Time Zones in SL???

I just recently noticed something. Apparently it's been in effect at least since version 1.10, maybe a bit earlier. It appears that the day/night cycle in SL has rolling 'time zones' now. By that, I mean that if you're on an island well to the West, like Wailele Isle, and it is mid day, and you teleport to someplace on the mainland far to the East, like Desire or Kandinsky, it may well be night when you arrive in the other sim!

I don't recall noticing this before. But it was only recently that my work had me regularly teleporting long distances West to East and back.

Has this always been the case? I had assumed that the sun rose and set on the same schedule in all sims, unless that sim's owner had specificly set their sim as locked to some other time of day.

Is there any way to determine weather it is day or night in a distant sim, other than teleporting there and seeing for yourself, or sending an IM to a friend who happens to be there?

i've been her since mid-april and the rolling diurnal cycle has been in effect since then.

Some regions are set on different sun positions because they can. I've seen several that are on permanent nighttime because it fits their theme perfectly.

If it really gets to you, World > Force Sun and choose what you prefer.

Lewis

Thanks Lewis.

Yes, I know that a sim owner or estate manager can set their own locked point for the sun (or moon) in the sky, essentially 'freezing time' in their sim. I am an estate manager myself, and have played with those tools. But in this case, the sims at both ends of the long teleport are both on the default day/night cycle. I manage one of them, and the other I have worked in long enough to see many fine sunrises and sunsets.

I also use "force sun" a lot, to maintain decent visibility while I work on building projects, or when I do fashion photography. Wonderful option, and I am so glad that they moved it out of the debug menu to somewhere more accessible.

What got to me was the disparity between the 'apparent time' in the two sims. I merely hadn't encountered that so noticably before, and was curious if it had always been that way, or was a recent change.