Building in Second Life

When it comes to building or constructing things, I am like the anti-Martha Stewart. I am not really good with the hammers and nails and tools in real life...I like to think I am, but truth is, I try to fix things around my house and I usually end up doing more damage than good.

So, I was excited Thursday night when I read the notecard for Assignment 3 in SL - Build a Chair. Ah, cool! I can use tools in my virtual life and not have to worry about putting a nail through my hand or screwing anything up too bad!

I entered the Ivory Tower of Prims and found the scrolling text on the floor and began the tour. I immediately started collecting the notecards that were available at each tutorial station. What first caught ny attention of the building tutorial in SL was the reference to the movie Tron and the use of the word

I noticed that the turorials reminded me of the basic 3-D modeling I had to do for my ITEC 3236 class. The create and edit features in SL definitely remind me of Google's

Sketchup

program. I liked working with the Sketchup program. Of course, I never built a chair in Sketcup, just 3-D models of houses, but I felt like I had a decent understanding of the SL building process because of my exposure to programs such as GIMP and Sketchup.

I decided that I wanted to build a funky bus stop bench. So, I chose the block as my feature for the base of the bench. Next, I use the stretch tool to elongate the block to form the bottom of my bench. I then chose the material wood for the bench. I added the woodgrain texture as well. Then, I chose a hot pink color for the base of the bench.

I next composed the back of the bench. I was able to choose a second box and then use the edit tool to manipulate the size and shape to form a long, narrow rectangle. I then used the move feature to physically move this piece to form the back of the bench. After I attached the two prims together, I chose the same wood grain texture for the back and gave it a dark forest green color.

I envision putting grafiti and post-it bills onto the back and front sides of the bench. Unfortunately, I do not know how to write or make post-it bills in SL yet. I sat in on scripting class last night and am looking for another class to take to try and learn how to make grafiti for my bench.

I went ahead and took pictures of me sitting on my bench. I was excited I was able to build it myself. It seems fairly simple, but I feel it really gave me a good working knowledge of the building basics for SL. I am going to keep working on my bench and will continue to post photos on flickr when I get it looking the way i want.

Well, I have to admit that I am much better at learning to build or "rez" things in SL than I am in my first life! I am not the anti-Martha Stewart of SL yet...but, watch out. Give me a bit more time to hone my skills and I will be!