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.
Whether you are like me, a fan of some Star Trek series, or you’re a diehard Trekkie, or you simply want to learn a little of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, you’ll find something to learn at Second Life’s Star Trek Museum. The sheer amount and scope of information available is amazing.
A few of the thousands of facts you can learn there:
The US Navy’s Aegis-class destroyers were influenced heavily by some design elements of the Enterprise bridge.
The Enterprise appears in the Battlestar Galactica TV series, in the background of a shot featuring the rag tag fleet in the upper right of the scene.
Space Fleet’s dry dock
The Museum consists of several buildings containing the various parts of the Enterprise, along with a movie theater, art gallery, games, downloadable paper models, and hydroponics lab. There are also Orion, Ferengi, Borg, Andorian,Romulan, Klingon, Cardassian, Bajoran, Maquis, Chameloid, and Betazoid “embassies”, When you enter the Sick Bay, the Doctor’s disembodied voice inquires, “Please state the nature of your medical emergency.” The Astrometrics Lab and 3D Starmaps are particularly impressive. Be sure to check them out.
Nearly every object in the Museum can be clicked on to get a notecard or webpage for more information. Topics range from extreme trivia of Star Trek history to technical explanations of real world science.
Standing inside our solar system in the Astrometrics Lab
High in the sky over the museum, you’ll find a drydock and a Star Fleet station. You can travel between them either by teleporting or using a shuttle, which also gives an auto-pilot aerial tour of the area around the Museum.
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.
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.
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.
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:
In the Advanced Sky Editor, Lighting tab, I changed the Sun/Moon Position slider to where the pagoda was lit the best
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.
Can you really make a six figure income from selling animations in Second Life? Fox 13 in Tampa Bay, Florida, reports on a local man who does. Married with two children in his first life, he uses a $40,000 full body sensor suit to create romantic animations that he sells in Second Life. This is the first of a series of reports I’ll be doing on how people are making money in Second Life, sometimes becoming wealthy.
Look for this sign in Second Life for contest rules
Don’t forget, tomorrow (March 12, 2009) is the last day to enter Second Life’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy Snapshot Contest!
You can learn about rules and prizes at the rezlibris website or in Second Life to can teleport to slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/205/114/33 and look for the sign in this picture. Touch the sign (in Second Life, not here!) and you’ll get a notecard with contest information.
The GLSV rocket, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for putting satellites into orbit, will be our subject in using Second Life’s Environment Editor. These rockets are at Second Life’s Spaceport Alpha – International Spaceflight Museum. You can visit this exact spot and stand next to these rockets by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Alpha/70/120/35.
This picture was taken at noon. In my last article, we used the Environment Settings presets and the Environment Editor slider to change the lighting in the Czechoslovakia sim by changing the position in the sky. Today we’re going to go one step further by using some presets in the Advanced Sky Editor.
Second Life’s Environment Editor (Below) and Advanced Sky Editor (above)
To get to the Advanced Sky Editor, first click World, then Environment Settings, and then Environment Editor. In the picture to the right, the Environment Editor is shown in the lower half. At the bottom of the Environment Editor, you’l see “Advanced Sky”. Click it to open the Advanced Sky Editor, seen in the upper half of the picture.
In the upper left corner of the Advanced Sky Editor, you’ll see “Sky Presets:” followed by a box that probably contains “Default”. Today I’ll show you how you can dramatically change the mood of a shot by changing the Sky Preset.
GLSV rockets viewed using Coastal Afternoon preset
Click the down arrow next to “Default”. You’ll see a drop down menu of about two dozen (as of this writing) presets for various times of day and sky conditions. You’ll find that the results will vary for different locations and times. In the case of these GLSV rockets at Spaceport Alpha, if we want lighting that will make the rockets stand out starkly against a blue sky, an excellent preset to choose is “Coastal Afternoon”. This is what I used to get the image at the left.
The GLSV rockets viewed using the Fine Day preset
For a scene that might be found near dawn or dusk, with a darkened sky and fog shrouding the sea behind the rockets, the “Fine Day” preset is an excellent choice.
