Log house regions water level at 50 m cause rendering glitches

[Coby Foden]

@Abnor Mole @Patch Linden

The different water level in the log house lakes (50 m) and sea water level (20 m) shows the different water levels rendering glitch at sea coast.
Why different water level for the lakes was chosen, this glitch has existed "for ever"?
Looking from different angles at the coastline it's easy to see both water levels.

Camera looking from SSPE1156 region towards north.

[Abnor Mole]

Yes, we know. That's why the regions adjacent to them have (or will have) hills and content to block the view of the water level on the horizon from your homes.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Abnor Mole

[Coby Foden]

1 hour ago, Abnor Mole said:

Yes, we know. That's why the regions adjacent to them have (or will have) hills and content to block the view of the water level on the horizon from your homes.

What was the reason to put the lakes water level at 50 meters? This is what I'm wondering. Now it's impossible to connect the lakes to the sea with navigable waterways. Which is kind of pity.

[animats]

37 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

What was the reason to put the lakes water level at 50 meters? This is what I'm wondering. Now it's impossible to connect the lakes to the sea with navigable waterways. Which is kind of pity.

Hm. It's too bad that SL never has had a standard for prim water, understood by all swim HUDs, AOs, and boats. Then we could build locks. As well as swimming pools, of course.

There's something called a "marine railway", a cradle which picks up a boat in one place and moves it somewhere else. I have something like that so I can launch my boat across the beach in Reeds Landing. But it's sized to the boat. An adjustable-sized one would be a nice piece of work.

Leave space for a connection between the water levels, please. Maybe someone will design a solution.

 

[Anna Nova]

This is truly a daft LL decision.  Just when I was about to applaud the new lands as moving towards joining the continents, we discover the idiots have used a different water height, so it can NEVER join the continents.  Foot, Aim, Shoot.

Edit:  Before you react, see my withdrawal below.  My bad.

Edited April 2, 2020 by anna2358
apology

[Abnor Mole]

1 hour ago, Coby Foden said:

What was the reason to put the lakes water level at 50 meters? This is what I'm wondering. Now it's impossible to connect the lakes to the sea with navigable waterways. Which is kind of pity.

The log homes were always meant to be in the mountains. We wanted to add lakes and rivers within those mountains (because everyone loves water views). We knew we could never make them all into a contiguous waterway that could connect to the open ocean anyway (because of the way they are made from multiregion templates connected in a jumbled order like tetris pieces, and with the water at 20m there would be deep gorges everywhere, making it impossible to place enough house parcels on. So we went with a raised water level and using land to mask the "water glitch" when viewed at ground level. You can rez and sail small boats to use on many of the inland lakes, but we always knew they had to be inland lakes or no lakes at all. 

[Abnor Mole]

13 minutes ago, anna2358 said:

This is truly a daft LL decision.  Just when I was about to applaud the new lands as moving towards joining the continents, we discover the idiots have used a different water height, so it can NEVER join the continents.  Foot, Aim, Shoot.

You can always sail around the outside. You know... like you have to do around real continents. 😉

Edited April 2, 2020 by Abnor Mole

[Anna Nova]

1 hour ago, Abnor Mole said:

You can always sail around the outside. You know... like you have to do around real continents.

Okay, I forgive you then   PLEASE keep joinin' the continents.

Edit.  After going on-line and actually trying it.  I am amazed at the number of sims between, e.g. Knapping, and SSPE1160, with nothing but mountains, and sea level at +20M.  Well done!

Edited April 2, 2020 by anna2358

[Elena Blossom]

12 minutes ago, Abnor Mole said:

The log homes were always meant to be in the mountains. We wanted to add lakes and rivers within those mountains (because everyone loves water views). 

And you nailed it!!!

[Rabid Cheetah]

In real life, many inland lakes have no run off to the ocean, nor are they all at sea level.  And I like how that's reflected in Belliserria.

[Rabid Cheetah]

48 minutes ago, Abnor Mole said:

The log homes were always meant to be in the mountains. We wanted to add lakes and rivers within those mountains (because everyone loves water views). We knew we could never make them all into a contiguous waterway that could connect to the open ocean anyway (because of the way they are made from multiregion templates connected in a jumbled order like tetris pieces, and with the water at 20m there would be deep gorges everywhere, making it impossible to place enough house parcels on. So we went with a raised water level and using land to mask the "water glitch" when viewed at ground level. You can rez and sail small boats to use on many of the inland lakes, but we always knew they had to be inland lakes or no lakes at all. 

Why only mountains?  You've got a great opportunity here to create a multi-regional 30 meter high waterfall.  Call 'em Notnagginya Falls lol

[TechDave]

1 hour ago, Abnor Mole said:

You can always sail around the outside. You know... like you have to do around real continents. 😉

A RL example of water levels... Quickly figured, not accurately recited.   Is that Lake Erie level is approx. 174m above sea level.   Lake Ontario is approx. 74m above seas.    There's a 40km canal with locks to connect them for navigation. 

So point is.... Belli continues to develop as nearly resembling RL! 

Edited April 2, 2020 by TechDave

[JessycaJayne]

1 hour ago, anna2358 said:

Okay, I forgive you then   PLEASE keep joinin' the continents.

Edit.  After going on-line and actually trying it.  I am amazed at the number of sims between, e.g. Knapping, and SSPE1160, with nothing but mountains, and sea level at +20M.  Well done!

