Moving Train Windows

[Prokofy Neva]

So there was this neat "Wizard Train" at an event recently (by Kraftwork) and when you sit in the train, the scenery goes by, the way old Hollywood movies used to do things, so you have the illusion you are on a moving train.

Great! says I, I will make something like that and have texture change for different options, so they're like moving through different lands.

Well, fast forward through lots of experiments with different timing of scripts that scroll and getting the orientation of the scroll correct, there's still this persistent problem:

There's always the edge of the photo or texture showing.

You can't make it look authentic and sustain the illusion as the edge keeps interrupting.

You can try to slow up or speed the script -- that doesn't help. You can try making a prim and putting two seamless textures on it, that doesn't help. Putting the prim partly on transparent -- nope.

Then it occurred to me that the nature of the photo is the only element that affects this illusion, it has to be a photo that doesn't have, say, light on one edge and dark on the other. But unless you draw it yourself (as this author did) you can't make that happen. That is, you can cut up a painting and paste the original, and then repeat its middle at its edges, something I do to try to make big megaprim backdrops work, but on the train, you still keep getting that hard edge.

Finally, I found some panorama photos that look rounded if you look straight on, but if you put on the moving train window, they more or less look ok -- but not perfect.

So basically, is this something a script can fix or the size of the prim, or does it really depend on the nature of the photo itself?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

This simply requires a seamless texture. The "edge" you are seeing is the seam.

Don't confuse "seamless" with those random/repeating textures usually used for surfaces like the ground, walls, etc. A nature/cityscape background can also be made repeating/seamless on the sides (but obviously not top and bottom).

[Fenix Eldritch]

I agree with Wulfie, if your intent is to use the texture animation functions to smoothly scroll an image across a prim face, you must use a texture which has been created/edited to not have a visible seam at its edges. This must be done outside of SL prior to uploading the image.

Having said that, there are other approaches you could try to make a faux scrolling backdrop even if you don't have access to perfectly seamless textures. But they require some more work to hide the seams. As an example, instead of a single prim canvas, you could construct a diorama for your backdrop with props like telephone poles at regular intervals - especially at the edges of the canvas where the texture edges would fall. Using multiple copies of this diorama, you could script them to use key framed movement to non-physically slide themselves past the train car windows. Once one section has moved out of view, the KFM would put it back at the front, ready to slide past the windows again in a forever looping motion, similar to how the segments of an escalator move. The key here is that the edges of the backdrop texture would be obscured by linked props and thus help hide the obvious edge from casual observation.

[steph Arnott]

13 minutes ago, Fenix Eldritch said:

 

You can use a max pixel picture made as panoramic which scrolls accross. Looping like a back projection on the old film. One would have to create that in say Gimp.