Mesh House creation - Question about pricing?

[Skylar Woodford]

I've been a member of Second Life for over 14 years - I've built many homes in the past all Prim based.

I've recently started creating homes in blender- which I'm realizing takes a lot more effort, but with the benefit of being more precise and highly customizable!!

Previously my Prim houses sold quite well, I took them off the marketplace so I can start posting my mesh homes- I listed my Prim houses quite cheap, around 2,500L and they had no problem selling.

My question is about pricing, by the time this house is done I'll probably have dedicated a full 24 hours to creating it! It's quite detailed but I only post the one screenshot right now so you get the idea.

My friend said to list the item appropriately for how many hours it takes me to complete? If it's going to take me 24 hours, that means I'd be listing it at 24,000L, is that too much? I've seen some homes much higher on the marketplace.

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

LOL.  Well if that was only true.  

Today there are so MANY great houses out there that folks can get for 50 lindens or so (including BIG ones)  there isn't really much call for new homes. Add the fact that a big portion of the market now lives in Belli and doesn't NEED a house and you have the current market.

I still sell some very niche houses now and then but most are 500 lindens are less and yes they took me for-e-ver.  

 

My best advice assuming your house looks great when it is all textured and the physics is CORRECT (if you haven't been there yet be prepared) is to go look at some of the long time home sellers and compare your product to their "current" prices.  

Just listing a house (or land for sale) doesn't mean it will sell for that price ; same in the corporeal world. 

That's my input -- but thanks for giving me a smile and remembering those days when prims were king

[Stephanie Misfit]

8 hours ago, Skylar Woodford said:

My friend said to list the item appropriately for how many hours it takes me to complete? If it's going to take me 24 hours, that means I'd be listing it at 24,000L, is that too much? I've seen some homes much higher on the marketplace.

Remember that you are (hopefully) selling this home many times, not just once. 24k is far too much, houses in that price range are usually massive and fully furnished and may have taken weeks or even months to create.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

8 hours ago, Skylar Woodford said:

My friend said to list the item appropriately for how many hours it takes me to complete? If it's going to take me 24 hours, that means I'd be listing it at 24,000L, is that too much? I've seen some homes much higher on the marketplace.

There's no magic formula for a good price. 🙂 You could spend 100 hours on a building, but that doesn't mean it's worth 100k.

The pricing "rules" are the same as for prim/sculpt buildings -- make what the target audience wants, for a price they're willing to pay.

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

My best advice assuming your house looks great when it is all textured and the physics is CORRECT (if you haven't been there yet be prepared)...

... and the LOD is good and the land impact isn't too high.

 

9 hours ago, Skylar Woodford said:

My question is about pricing, by the time this house is done I'll probably have dedicated a full 24 hours to creating it! It's quite detailed...

Oh, that's a really well proportioned house and I love the board-and-batten exterior! You got a proper deep fundament too so people can fit it to sloping and uneven terrain. Lots of builders miss that simple point.

However, it's not "quite detailed" by modern mesh house standards. It's easy to fix though: add some proper lining to the roof, simple crowns and bases for the pillars and maybe gutters and you can double the price. Texturing will also make a huge difference in what people will be willing to pay for it and we don't know how that will be.

Even so, Chic is absolutely right about the price level for such houses in SL. What she said about Belli is especially important. If it had been a bigger or smaller house or one in a European or Asianish style, it would probably have a little bit of sales potential. But this is so close to Bellisseria style and that's a market segment LL has grabbed for themselves. It may even be smack bang in the middle of the future Belli market. I wouldn't at all be surprised if LL added battens to some of their houses and marketed it as their new "coastal style" Belli theme.

It's a lovely house and you should be proud of it but no matter what price you set, don't expect it to make you much money.

Edited July 14, 2023 by ChinRey

[Marianne Little]

I think stores like Onsu and Roost are where SL prices lay. You will see the Rivercrest from Onsu is big, very detailed and cost as little as 2700 L. The newer houses from Onsu goes for 5000 or 5500.

And from Roost, Ridley Heights and Trenton Rise was the last two I bought from them. I am living in Ridley Heights now. I paid 4000 L. You should take a look at them.

Hisa, I have the Hacienda la Veleta and I bought it on a 50% sale. DaD, the Seaview Cottage was in a special sale last Sunday and I paid 75 L for it...

I am going to log in soon and buy a Trompe Loeil house that's also in a weekend sale. It is fifty linden.

I have lots of houses, and I can honestly say that 24 000 L for a small, nice house, would be out of the question. For a castle, I would maybe pay 10 000 if I really liked it.

This is not to discourage you. As you build more, it will go faster. I am sure that stores save and use elements in many different buildings, like windows and doors. 

