G General

Walkable Mesh Beach System Version 1.0

Walkable Mesh Beach System
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Features
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If you own a parcel of land, with this system you will be able to enhance it with one or more beautiful, walkable beaches that can be textured any way you want. If you own a complete region, you can drape long stretches of naturally shaped beaches along its sides, softening the hard sim borders, and place beaches in the middle of your region. The system can even be used to create walkable ground up in the air, where terraforming is not available to you.

Properties
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- The segments are made to be placed against each other to create complete, solid, natural beaches. In order to achieve that, you need to put the right sides against each other, like do you do when playing Dominoes.
- The beach segments are made of mesh technology. The meshes are made of as few 'triangles' or 'grid points' as possible in order to keep the land impact ('prim count') as low as possible. Yet, all segments have a natural shape.
- The segments all have a complete solid surface: you can walk, stand and build on them without the need to add invisible solid prims in the way you would have to do with sculpted prims. This is a huge benefit to your beach experience and to your effort for sim maintenance.
- You can modify and copy all meshes. This means you can apply your own surface textures and scale them if needed. You can also apply the newest materials (normal maps, specular maps) on them.
- Their size is 63.5 x 63.5 meters. They cannot be scaled above 64.0 x 64.0 meters, since Second Life does not allow that for meshes.
- 4 x 4 segments will cover the full surface of a sim, but 5 x 5 segments be possible too: about half of the outer segments will be off-sim this way, which gives the sim a naturally shaped border, much unlike the 'straight boxes' we see so often in SL.
- The land impact ('prim count') of the meshes varies between 1 and 7 prims. Most are around 2-4 prims, but more complex shapes, like C7 and C8 (see attached pictures), use more.

Preparations for use at sim land level
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You can use the segments to easily create naturally shaped beaches on your sim ground level. When you drop a segment on your sim, it will try to move to the height that fits best on regular water level (20 meters). Before you do this, however, you need to be aware that high sim ground may obstruct the segments from moving into place: they cannot automatically sink into sim ground. The notecard you will find in your purchase will help you to deal with this.

Preparations for use in the air
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Because the beaches are solid & walkable, they are perfect for use in sky builds, where there is no regular sim ground available for terraforming . Now you can create a beach environment with soft, natural shapes sloping away from your island in the sky. For example, you can use them to make tropical islands surrounded by one of my skybox environments. The notecard you will find in your purchase will help you to rez the segments in the proper way.

Rezzing and placing the segments
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The segments all have a script inside that starts when you rez it. You will find a notecard in the contents of your purchase with a detailed description what it does and what you should do in order to place the meshes in the proper way.

After deploy: merging the sim terrain with the meshes
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After you have deployed the beaches, you can merge them into your sim ground by terraforming the land in such a way that it softly emerges from the mesh beaches.

An overview of available segments
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The meshes are divided in four sets. You can see the sets on four charts:

Set 1 is meant to be used on sim edges. Some segments are typically meant to be used on sim corners (rows E, F, G), the others are meant to be used on the straight edges in between. Of the segments on sim corners about 3/4 go off-sim, of the others about 1/2.

Set 2 is also meant to be used on sim edges. You can use these if you want to continue with mesh beach elements on the inside of your sim. Row J is meant for sim corners, the others are for straight sim edges. Row L is added for extra options for creative users.

Set 3 is meant for inland use only. If you have surrounded your sim with beach segments from groups 1 or 2, you can use them to fill in the space in the middle of your sim.

Set 4 contains special meshes, meant for individual sandy islands, for example in water sims.

What is written above, is what I had in mind when I created them. It is BY NO MEANS necessary to follow these thoughts, I encourage you to be as creative as possible to get what you want.

Suggestions for differently shaped segments to extend the system are welcome!

See item in Second Life
  • Solid, walkable meshes for smooth, natural sim and parcel borders
  • No need for sculpted prims or invisiprims. Low lag. Apply own sand textures
  • For land level, on parcels bigger than 64x64 meters, full sims & homesteads
  • Also for sky builds, combine well with our skybox environments
  • Segments fit seamlessly like domino blocks. Merge to sim terrain by terraforming
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Perfect!
full star full star full star full star full star Posted December 12, 2013 by Adoni60

Takes some time and effort.... but worth it... I have a 1/4 sim and laid out several iterations for look... the pieces you receive with the product are mind boggling!... almost too many choices..-lol-. So take your time..play with the pieces and fit and enjoy!

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Better than advertised
full star full star full star full star full star Posted November 28, 2013 by Paxim

Usually I am just happy to get something close to what I was expecting, but this package is a lot more than I had hoped for. It looks great, goes together almost by itself, and is more flexible than any other beach surface out there. Anyone who wants beach terrain in a nearly unlimited variety NEEDS this! For once I got far more than I bargained for and at a price much lower than it is worth!

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