Philip Dick World

Very weird things happening lately. I have found that when first coming inworld, I see things which subsequently disappear. My home sim (Umber) faces a blank area, and where there should be nothing, I see what appear to be objects and sometimes buildings and trees appearing, only to disappear immediately.

It is very difficult to catch these, but I do have a couple of photographs. The buildings on the right belong to the adjoining sim. On the left and in the sky there should be nothing at all.

Mystery picture 1

Mystery picture 2

I have seen buildings and trees in mid-air. There is a possible explanation for this, though. The island Avalon seems to have been positioned in the void area, and now shows up on the map. The area is still a void - I can't enter it - but I wonder if I am seeing features of Avalon.

That sounds plausible, although I don't understand why it should happen. But there is more. On a couple of occasions when I have just come into my home sim, I have seen a very large unrezzed surface to my right, which looks like a building (where there is no building inworld). And on one occasion I was looking at my gallery steps when I saw that the ground was dropping down about 20 m and had a totally different topography from what should be there. These effects only last a short time before the sim rezzes normally

It is as though I am looking through to a weird parallel virtual world. I am already starting the novel.

I have seen something similar... On Samurai Island you can occasionally see a nearby island (with a void between the two) during the first few moments after arriving, but it never lasts even a full minute before the nearby island is gone.

I typically have my draw distance set to a minimum of 256 meters while working, and will sometimes teleport somewhere before forgetting to turn that down, and this seems to be significant. Even then the effect is temporary.

[Edited to add] I know that the island (Shrouded Isle) I am seeing is in fact nearby because I frequent both and can clearly recognize the features. Note that I do not necessarily need to have been on that other island to see it from Samurai Island.

Yes, since writing that first posting, I have established that it is indeed Avalon that I am seeing.

However, I still don't know why I am getting the second issue. I know that multiple sims are hosted on one CPU. Is there any way, I wonder, whether when I first rez I am for some reason seeing one of those other sims?

Ok, a little bit more on the second issue - the parallel virtual worlds. Today I was in Damania, and I took a couple of photos.

The first photo was the scene as I actually saw it. (This was actually taken afterwards when the effect had stopped).

The scene as it was.

However, when I first went to take the photo, in exactly the same position, although I saw the scene as in the photo above, my photo thumbnail was different, as was the photo I took.

The scene as it was initially photographed

The thing I found particularly interesting is the palm tree at bottom right, which wasn't actually in the scene, and doesn't appear in the first photo

It's not a problem with my video card, because it didn't happen in the scene as I viewed it, only in the camera thumbnail and in the subsequent photograph.

Does anybody have any idea what is going on?

It is only appropriate that Avalon should be mystical in appearance.

Yes, absolutely - and looming out of the mist into the bargain!

I've been noticing something strangely similar, Selador. I hadn't thought much of it till I read your posts.

To explain...

The eastern half of Isabel faces the 'lost lakes area' (according to the History wiki) - a collection of 30+ Linden-owned void sims, making up one of the largest contiguous mainland lakes on the grid.

If I look out into the sky above the water, occasionally I'll see what appears to be skyboxes or buildings in the air; yet I know the sims I'm looking into are no-build as far as my 512m draw distance can see.

My camera appears to need to be adjusted just right to see them, similar to what you've reported above.