Scheherazade would be proud ~ Arabian Nights Castle

OK, so back to my discussion of my builds and how I've progressed as a builder:



Arabian Dreams


The Brochure:


This gorgeous Arabian styled castle looks like it should come out of the old stories. Rising out of the sand it's highly detailed and includes custom textured. There are 4 'hidden' rooms 4 floors and gorgeous onion towers to climb to. Perfect for Gor related sims as well. This isn't small and wieghs in at just over 300 prims but everyone who's seen it loves it. Try it out today.
Packed in an easy Rezzer.





The Story:
This is actually a fairly straight forward build except for a few things, this was inspired by someone who wanted a build off of a description, so it was my first time trying to do a build off of someone's word picture other then my own. It was also the first time I attempted to do circular towers bigger then one prim would allow. They aren't actually circles but rather blocks put together in a hexagon to appear circular. This leads back to start a discussion about megaprims.

Megaprims are prims that are bigger then the standard 10x10x10. They were created by an 'exploit' in the openlife programming and they are available by various means. If used I could have made a cylinder that was 20x20x20 for the back towers and used it with alot less prims. However, it has never been made clear by Linden Labs whether or not megaprims are 'allowed.' They seem tolerant of them until they cause problems but is that because they don't have the staff to police for them or because of their previous 'hands-off' approach. I just don't know and haven't been able to determine. As a result in pre-fab buildings that may be sold to anyone I do not use megaprims.

OK, so, no megaprims in my builds.

So, now that you understand that those towers are actually made up of lots of smaller prims rotated and made into hexagonical shapes you can see how it would be frustrating to rotate and do all hte math. Much as I'd love to tell you I took the time to do that and my degree from MIT makes it as natural as counting to 3, I didn't. There are tools available that will rotate and mess with prims to help you make a circle. The one I use is made by Melight Korvin and makes things absolutely easier to deal with, though it was intended for the fashion industry it works great for towers as well. You can find it on SLX here.

This was also the first build I ever did custom textures on. The only texture shop I recommend to new builders is Textures R Us. They are members several digital artists organizations and make the most beautiful textures I've seen in Second Life. Pay very close attention to the liscence agreement when you buy from them. Texture artists are inherently in danger of getting ripped off in Second Life because in order to sell their work for use by builders it has to be full permissions, which means that unsavory people can rip it off. I admire them for sticking with it and having one of the best variety of textures out there, however I couldn't quite find what I wanted for the store so I messed around in PhotoShop until I found something I liked.

I like this build particularly because Second Life itself is a bit like having a magic lamp, if you stretch out your hand and you have the doggedness or creativity or money you can make it.... fantasy, reality, something completely different.... it's all possible here to a degree.

So, if you want to play Scheherazade, Aladdin, Jazmine, or Abu..... Yeah, I know I disneyfied it.