A Tale of Two Shadows

When real-time shadows started appearing in-world my first thought was "there goes the shadow prim" but after about a year now, the prim is still with us and few people seem to use the feature. Yes, even on my fairly high-end Apple desktop machine there is a substantial increase in lag when activating shadows so that might explain quite a bit. It could be a quality issue, too, as lately the shadows have taken on an pixelated "8-bit edge" rather than being clear and sharp (I'm experimenting with changing the anti-alaising feature to alleviate this issue). But the lack of use by many could go back to the use of shadow prims.

You see, dynamic shadows move whereas shadows baked into textures and added shadow prims are static, usually for right about the Noon position of the sun. Look at these pictures:

With the sun set to Region Default — about 10AM — and dynamic shadows turned off, the shadow prims seem fine. Not that the shadows were well-placed by the maker in the first place. The smaller tree's shadow prim is in a very bad place if the larger tree's shadow is the standard.

The same shot with dynamic shadows on decreases the water reflection but also adds a second set of shadows. Look at the end of the platform nearest the big palm tree. There is a faint, second shadow. The effect is harder to see on the smaller tree, but its there. The platform's baked in shadows are hardly effected with the sun at this angle.

I'm sure there are some folks who don't want to see this conflict so they don't activate the system shadows.

If Our World is ever released for devices that aren't as capable (like my iPad, as fabulous as it is anyway) then the artificial shadows could still be important, but eventually I'll probably remove shadow prims wherever I can and keep active the viewer's dynamic shadows. Like most people, though, I'd have to have a hardware upgrade.

Snapshots In-World

Every day I try to take a snapshot with my wee pixy alt, Zyx Flux, and post it in her profile feed. There is no specific need to do this beyond the daily discipline of completing a set task, but it is a fun and creative thing to do. Her latest pic can be found in her feed here or you can see another version below:

The profile feed is an attempt at making SL into some sort of MyFace (or whatever that social network is) but I think it is just a fun way to share pretty pictures.

Mysterious Appearances

The other day I noticed that a few landmarks I had never previously seen were in my Inventory. Obviously someone had sent them to me, either directly or via some sort of giver, but danged if I can recall who or how. Here's where I wound up when looking at them, in no particular order.

San Deigo 3D (SLurl): This is the Balboa Theater in what is probably a re-creation of San Diego, California (USA). Having never been there, I can't be sure. Near by is a landmark giver for other destinations in San Diego. I grabbed one for the Zoo because at least I've heard of the famous RL place with the same name. The girl standing there is SanDiego3d Resident. Maybe they named the place after her.

Under the Sky - by Yooma Mayo - LEA17 (SLurl): Noted explorer, blogger, and gadabout Honour McMillan might have snuck this into my Inventory as she's a big fan of the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) and large-scale virtual art projects. Always be wary around Canadians and other extraordinarily polite people. They have agendas.

Anyway, this artist has special Windlight and Water presets in place so if you visit, make sure you have everything set to the region defaults. Then put on your running shoes because those really are giant ants. More giant bugs are throughout the region and some other impressive art installations are on the adjacent sims.

VC Designs (SLurl): Not sure if this is post-Apocolyptic, another planetscape (there are two moons), or what, but the landing area has some really clever lighting effects and the generally depressing textures are skillfully done throughout. There's shopping and some prize boards. Maybe that's how I got the landmark for this location.

Second Life on your TV

As I blogged yesterday, Apple computer users might or might not have an issue with installing the Second Life viewer after the coming desktop OS upgrade, but once it is intalled, they can use the new AirPlay featured to toss Our World onto the big screen as your TV will be able to mirror your computer's display.

You'll need an AppleTV device — unless Apple releases whole televisions by that time — and OSX v10.8 "Mountain Lion." Of course,  the feature might not be supported on all Macs (9to5 Mac).

Did you remember?

Did you remember that today was Fursday?

Second Life Apple Mac Users Beware

According to MacRumors (source), the new Gatekeeper feature of the upcoming Apple OSX release (v10.8, AKA Mountain Lion) will require applications not distributed via the Apple-curated App Store to have a "personalized certificate" granted by Apple before they can be run under the new OS if the Gatekeeper security features are active. However,

For users on the default setting, they can bypass the initial Gatekeeper check the first time they launch an unsigned third-party app by right clicking on the app itself and choosing the "Open" command. Once the application has been opened one time, Gatekeeper no longer has any control over it.

though this clearly circumvents the benefit of Gatekeeper.

Since the Second Life viewer and the related third-party viewers (TPVs) are not App Store items, Linden Lab and TPV authors may have to address this issue during the download phase, apply for certificates, or submit their wares to the App Store. Timeline? Soon, I would say, as the release of the new OS is in public Beta and Apple seems to be preparing for press events next month.

