Six-Level Sandbox

Instant multi-level, one-region sandbox. Just add water!

No, wait – I added the water already!

Just start building!

OAR Download & more info on OpenSim Creations

http://opensim-creations.com/2014/09/08/six-level-sandbox/

“hmmm…which Level did i park my airship on?…”

I posted the above OAR on OpenSim Creations today for your dining and downloading pleasure.

In some of my virtual world projects, I leave room for a one-region sandbox. Sometimes it’s a permanent part of the setup, sometimes just temporary.

In some projects I need more than one region to build in but one is all I have. So I throw a building platform up in the sky. Or two.

A year ago, when I created the Dankoville mini-grid, I set aside two offshore regions as sandboxes. The region called North Sandbox was used for loading OARs to look at or test or for importing and exporting inventory items. Neighboring South Sandbox was used for building for Dankoville and for projects on other grids as well. I had several projects in various stages and I decided to give each project its own building platform. Each platform was a full region in size. Each used a different terrain texture from the default library.

After I sent the platforms up at intervals of 250m, I would then rez a box on the ground, have a seat and go up and visit each platform. I’d get off my flying box and place a small landing point prim at 128 x 128, upon which I would stand and drop a Landmark.

Done.

Well, almost. I also added a radio to each level so I could select the right mood music for building.

I liked that sandbox structure so much that I copied the OAR and have used it many times since in Sim-on-a-Stick. It worked well for me though it was slightly annoying at times to have to go into my Inventory to use one of those Landmarks.

Recently while shopping on OSgrid, I found a teleport pad system made by Prospero Frobozz. I was thinking about using this system in a 2048×2048 Varregion. But before I was ready to try that, I wanted to test it. These pads were made to work within one region. Would they still work if that one region was 64 times larger than the region they were made for? Theoretically it should, of course. But this is the virtual world we’re talking about here. One never really knows if anything is going to work. I thought of my multi-level sandbox region as a good place to test it since I could place the teleport pads more than 256m away from each other and still have them in the same region.

I followed the teleporter instructions and set one near the center of my sandbox region’s ground level. Then I ordered its mate to rise to the level of my highest building platform…and a smidge more.

Then I right-clicked the teleport pad at ground level and selected Teleport from the pie chart and instantly I was standing on the other teleporter on my top-level platform.

I am always so pleased (and surprised!) when I try some item in virtual worlds that I have no previous info about…and it works!

“Well now, what else can we use this for?” I asked myself. “I think I’ll install this little gadget on every platform in this sandbox region,” I replied. I did. And then I hopped all around my Six-Level Sandbox. “I must share this discovery with the world!” I proclaimed.

Actually, I didn’t think about sharing it at the time. It was only after I used this OAR over and over again on different projects that I realized how valuable and time-saving this simple little build is. So I made a brand new version to share with others. The build platforms are 500m apart and I did not include the radios, you may certainly bring your own.

Happy building!