The GLSV rockets viewed using the Sailor’s Delight preset
Finally, for a scene that reflects the old adage, “Red sun at night, sailor’s delight, red sun at morning, sailor take warning,” we can select the aptly named “Sailor’s Delight” preset, which captures the red glow and orange sky that we might find at sunrise or sunset.
Play around with these presets in various settings. They can be a powerful tool. Next time, I’ll show you how to play with moonlight.
In ancient times, only the greatest of prophets could blot out the sun, but today any lowly mouse or trackball can accomplish it, at least in Second Life. This is a key element in making great Second Life snapshots.
High noon may be a fine time for an Old West shootout, but not for snapshooting. At high noon in Second Life, just as in your first life, high noon is a time of few shadows and little left to the imagination. Unlike in your first life, however, in Second Life you can do something about it. You can be like one of those ancient prophets. You can move the sun, or blot it out completely.
Let’s return to the Czechoslovakia sim. The following SLURL should get you there: slurl.com/secondlife/Czechoslovakia/68/135/58. This should place your avatar in the very same church tower from which I made these snapshots (the tower in the center of the picture). In my previous column, the picture you saw of it showed a brooding, fog-shrouded place of mystery. If you go there at high noon, however, and take a snapshot of what you see, you’ll get a much less interesting picture, like at the one the left.. It’s certainly an attractive and old city, but the snapshot of it could be, well, snappier.
Czechoslovakia sim at sunrise
Now let’s try a simple change. In Second Life, click "World" and then on the dropdown menu click "Environment Settings". You’ll see a new menu. The first four choices are "Sunrise", "Midday", "Sunset" and "Midnight". Try clicking each of them to see how it changes your picture, and how the Second Life sun comes from different directions at sunset and sunrise. For the picture at the right, I used Sunrise.
Second Life Environment Editor
The four presets we saw in the preceding example can be very useful in every day life, but for making good snapshots we need greater control over the position of the sun. This calls for using the Environment Editor. To open the Environment Editor, go down to the bottom of the Environment Settings menu we used in the last example and click "Environment Editor".
You’ll see two times on the left side of the Environment Editor window: the current Second Life time (which is based on four hour days and one hour nights), and below that you’ll see "12:00 PM". There’s a slide to the right of "12:00 PM". Try sliding it around and watch how the angle of the sun changes. If you look up into the sky while doing it, you’ll see the sun and moon move across the sky as you move the slider.
Czechoslovakia sim at 7:40pm
This is the picture of Czechoslovakia that resulted when I moved the slider to "7:40 PM".
You can see how simply moving the sun, like an ancient prophet, can dramatically change your photographs. Play around with it. Don’t worry, unlike the sun in our first lives, in Second Life no one else sees your sun. You can move it all you want and not affect anyone else. It’s all done in the Second Life viewer installed on your computer, and has no effect at all on how other people experience Second Life.
Tomorrow in part two I’ll continue discussing the Environment Editor. Until then, play around with what I’ve shown you today.
Recently I met a beautiful woman in Second Life. Ok, she was someone’s avatar, but still beautiful. When I tried talking with her, however, I learned she was Romanian and knew little English. I had similar experiences with two other avatars the same morning. One was Swiss and the other Brazilian, but none of us knew enough of the other’s language to speak.
About 54% of Second Life members live in non-English speaking countries. Most speak widely used languages like German, French, and Spanish, but others speak languages such as Portuguese, Turkish, and Korean. Many also speak English, but often not well. How do we communicate with them when we meet them? We can and should learn foreign languages, but no one can learn them all. Is there another way?
Yes. Over a half dozen automatic language translating HUD’s are available in Second Life. Some of them are free. Each of them translates at least 32 languages. The odds are that one of them will work for you. They only translate typed text at present – automatic translation of speech will be a major technical challenge – but they should allow you to hold a basic conversation in a wide variety of languages.
Second Life's Czechoslovakia sim
I’ve tested seven of the automatic translators that are most commonly available in Second Life They range in price from free to 500 Lindens. One of the free translators rivals the most expensive for quality in basic functionality.
