The Retreat: Look and Layout

[Lord Chaos]

(from ghaelen:  I guess I did confuse things.  My initial post about creating a forum for the Second Life Retreat was just to open the new forum itself. This is an interesting topic, LC, and merits a thread of its own.  I hope it's ok that you are starting that new thread.)

Good idea, Ghaelen. We can talk about what we want the retreat areas to look like... and how to make that.

I'm (so far) not that interested in building, nor in avatar design, but I do like plants. I get tired of all the stone walls, so I've placed a few plants, without really knowing what I'm doing, to green things up.

There is a room in Eder D'uru whose interior walls are images made from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photographs. I've only seen bits of it when I get the camera just right because I can't find a way into that room. I'd like to find out what's actualy in there because one wall of the "Tree House" might look really good in stars and galaxies.

I do like tree houses. I was watching "Tarzan" last night, looking at how things were made there...

[ghaelen]

LC, your idea for the treehouse sounds nice.  There is also room, if you'd like, to build a treehouse up another level, or even in the sky, too.  Maybe a base for Radio KTDN?  If you kept it to about 35 prims, it would still leave us prim room to play with.  Megaprims help with that, as do the 1 prim rocks and plants.  If we start getting close to the prim limit, there are a few things I can take back out that I don't think anyone will notice. (some duplicate plants and things.)  And we can always get together as a group and decide what to keep and what to exchange.

The trick in doing what you have in mind for the walls is mainly texturing.  I know how to texture, although we have to be careful not to make any walls change that will face the outer lake area.  The inside texture can be different.  I think there are double walls in a couple places, so we can play with those if you'd like.  I'm still a newbie, so Tai or Dagda will have better info than I do, actually.

Edit:  I found some more low-prim plants Tai had given me, and in true healer fashion I planted them and they grew VERY large very quickly.    So there is more color on each level now, LC, even if not yet more grass.  Check the prim count on the potted plants and other items -- sometimes several low-prim items can cover more ground than items that use 4 prims or more.  We're not to the limit yet, but soon we may have to start looking at what we really want and what uses a lot of prims.

[Lord Chaos]

I was looking at the prim thing the last time I added, and I've decided to just do monoprim items. I can stretch them, rotate and color, which is what that little group with the brown oak tree is for. I'd like to find a green oak tree to replace that one.

Unless you have other plans for the current "treehouse" area, I don't see any need for another area. If you really can't stand the flamingo (I put it in the corner to make it less obvious)... maybe we can find a cougar. Anyway, I'd rather add plants and texture there than use up prims on an altogether new spot.

[Jane]

We don't like the flamingo?  I love the flamingo!  Though a cougar would be pretty cool as well.  Would keep out the riff-raff--not to mention supplying us with things on which to practice healing . . .   (Kidding!)

And ghaelen, I see what you mean about the new plants growing fast!  You planted one in the corner where I'd left Indigo the night before (had been working on Dagda homework there) & when she went back in she rezzed inside it, lol.  It was an interesting view!   But the additions look nice.

Also wondering--is the prim limit absolute or is it just how many we get with the basic land rent?  Can we buy more if we want more?

[ghaelen]

Let's see.. the prim count is pretty set.  My understanding is that we can't buy more because Linden sets the prims.  I try to use one-prim plants were possible, too.  The daisies that grew to immense proportions are 3 prims each, but they show up well. Most of the trees are 1 or two prims, except for the pines.  Several of the potted plants and the tiny ones in our libraries just don't show well enough to justify the number of prims, IMHO.  If the object allows you to use the 'stretch' function, you can make a smaller plant go further.

The flamingo?  Well, it is 14 prims.  You can have 14 one-prim rock sculptures or one 14-prim flamingo.  That's how I think about the items I put down.  LC, you will love the profiling, path cut, skew, hollowing out and other things one can do with 1-prim objects when you build. And you can texture them with pictures or patters.  Tai gave me several and I'm uploading several more.  I'm happy to pass them on to you to experiment with.  I do think you would like building because you can make some really neat stuff out of one prim. (I'm thinking sand sculpture type objects)

btw, LC, you can use as many prims as you'd like. is 40-50 enough?  If we run low, I can take out some of the other things that are in the retreat.  Just let me know if we start getting close to our limit.

I don't have other plans for the treehouse, so have fun.

Oh yes, Ruby is helping us pay our rent in exchange for her cart space up on the surface.  She's being very, very generous, too (up to half our rent).  She's working on building a cart with fewer prims, so we'll see how that goes.  You might take a look at what she's doing up there LC... she had a radio up there yesterday, and an old fashioned phonograph, and a radio studio....