Perhaps you should have went online and tried it "before" calling people who are working extremely hard "daft" and "idiots". A little kindness and patience goes a long way, hooman. 

🐹

[Anna Nova]

1 hour ago, JessycaJayne said:

Perhaps you should have went online and tried it "before" calling people who are working extremely hard "daft" and "idiots". A little kindness and patience goes a long way, hooman. 

Unlike most people here, I do apologise when I'm wrong.

I also apologise to you, for getting your ire up.❤

[arabellajones]

OK, just a general point. Mountain areas with lakes are pretty common, and the local water level is the baseline for everything, visually. So a mountain region could be made with a 20m water level. But the transition from mountain to coast would be difficult. One RL example I know is 25m in 10km (I just checked)  which is less than 1m change per region, but distances in SL are rather compressed.

We do have other continental areas with higher-level water. They must have looked odd while under construction.

It would be nice if we did have standard way of having sailable/swimmable/visual water other than the ancient sea-level thing, but I'm not holding my breath.

[LittleMe Jewell]

The vast majority of lakes up in the Rocky Mountains do not connect with the rivers and ultimately the ocean, but there sure are a ton of log homes up there and lots of water vehicles out and about during good weather.  Even a lot of the waterways that do ultimately connect to the oceans are still not navigable all the way through because they flow under and through the mountains.

And yeah, since the Rocky Mountains here is Colorado range from 10,000 - 14,000 ft high, there is definitely a lot of difference in the water levels between that and the oceans.

 

[JessycaJayne]

4 hours ago, anna2358 said:

Unlike most people here, I do apologise when I'm wrong.

I also apologise to you, for getting your ire up.❤

right on! hugs and high paws yew ☺️

 

🐹

[Pussycat Catnap]

There are parts of old mainland that also do this and have it at 80. And likewise they have features splitting them off from lower water. Pretty normal for the moles to do this.

 

[Coby Foden]

37 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

There are parts of old mainland that also do this and have it at 80. And likewise they have features splitting them off from lower water. Pretty normal for the moles to do this.

Yes, I have seen the different water levels glitch in Sansara. Sometimes it shows, often it does not show. Whether it shows or not depend also on the avatar location and camera location in respect to the avatar. The high hills at coast line in the Bellisseria log house regions seem to be working pretty well in hiding the glitch. In normal viewing condition the glitch does not show. I flew long route via the coastline regions, no water glitch seen at all. Which is great. 🙂

However the glitch can be seen if you really are after seeing it. I made some tests and I noticed that when the avatar is many regions away from the coast line and then cams to the coastline the different water level glitch appears to view. The sea water level and the lake water level are seen at the same time. But it's indeed very rare to see the glitch in normal viewing.

[Vlad Mysterious]

If it's a choice between experiencing a rare and ephemeral visual glitch and losing the unique topographical features that make exploring Bellisseria interesting, gimme the glitches any day.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Lukas Thetan
I love waterfalls!

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

18 minutes ago, Lukas Thetan said:

If it's a choice between experiencing a rare and ephemeral visual glitch and losing the unique topographical features that make exploring Bellisseria interesting, gimme the glitches any day.

Agreed! (I love waterfalls, too!)

[Vlad Mysterious]

I was trying to replicate the visual glitch, and found that the only way I could successfully do it was to put my camera underground. I'll admit to having seen that glitch unexpectedly in the wild once or twice, maybe due to lag or some other unexpected issue. I honestly don't know.

This is another shot of one of my favorite waterfalls as viewed from underneath the nearby hillside. Not a visual I would normally see under typical circumstances.

[Coby Foden]

Water coming down in waterfall from a higher lake to a lower lake or the sea indeed is beautiful feature even in SL. But all of them have the different water levels glitch. The glitch is always there, when adjacent regions have different water levels. The glitch is even very easy to see (no need to look from underground).

Here I'm standing near the log cabin bridge at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hooten Holler/15/66/35 near the border of http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinwhistle/241/44/35 Zooming away from my avatar to see the waterfall. All is good so far.




Then still standing on the same spot I see something interesting down. I lower my camera gradually to see better what's there. Then this happens at certain point when camera is lower (not anywhere near underground). But the scene looks like it's underwater scene. And it is exactly that. The camera is few meters lower that the lake surface is at Tinwhistle region and thus the glitch happens.

To see the lower lake shore properly I need to step to the same region where the lower lake is (Tinwhistle). No more water glitch. I can also walk down there and there is not glitch. So it depends on the avatar's location and on the camera's location when we see the glitch and when not. I see this glitch often as I'm always eagerly camming around when exploring places.

Well, we can avoid seeing the glitch by not camming like have I explained here. 😃

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Whether SL or RL, you'll find things wrong in literally everything, if you deliberately go looking for them, so perhaps the best idea is not to 

[Vlad Mysterious]

Coby, thank you for explaining the issue so that I could replicate it. The viewer seems to be using the water level at the avatar location rather than at the cam location, which causes that anomaly. It seems to happen regardless of Firestorm's LookAt privacy settings, and it doesn't matter if you use the CTL-ALT-click method or a SpaceNav to move the camera. I don't have access to the official viewer to test it there. I'm betting there is a JIRA open on this issue, because the problem is fairly straightforward. If there isn't, there should be.

Anyway, here is a pair of merged screenshots of the waterfall showing the issue in all of its gorey glory. The left shot is using the water level at the avatar position on the far region, and the right image shows how it should look once LL fixes the issue in the codebase.