A few tips and tricks when building - In world

Heyas. Well.. I'm a builder (I say amateur, though I've been called a Master by a few), and felt I might be able to help some people by posting some of the tips and tricks I've learned while building various things.

Firstly, use the edit window for most things! Click that little 'more' tab and get used to how things in it work. When trying for perfection, the 'position' and 'size' boxes are invaluable. There is no other way to get perfect alignment.

Talking about alignment, if you have four square prims, and need them centered (Centered as if one) above something, create another square, same size as the other four, and set it's position to the center. For example:
4 10x10 prims to make a 20x20. Create another 10x10 prim. Let's say the 4 prims are at <0,0,0>,<10,10,0>,<0,10,0>, and <10,0,0>. Settheh new one at <5,5,0.5>, and it should be perfect. Essentially, set the 5th prim halfway between the X of the two 'sets' and halfway between the Y of the two 'sets'. (By set I mean the two prims on the same X or Y location.) This will make it centered, then you can link the 5 together with the centered one as the root, and center it, then delete the 5th one.

The two-wall prim. If you're doing architectural builds and want to save as many prims as possible, one of the most overlooked methods is to make a corner (two walls) out of one prim. To do this, hollow a cube and cut it to B=.5 E=1. This will create a simple corner, though it's edges are slanted. for a 10m long walls, this method will always have slanted edges, however, if you cut it more, the cube will end up with 5m long walls, and a flat end for each.

Don't use more prims than you have to if there is no increase in quality. If there is a change in texture, and you can use photoshop, combine them into one, and make it one prim. # of prims can govern whether your build is practical or just pretty. All builds should be practical when possible, unless it is just for looks.

For a more natural look for water, use a cut and thinned out torus for falling water. More than one can make it look even better, but just one is pretty useful too. Alos, torii and spheres are the most useful shapes for making natural looking objects. Trees, rocks, water, hills... if not made of sculpties they are made up mostly of these (Some rocks are cut and twisted cubes though.)

Play around with changing a shape at different points. Such as the old favorite: Make a sphere, dimple it, then change it to a cube. The dimple will remain, though you can't change it as a cube. See what shape-specific changes do when you change the shape!

Thats about it for now, I'll be adding to it later, and making some more posts now on various topics!

Have fun ^^
-Oki