Amphitheatre Complete (sans seating though) 3 hours later...

I started laying-out the flat cylinders to approximate where I would "raise" the landscape on the mountainside to create prim-free stools for avatars to sit upon. Nope. Didn't work; I found that I could not raise a small enough section of land. I decided to put seating on the back burner and create a demonstration platform where the "instructor" can demonstrate concepts and also have enough room for students to come on down and participate.

I had rezzed a 30m x 30m x 0.5m platform out of flattened boxes, the default SL prim. I stuck it in the north side of the mountain, jutting out toward the sea. I wanted a rounded "corner" and a railing so that students and class facilitators would not fall off the platform. Here is a pict of construction:



I wanted the platform to be made of stone or wood; an earthy-type feel. I found an awesome texture in my inventory (of about 11,500 items) called "Old Wood". I applied the texture to the platform, but it looked pretty awful (see above). Not only did I have several overlapping prims in the platform (creating an annoying and fasciculating appearance), but the wood grain itself was distorted. I deleted several overlapping and "hidden" prims in the platform that I must have rezzed accidentally and adjusted some of the texture parameters. I also found a few nifty shortcuts to keep the prim count down (15K max per island) which, incidentally, helped the textures meet up nicely:



I then created a railing, textured it with "Peeling Paint", rezzed a rocking chair from my inventory and sat down to relax and watch my 1st Second Life sunset on Hatters Island: