Building the Western Mesa

I built the western Mesa using 4 layers of prims to achieve proper perspective. First, I used some of the vertical terrain mega-prim sculpties as a base ground layer and textured them with one of the estate textures that looks like dirt. For a contrast, I textured a few with a more rocky texture. I found that it was easier to make elevation changes using these prims, as opposed to trying to build them in the raw terrain file used as the height map in the estate.

For my next layer, I used flattened mega prims with the mesa textures from the original build so that as an avatar looks up into the mesas, the trees and such look like they are farther away. I then placed smaller flattened prims textured with larger trees midway and down so that they look closer to the avatar eye. For my last layer, I used actual sculpted trees to hide the fact that most of the mesa is made of flattened panels. I feel this technique helped me keep prim count low, but still gives the illusion of depth and perspective.

After building the western mesa, the rest of the mesas were fairly simple and fast, although it got a little sketchy near the borders, and a few of my mega-prims had to be returned to me because I accidentally placed them on neighboring islands that don't belong to us.

Things started going rapidly at this point. I built the dam and the two roads that go in and out of the village. And at this point, I knew that I needed to fill up some of the space with some stuff to make the village feel more authentic. In real life, once something makes its way to the village, it usually stays there and becomes part of someone's yard collection. So there is a lot of old farming equipment, lumber piles, old appliances, etc. laying about in the village. Don't get the wrong idea, it's not a trashy place and there is never really any litter, but there is a lot of what I will call "stuff they may someday use but probably not" hanging around. So Troy Vogel went on a shopping spree for pre-made junk, and we scattered it about.

And suddenly, this looks like an isolated village, and I realize that I am finished with the major construction of this virtual field school. It still needs some fine-tuning, but the actual location is ready to go. Also, my prim count is now becoming depleted. I only have @ 500 out of 3,500 prims left to use. (Spreading the junk was prim-costly.) So, next I will be working on the interactivity part of this project, coming up with a lesson plan, adding sounds, and placing the activities. But for now this is what it looks like:

Looking from East to West: