About my style of building

I'm very much into atmosphere so It seems pointless to me building a house with a great exterior yet no style inside. I try to avoid that feeling of disappointment many builds leave me with when the exterior promises so much and deliverers only a soulless shell as you enter. A building should have an emotional connection to the viewer and I'm so glad reading my reviews that this seems to be the main reason people love my buildings .
I also try to avoid making tiny spaces where cameras are impossible to pan. Any space smaller that 10m square or less than 7m in height is near pointless in SL. So you may find my builds have fewer but larger rooms than most.

Detail is also important. Detail intrigues and delights, it tells stories and sets a scene. So it may sometimes take hours to set up a door latch but I think it's worth it.

General Information

Installation :

I put all My builds in Rez-Faux rezzers for a few very good reasons .

1, It makes the building impossible to destroy . It you damage it you can always rez another.

2, You can move the whole building into place by simply moving the Rezzer and the rest of the build follows

To rez your house / skybox in the sky you first need a platform to rez it on. If in the air then I’ve included a platform ( Skybox locator ) in the box so rez this on your land first . You need this right in the middle well away from land boundaries. Once in position simply follow the simple instructions included in the box.

Once at the right height for you then drop the ‘Rezzer’ from your inventory onto the middle of where you want the build If It’s a house then the little model of the building will be your rezzer and It sits in front of the house in the orientation of the rezzer

To rez your building from the package:

1. Rez the ‘Skybox rezzer’ from your inventory by dragging it to the ground ( or middle of the platform ) . If you want it in the sky ( and I assume you do ) then use the ‘Skybox locator’ in the package to make a platform at whatever height you want to live at.

2. Click it and select "Rez" from the menu. Wait while the entire structure rezzes in a pile and then snaps into position.

3. Move and rotate the package box as you please, and watch your build move to match it.

4. When you're done, click "Save", which will freeze your build into position. You may then delete the ’Skybox rezzer’.
You may also choose to "Store" your build, which, along with saving, will store the position and rotation of every link set in the object's Description. This is useful information to have in case the objects "drift".

NB : On uneven ground it’s best to raise it up slightly while rezzing

Hint : Sit on the rezzer before rezzing ;it’s the safest place to be .

Now touch the rezzer and select ‘rez’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Troubleshooting ( From the maker of the ‘Rez – Faux ‘ System )

Please visit my extensive Rez-Faux FAQ if you have trouble:
http://www.lexneva.name/sales/faq.html

Here are some basic troubleshooting tactics to get you started:

“The structure is scrunched against the ground.”

If the pieces would end up below the ground, they'll "give up" and sit at ground level. Move or rotate
the Rez-Faux object to lift them out.

“But wait, I want my house's foundation to sink into the ground!”

What really matters here is the root prim of each piece. So long as the root prim is always above the ground,
you can sink the rest of a piece into the ground. Linking your floor and foundation to a piece of the wall will
help with this.

“The structure is scrunched against the sim border.”

If you're at the very edge of the world, the pieces may try to fall off into the void, but they'll stop
themselves before they go that far. Move or rotate the Rez-Faux object away from the edge of the
world to fix this

“I lost a piece of the structure!”

If your pieces end up over a neighbor's plot with autoreturn on, they may return to your inventory.
Just Derez the structure, move the Rez-Faux object, and re-rez it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the build first appear you get deluged with Paskis script ‘spam’ telling you the status of the many scripts that are initialising in the build. Just ignore it all It’s in your chatlog if you need to refer to it but that’s as likely as BP getting an award for environmental protection.

Once you’ve done a quick check that all is as it should be touch the rezzer and select ‘save’. This deletes al the rez scripts to reduce lag. If you want to remove this building then just delete it . The rezzer will just rez another ..and another . So just take the rezzer after you save to finish..

Embedded Rezzers

I've started to introduce rezzers into the build to give people the option of adding high prim fixtures or removing them when not needed .. The castle has one in the middle on the lower chamber cieling which rezzers the chandelier into place. Just touch the 'boss' at the center to rez.. touch again to derez

DOORS and WINDOWS

All the scripts are ‘Paskis’ . Still the best door script after 3 years by far . in fact almost nobody realised it’s potential until the builder of Skye Castles recently demonstrated to full creative potential of this incredible script.
To make my doors more interesting I generally use some kind of button or lever to open them so touching the door won’t get you in.

LOCKING:

There are two ways to do this. By far the easiest is to touch the ‘Keyserver’ ( a small panel with keys hanging on it ) and select ‘Lock’ from the menu. This locks all the doors at once. Only the owner can do this.
OR you can set a password. Touch the door ‘handle’ and you should see a line in the configuration notecard that looks like this
Password =’Your Password here’
( if it doesn’t then you can just add this line anywhere in the notecard )
Replace the ‘Your Password here’ with your password then save .

EG

Password = Bogart
To lock you type
/1Bogart

Other chat commands

/1lock Lock the door

/1unlock Unlock the door

/1resetkeyholders Reset the key holders back to those listed in the notecard

/1listkeyholders List the names of the current key holders via a whisper

/1addkeyholder Add a new key holder to the list

/1latch Lock the door open until /unlatch is issued. (Door must first be open for this to work)

/1unlatch If door is latched open, unlatch it. It will close when touched or after the time set by closedelay.


Teleporters :


This is my own script so unique to my builds. Many people like stairs in RP which is why I include them but if you want to go up or down a leval fast then just touch these symbols on the walls. If you don't need them just delete them.



The Keyserver :

Please don't be alarmed by the seeming complexity of this device. It's most useful function is locking the doors ( Just touch> Doors > Lock ) but if you're adept at these kind of things you'll find it very useful for many functions . If you ain't then relax, everything works fine without it .


