Working in Three Dimensions

Written 12 December, 2006

My Volcano

XIII: Working in Three Dimensions

A 4096 square meter property isn’t all that big, really. It’s about 37,000 square feet, about 190 feet per side, if the property is square. That’s room enough for a good-sized house and a lawn.

The volcano makes my land seem much bigger. There are beaches along three sides of the island, and underwater areas near the property lines, the mountain itself (one can walk up it if one wants), the caldera with boiling lava, and the under-the-volcano area. That seems like a lot of real estate.

The addition of Mother Ship Guy's former lot gives me more than 400 additional prims, more beach, and a riverfront.

So my 6144 square meter property seems much larger than it is.

The hollowed-out volcano increases the livable space. So do skyboxes. Currently I’ve placed two-- the one I’ll use for entertaining, and Chrissy’s house. She’s still searching for that perfect low-prim, low-cost bed with just the right sexual pose balls, so her house remains empty and uninhabited.

In the excavation I had asked Patrice to make beneath the house site, I’ve placed a room. I made a 10 x 10 x 7 meter prim, hollowed it, made two copies, and joined them, then made end walls. At a net cost of five prims, I managed to make a new floor for my house that is 30 meters long, 10 wide, and seven high.

There’s a catch: the room is entirely underwater.

It’s okay; avatars can breathe underwater. We’re not like the Sims, for goodness sakes! We don’t have to take ourselves to the bathroom, or eat, or build up relaxation points. We never have to come up to breathe. And so it’s possible to add an underwater addition to my house.

Long distance vision is obscured underwater, so the far end of the big room looks dark from the near end. Lights would fix that, but a more elegant solution is to divide the big room into three sections, using round doorways that match the house above.

The outside of the underwater house is yellow coral—appropriate for its setting, I think.

I’ve laid in the floor-- hardwood along two sections, and a carpet on the third. The carpet has a moving reef pattern that is quite spectacular. I’m still thinking about textures for the walls and ceiling.

I’ve turned the inside surface of the two end prims into giant television screens. Right now all that plays is “Minnie the Moocher,” a Betty Boop cartoon that features a live performance by Cab Calloway and his band. I need to find a video player that will let me change stations like my Wurlitzer lets me change radio stations.

The island is shaping up!