Private Island questions

Not that I plan on being able to afford an island any time soon, let alone have the time to build, but I recently stumbled across pics of the estate tools and have two questions.

1. Since it appears you can't move or increase/decrease the clouds, is it possible to raise the land and water level up high enough so that the cloud layer is beneath the water?

2. If you can set a fixed sun position, when you change this in the estate tools does it move there immediately or do you have to relog? And also, if I were standing there adjusting it would other people see it real-time?

1. You can raise the water and land up. a. I am not sure if they go as high as the clouds b. The water looks really crappy when you raise it up - it looks like it 'steps down' at the edges of the sim.

2. It changes immediately, no relog needed. And as long as they haven't forced sunset, yes they would see it in real time.

I suggest using particles for making the clouds look like you really want.

In theory, you should be able to raise the ground above the cloud level quite easily.

Just give LL a custom RAW file with the terrain height set to >300m (cloud height is around 160m to 240m)

Probulate a linden.

-Adam

Excuse my ignorance but,

What are Estate Tools? and how do I look at them?

Estate tools are in the World menu, and can only be accessed if you own the island you're on.

Estate tools are the controls that private island owners have.
You can look at them by giving LindenLab $1250

Download the Preview. You can see the estate tools under the World (I think) menu there. You can't use them; but you can see them.

Yah, was thinking about putting the existing cloud layer into the water, maybe with the top right along the top of the water - the diffuse clouds would make a good "mist" if they were peeking out of the water, and make the water itself look murky (I'd hope) and then, yes, I could make whatever clouds I wanted above with particles, and I could adjust them all to stay outside of my builds...

I could be mistaken but I thought I read in the Island FAQ on the wiki that you can only raise or lower the land 100m in either direction. If this isn't correct... please let me know.

Yeah; but you can set the starting height to whatever you want.

-Adam

When I buy an island I ask for it totally flat at a height of 100m. This makes available the full 200m teraform range

$1,000+ us a month is a stupid amount to pay for a sim in second life. It's complete rubbish. I asked Philip Linden if we could run our own sims on our own servers, and he said yes, but first they need to rewrite core software to deal with the fact people other than LL would be running sims, which I have respect for.

But the price of a private sim is stupidly high. I think private sims are a joke until we can run them ourselves on our own servers. $1,000 a month is £500 a month here in the UK. That's two grand in four months, enough for the start of a deposit on a house.

I look at all the private sims in SL sometimes in wonder. Some people in SL have tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of disposable income. Makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Misreading the pricing schedule perhaps?

The figure you're quoting is the initial set-up price. Ongoing monthly rental is US$195.

That does make it a bit more swallowable... That'd be about £100 a month. Hmm. I could afford that, but I would probably rather have the £100. But it's not too far a stretch to imagine some people might pay it. Yeah fair enough.

Thanks for giving me the real monthly price

I think you can only terraform 20M below sea level and 80M above. At least that's how my sim is, if I remember right.

(We need an estate owners forum!)

Thats because your land started out as 20m above 0. if you have your land at 100m above 0, you can terraform 100m either way.

The lowest land level is 0 (zero). AN estate owner can set water level at any height from 0 upwards...

Private sim land can be teraformed plus or minus 100m from what you start with. So to get max adjustment you order a completely flat sim with land preset at 100m.

I don't understand what you guys are talking about. I just checked and there is a range of a little more than 100M, not 200M, regardless of where your water is set to be.

So you are saying that when I ordered my sim I could have doubled that range by ordering something different? They should have told me that. If that is the case, I am really disappointed in LL. For that kind of money they should offer a little more information.

No what is important is the land height when you received your island. You can terraform 100m either way from that starting point, but if the starting point is only 20m above 0, then you have a smaller range over which you can terraform..

If you asked for the land to be set at 100m when you first had it setup, you would be able to get the full range of terraforming.

OK, I am really mad right now. LINDEN LABS: GIVE ME MY 200 METERS!

yup. I am sure it's as much as an oversight on LL's behalf as it is for all of us. All my sims are the same as yours Kim, I doubt I would ever use the full 200m range, but had I have thought of it, I would have ordered at 100m just to give me the exra option

LOL. Sorry just made me laugh!

I always order my sims "baked flat at 100 meters"

Sounds like I am ordering a pizza.