The Menu
~~~~~~~~
When touched, the Keyserver will present a menu. The options that appear can be renamed (or removed) by the keyserver owner using the options described in the "Notecard Options" section below.

The default menu items are:

Tints
-- Select a tint level for the windows, by default these are "Light", "Medium", "Dark".

Presets
-- Three preset combinations of Door lock status, window tint level and lighting level. By default these are:
Not Home - Doors locked, window tint level 1, lights off
Evening - Doors unlocked, window tint level 2, lights high
Night - Doors locked, window tint level 3, lights low

Admin
-- Add, remove and list names in the keyserver.
-- Resend the list to the scripts (used if a script is restarted and needs to pick up the list of authorised users again)
-- Reload the Keyserver config (only available to the keyserver owner)

Doors
-- Lock or Unlock doors
Lights
-- Set the lights to high, low, or turn the lights off.


The Admin Menu -- Further Explained
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding a keyholder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touch the keyserver to pull up the menu, then select Add. The keyserver will prompt you to type names. Type each name into chat, one name per line. The keyserver will keep adding the names you type until you type the word 'done' on a blank line of chat.

It will only listen to you - the person who put it into "add" mode. If you type something that can't be a name in SL, for example a single word, or more than two words on a line, your entry will be rejected. If you try to add someone who's already on the list, you'll be told that person's already a keyholder. If you don't make a valid entry in 60 seconds, the keyserver will timeout, broadcast the list entered so far, and go back to 'idle' mode.

Removing a keyholder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touch the keyserver to pull up the menu, then select Remove. The keyserver will list all the current keyholders, preceeding each with an index number. Type the index number of the name you'd like to remove. The keyserver will remove that name from the list, and re-list the names. Continue until you've removed all the names you want, then type 'done' on a blank line of chat.

If you don't make a valid entry in 60 seconds, the keyserver will timeout, broadcast the current list of keyholders, and go back to 'idle' mode.

Listing the keyholders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touch the keyserver to pull up the menu, then select List. The keyserver will list the current keyholders.

Restoring the original keyholders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touch the keyserver to pull up the menu, then select Reload. The keyserver will reload the list of keyholders from its notecard, and remove all the ones manually entered through chat. Note, so that rental tenants don't hit Reload and get themselves removed from the access list, this option is available only to the Keyserver's Owner.

Resending the Keyholders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes you will reset the script of a door or other device, and want to resend the keyholder list out from the keyserver without changing it. Use the Resend button to do this.


Notecard Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These options can be configured in the 'keyserver setup' notecard inside the Keyserver.

'channel'
As per the "To Set Up" section above, the 'channel=xxx' lines list all the channels you want the keyserver to talk to. You may have separated the lights in the house into zones, or you may use slave doors on different channels. It's not unusual for a house to use 10 different channels for the scripts to communicate. You can add as many channels to the keyserver as you need.

'doormenu'
This option allows you to rename the 'Doors' button in the Keyserver, or to remove the 'Doors' menu if you do not want to control doors with the Keyserver.

Examples:
doormenu=none
-- This would remove the 'Doors' button from the Keyserver menu.
doormenu=Access
-- This would rename the 'Doors' button to 'Access'.

'lightmenu'
This option allows you to rename the 'Lights' button in the Keyserver in the same way as the 'doormenu' option above. Setting the lightmenu option to 'none' will remove the button.

'lightlow', 'lighthigh', 'lightoff'
These options allow you to rename the Low, High and Off buttons in the light menu.

Examples:
lightlow=Dim
lighthigh=Bright
lightoff=Nitelite
.... would rename the buttons to Dim, Bright and Nitelite. You would have set up corresponding lighting levels in your light scripts to match these descriptions.

'tintmenu'
As per the lightmenu and doormenu options, this setting allows you to rename the Tint menu, or to turn it off with tintmenu=none.

'tint1', 'tint2', 'tint3'
As for the lightlow/high/off options, these options will rename the Tint level buttons on the Tint menu. There is one special option - tint3 may be set to 'none' to remove the third tint level option (as the Window script has the option to use only two settings.)

Examples:
tint1=Clear
tint2=Solid
tint3=One Way
.... would rename the buttons to Clear, Solid and One Way. You would have set up the appropriate corresponding options in the tint script to match.

'presetmenu'
As per the other menu options, this option allows you to change or remove the 'presets' button. Use presetmenu=none to turn off the Presets menu.

'preset1doors', 'preset2doors', 'preset3doors'
For each of the presets there's a corresponding option that determines whether the doors should be locked or unlocked when that preset is selected.

Examples:
preset1doors=locked
preset2doors=unlocked
preset3doors=locked

'preset1tint', 'preset2tint', 'preset3tint'
For each of the presets there's a corresponding option that determines the tint level set for that preset. The levels are always referred to simply as 1, 2 or 3 for the purposes of this option.

Examples:
preset1tint=1
preset2tint=3
preset3tint=2
.... Would set the first tint when Preset 1 was selected, the third tint when preset 2 was selected, and so on.

'preset1lights', 'preset2lights', 'preset3lights'
For each of the presets there's a corresponding option that determines the lighting level set for that preset. The levels are always referred to as "off", "low" and "high" for the purposes of this option.

Examples:
preset1lights=off
preset2lights=low
preset3lights=high


'regionsay'
By default the keyserver has a 100m range. This is sufficient for most houses, and helps to ensure that your keyserver doesn't interfere with others if you use the default channels. In some circumstances it's desirable to increase the range of the keyserver, and setting regionsay=on will extend the keyservers range to cover the entire sim it's in. Be sure to select your own personal channel(s) if you're using this option.


'keyholder'
See "To Set Up" section for information about adding keyholders directly to the keyserver setup file.