What Is Second Life Water?

[Fowabo 0]

is water considered a prim?

[Theresa Tennyson 4,665]

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Fowabo wrote:

is water considered a prim?

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SL "water" is an non-physical plane that viewers create at a certain elevation above level "0" - most of the time it's at elevation 20 but that can be changed by the owner of the estate. It has no land impact and can't really be interacted with except with tricks triggered by the elevation you're at. If you are below this elevation you will see the world with an "underwater" visual scheme and if you fly below this level you'll use a swimming animation. Boats are scripted to move at the level of the water plane as well.

[Amethyst Jetaime 1,579]

FYI

There is such a thing as prim water too.  This water is made using a  a regular prim, sculpted prim or mesh, water textures, plus a texture  animation script.

You typically use prim water for bodies of water that are above the sim water line.  Example pools, mountain lakes, ponds, fountains etc.

[ChinRey 6,410]

"Linden Water" is part of the Windlight atmospheric system.

One of the features of WIndlight is a spheric mesh "screen" surrounding your camera. The water surface, the sky, the clouds etc. are simply a "movie" generated by your viewer and projected onto that screen.

The underwater murkiness is generated by another part of WIndlight system. Light settings are simply altered when your camera is below the predefined water level for the sim.

As Amethyst said, you can make your own water simulation from prims or sculpts or mesh but only Linden Water offers a reflecting surface and different light settings above and below the water level.

[Bobbie Faulds 283]

Basically, when you look out at the edge of a sim and see water, that's Linden water. You can also see Linden water if the land level is below the set water level for that sim. 

[HughJegow 0]

hijklmno

[Bobbie Faulds 283]

Linden water always flows east to west too, btw

[HughJegow 0]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Linden water always flows east to west too, btw

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There is no East or West in SL, merely Left and Right.

[Bobbie Faulds 283]

Look at your map...it is marked with N, S, E and W, more for convenience for indicating where things are since that is what we are used to. Of course, since it's a virtual world, there is no magnetic north to work from.

[Fowabo 0]

Thanks for the replys. Learning something new everyday.

[HughJegow 0]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Look at your map...it is marked with N, S, E and W, more for convenience for indicating where things are since that is what we are used to. Of course, since it's a virtual world, there is no magnetic north to work from.

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Since it's a digital virtual world the concepts of East and West have no validity whatsoever.

[kiramanell 7,071]

"As Amethyst said, you can make your own water simulation from prims or sculpts or mesh but only Linden Water offers a reflecting surface and different light settings above and below the water level."

 

Actually, you *can* create true reflective water, these days, using (bump &) specular maps of the new materials. Most of my skyhomes with pools I upgraded to this newer, fancier water. Linden water is still the best, though; but naturally not available at will at all heights.

[Arkady Arkright 1]

It's a *virtual* world - no concepts have any validity, that's the whole point.

[Coby Foden 15,909]

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HughJegow wrote:

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Look at your map...it is marked with N, S, E and W, more for convenience for indicating where things are since that is what we are used to. Of course, since it's a virtual world, there is no magnetic north to work from.

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Since it's a digital virtual world the concepts of East and West have no validity whatsoever.

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Since they (N, S, E, W) actually are defined in the SL world map, they do have validity in SL.

When going sailing in SL, for expample - it's convenient use the same direction names which are used in the real world, instead of referring to map directions as: Up, Down, Right, Left.

Since SL is a 3D world Up and Down literally mean going up (↑) and going down (↓). It would be silly to use Up and Down as map derictions too. Thus N, S, E, W are a very good choice.