Building 102: Enamel Planter

This tutorial covers:

• Building with Spheres
• Building with Tubes
• Hollows
• Path Cut
• Profile Cut
• Shiny Textures
• Linking Prims

2 prims --- beginners

This tutorial assumes you have worked through the numbers before it or have equivalent knowledge.

This template is best viewed at 800 so if you have wide screen, a window would be handy. The Blogger template breaks up at wider resolutions. You may be able to run this side by side on your screen too. That would be handy :D

Right click on the ground, choose Create and rez a SPHERE with the wand.

Resize the sphere to X= "0.600", Y = "0.6oo" and Z="0.300".

Change the rotation to read 0, 0, and 0; that is "0" in all fields.

On the right hand side of the build menu change the PATH CUT to be B (for beginning) to "0.500". E (for end) stays as the default 1.000. Path cut takes a slice of pie so to speak out of the prim.

In the Hollow field (below path cut) type in "90.0" or use the arrow keys to achieve the same results. You should now have a hollow wooden flat dish.



Go to the Texture tab and in the Texture window, change the texture from the default plywood to Blank.

Go to the Color window and choose any color you like.


In the Shininess window choose an option. I chose Medium in my example. This gives a nice enamel look to your planter.

If you can not see the shininess, you may need to turn that option on under Edit > Preferences > Graphics. Alternately you could have a older computer that cannot see the shine, but that is doubtful :D





Now we are going to learn a trick you will use all the time when building on the Openlife grid.

With your colored dish selected, hold down the SHIFT key and using your mouse, pull straight up along the BLUE arrow. So you are dragging a copy of the bowl UP in this instance.

This is very much like what we did to get our picture frame out of the ground except that by holding down the Shift key, we make a copy of the prim. It is also lined up exactly which is often very important.

This is often called Shift - Copy or Pulling a Prim.

We now have two already colored dishes. That's why we colored FIRST :D




Next we are going to do a lot of changes to turn the dish into a typical planter pot with edge.

First, change the size to read X ="1.400", Y="0.700", Z = "0.700".

Change Hollow back to "0" and Path Cut to B="0" and E +"1.000".

Change the rotation so that Y = "90.0". X and Z stay at 0.

In the Building Block Type, use the drop down menu and choose TUBE from the choices.

Change the hole size to X = "0.55" and Y = "0.50".

In the Profile Cut fields, change the values to B (beginning) "0.194" and E (ending) "0.300" Profile cut peels away an layer of the prim, much
like peeling an orange.



Now, adjust the planter pot to the dish using ONLY the blue arrow direction. Drag either up or down until the pot is settled in the dish. Make sure that the pot doesn't go down to far and show through the dish.

Let's put them together.

Click on the planter and then the dish. With them both selected in that order, hold down the Shift key and tap the letter "L" (for link).

This will connect the planter to the dish.

Give your planter a name of your choice and take it into your inventory using a right click and TAKE command.

Building 101: Photo Frame

In this first tutorial of the series we will be making a simple one prim picture frame suitable for art or photos. While most of the other tutorials will be made on the Openlife grid, this first one was photographed on Phil's beta grid and written at Blogger while the OLG goes through a major update. Happy New Year OLG!

As times change and viewers change the look of the build menus will most likely change. I will not be updating as the world moves around us. Hopefully you will be able to follow along with these basic learning tutorials at any stage of viewer development.

Click on the photos to get a larger view of the pictures as needed.

Right click on the ground and choose CREATE from the pie menu. Your cursor turns into a wand and the OBJECT window of the build menu opens. You will see a row of shapes with the cube highlighted.

Touch the wand to the ground in front of you. A cube shape box appears. Looking at the GENERAL tab we see a place to name your object. You can type in Photo Frame to replace the default "Primitive".
This is the screen where you would set the permissions and price of an object as well as where you would choose "Allow Anyone To Copy" in order to make a Take a Copy item.

More on that in another post.






Move back to the OBJECT tab by clicking on the tab. We are going to change the size of our box and taper the edges to represent a frame edge.

Find the fields for Size in Meters on the left and in the X field type in a "1" and in the Y field type in "1.5" and "0.100" in the Z field.

Find the Taper fields over on the right (across from the size fields) and use the arrow to make the fields say "0.15". You could type that in also of course.

We now have a plywood picture frame -- flat on the ground.







Find the Rotation fields on the left (below size) and type in "270.00" in the Y field. This will rotate the picture frame so that it can hang on a wall rather than sitting on the ground.

Our picture frame is partially buried in the ground now, so using your mouse, drag UP towards the top of the screen on the BLUE arrow (it is pointing up as you can see :D).













Find the TEXTURE tab in the build menu and click on it to open the texture pane.

With the object selected (as shown in the photo) click on the box that says Texture (it will look like a piece of plywood until we complete this next step). A texture choice window will open. While we could add a texture to the frame at this time, we are instead going to make a plain frame by clicking on the small button that says Blank.

When the frame turns all white, click on the Select button. The texture selection window disappears.








To add color to your frame, click on the box that says Color and a color choosing window appears. You can choose any of the colors from the premixed samples below - or - you can click on the big rainbow window until you find a color that you like.

When you find a color that you like showing up in the Current Color box on the left, click Select and that color will appear on your frame.












Next, in the build menu pane, click on the radio button next to Select Texture. This will let you change just ONE face of the prim.

Click on the center of the photo frame, where you picture will go, and a target symbol appears. This let's you know you will be changing that particular face of the prim.

Click on the color box again, opening the color picker and turn that face of the prim back to white by choosing white from the color choices.

Put a check in the box called Full Bright (to the right of the color box).







You now have an empty frame that will show off you favorite photo or pictures.

You can use either a texture you have uploaded (png or tga) or a picture you have taken within the viewer using the File > Take Snapshot Option. [Note: I am not sure that is active in OL as I write this but it will be soon if it isn't now).














Open your inventory and find a texture or a picture that you want to put in your frame.

Carefully, drag the picture from your inventory onto the face of the prim where the photo will go.

You picture will not always appear perfectly on your photo frame. In this case the direction is off.

We can fix that by using the Rotation field in the Texture Window of the build menu. The numbers that would likely go here would be either 90, 180 or 270. In my case the "270" was a winner. You can also flip your photo as needed. Play around with this until it looks just like you want it.







Depending on the height to width ratios of your texture or picture, you may want to change the size of your painting.

Just go back to the Object tab and type in some new sizes for height and width.

Alternately you can use the tiny up and down arrow buttons associated with the field windows.

Be sure and name your work if you didn't do that in the beginning and take your framed artwork into your inventory.

All done!