Use Sky Texture as Media Texture?

[Cheetah Hammerer]

ideas?

i had the idea to use a custom uploaded sky texture to display videos for like an outdoor ampitheater type thing, pretty stumped on how to go about it though so far.

if i purchase a simulator new from LL i know i can use a custom uploaded texture for the ground, but what about the sky? is it possible?

i'd like to avoid megaprim solutions and (probably) most anything relying on actual prims being the display as draw distance limitations would make that a hassle.

also like to avoid anything requiring client side modifications to client files/etc.

it'd need to be usable for any and every noob out there to be much useful (providing they've enabled media of course)

just looking for clever ideas really in case anyone can think up anything, not requesting anyone build anything at all for me.

[Irene Muni]

The sky isn't a texture. You can play with windlight options, andvanced sky editor... but no with texture.

Apologies if I don't understans correctly your question

[Cheetah Hammerer]

no you understood the question well enough i think.

i guess to be honest, the main thing i'm asking for here is if it's possible to do if you buy a new simulator.

i know the ground texture can be a custom one you've made if you arrange so beforehand with LL, so it has to make me wonder if the same can be done for a sky texture instead.

beyond that, if anyone comes up with any clever ideas to do the same thing within the constraints outlined in the OP i'd love to brainstorm a bit

beyond that, heck if anyone happens to find out that the sky texture has a UUID in the library or elsewhere, that could be useful too.

[Irene Muni]

Maybe (only maybe) some ideas here:Off Sim  Sky ( outer space theme)?

[DR Dahlgren]

I have done a similar system for a space environment. I used a mega sphere of 128 meters and it works very well.

If you own or are an estate manager, you can use custom textures for the ground on any private region. There is no provision for custom sky textures. Draw distance will be a problem no matter what you do, whether it was on a prim or not.

The best solution would still seem to be a mega prim with an advisor chat box or notecard giver at your Landing point directing people to adjust their draw distance up to the required minimum. For that reason, if you want as many ppl as possible to view, I would keep the draw distance required below 128 meters.

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[Ceera Murakami]

Following up on what DR said, some of the larger megaprims could possibly be hollowed and used to display a media texture for a false sky. But given that the max texture size in SL is 1024 x 1024, a really large sky dome done that way will have pretty coarse resolution. If you use a flat 256 M x 256 M megaprim, and display a 1024 x 1024 texture on that, it makes pixels that are 0.25 Meters square! Apply that same texture to the interior of a hollowed sphere, and it will get worse, not to mention the pinching of the texture at the top of the sphere.

Can it be done? Yes. But it won't be easy to make it look good on a full-sim basis.

[Lindal Kidd]

There are several clubs that do something similar.  You can see a moving starfield texture (1024x1024) in use at my ballroom Masocado Nights.

[Cheetah Hammerer]

yeah i was hoping there was some way to do it directly on the sky itself.

i guess i'll create a feature request JIRA.

i really want to avoid doing it with prims at all or particles even (particles as media textures are a seperate hell all their own to script btw) to bypass the draw distance issue.

hmmm.... re-reading it seems like you may mean to imply that draw distance could still be an issue even doing it straight on the windlight sky itself?

 

not entirely relevant but possible worthwhile other information:

was visualizing this to be a full sim size theater type of thing, have seats in a large circle over a good bit of the sim and they force your cam straight up at the sky when you sit...