Old Winter Mountain fire house    Old Winter Mountain Fire House by Apooka & Ozman. Coordinates: Yellow 37.903S 1624.302E 0.02a 257.8


A review of 2012 Building Tips, and some new tips

In this issue, I want to review the tips that we presented over the year, and also offer some tips that will enable you to enhance your builds to make them even richer. First, let's look at what we presented this year..


A review of 2012 Build tips

I will list the tips, and the URL of where you can review the whole page.

January 2012: Manipulating a 2D wall object. Here we demonstrate how you can convert a 2D wall part and make it into a variety of panels. We also offer some tips from ChrisPeg on setting up the HUDs (heads up displays) on your screen with the new AW 5.2 version. January-February 2012 Building Tips

March 2012: Manipulating a 2D wall object, part 2. More on using a series of commands to convert a 2D wall object. Includes the 'create move' and 'create rotate' commands. And here we also offer a cautionary tale on using the 'create name' command. March-April 2012 Building Tips

May 2012: Tips on creating movers in Yellow. We offer pointers on making a complex mover (i.e. more than one linked object) in Yellow, with information from OzySEO. May-June 2012 Building Tips

July 2012: Using a picture on a 2D wall set. The basic 2D wall sets available in Yellow come in different shapes, sizes and grid sizes. This page explains some of the details and how to use the 'create picture' command to make a very interesting wall part. July-August 2012 Building Tips

September 2012: Using textures,color, color tint, and solid/visible options. Again, we demonstrate these on a 2D wall object, so you can see how all these commands can work together. September-October 2012 Building Tips

Combining objects for interesting effects

This tip I got from Apooka, who has used this technique to generate a great winter scene.

snowfurt.rwx

The trick here is to superimpose one object on top of another. So first, we have the object snowfurt.rwx. This is the tree object on the left. The command line reads: "create solid off"

bs-ntree2.rwx

Then we put next to it bs-ntree2.rwx, and resize it using the 'create scale' command. In this case, the command line reads: "create scale 2 3 2, solid off.

combined Xmas tree

Then we just put one on top of the other and we get a snow covered Christmas tree. The 'create scale' command is very valuable here, because you can get one object exactly fitting on top of another.

A trick on using lots of tree objects is to make sure that each tree object has the 'create solid off' command. This will enable AVs to move much more easily through forests and such.

Using High Poly Count Objects

Stacee from AWI has told us that a number of objects in public worlds have a very high polygon count. This means that the object is very dense and takes a while to download. This, of course, generates a bit of lag. If you are using lots of these all at once, you will see that you will slow down - sometimes to a near dead stop -- around the area. If you are unsure about the density of an object, you can always check using the option in your settings called 'wireframe'. This allows you to see the "x-ray" of an object. Go to Options --> Settings -->Graphics. Tick the box called Wireframe rendering. This will show the object's structure. If it is very dense, it is a high polygonal object and should be uses sparingly.

We hope you found this useful; let Ozman know if you want anything explained more.

Do you have any questions on building?

Does anyone have any building questions they want answered or do you have some tips you want to share? Please telegram Ozman and also to give feedback on this article, particularly if there are any mistakes. And as always, be sure to check the AW Help page and the related AW wiki pages for further help.

For new builders, be sure to visit AWNewbie, and AWSchool worlds for very good tutorials, on-line help from qualified teachers, and lots of very good objects.