The translators I tested are:
Ferd’s Free Translator (free)
Simbolic (free)
AF Translator Basic (aka Translator Box) (180 Lindens)
AF Translator Pro (340 Lindens)
MH Translator (370 Lindens)
Q-Translator (390 Lindens)
X-Lang (500 Lindens)
Before buying any translator, be sure to test its HUD on your screen in ALL positions. I found this a particularly aggravating weakness of a few translators. For example, I might specify that I wanted it in the upper right, but some translators would either position it elsewhere on the screen, or not at all. Also be certain that the HUD isn’t partially covered by the side or bottom of the screen, as happens in a few translators. Check all screen positions.
Some other key features to look for:
Toggling between automatic language detection and a specified language.
Toggling object translation on and off.
Spell checker
Anti-spam filter to block repeating statements when you speak in the target language.
Displaying your current language settings
If you are not a native English speaker, does it offer a HUD or help in your native language?
X-Lang 6.0 (500 Lindens):
This is one of only two translators to position its HUD without any problems. Its features include:
I found MH Translator extremely frustrating. The HUD position was wrong or simply didn’t work for most positions, and I sometimes had trouble getting it to translate, probably because in certain positions, some HUD menu choices are hidden from view.
AF Pro 1.4 (340 Lindens)
AF Basic 2.4 (180 Lindens)
These both offer a very nice compromise between the more complex HUD of X-Lang and Q-Translator and the streamlined HUD of Ferd’s Free and Simbolic Translators. Of all the translators, this is the one that was easiest to use without experience and without reading help.
As much as I like these two translators, I do have two complaints. One is that when the HUD is placed on the left and center bottom of the screen, Second Life’s chat bar partially covers it. The other complaint is that neither version displays your current language selections. This is not a problem if you always use the same languages, but if you or the people you are listening to use more than one language, it can be a nuisance.
Pro version has HUD in 6 languages
Translates 34 languages (Pro version translates 41 languages)
Help in 34 languages
Toggles object translation on and off
Auto-detection of languages
Anti-spam option on Pro version.
Does not display current language selections
Simbolic 2.0 (free)
This otherwise really nice free translator has one big problem: HUD positioning is terrible. For most positions I tried, the HUD either ended up in the wrong position or vanished completely. It’s compounded by the fact that when its position in the center or bottom of the screen, the drop down menu is cut off and several languages become impossible to select.
Translates 32 languages
Displays current language selection
Does not toggle object translation on and off
Ferd’s Free Translator 7.3 (free)
If you don’t need non-English help or HUD, or other features of more full-featured translators, this one is for you. I was amazed by it. It’s intuitive to use, it toggles object translation, and it works in no-script areas. It’s the one I found most natural to use, and boasts some useful features not found on the others.
I found the automatic language detection reliable when its set to its default of detecting the language of the other speaker’s viewer. Currently SL has viewers in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, so these are the languages that Ferd will identify most reliably, as long as the speaker’s viewer is set to the language he/she is speaking.
Detects 95 languages
Allows 16-way chats in up to 34 languages
Takes up the least screen space when you’re wearing it
Conclusion:
Everyone in Second Life should have a translator. If you don’t feel like paying for one, get Ferd’s Free Translator or the Simbolic Translator. They’ll both do a fine job.
A translator can make exploring foreign language sims easier
Everyone in Second Life should have a translator. If you don’t feel like paying for one, get Ferd’s Free Translator or the Simbolic Translator. I had a problem with Simbolic HUD placement, but otherwise it worked fine. I loved Ferd’s. It’s the one I’ll be using most of the time myself. I’ll also use X-Lang for those occasions when its features are useful. But Q-Translator and AF Translator both deserve consideration. AF-Translator Basic was initially my favorite, but its inability to display the current lanugage settings became a nuisance for me. Still, for the price, it merits consideration. The Q-Translator’s numerous features make it a formidable competitor. Try all of them before making a decision.
Where can you get these translators? Here are the places where I got mine:
