Hello-))
Firstly, I am not one to be negative about other people’s terraforming. As well, I generally do not toot-my-own-horn…however; from Customer reviews to seeing Terraforming in multiple Grids…I do think I am a pretty decent Terraformer.
So it occurred to me I might be of some help to some people in their desire to do their own terraforming. And since I have picked up a few tricks and tips along the way, I thought I might take some time to share some. If it helps some people, I will be happy–))
If I might insert a small disclaimer first please. Yes, I am a Business Woman. If I got some additional Business from this…I certainly would be fine with that, however, I think it more likely I will lose some potential business. Some of these hints will be very helpful.
I would first recommend either creating your own grid on your own computer http://simonastick.com/ or similar. You can also create RAWs in http://www.kitely.com/#!home and upload or download them either way.
RAWs are the Terrain 832 kb file that is the depths and heights of the terraforming on your Sim/Region/World. The hills and mountains, the rivers and creeks, the ponds and lakes. Using your Estate Tools available in all grids, you can upload a RAW to your Sim and you can download them to your harddrive.
As well, you can add an Estate Manager and they can also do that for you. In some grids god-mode needs to be invoked in order for the EM to do their work. Ctrl alt v activates this using imprudence viewer. This setting does not persist through relogs.
There is a little-known OS code terra bug that causes some types of terraforming to not smooth. If you have done some terraforming you will see this in small patches of areas at random locations where you simply cannot smooth the area. This is due to a steep change in elevation, generally when the flatten terra tool is used and the area is not smoothed. It is unavoidable in those cases where steep changes are necessary but in most cases the proper use of smoothing and elevation changes can fix this.
I always recommend to new terraformers that they start out with the lowest settings on the terra tools slider bars until they get used to the gird results. In particular, the strength slider should be almost all the way to the left. It is very easy to make a big mess of your Sim or parcel by trying to go to fast using high strengths.
One thing to remember when uploading RAWs is that any prims on the Sim will not move. So, your fancy new home may end up inside that new mountain–)) But you can cam inside the mountain and edit it or pick it up…hehe. Or, of course, do the terra work prior to placing any ground prims.
There are terraforming software programs. I currently do not use any of them as I have gotten pretty fast doing them by hand, but the terra software does allow one to create RAWs off line, so they may be useful to some people. There is a lot of information on the net concerning terraforming…I personally think one can do overkill in some things and terraforming, tho easy for me [and my passion] is difficult to impossible for many people.
I would be happy to answer any further terra questions you may have.
Warm regards–minethere
