You've all looked at the map, and seen those huge signs....signs so large that they are readable on the Second Life Map!!
And you have wondered how to create them...you've tried making letters..but they always look crude...you've tried textures, but they never show up on the map. Well, now anyone in second life can have an "Air Sign" over their land, with a minimum of fuss and difficulty.
The Airphabet system make it simple to erect a huge hovering sign over your club, store or even your home....And, the sign set comes with both UPPERCASE and lowercase..and a full set of numerals! Now that would seem like enough to get the job done, right? Not for the clever lads at Temporal Gadgets...we scripted the entire set to color change to 14 different colors, so you can customize your sign to your own needs! Not only that..but all the CAPITAL letters respond to one channel, the lowercase to a second channel, and the numbers to a third channel, so you can get VERY creative!
After you open the system from the box and save them to your inventory, go ahead and rez a letter...you will see that when you pull it out..it is around 3/4's of a meter tall...gonna be kind of hard to see on the map at that size, hmmm? Well, don't worry...the signs have both mod and copy permissions. This means that you will NEVER run out of letters...and that you can edit them, and S T R E T C H them up to ten meters tall! And when you do...they will retain they're proportions!
Why ship them so small if they are going to be HUGE signs?...Because the sharp lads at Temporal Gadgets got to thinking, why not ship them small, and let the purchaser size them anyway they want, so they can use them for a ton of other Sign uses?...so that's what we did...you can use them to letter the front of a business, to make large wall signs, for just about anything you can think of.
Ok...so you have a couple letters out now...just go ahead and give it a color command, they will only respond to the owner, so if you have a CAP letter out...it will hear you on channel 55, so just type in chat " /55 blue " and watch that letter change colors! Next, experiment a bit with clicking the letter, going into edit mode, and S T R E T C H I N G the letter out, dont' worry if you break it...don't worry if it takes you a few tries...you can just delete it..and pull out another...you have a limitless supply of them.
Last but not least...practice a bit learning to space the letters so that they look visually appealing to the eye...this is somthing of an art in and of itself...but practice makes perfect!
The best elevation we have found for air signs seems to be right under 300 meters, much higher and they dont' show up...nothing does...and much lower and if you have skyboxes, or other builds up high, they will block part of your sign. The neat thing is that if you have skyboxes ABOVE 300 meters..you can safely put your sign under them, because nothing above 300 meters will show on the map anyway....You can also create a large flat "panel" to display your letters against, for the best contrast...just about any color will contrast brightly with a large white background.
We do suggest a couple of things that will help you out...first, invest in a good commercial rezzer, we highly recommend the *OZE* AutoRezzer temp-on-rez system made by the king of temp rezzers, Jester Thunders. That way, you can lay out your background panel, put your letters on it...link the letters to the background sections...and then drop them into the rezzer, and save on prims BIGTIME!
Next, whether you temp rez the sign or not, go ahead and make your air sign phantom..to keep flying avatars and vehicles from bumping into it..be a good neighbor!..and one more thing...make sure you have sufficient land to put up a visible air sign...do NOT put your sign over land you don't own...because the rules in second life say that your neighbor with that little 256 meter parcel owns that parcel from the ground to the stars.!...lol...
Please contact Temporal Mitra if you need help..or have suggestions...or, if you need a custom scripted object. If I can't make it myself...I probably know the best person for the project.
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