Was this made in SL?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/09/1756/

I think we should be told. Enquiring minds want to know.

IMHO no it was'nt rendered in SL.

It's hard to say, but more looks like somebody made it in second life.. esp as palm trees.

There's no way that was made in SL. The shading is too good, and the LOD on the more distant objects is too high. (the bars in the windows are one big clue)

Looks like Sketchup or a CAD render to me. The flatness of the figure in the foreground, as well as the grass give me this impression

I think his Mom and Dad made him...

Those are the same trees as SL uses, but those trees are on lisence to LL from another company I'm pretty sure.

I didn't see anything that specifically screamed "no way" or "positively". The trees seem to but they could be available to other 3d packages as well.

However, there ARE sims in SL owned by various government institutions. I'ts entirely possible that the military has public and private presences and in that case.. why not use SL as a prototyping or "sketch" tool. I've done that before. It is by far the easiest 3d building tool ever

Here is 2 things that scream no way...the sky and the sleave of the uniform on the guard. there are no loose sleaves on shirts in SL and the SL sky could only dream of being that nice

I know it is possible to get the sky like that with the beta WindLight engine.

The guard could have been photoshopped onto a screenshot. I don't know o any engine that would render the avatar's shadow like that, so presumably the shadows (wall and guard) would be strategically placed prims with some transparency. The two shadows don't match (shadow length is wrong) so they are certainly not ray-traced shadows.

a jacket masquerading as a shirt, with a loose fit t-shirt undearneath. makes the sleeves look baggy.

regardless, that ain't SL. the dull, uninteresting sky would give Philip a coronary.

Looks like different palms to me.


Def not a SL photo.

Example: SpeedTree trees are used by various companies.

And to add my vote: No this wasn't done in SL. The flavor of it isn't what I'd consider up to have been built by SL's builders/architects in SL. Things like the sleeves on the Marine, for example. And need I mention the shadowing on the CLOTHING? That right there clues me in, because while I've seen some truly gorgeous shading done on clothing, it doesn't bend and flow with outward appearance of the 'shape.' (Okay, I probably butchered this. Lets just say if you see a deep shadow, you expect the clothing to 'show' an deep fold at the edge of the fabric too. SL cannot seem to mimic this at all.)

Seems like the most logical conclusion, since such tools like Sketchup and Autocad are most likely to be common in an architectural office.

The bigger question here was why is this picture being republished in an article if it was considered "sensitive" information?

The soldier has been clearly added to the 3d representation. I don't understand the fuss about whether it was generated in sl or not.

I suspect the secrecy of the whole thing is maybe because during construction, the ppls of Iraq were probably told it was going to be a Walmart or something... who knows, who gives a toss?