 

 

[Skylar Woodford]

Thank you all for the amazing advice! I previously sold prim homes for 2500L each / and I thought.. Might as well get back into home building, this time with mesh!

Of course the pic I shared was just a work in progress / It looks different now! 

I personally have spent 10,000L on a house, over 10 years ago - and still use it to this day! 

You all made some great points, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to respond to my thread.

[Skylar Woodford]

I have been working hard on the house - figuring out texturing now! So far its easy, But the roof is quite challenging. The shingles want to go different ways, So I need to unlink each section of the roof.. apply the texture properly - That will take some time, So today I am taking a break.. 

Question : I will be modeling doors for the home, Should I upload them separately to the house? and link them in world? Or can I model them on the house, upload it all together and apply a door script to the doors to make them work?

[aht1981]

just unwrap the roof, apply your texture and then rotate the islands of the UV map. Doesn't matter if they overlap as I presume you'd just use a seamless texture. also skirting boards don't extrude further than door frames.

Edited July 15, 2023 by aht1981

[Skylar Woodford]

Just now, aht1981 said:

just unwrap the roof, apply your texture and then rotate the islands of the UV map. Doesn't matter if they overlap as I presume you'd just use a seamless texture.

Ok!! Thank you. This is my first mesh house. So im still learning. Ill try that!!!

[Skylar Woodford]

Just now, aht1981 said:

 also skirting boards don't extrude further than door frames.

Oh?! I modeled them after my own house. And they extrude slightly more than my door frame, similar to my model.

[Chic Aeon]

Doors need to be separate from the house, in many cases (not all) need to be "faked" wider in order for door scripts to work.  

I am guessing that you haven't uploaded the house yet.  It definitely looks like you are going to have issues with the window trim and LODs. Also many to most creators of house upload the house is PIECES.  Even with a very good physics model and using the Linden viewer the more complex the house (and yours is) the less likely that the physics will upload correctly.  

So I strongly suggest that you make the beta grid your friend and test what you have so far so that you can understand the issues that WILL come up :D.   It will likely save you a LOT of redoing -- which is a way to learn of course, but still somewhat frustrating.

 

Good luck.  If you look up Second Life House physics you will likely find my videos at the top of the list. They are OLD and the interface no longer matches, but the IDEAS in there will probably be helpful.  

 

Good luck. 

[Skylar Woodford]

28 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Doors need to be separate from the house, in many cases (not all) need to be "faked" wider in order for door scripts to work.  

I am guessing that you haven't uploaded the house yet.  It definitely looks like you are going to have issues with the window trim and LODs. Also many to most creators of house upload the house is PIECES.  Even with a very good physics model and using the Linden viewer the more complex the house (and yours is) the less likely that the physics will upload correctly.  

So I strongly suggest that you make the beta grid your friend and test what you have so far so that you can understand the issues that WILL come up :D.   It will likely save you a LOT of redoing -- which is a way to learn of course, but still somewhat frustrating.

 

Good luck.  If you look up Second Life House physics you will likely find my videos at the top of the list. They are OLD and the interface no longer matches, but the IDEAS in there will probably be helpful.  

 

Good luck. 

Thank you!! I was considering uploading the version I have now to see what its going to be like. 

I didn't think the house was complex, maybe it is?! Lol..

Ill upload it and see what I have goin on! 

Thanks for the tips. I forsure will look at those videos.

[ChinRey]

11 hours ago, Skylar Woodford said:

Question : I will be modeling doors for the home, Should I upload them separately to the house?

Doors, windows, columns and all other smaller details must be separate meshes and not part of the main structure. You probably want the battens to be one or more separate meshes too and not part of the wall mesh(es). If you do it as one big chunk of mesh, you'll end up with a way too high land impact or collapsing LOD models or - most likely - both.

You can split them in Blender and upload everything in one go but I wouldn't recommend that, partly because you'd end up with several duplicate meshes (windows for example, you don't want different uploads of the same window) but mostly because it's hard to control LOD and physics models for that many meshes in one go.

Judging by the picture I would guesstimate your house should be in about 40 pieces, maybe as low as 30, maybe as high as 60. For a house like this I would have budgeted with a land impact of 20-30 but I would have been prepared to go a little bit higher since I don't really know how much the battens would add. That is, and this is important, with solid LOD models so no noticeable collapsing when viewed at a distance. A good mesh house maker could probably do it at 50-60 LI, a Mole 200-250. If you can get it down to 100 LI without sacrificing LOD, you're doing very well if this is your first mesh house.

Btw, I take back what I said about the pillars needing crowns and bases. I didn't know they were supposed to be woodbeams. They don't really need such details of course although it's still a nice touch.