Apparently the radio and phonograph will actually play stations. 

Sounds like a story brewing to me. 

[Lord Chaos]

Is there a way to convert a polyprim item to monoprim? I'm sure you'd lose most of the edit ability but when the item is finalized, why not?

Also, is there a way to convert a photograph I've taken into a mural that can go onto a wall? Assuming it can be done easily and in one prim it'd be a way of opening up the view. I think.

I wonder where Jane got that patched-up smiley...

[ghaelen]

Is there a way to convert a polyprim item to monoprim? I'm sure you'd lose most of the edit ability but when the item is finalized, why not?

I don't know.  I'm taking Dagda's building class, as is Jane.  Maybe one of us should ask him that question, lol.

Also, is there a way to convert a photograph I've taken into a mural that can go onto a wall? Assuming it can be done easily and in one prim it'd be a way of opening up the view. I think.

I snuck a look at the dimensions of some textures, and 1024x1024 seems a good size.  I uploaded a jpg of the grass at 200dpi and it looks ok.  The megaprim walls can be textured, too.  we can add inner walls to the treehouse level and your images can go on those.  That sounds nice.

I wonder where Jane got that patched-up smiley...

gosh, I dunno...   

Oh, and Ruby and I just added another nice spot for you'all to decorate.  It isn't set in stone, so if you don't like it we can take it down.  We kinda think you will like it, tho...

[Jane]

I wonder where Jane got that patched-up smiley...

Well, the regular smiley was being recalcitrant.  I tried to Charm the flamingo into helping me but he wasn't having any, so I brought my Stalker over & splashed a little Charr blood around--I guess she got overexcited.  It was mostly Feral Lunge--if the smiley hadn't resisted, it wouldn't have gotten quite so bloody.  I had to bring Dunkoro in to help me clean up, & he must've been having an off day--the patch job wasn't up to his usual standards.

(Of course it might've been simpler if I'd just clicked the "[more]" link to the right of the line of smilies on the Post Reply page . . . )   

[Tailahr]

Re: turning polyprims into monoprims: You can do this by learning to make "sculpties" which are created in a program like Blender offline and imported as textures.  There are several tutorials on how to do this, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe there are programs that are easier to use than Blender for this purpose.  This is something I would definitely like to see LC look into.

Re: the prim count:  In most cases in SL, a parcel's prim count is set so that you literally can't exceed it.  (You'd get a message telling you that you can't create a prim or that you can't bring something out of your inventory.)  But, we're a little (okay, a lot) more flexible in Eder D'Uru.  The whole sim shares all the available prims and everyone is expected to track their own usage and keep it at or below their maximum.  (If the overall sim numbers look too wonky, the "ResTechs" start making the rounds to find the culprit.)  This allows everyone the ability to use an almost limitless supply of prims on a temporary basis.  So, if you want to make a project that exceeds your parcel's allotment, you can - provided you don't leave it out for more than a few hours and take it into your inventory when you're done.  You might wonder what's the point of that, but it could be something that you wear (prims don't count when you wear them [that's how we get around prim limits for parades-we wear the floats]) or LC could make a piece of art and then take a snapshot of it for display.

Edit/Additions: Re: Textures: please don't spend a lot of lindens uploading too many textures until you've seen what I have available.
Re: the new dance floor: I have a gift you can use there. 

[ghaelen]

As you know (if you've gone to the retreat lately) I'm raising the treehouse to avoid as much lag as possible.  It required moving the plateau, too.  (I'm still fussing with that).  Then.... Tai and I started talking about making things to sell to raise money and I discovered we have a space along the upper mall walkway we could use for a little shoppe.

Soooo.... well, there have been some changes.  I have tried to remember what everyone likes.  Got some nice donations from Tai and Genny7 for plants, so we have trees that bend with the breeze.  We also have some grass down at the pond.  Anyway, I couldn't move some items (didn't have permission) so I left them there or returned them if they were in danger of getting buried.  When you have a chance, come in and move them to the treehouse or wherever you'd like to move them.

LC, I like the texture you've put down but I'm not sure what you want to do with it.  Let's meet there sometime and you can tell me.

I do plan to have everything back in order by Sunday's meditation.  See you then!

[ghaelen]

Well, just as I was getting the treehouse finalized, we were given an opportunity to move to where there is less lag and where we will have more space.  Huzzah! (of course it is more expensive, too, so any donations are welcome!)  I hope to have the new slurl posted here by this evening, but I want to wait because we need to do some terraforming first.    Gotta love movin' the earth!:laugh:

Stay tuned....