Wholly Mesh [UPDATE]

According to the note card I got from Landscapes Unlimited (SLurl) today, their sim is now 100% mesh, top to bottom.

"As of today the mesh environment on my sim is open to the public. Please come over with your friends and enjoy the scenery, the tranquil spots, a boatride, a swim in the ocean or a picknick under the majestic old oak trees. Beware: you need a MESH VIEWER to see the environment!"

With the obvious exception of the the base land (the system ground) itself and the water, everything appears to be mesh prims. Unsure, though, I wrote to creator Margaret Heliosense about certain items and I'll update this post with her reply. Until then, compare the pictures below:

Facing south, everything you see but me, the sky, and the patch of beach just at the water line is mesh.

The same shot with Simple and Water derendered (Advanced > Rendering Types) to remove all but alpha-textured prims.

That, of course, would derender traditional and scuplty prims, as well, but if you take for granted that all the prims in the first picture are mesh, then their absence in the second illustrates the extensive primscape.

Further exploration showed that some floaty toobs with poses appear to be standard prims and sculpts even upon close inspection. The linked pairs of buoys I found were mesh (check the yellow outlines in the pic — the lines on the cone curve are a dead giveaway that this object is mesh) that weighed in as seven prims of mesh but could have been made in as few as five prims if made the old-fashion way, though that may have defeated the purpose of having an all-mesh sim. Remember that object size, physics settings, and spread over an area (how far apart the combined "bits" appear to be) affect the land impact (read more here) which is the same as prim count. The green/white buoy by itself, for example, has a land impact of three "prims" despite being one, unlinkable object, while the red/white buoy "weighs in" at four. Most builders with a knowledge of prim tortures could make the latter with two old-style prims at most and just one if the exact proportions weren't important. Also, there were several decorative items such as furniture and ground covers that weren't mesh, such as some wonderful stuff from Margaret Heliosense, who was kind enough to answer some questions I had.

What really struck me, though, is the homogeneity of the textures on the elevated land, as seen below:

Compared to the far more natural texture and form of the otherwise similar landscape from this screen cap from the viewer log-in screen last year, one's first impression of mesh may be tainted:

Don't be quick to assume, however. as you've seen in the many items of mesh clothes, the variety of mesh avatars, and other mesh items in-world, it is possible to create much more complex result. Generally, though, I think that mesh is smoother over all, with less of ability to create a firm, hard edge. Mesh seems softer, to put in in one word, and the application of such uniform texturing enhances that impression.

The ground under the trees is a custom land sculpt that hides
 a mass of system ground sand at the Isle of Lesbos.
I made a custom land sculpt so my brother could have a sandy
beach at his place in an all green sim, Nangrim.

But stepping away from my builder's nerdieness, the overall effect at Landscapes Unlimited is still amazing. When mesh was first announced I immediately thought about how it might be used to form land without the limitations of our current ground system. Applying textures to a region's system ground at this time is hit-or-miss at best, especially as re-renders after a fresh log-in or region restart can shift textures dramatically. And shaping the land is more art and alchemy than repeatable science. With sculpties and mesh, achieving the precise desired effect is much easier. Going beyond simple textured prims to level land (remember Help Island?), I have a nice tool that lets me model parts (or all) of an existing landscape to change its texture — and to some degree, it's shape — regardless of what they system ground becomes.

I applaud the folks at Landscapes Unlimited for all their hard work and I look forward to what they can do as the state of the art progresses. By the time the Isle of Lesbos is ready to remodel again I hope that I can use large mesh builds to make the landscape truly spectacular.

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Details and more pix are on the Landscapes Unlimited blog. For my pix I used the Region Default settings for Windlight which seem to be very different from what appears in the creator's blog pix.

[UPDATE] Feb 17, 2012
I heard from Sominel Edelman, the creator, today and here are some comments:

"The goal of what I did was to learn, and perhaps to inspire other people [and to test if] mesh can be an alternative to sculpted prims for landscaping." He noted that part of the test was to see if structures that can't be made with the system ground, like caves and tunnels, could be made and how easily.

As to the smoothness of the mesh objects compared to sculpts or to the system ground, "With the size of objects I use for the ground (64x64x64m), every 12 vertices count for approximately 1 prim [compared to 1024 for a sculpted prim. That makes it extremely expensive to create smooth landforms." Increasing the vertices would certainly create a more natural effect, but at a high cost. Sominell suggested that I look at Desert Mountain Landscape_001-mesh on the SL Marketplace (pictured at left). "This has 230 prim for just a 50x50m object. A complete sim surface needs 25 objects of that size..." That would be 5750 prims total, a substantial portion of a 15,000 prim region.