 

10 hours ago, Skylar Woodford said:

Ill upload it and see what I have goin on!

Do you have access to the beta grid? You have to be prepared to do a lot of test uploads before you get it right and that can be expensive if you do it on the main grid.

---

I noticed one detail just as I was about to hit the submit button: You may want to do something about the door openings. It's hard to tell from the pictures but they look a bit too wide to me. If you want RL proportions a single exterior door should typically be 2.6-2.8 times a high as it is wide and no less than 2.5. I speak from experience here, I used to make my doors way too wide myself.

[Skylar Woodford]

3 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Doors, windows, columns and all other smaller details must be separate meshes and not part of the main structure. You probably want the battens to be one or more separate meshes too and not part of the wall mesh(es). If you do it as one big chunk of mesh, you'll end up with a way too high land impact or collapsing LOD models or - most likely - both.

You can split them in Blender and upload everything in one go but I wouldn't recommend that, partly because you'd end up with several duplicate meshes (windows for example, you don't want different uploads of the same window) but mostly because it's hard to control LOD and physics models for that many meshes in one go.

Judging by the picture I would guesstimate your house should be in about 40 pieces, maybe as low as 30, maybe as high as 60. For a house like this I would have budgeted with a land impact of 20-30 but I would have been prepared to go a little bit higher since I don't really know how much the battens would add. That is, and this is important, with solid LOD models so no noticeable collapsing when viewed at a distance. A good mesh house maker could probably do it at 50-60 LI, a Mole 200-250. If you can get it down to 100 LI without sacrificing LOD, you're doing very well if this is your first mesh house.

Btw, I take back what I said about the pillars needing crowns and bases. I didn't know they were supposed to be woodbeams. They don't really need such details of course although it's still a nice touch.

 

Do you have access to the beta grid? You have to be prepared to do a lot of test uploads before you get it right and that can be expensive if you do it on the main grid.

---

I noticed one detail just as I was about to hit the submit button: You may want to do something about the door openings. It's hard to tell from the pictures but they look a bit too wide to me. If you want RL proportions a single exterior door should typically be 2.6-2.8 times a high as it is wide and no less than 2.5. I speak from experience here, I used to make my doors way too wide myself.

Thank you so much for all that valuable information! I greatly appreciate all the help you have all offered me, I am here to learn and you all are amazing teachers! I'll be researching the beta grid today, in regards to the doors I think it might just be the angle I took the picture at because they are proportional to the home but I will double check that when I open blender again today.

 

Thankfully I have everything separated into different meshes, the walls, roof, roof walls, windows, frames Etc because I had a feeling I'd have to upload it all in separate pieces.

[Skylar Woodford]

I tried to take the advice I received, right now I'm focusing on texturing, I also tweaked the scale a little bit to make it easier to navigate - this is my first message I was so it's honestly a learning experience, I appreciate everyone offering me such good insight! The UV texturing has been a lifesaver!

I have not uploaded it to SL yet with the beta viewer, I did some research on how to use the beta viewer - if I upload it via beta is it free? Instead of uploading in the traditional viewer which would cost money to upload the mesh?

I'm hand drawing all of the textures, so it's taking me a little longer than I'd like.. but it will be worth it knowing that the entire home is created by myself.

[ChinRey]

25 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

I have not uploaded it to SL yet with the beta viewer, I did some research on how to use the beta viewer - if I upload it via beta is it free?

It's not the beta viewer, it's the beta grid. The beta grid is a kind of a "second Second Life" used for testing only. You kind'a "pay" for uploads there too but you start with 10,000 L$ and get a refill when the balance is running low.

About the door width, I didn't know you were going to have double doors. That explains why the door openings looked so wide, you need them wider to fit two doors of course. 🙂

[Aquila Kytori]

A little more info on how to login to the Beta grid (also known as Aditi) can be found here :

Just follow Rowans and Codex's instructions.

If you need any more info you could check out the SL Wiki page for the Beta grid : https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Preview_Grid

Good luck with your build. 

 

 

[Skylar Woodford]

28 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

It's not the beta viewer, it's the beta grid. The beta grid is a kind of a "second Second Life" used for testing only. You kind'a "pay" for uploads there too but you start with 10,000 L$ and get a refill when the balance is running low.

About the door width, I didn't know you were going to have double doors. That explains why the door openings looked so wide, you need them wider to fit two doors of course. 🙂

Do I need to have 10,000L in the bank? Or is it a fake balance in the beta viewer? 

Very interesting, I'll have to check it out to completely understand that part.

[ChinRey]

23 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

Do I need to have 10,000L in the bank? Or is it a fake balance in the beta viewer?

It's a fake balance. The Lindens on the beta grid are kept completely separate from what you have on main SL and can't be transferred or exchanged or anything like that. You can only use it on the beta grid.

