Month: March 2009

This snapshot was enhanced using the Environment Editor

Last week I posted three articles about making better Second Life snapshots. This snapshot is an example of what can be done using those techniques. It was taken in Glendalough sim behind Lilly’s Pub, and was enhanced by using the techniques I described in those three articles. Among other things, I placed the moon at exactly the position where I wanted it, which required setting not only the moon position, but its azimuth (East Angle) as well.

This snapshot is how the scene looks without using the Environment Editor

This picture is a snapshot of the same scene as I found it, without using the Environment Editor to alter anything. The scene makes a quite nice snapshot, though not without the atmosphere of the first shot.

This is the same scene at night without using the Environment Editor

This picture is as a snapshot taken at night, without adjusting any of the Environment Editor settings. The reflections in the water are nice, but the foreground trees and the avatar are too dark, and of course there is no moon..

By taking the time to adjust the various Environment Editor settings, however, it’s possible to make an outstanding snapshot out of what would have been merely a pleasant snapshot.

If you want to make better Second Life snapshots, I suggest you bookmark those three articles I posted here last week and refer back to them.

An Ivory Tower tutorial in Second Life building

The Ivory Tower Library of Primitives is a place where nearly everyone in Second Life, from complete noob to experienced builder, can learn something. Whether you simply want to apply a texture to an object or you want to construct an elaborate structure that will leave others in awe of your skills, this is an essential place to landmark and to visit.

The magnificent Ivory Tower and the well illustrated tutorials in its Library of Primitives were created by Lumiere Noire, in real life a Texas schoolteacher, who has devoted the last six years or so to building this indispensable reference to how to construct nearly anything you might want to build in Second Life. I first met Lumiere six years ago in the metaverse “There”, where he earned a reputation as a skilled and imaginative builder. In Second Life, he has gone way beyond being a master builder to being a master teacher of anyone who needs to learn to build.

An Ivory Tower tutorial in lighting

I first learned to build in Second Life by visiting Lumiere’s first Ivory Tower of Primitives. It’s grown tremendously in its offerings since then. When his current Ivory Tower today, I realized that I need to return to refresh my own building skills. I can’t overstate how much there is to learn there, or how well laid out it is, as only someone who knows how to teach could accomplish. Regardless whether you have just recently joined Second Life and just want to learn some basic building skills using a public sandbox, or you are an estate owner looking to build an edifice, you will find something here.

The Ivory Tower

If you are a Second Life member, you can teleport to the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Natoma/211/164/28.

For additional news stories about Second Life and virtual worlds in general, visit my website avatarplanet.com.

DWC mosque at night

When you think of Muslim women in the Arab world, what comes to mind? Probably not Second Life. Yet last year the United Arab Emirates‘ Dubai Womens College opened its second campus in Second Life, according to an article this week in the United Arab Emirates’ newspaper The National Most of their Second Life land is off limits to outsiders, but in 2008 Matt Kwong was given a tour of the virtual campus and wrote a fascinating article about the college and the activities of its students.

I visited the public part and found this little mosque, which according to a sign there is a typical residential area mosque. It’s positioned facing Mecca on the Second Life grid. If you are a Second Life member, you can teleport to it at slurl.com/secondlife/Dubai%20Womens%20College/209/61/30.

Pagoda in Gaden Gardens at mighnight

Gaden Gardens is a Second Life location of classic Japanese architecture and a magnificant replica of Japan’s ninety-three ton Kamakura Bhudda. This pagoda is not far from the Bhudda and will serve as an excellent subject for learning about taking Second Life snapshots by available moonlight.

This is what the pagoda looks like at Second Life’s midnight. It’s certainly attractive, but changing the moon and the cloud cover will drastically improve the picture and alter the mood of the shot.

For the following exercises, please refer to the picture in yesterday’s article (part two of this series) of the Environment Editor and the Advanced Sky Editor’s Lighting tab. Today we’ll continue playing with the Lighting tab and also with the Clouds tab.

If you’re a Second Life member and you want to visit the exact location from which I made these snapshots, just click http://slurl.com/secondlife/Resnik/55/80/91

he pagoda after changing the moon position and cloud cover

You can see how much improved this picture is. To accomplish this, I made two changes:

1. In the Advanced Sky Editor, Lighting tab, I changed the Sun/Moon Position slider to where the pagoda was lit the best
2. In the Environment Editor, I moved the Cloud Cover slider to the max 1.00.

It’s still a night shot, using just moonlight, but the pagoda is much better lit than in the first shot.

You might be wondering how this shot would look if we could actually get the moon into the picture. Let’s find out.

The pagoda with the moon behind it.

For this shot, I did something we haven’t done before: I changed the moon’s East Angle, using the Advanced Sky Editor’s Lighting tab, which changes the moon’s azimuth. The moon was obscured by the thick cloud cover, so in the Environment Editor, I changed the Cloud Cover slider to the minimum.

However, moving the moon from behind us to behind the pagoda created a new problem: we’ve made a more interesting background, but the pagoda’s front is once again shrouded in midnight gloom.  We’ll tackle that next.

The pagoda with maximum cloud cover

For this picture, I went back to the Advanced Sky Editor’s Lighting tab and changed the Scene Gamma.  This caused the overall scene to brighten while retaining black sky of night.

The moon is still there, but is obscured by the much brighter clouds.  There is one more trick we can try to make the moon more prominent

The pagoda with clouds removed

When clouds get in the way in our first lives, there’s not much we can do about it, but in Second Life it’s easily handled. 

For this picture, with the clouds removed and the moon and stars showing clearly behind the pagoda, I once again used the Advanced Sky Editor, but this time I opened the Clouds tab.  Under that tab, on the lower right corner, I unchecked the box next to "Draw Classic Clouds".  This won’t always get rid of clouds, but it does get rid of the classic puffy clouds that were obscuring the moon in our previous shots. 

Now it’s your turn to go out and play with the information you’ve learned from these three articles.  You can dramatically change the appearance of your shots by using the Environment Editor and its sub-editors.  They are powerful tools.