'm sure you'll do fine.

[Marvin Benelli]

Yes, I agree with Rolig, first go to the brewery to focus on building with prims. Either by own experiments using tutorials or by asking other builders out there for help or by following classes. It’s a very supportive community and completely free.

You don’t need to buy/rent land for your purpose of building a bar. You can make it in the brewery and save your work in your inventory on logout.

When you have learned how to link primitives into more complex objects you can start replacing parts that need more details with mesh replacements. That would require knowledge of 3d programs like Blender, Maya and the like.

In short: you can do everything you want without spending money!

[Island Granville]

Re: land - start with your premium 1024, run out of prims, upgrade tier, buy more land. Rinse and repeat..

Careful, tier is a slippery slope. But for the cost of a couple of dinners out per month, you can have an awesome amount of fun exploring land ownership in SL. Last year I was holding fast at $4 tier (extra 512m), frustrated and drooling over the impossible prim allowances of bigger parcels. Then I realized that, if I drink less beer (insert your own self-improvement here), I could manage much more tier. It was a completely new and refreshing SL for me, and I had the freedom to buy multiple parcels and try them out - locations, esthetics, parcel sizes, different terrains, and more - roadside, water, secluded mountain, wide open plains... I went a little crazy and expanded too far, hence the slippery slope warning, but I have since reined it in to 1/4 sim of smaller parcels, and I'm pretty happy with it

If I have one suggestion for buying land, it's to watch the auctions. You'll get a good sense of what different types of parcels are actually worth at "wholesale". I don't begrudge a reasonable markup if I'm buying a parcel I really like - landsellers need to make some sort of income - but it's helpful to have a sense of value so I can make informed decisions. You'll also  find that "undesirable" land (ie not waterfront, roadside or easily resellable) can be bought at auction with little challenge, so at or close to L$0.5/m. Undesirable to landflippers might just be perfect for you, so keep an eye out.

[Maxwell Graf]

Responding more here to the creation aspects rather then the SL specific elements of your post. Starting out working with 3D can be a daunting task, there is an insane level of options and information out there. I've been a digital artist since about 1984ish, so what I will focus on is giving you some info on where to begin doing mesh.

If you do not already have software I would suggest getting Blender, which is free and has a ridiculous amount of documentation, tutorials and videos of how to us it as well as both an SL user community and a huge community online for getting help. If you have never done 3D before, something even simpler, like Sketchup, would work to get your feet wet.

As the others mentioned, it is really important to have an understanding of the basic prim building system and the object editing capabilities within the SL viewer. That will go a long way to helping you understand how the outside SL software and the inside SL tools system can work together to produce your final result.

When you begin learning in your 3D program, I suggest starting off with something very basic, for example a cube. Learn how to model it, do the UV map, create the texture, export it all correctly and then import it all correctly and put it together in SL, which is not the least of the steps but often the most confusing as you try to import things. Figuring out how to make your ideas work within the confines of the platform and tools can often be the hardest part of the whole process. It is not an exact science, though you would think it so.

I think the biggest mistake I see people make when starting to create with 3D is starting off with something way too complex, like a vehicle or a dragon, etc. Very soon it becomes overwhelming and you crash to a halt. Start simple. Basic. Get that cube into SL, looking correct and working properly, then you have everything you need to work in SL. The most complicated item you can think of works the same way as that cube. Learn the basics and it will make the complex stuff later on much easier to work with.

Lastly, don't forget to stop and smell the pixels, there is a community of amazing and fantastic people here, like nothing else online. Using a lot of 3rd party software means you will be working outside of SL a lot of the time (in some modeling or texturing program or in therapy) and it can be really easy to miss all the amazing people and things going on there. I met my partner in SL 16 years ago! What I mean is, don't get so wrapped up in the tools and technology here that you miss what's/who's around you. It is easy to get into creating, start a business here and isolate yourself on a work platform up in the sky, too. GO OUT. Teleport away to some place you have never been, journey across the mainland, go to events, dance and listen to music, do some roleplay, have cartoon sex with a stranger of unknown gender, fight in battles, experience the world here. Being part of this community can change your life. Don't miss out on that opportunity while you build away the hours learning all the new things. I say community instead of player base or users or whatever because if you engage them like that, that is all it will ever be. The people here have saved my life TWICE, literally, when I needed help. There is nothing like this that exists anywhere outside of SL.

Ask for help if you need it. We love having new people join and most folks will be glad to assist. Good luck on your journey.