Day: May 10, 2021

It is pretty well known to readers of this blog that I particularly like a couple of things: kitbashing house designs for personal use, and mucking about with ideas for use with the Linden Home designs I’ve used. In particular, this has led to frequent changes of house style on our home island, and a recent piece on how the Linden Home Tortuga style of Stilt Home lends itself to a far amount of modding (see Modding a Linden Stilt Home).

All of which recently led me to a cheeky idea: could I recreate the LDPW’s Tortuga design in we could on our Second Norway home island. And the answer is pretty much, yes, helped in no small part by the Moles themselves.

In order to recreate a Tortuga style house I had to initially construct a template marking out the overall floor size of the house, the window & door positions, and to set a height for the ceiling. Once this was done, it was a simple matter of cutting the prims and gluing them together (I’m not a Blender user, so a mesh build is currently beyond me).

An advantage of building a personal variant of the Tortuga is that it allowed me to make some additional changes. Those who read my piece on modding the original Tortuga will remember I split the larger of the two through rooms to create a smaller living area with a vestibule to the front of the house.

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Building my own variant meant I could include this directly into it. Texturing was made a lot easier thanks to the texture packs Linden Lab supply with Linden Homes, with a selection of textures from this pack, plus a couple of my own, and I had things pretty much set.

In addition, I could adjust the layout to suit my needs – such as by reducing the archway of the large through room, when using the smaller half as a bedroom – again, the use of a handy rezzing system means I can switch elements of the layout with ease to suit moods.

There are a few things working in prims didn’t allow me to reproduce – the detailing of the roof sidings, the curved coving in the rooms, etc., but overall I’m pleased with the outcome.  At 137 LI (utilising Convex Hull physics), it is lighter on the land than the original (221) – although admittedly, I’ve yet to add some of the materials featured on the original.

Of course, all this is a bit of a cheek – given the original design does belong to the LDPW (my apologies in particular to Magic Mole, who appears to be responsible for the Tortuga design). In my defence, I can only sat that it’s a design I like, and the version I’ve created is purely for personal use. Certainly, with a couple of minor tweaks to Isla Caitinara, and the house fitted in quite well, even if I do say so myself – and I hope the pictures here demonstrate.

So, that’s the latest house to come to Isla Caitinara; a little different to my usual, but one that could be sticking around for a while – although I have said that before.