Hiding an island?

An odd question...

I'm working on an island project, mainly as private workshops. What options are available for hiding the presence of said island (It is an openspace, and needs to remained anchored to another) and limiting access (I'd prefer to avoid ban lines).

Mari

afaik, ban lines are the only way to limit access totally.

However if it's all one parcel, setting TP to blocked in parcel settings will keep people from popping in.

Limiting access can also be done by group, I believe.

Define hiding

Limiting the visibility of said region, with the intent of (a) not dirturbing site lines on established sim, and (b) providing some level of privacy to workshops.

I know there's no such thing as perfect privacy, of course. Just looking for waht sort of options there are, in case I've managed to miss any.

Mari

You can also disable PUBLIC ACCESS in the Estate Manager tools.

Well, banlines aren't visible from another sim. You just get the message "Cannot region cross into banned parcel" when you try. So if you don't want banlines because of the aesthetics, don't worry.

You know, Mari, it seems before I recall people having hidden islands. Ones that did not even show up on the map. You may want to ask Jack Linden about it. There was a thread about truly private islands on a third party forum once.. that is where I think I read about it.

Hi Marianne,

It's simple, and can be done on any private island sim by the sim owner or any Estate Manager.

Go to World > Region/Estate... and select the Estate tab. Uncheck "Public Access".

The sim vanishes from the grid, except for members of the "Allowed Residents" and "Allowed Groups" defined on that same tab. Estate managers and the sim owner always have access.

For a look at how that looks for those not on the list, try to look for "Lost Gryphon Island" in Search. That sim is "off the map" in that manner. Even if you have a LM for the sim, you can't TP to it or see it from any other sim if you are not on the access list. If the sim was directly adjacent to another sim and you do this, people in the other sim see your sim's space as open sea. They can't walk or fly into that area, any more than they could to a place that has no sim at all. No ban lines. It simply does not exist...

I have no suggestion at all, but all I could think of was the Isla de Muerta in "Pirates of the Caribbean"..

That might be exactly what we're looking for. Thanks!

Mari

At the estate level there's the "Allow Public Access" feature, which, when unchecked, lets you set access lists at both the individual and group level. If the two islands are in the same estate, however, this is probably a no-go, because it will block access to all islands in the same estate. Anyone with estate manager access can toggle the Allow Public Access setting.

Security systems are always an option if you wish to avoid banlines. If you're protecting a full sim you'll need 4 orbs, one in the center of each quarter of the sim. You can put them sorta high off the ground to get thorough coverage (20/30m).

You also asked about island visibility (being able to see one island from the other). This is automatic whenever two sims share a border, and cannot be changed without invisiprim voodoo.

EDIT: Beaten by Ceera. THIS TIME. hakefist:

Openspaces currently don't have to be attached to an existing sim, they can be placed anywhere as standalone (or exist as their own estate).

If the sim if connected to another sim then access restrictions would be a bad idea, while it will keep anyone from tp'ing over to the sim it won't stop anyone from flying 50m AGL and crossing into the sim.

World / Region/Estate / Estate and uncheck Public Access if you want to keep the sim private.

to the best of my knowledge this has loooong since changed.

it \used\ to be that when you made an Estate or Island 'private' it wouldn't show up on the grid/map for anyone other than those on the estate access list.. but.. not anymore!

All islands display on the map,. Even if they are set to "private" even for people not in the group


~~~~Edit Added~~~
Example, i can absolutely see "Lost Gryphon Island" on the map. although i cannot tp in, it says:

==Could not teleport.
Sorry, you do not have access to that teleport destination==
~~~~~

((this next part i'm not so sure about))

If an island is set \directly\ next to another island (horizontal side or vertical side) there is nothing to stop someone from "camming" into the neighbouring island even if it is set to private. Or... so is my understanding.

for the OP, Marianne, your best bet might be to have builders using the RC client. in RC you can easily build at 4000 meters in the air. Yes, 4000. That is well out of camming distance from ground level... and if the building platforms are "over" ground structures, even the mini-map won't give the presense away. and most users won't actually fly thousands of meters through nothingness to see if there's anything at 4000 meters.

Reading over the responses it may seem i'm wrong, but.. me and my sister did a check on this recently.. and found 'private' set islands easily on the map, though we couldn't tp to'em if they were stand-alones.

You are right Hana, I have set some of my islands to non-public access, and they are still visible on the map and from adjacent regions.

I usually map tp to Armidi and found that another island, Armidi Beauty, is apparently in development. The island is black, though. If the island can be seen on the map, I think they have one huge black prim up to hide whatever development they are doing until the island is open.

Come to think of it, there used to be a checkbox for "visible from mainland" on private island sims. But that went away, and they changed it so that if there is no edge-to-edge connection, you can't see it.

If you have a whole chain of normal and OpenSpaces sims that touch on various edges, then you can fly between them and cam from one to another. Corner to corner does not count in this. But if the sides don't touch, you don't see your nearby neighbors. For example, the HHP at UH sim is one sim away from its neighbors on the grid on all sides, and you can't see any of the neighboring sims from there. But you do see them on the map.

There was a time when a non-public sim didn't show on the map. When did that change? About 6 months back? I do recall now a mention in the Forums that a whole bunch of formerly "invisible" sims could now be seen on the map.

It was a long while back now:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/11/27/friends-list-and-visibility-changes/

Sim owners got a free name change at the time too since some of the names weren't PG or might have disclosed RL information.

That makes sense. Thanks Kitty.