Newbie Questions: The Environment

I read that objects cast shadows from the sunlight. I want to make objects that cast interesting shadows, but so far I haven't seen any shadows cast by anything. Do I have to have my preferences set a certain way?

That article in Popular Science says that residents can move the sun at will. How does that work? If I move the sun, does it only appear that way for me? For those who leave the sun alone, does it appear to move across the sky on a set schedule?

How does water work? Can it be poured? Can I dig a trench on the beach and have seawater flow into it?

If you are the owner of an island, you have the authority to lock the sun at a specific time of day. Everyone has the ability to "Force sun" to be daylight or midnight or allow the sun to be moved by dragging it with your mouse, but it only affects how you view the world and if you have for instance a scripted light that turns on only at night then doing a "force sun to midnight" would not affect it.

The water that comes with SL is a flat surface that is visible if your land is below a certain elevation. Not terribly useful for pools, pouring, surf, etc, but plenty of people have created "water" by texturing objects to look like water and making them transparent (Heck my neighbors have a pool with splashing water in it). Probably more useful than water, since you can set splashing noises when people go into the water, for instance. Pouring is probably going to be difficult under any circumstance, would depend on your artistic abilities in simulating the effect.

I don't know about shadows, although I would think that any solid object would have a shadow behind the sun. If you want further control of that then I would look into transparent objects that can simulate shadows, there are a couple places that I have seen that have created moving sunbeams and/or fog by using transparent objects.

There are a number of classes that are given from time to time on how to create objects like this, I am familiar with TUi and TeaZer, but search the event listings for category "Educational" to see what is coming up.

If you force darkness in your land area, you should also be able to control shadows by creating lighted prims (feature/light). I think flickering lights are largely acheived via particles, but I am not sure if you can make particles glow and give off real shadows or not.

objects could be set to cast shadows in 1.9.1 preview. a wall would effectively block out the sun. it looked nice, but didn't make it to the live grid ;.;

Edgar I love your questions! One important thing to remember is that there is a lot to learn about Second Life. This is not your usual learn in 3 hour RPG. It may takes months as in my case but the rewards are many. Did you study the tutorials on Help Island? Have you signed up with New Citizens and The Shelter? Do you have a Mentor? Have you looked at the help files on the SL website?

There is much to learn but there are also many places to give you guidance.

I dont think one can ever know all aspects of SL. I learn something new literaly everyday.

I had no idea I could move the sun. lol

What everyone else said, plus...

* You can move the sun to any position using the debug "Client" menu. This has proven a useful trick for photography.

* I've seen people using flat, alpha-channel bearing prims for tree shadows in, I believe, MaHaRoBa - whatever the proper name is of that Japanese urban pop shopping area. It made for an impressive effect, if a bit limited.

* Water does not "our" per se, but it will fill land areas if below a certain level (sim dependent, I think). There are a lot of creative solutions for making it "pour" and "flow" using scripted prims textured to look like liquid.

Mari