Region Environment Settings

This viewer is being shared as a test of the new Region Environment controls.

Region Environment Settings

Environment settings control how the water and the sky (including the air around you) are rendered in Second Life. In earlier viewer versions, each user could choose to either:

• Use the Second Life default environment settings (the default choice)

or

• Use customized personal settings, but which other users could not see

Without publishing complex instructions on how to duplicate personal settings, and having others apply those settings, there was no way to share distinctive environments.

With this viewer, the default choice is still to use the settings provided by Second Life, but a region manager can customize the region so that any user in the region (using a viewer that supports this feature) will experience the same customized environment.

A number of pre-defined settings are provided as examples of what is possible, but each user can create their own settings and either use them as personal settings or apply them to any region for which they have Estate Manager privileges.

Creating Custom Settings

There are three kinds of settings that may be defined:

Water Settings

control the color of the water, how transparent it is, and how turbulent it is.

Sky Settings

control the color of the sky, the color of the light, the color and behavior of clouds, and how hazy the atmosphere is.

Day Cycles

a sequence of (up to 20) sky settings that allow you to control how things look at different times in the Second Life "day".

Each of these types of settings can be edited, and saved as a named 'preset'.

NOTE: in the current version of this Project Viewer, the editing functions for Water and Sky presets are not yet complete. You can display any existing preset, but can not modify them or create new ones. This limitation will be removed as soon as possible, and a new version published.

To create, modify, or delete a preset, select the appropriate menu under the World→Environment Editor→Sky presets... (or Water or Day Cycle instead of Sky).

Choosing Which Settings You See

To select whether you see personal unshared environment or the shared environment:

1. Select the menu World→Environment Editor→Environment Settings...
2. Choose:

   Use Region Settings

   to see the shared settings from any region you are in

   Use Personal Settings

   to see unshared settings you choose yourself:

   1. Choose a Water setting preset
   2. Choose a Sky/Day Cycle:

      Fixed Sky

      1. and select a single Sky preset to be displayed regardless of the time in the Second Life day

      Day Cycle

      1. and select a Day preset to display an environment that changes continuously according to the time of the Second Life day
3. Push the Ok button to confirm your choice, or Cancel to return your environment to what it was before.

In addition to the Environment Settings dialog above, the World→Environment Editor menu also has four shortcut selections that establish the original Second Life default settings: Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, and Midnight. These are each equivalent to a Fixed Sky at different times during the default Second Life day; they are not shared.

Establishing Settings For a Region

Modifying the environment settings for a region gives you great control over the ambiance experienced by visitors. To set the shared environment:

1. Select the menu World→Place Profile→Region/Estate
2. Select the Environment tab
3. Choose:

   Use Second Life Defaults

   to set the region environment to the familiar default Second Life day cycle

   Use Custom Region Settings

   to establish settings you choose:

   1. Choose a Water setting preset
   2. Choose a Sky/Day Cycle:

      Fixed Sky

      1. and select a single Sky preset to be displayed regardless of the time in the Second Life day

      Day Cycle

      1. and select a Day preset to display an environment that changes continuously according to the time of the Second Life day
4. Push the Apply button to confirm your choice and begin displaying the new settings to anyone in the region, or Cancel to return the region environment to what it was before.

NOTE: at present, shortly after you Apply the settings, the names of the presets may change to the name of your region; this is due to a limitation in the simulator software - your settings have not been changed, just renamed in the region. There is a fix being deployed that will correct this so that your original preset names are saved; how soon it will be corrected may vary from region to region.