[Skylar Woodford]

Today was a texture day! I made over 30 colors & wallpapers for this home, So who ever buys it will be able to paint the walls what ever color they want without having to worry about messing up the texture! All colors and wallpapers are made on the same scale.

[Skylar Woodford]

On 7/16/2023 at 6:59 PM, ChinRey said:

It's a fake balance. The Lindens on the beta grid are kept completely separate from what you have on main SL and can't be transferred or exchanged or anything like that. You can only use it on the beta grid.

I tried getting on the beta grid, but it wouldn't let me maybe it's under maintenance?

 

So I tried uploading it in the normal viewer - when I uploaded one mass of model it did not work, it looked like it was made of paper and Hollow, so I went into blender and I split it up into multiple sections like you mentioned and the section I uploaded was successful.

 

I do notice the scale is off, and blender you can measure so I set it on meters since SL is in meters, it's significantly bigger in game but I can resize it to make it the correct size..

I also noticed the texture scaling is off? 

Is that typical for a house build for the texture scaling to be off, it's an easy fix I can just go in game and edit the textures so they show up correctly.

 

I didn't upload a physics model, but the build had physics, I uploaded the foundation and I was able to walk all across it.

 

 

 

[ChinRey]

5 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

I do notice the scale is off, and blender you can measure so I set it on meters since SL is in meters, it's significantly bigger in game but I can resize it to make it the correct size..

I also noticed the texture scaling is off? 

Is that typical for a house build for the texture scaling to be off, it's an easy fix I can just go in game and edit the textures so they show up correctly.

That sounds like you hadn't applied the scale in Blender. Select the model on object mode, then type Ctrl-A and apply scale, rotation and position. I'm afraid you may have to redo the UV maps afterwards, Blender tend to mess those up on models with uneven scale. For the future, remember to apply scale every time you resize a model in object mode.

 

15 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

I tried getting on the beta grid, but it wouldn't let me maybe it's under maintenance?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. You have to file a support ticket and ask LL for access to the beta grid.

[Aquila Kytori]

10 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

I tried getting on the beta grid, but it wouldn't let me maybe it's under maintenance?

Nope, I just checked and its open for business. Did you read Rowen's post I Linked you to yesterday ? :

How do I log in to Aditi?

The first time you want to log in to the Beta Grid (Aditi) you may need to contact Support to gain access. If the viewer doesn't recognize your username and password for Aditi, or if you haven't logged in to Aditi in some time, you may also need to request a manual update from Customer Support.

To contact Support for access to the Beta Grid (Aditi):

• Visit the create a ticket section of support.secondlife.com
• Sign in to your Second Life account, if you aren't already logged in.
• On the Submit A Ticket page, select Account Issue as the Issue Type
• For the Account Issue dropdown, select Viewer Login Issues
• Enter the name of the avatar you'd like to use on the Beta Grid and in the Please describe the issue box, explain that you'd like access to Aditi or the Beta Grid.
• Click Submit to send your request to Support.

 

Its way past my bedtime so only very quick answers from me .......

 

12 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

So I tried uploading it in the normal viewer - when I uploaded one mass of model it did not work, it looked like it was made of paper and Hollow

Have yo checked that the Normals are facing the correct way in Blender before uploading.  see this earlier thread  about how to check for face orientation in Blender :

 

 

18 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

I do notice the scale is off, and blender you can measure so I set it on meters since SL is in meters, it's significantly bigger in game but I can resize it to make it the correct size..

I also noticed the texture scaling is off? 

1 meter in Blender equals 1 meter in SL so the scale should be the same in both.  Try applying scle in Blender before exporting. In object mode, with object selected > Ctrl A to open the Apply menu and choose the Scale option.

 

23 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

also noticed the texture scaling is off? 

Is that typical for a house build for the texture scaling to be off, it's an easy fix I can just go in game and edit the textures so they show up correctly.

Texture scaling in SL should  be the same unless you used the Mapping Node to do the scaling in Blender instead of resizing the UV's in the UV editor.

 

27 minutes ago, Skylar Woodford said:

didn't upload a physics model, but the build had physics, I uploaded the foundation and I was able to walk all across it.

 

If you didn't specify a Physics model to use when uploading then it will be using the default Convex Hull Physics shape. Imagine your model, Foundations wrapped in cling film, thats what Convex hull Physics Shape is like .  So my guess is thats what you are walking on. 

 

[Skylar Woodford]

Thanks to all the amazing help I have received here - The house is coming together nicely! 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, Laundry room, Kitchen & dining, Living room, 2 covered decks, Walk in Closet/Office and a sitting area by the entrance ( Picture 2 )