Skybox camouflage

Is there a texture/color that we can do the bottom of our skyboxes in so they don't look so obvious from below?

Well you could texture the bottom to look like clouds, but I don't see the point. If you just move the skybox high enough nobody on the ground can see it.

The advantage of having your skybox higher that 300m (I believe is the spot) is that you shouldn't see it on the satellite pics (the map) when someone searches for your place. It helps deter the casual person looking for a MLP style bed that's free to use in a secluded area.

I also have used a phantom, clear box wrapped around my "goodies" that are left in place in my personal space. When walked into or touched, it warns them of the lack of privacy in SL, hands them a notecard with LM's to different vendors for these items, and send me an e-mail stating who was there, what time, and how long they stayed. (sensor repeats ever 10 seconds after the llCollision event)

The phantom box allows me to know who specifically I should send an IM to, whether its a wondering noob, who then goes on about their business, or someone who doesn't want to spend the L10K on their own bed.

A


ETA: I know, the last two paragraphs were not requested in the OP, however it seems they're trying to "hide in plain sight" so I thought it might be a technique they could use.

And I always thought MLP = Maltese Labour Party...

I am stacking several of them and I don't like to see the next one up... is there any limit to how high we can go? (I have a feather), if not then the stacking ceases to be a problem.

Ah, I see. You shouldn't ever build higher than 700 some meters. Technically you can, but things get really glitchy at that altitude.

For better coverage and realism when covering the bottoms with clouds, don't simply apply a cloud texture to the bottom. Instead, make a separate cloud layer of flat prims, with alpha transparency around the clouds so that they look fluffy. If necessary you can make the tops of the cloud layer transparent so that you can't see them from above.

That is a bit beyond me now but it sounds so good that I will figure out how to do it, thanks for the idea!

One thing that worked for me was enveloping my skybox inside a megaprim (I believe it was the 40x40x40 cube) and using the invisiprim script (like used in some shoes) on it. Since you are inside the phantom megaprim, you can still move around freely and interact with your objects without a problem.

Unless you are right up on the box or already know what you are looking for, you wouldn't know it was there.

Clever!

EDIT: Actually wait, I thought the invisiprim script only hides the avatar? I may be mistaken here, but I seem to recall that prims covered by the invisiprim are still visible, it's just the avatar that is hidden.

Nope. It hides everything. All you would see through it is the ground and sky. If other skyboxes are within your drawing distance and you tried to look "through" your skybox, your neighbors would be invisible as well.

The one catch with this is that when you are an intermediate distance (maybe 50-100m), the level of detail sometimes screws up and lets some prims peak through. It is for that reason you want to make sure to have at least a 10m buffer zone from the edge of your skybox to the outer skin of the megaprim.

invisiprims will "clip away" any 32 bit textures behind it.

most buildings use 24bit textures.

How to solve this? add a 2% transparency to all textures used in the build (quite time consuming, but you can write a script to do it for you). that little bit of transparency will turn all your 24bit textures to 32 bit, and will be pretty much unnoticeable to the casual observer.

Of course, the "point" of hiding a skybox is lost, when someone follows your "T" on the minimap to your hidden lair. This also won't help you hide no-mod objects that use 24bit textures, or no mod attachments.

In the end, you're probably better off building a really cool looking skybox.

I've had sky structures in the past though all I have 'up' at the moment is a platform above my land to make things on. I've never had any problems with mile-high visitors except in sandboxes, and even then they have only been friendly distractions. I've only ever encountered griefers at ground level.