Living under Water

Is there any chance to build a basement which is under water? I have a lot of water under some of my houses and I would like to use this space. Thanks, Violet

Yes, it's possible. I've seen it done before.

Mandy C

you can build under water. ^__^ i have a whole section of my house under it. it's a little darker under water.. but that can work for basements.. and other sorts of places.. Putting in lamps and things does help. Oh.. but note... sound (and i believe chat too) travels a shorter distance under water..

Up until recently, a bug whereby SL was forgetting to draw inland water would have helped you ....


... but they fixed it! LOL

well, I've not had to go to World/Regions lately

Sure is - im doing several islands at present where 85% of the builds are under water. We are using lighting inside the rooms to differentiate between "inside" and "under water"

Zog

Thanks for your inputs! I finished my under water basement now and wanted to install proper lighting as suggested. I spent some money on stuff that simply did not bring light into the basement. Any recommendation on lighting products that work? Violet

You can rezz a simple sphere and click the Light property to on in the edit window. If you want something scripted, you can check the scripting forums for something simple like I've done, or contact me in world and I'll give you a quick copy of the one I made.

I'll be interested to hear how it works out for you. Every time I've spent a significant time underwater in SL (in the old underwater vampire kingdom, in an underwater club, etc) I've started getting bad headaches. Something about the haze messes with my eyes I assume.

Thanks for the hint with the sphere and the lighting property. The bulb has a nice white light now, but it does not help at all, it's still dark in the room (especially at midnight). It's like the radius were 0, but I put it to 20. Any idea what went wrong? Violet

Make sure you have local lighting checked in your preferences. And make sure the object has the lighting box checked. I sent you some light balls. if they dont add light when you rez them, you don't hace local lighting on.

This was it, the local light setting in the preferences. I had no idea about that! And many thanks for the light balls! Now it works! Violet

GO TO MENU>CLIENT>RENDERING>FOG

Uncheck Fog = Makes the water disappear when "underwater"

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The larger the room underwater, the more "blue fog," so avoiding long hallways or large rooms is a good way to make an underwater effect. Also, invisiprims make the water surface invisible, and placing one right at water level at the stairs or elevator to the underwater level is a good way to make it seem like the underwater area is filled with air and not flooded. Finally, making textures full bright underwater, when combined with tweaked textures and colors, can further diminish the "blue fog."

Thanks, Valerie and Captain!
Valerie, which menu are you referring to?
Violet

You guys see "blue fog" underwater?

I have lived underwater since coming to SL three months ago, and the only difference I can see is that it's a little darker. I can see in the distance just as well as I can on land, and I've never seen anything fog-like inside my house.

I just spent a bundle to get a seriously souped-up computer with a high-powered graphics card. Now I'm worried it will just make my underwater living all dark and hazy.

P.S. I'm on a Mac... maybe it's a difference in the Mac client?

Never mind!

I can't believe I never noticed the blue fog before! I guess I just like it dark... plus I had my monitor on the normal Mac setting which is significantly brighter than the PC setting (it's a gamma thing). On the PC setting, it really does look like an insidious fog creeping into my home.

I just tried the "lose the blue fog" trick, and I can't believe how much stuff there is in the lake I'd never seen... like that I have a neighbor just two plots away who's also living underwater. Gonna go make me a new friend!

The "Client" Menu at the top of your screen (UI).

If you don't see one press Ctrl+Alt+D simultaneously.

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I used to fullbright the walls on my underwater lair. That cheered the place up a bit.

Ava, I am on a Mac too. A G5 quad with an ATI x1900 card. While I wouldnt say I see a "blue fog", I do have darkness over underwater objects until I get about 20-30m away. Then things appear as crisp as above water.

I think part of my issue is that I currently have a very weak set-up, so I keep my draw distance at the minimum and the fog pretty close-in as well. The result is that I don't see very far no matter where I am, below water or above.

I also found that when I recalibrated my monitor to use the PC gamma setting, what I considered to be just underwater shadowing turned into a noticeably blue fog. Who knew?! Actually, all of SL is much darker now, and the gamma setting in the client preferences has no effect at all. I need the PC gamma setting for doing web graphics, so it looks like I will be going back and forth a lot when I do SL.

Anything much past about 20 metres visible distance fell into gloom pretty sharply, so I built mostly within that distance for each area/corridor.

A friend of mine Built an entire reef habitat, and underwater apartment, it was beautiful.

Angel.