1/4 Sim w/ Single Coastline Decorating Ideas?

[Tianna Burnstein]

Hello everyone!  So I recently aquired a 1/4 sim plot of land, that has 1 coastline.  The sim is grassy, and I have rezzed high privacy screens (jungle themed) around the other 3 boarders.  My question to everyone is, what is the best way to decorate the transition from the grassy land to the shore?  And how do you manage the transitions where the provacy screens end, and the water begins?

I would like a non-beach area.  I am thinking of putting up a small concrete wall along the coast.  Low enough to overlook the water and anything that gets rezzed off-sim.  Second idea is to build a dock where one would look down at the water.

The main thing I struggle with are the transistions from the privacy screen to the edge of the parcel.  How do people do this and make it look natural and reaslistic?  Or is this something where I am just suppost to accept how it works in SL?  (Like walking animations clipping through mesh clothing)

Any help, suggestions, or visuals are appriciated.  I want to get better at building and decorating, but seem lost right now with how to handle this.

 

<3 Tianna Burnstein

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Privacy screens give you a square texture and you can't 'transition' them to the shore unless the vegetation depicted shrinks down and it has an alpha area on the end of it.  I've never seen some like this for sale.  You could try putting some trees or bushes etc on the ends and maybe some in front of other areas of the screen to soften it and make it more realistic.  But that's pretty much it and people outside your parcel will still see the flat screen effect.

While I know some people use them, to many people privacy screens are generally considered an eyesore by other people on the sim.  If it were me, I'd use landscaping to block people's view into your parcel or block an ugly view outside your parcel.  Trees and bushes would accomplish this as well as terraforming mountains on the edges or using rocks.

As you are probably aware, no matter what you do people can cam in to look at what's going on unless you disallow it under About Land > Options.  If you disallow it, nobody outside the parcel can see any avatars inside it.  That works better for privacy than anything else you can  do.

[ChinRey]

I have to agree with Amethyst there. Privacy screens are really the last desperate solution when you're well established at a place and some ruthless neighbor suddenly puts up some horrible eyesore and nothing else works. You just don't buy land where you need privacy screens right from the start.

But now that the damage is done, I suggest you try to cover the edge the best you can with some nice vegetation or such.

[Tianna Burnstein]

Thank you for the replies.  I am not worried about privacy from others more than I just wanted to create an illusion of seclusion.  You never know who moves in, and you have no control over what they do, but you can limit it as best you can.  The screens only block anyone on my parcel from seeing out.  It is set to transparent from the other side.  

But I understand what you are saying.  I have nice hedges and stone "fences" I could outline the parcel with, as well as the shore line.  I will also try to find some nicer trees and bushes to help.

I was just hoping that there were tips, tricks, tutorials, or in-world examples of workarounds or how people tackled this situation.

Much appriciated though!

<3 Tianna

[Zepharine]

Still in the line of using landscaping to to soften that edge, is using off-sim decor as well. The various rocks with splashing water, small islands, etc. that can be pushed off-sim into open water (the root prim stays on your land and you still get the land impact of the whole thing.) A lot of people will push those things as far out as they can to give an illusion of distance, but you could set them right up against the sim edge so that they look like a continuation of your screen, giving a more natural edge to it. (You can't go on to off-sim decor, it's for looks only.)

[Zepharine]

I think your idea of using docks and walls to make the sim edge more natural is a good one. Another idea is piles of rocks with trees or bushes growing on/out of them, right at the edge (even pushed over just a bit), to break up that hard edge.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Zepharine's idea of using off sim objects may work.  However, in case you don't know, if you are on the mainland coast, don't own the water, and it is sailable, then it won't work.  LL takes a dim view of putting obstacles in sailing water.  Someone could AR you or just file a support ticket and have it returned to you, wasting your good money or the time you use to create it.  Even if you own the water you won't make any points with sailors.  If the water is just part of the great void you're in the clear.

[Aethelwine]

So far as I am aware Linden Lab take a dim view of obstructions to their rights of way.

It is hard to judge what sailors would make of any building in the definite and general terms you describe.

For example an island that is pushed out to the far side of a linden water way with just pacific blue water, some waves, maybe some fish and a cluster of rocks all set to phantom pushed in to the linden water way would not be an obstacle and in the right place a nice addition to the environment. I would doubt something like that would attract any ARs and I doubt since all phantom and no obstruction Linden Lab would remove them in response to an AR.

In response to the Op, 3D trees do some nice jungle (swamp) trees. Hayabusa have just released some nice bushes also take a look at Alirium. There are some palm tree privacys screens that are transparent that can look good as a partial screen. Using solid textures really is ugly and a last resort but transparent privacy screens on edges of property not too close to anywhere your neighbours are using look pretty good with planting in front of them. One option is to put up rock faces and waterfalls. But again I would only use that as a last resort because they aren't so pretty and dominate the neighbours view, but better than flat textures even if transparent on neighbours side.

Heart do some very flat textured bamboo screens, that despite being flat look kinda 3d and look great on borders. Add some kidd grass bamboo clusters and there are always their deservedly popular pampass grass clusters too.

Usually a combination of ideas works best. As you are doing think of the neighbours view, but think to also build for them so it looks good from their side as well. Hopefully they will decide to do similar and then instead of your builds competing they end up complementing and your nice view like theirs extends beyond your parcel boundaries.