When you purchased a plot of land or sim in
Second Life, planning the layout and terrain is the next step. It can be a chore coming up with ideas for
those that do not know how to create terrain. The next option would be is to
hire an expert and spend money you could be saving if you can do it yourself.
You can teleport around Second Life and visit
places that has been terraformed beautifully.
Maybe ask a sim.land owner where they purchased their terrain products
to help you with your design.If click on
edit and check most of the terrians you can find out who created them.
Alex
Bader owner of Studio Skye specializes in terrain products.
I spoke to Alex to get an insight into
landscaping in Second Life style.
Piers.
Hi Alex, Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Alex
Bader. I trained as a graphic designer and I've
worked in design and photography for most of my career. Living in a rural
location, surrounded by hills and forest, I enjoy landscape photography (and
sometimes painting too).
Piers.
Can you tell us a bit about your business in SL and how it came about?
Alex
Bader. I've been in SL for seven years now. I was
initially fascinated by the idea of selling virtual land. It was such a crazy
notion but is somehow captured my imagination. After a couple of months,
mucking around in sand boxes building space craft and block towers, I bought a
piece of virtual real estate on the mainland - a cliff setting - split it in
two, built two villas, landscaped the plot then sold both of them - doubling my
investment. From then I was hooked and soon after started Skye Estate.
The estate ended up at about 14 sims with
dozens of residents - small, in SL terms but as each plot was a custom built
property you can imagine the work involved.
It's always been design led - that's what I
love and enjoy. There were loads of estates selling squared off plots - I made
it my mission to inject a bit of natural beauty and drama into the land
business.
It has to be said that making handcrafted
custom properties was difficult to juggle financially but I didn’t care. It was
fun and rewarding in its own way and as long as I kept buying, building and
selling, it worked for me.
Then I discovered the joy of building and
selling prefabs - Skye Castles was born.
Eventually it dawned on me that I really
ought to be selling texture packs - so many people had asked and I usually shrugged
my virtual shoulders and said "yeah, not a bad idea, I'll do that when I
finish this castle!"
I looked at the textures available and
realised that there was room for something a little more creative - fashion
packs, jewellery sets and decorative textures - stuff that people could get
excited about using in their creative projects and maybe inspire them a little.
When Mesh came along I made the decision to
invest the time learning Blender - probably the best decision I've made in
recent years! I totally love mesh based modelling and the possibilities it has
opened up in SL and other markets is incredible. OK, it takes me forever to
make products - but the opportunity to invest time in making something special
is a gift worth grabbing. I get excited about it, customers get excited about
it - what's not to love!?
Piers.
How important is good terrain textures?
Alex
Bader. If you have any sort of landscaping
project, use terrain texture to create
your base – This is very important. When I started terrain design, I found
myself looking for textures I could blend to give more natural variations. Sand
to bright grass to rock is not so realistic. So my terrain sets all have a
range of textures which blend smoothly. I also now use a lot of mesh pieces to
add detail and those subtle variations provide a way of creating a sense of
natural richness. Natural terrain does not comprise of four basic textures, and
neither should SL terrain!
Piers.
If someone wanted to terraform their
land or sim what would be your 3 top tips in starting?
Alex
Bader. Start with a rough plan - not too detailed,
not too vague - you need a concept rather than a microscopically detailed plan.
- Start big! DO the big earthworks first -
quickly hack out the shape of the whole sim. Don't get too detailed too
quickly.
- Go with the flow. Once you have the basic
shape, relax and let the detail work round that form. Think of the terrain as a
natural form that detailed elements play off of - you often get surprising
results as you encounter interesting forms close up.
Piers. Working with mesh now for terrain do you feel
this has helped improve the look and feel of terraforming or has not made any
difference?
Alex
Bedar, I can't over exaggerate how much difference
mesh has made. I'm finishing my new tropical sim which has maybe only 20 to 30%
of exposed SL terrain. The rest is mesh overlay. Full physics mesh pieces allow
me to make detailed landscapes with realistic terrain detail - that avatars can
walk on (quite important that!).
Piers.
What's next for you and your business
for the rest of 2013 and beyond?
Alex
Bader. I'm currently expanding my winter range but
also working on a new tropical range - I the new tropical sim will be open
soon. There will be loads of tropical flora as well as a new tropical beck kit,
off-sim islands and reefs, buildings, underwater feature… the possibilities are
endless!
Alex’s creations are one of the best terrain
product in Second Life due to the fact it looks real which to me is very
important when trying to recreate anything in Second Life.
This is also proven by the amount of people
who have purchased and use Studio Sky products.
To find out more about Studio Sky:
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