I want to build an undersea lair.

Inspired by pics of the Gravity Space Station, I've decided that I want to build in the ocean. Space would be just as nice, but I'm on an ocean kick at the moment.

Not a club, mind you, but just a house. So I find myself asking: how was the space station built? Is there actually a "space" location that you can somehow get to, or was it all a brilliant illusion applied to a simple floating house?

I was thinking that I could build underground with ocean textures on the windows, and put a teleporter on the ground in order to create the illusion that you were being transported to a far-away lab at the bottom of the ocean. People would see inside before the walls showed up, though. So I thought maybe I'd just float the thing and paint the underside sky blue.

It's far out of my building capabilities at present, since I'm still new around here. Hell, I've just started to get the hang of basic skinning! However, I thought it would be a good idea to ask around. I've seen some amazing things in SL, so I know that there's always a way to do something, even if it's a surprisingly simple trick.

Hopefully the builder-types will start salivating at the prospect of a new problem, and send advice. Of course, if I'm REALLY lucky, then someone has already done this sort of thing, and it's just a matter of learning how.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Have you thought of building underwater? There are often plots of water for sale at reasonable rates because many dont know what to do with water. It seems like a lot of effort to simulate water when we can simply just build underwater. Am I missing something?

Whoa! I can DO that? Yes, I'm willing to build underwater! I didn't realize that water plots were even available. I thought that people just got a piece of land along the beach and sunk it or something. I'm still shopping around for some First Land, and I'm sure I haven't even seen a fraction of what's available in-world.

Does the water stay outside if you buy a structure underwater? Would that blue tint be all over everything inside the house, or is that accounted for in the way that the water works? Has anybody done this yet, and are there screen shots?

Man, I didn't even think I could do that... I was even thinking of making a wetsuit outfit and letting people have them for free so they could swim outside and stuff. And I could make one of those little underwater motor things that SCUBA divers use when they're trying to kill James Bond. Maybe even one or two fish outside. Enough to give some life to the place, but not enough to be a lag problem.

Thanks, Loki! Looks like this thread has paid off after on reply, lol!

I'm stoked, now. I'm looking for water plots TONIGHT!

It's all possible in SL!

Sorry to say that the water permeates everything with the attenuated, blue light and I've never heard of anything that you can do to avoid it. Even asking the client to stop rendering the water makes the sea-floor look like ground... until you go below the (now invisible) water line and you are back to half-light.

I've seen some pretty cool underwater builds and admire those who can do it. But you better like blue tint. Hope I didn't burst your bubble

I have water for reasonably-priced sale or rent if you can pledge to keep the build underwater.

Wow. I really underestimated the helpfulness of the SL community. Loki actually found me in-world and showed me around a bit. I'm pretty much committed to the underwater idea, but I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew at this point. I should probably try to at least build one crappy-looking box before I try to get fancy.

Plus, my account is new and I can't afford much in the way of land. So, I'm looking around for First Land, so I can experiment a bit. later, when I have more cash, I'll go for a nice 512 plot and build some basic things. Basically, I don't want to lose the cheap opportunity of First Land by purchasing a 128m plot for 1500$L.

Right now I'm looking at that new northern land mass for a beach-front plot. They're being released slowly, but maybe I can snag one before the Land Barons get them all! Unless I get lucky, that is.

Down the road, however, this thing is still happening. The blue tint can even be used to my advantage if I play with the colors right. If it looks like the light is coming from the windows, then I should be okay. The place I saw last night looked great!

And Prokofy, thanks for the offer, but I also have thoughts of building a floating platform or something. I'll need to be able to experiment in every direction, so I don't want to move to a place where that will annoy the neighbors. I've heard lots of complaints about eyesores and I completely understand them.

Oh, one of my favorite things to do! I'm in the process of making my home underwater, and am surprised at how easy it is if you're willing to use the natural ground in conjunction with your design. I just lowered the ground in the sections I wanted my home to be, built my roof over it (it would be difficult for a visitor to tell that part of what appears to be the ocean floor is actually my roof), and am decorating it now. Have a lot of work left to do, but I think it's going to turn out well.

No pics yet, but I'll see about finding a webhost and take some later.

We did start a thread about material of type "air" in Feature Suggestions, that would turn off water rendering inside it, and it made it to the Hotline and attracted some Linden interest. So someday you may even be able to fill your undersea lair with air. Meanwhile, I recommend you consider scaly skin and gills for your next av design, and perhaps an animation overrider with a swimming animation when you're flying. (Though I admit, the Bond-esque underwater motor things do sound cool.)

neko

The Codas did an underwater home contest last year. My build got 1st prize, and there were some other really nice ones too. You can check out my undersea cottage (Captain Nemo style) anytime, just IM me and I'll haul it out of inventory. I'll even sell you a copy if you want, heh. If you want to see some other builds or places you can build, check out Star and Wall sims. Loki Pico was showing me around there last night, there is some cool stuff there.

Are there any underwater sandboxes? Be interesting to test thing in/on

If you want to see what 100m of murky seawater looks like, pop over to the sim Krittannia

You should make it like Blofeld's underwater base from The Spy Who Loved Me.

I had an underwater build about a year ago, before I lost it and all my land to the reorganization.

I had a series of decking above the waterline, and a small hut. The hut had a hole you could use to drop below the surface to the buildings below.

They're right, you will always have a blue "tint", but other than that there's no way to tell you're underwater. If you use water textures in the windows, and other tricks to make it look like the water has been held back, then the only sign you're underwater is that blue tint.

Even that can be minimized by not making huge spaces. The tint is most noticable over a long viewing distance.

Ingot Hedges

Good suggestions, Ingot. I especially like the water texture on port holes. What if you also added a yellowish light source inside the structure? That might counter the remaining blue tint quite effectively.

neko

If you haven't yet, go explore Atlantis! It is awesome!

Atlantis (127,191)

Tito

That might work, I never tried it.

I was after a kind of submarine/"Ice station Zebra" feel, of steel and with modern lighting, so I created strips of luminous material along the walls and ceiling that glowed white. It never occurred to me to use colored light to counter the blue tint.

Another possiblity, would be to use BLUE light, so even though the tint would still be visible, it would also be explained by the lighting you used...

Ingot

along those lines, could you "fill" up the area with a Phantom yellow colored texture at let's say 90 percent transparency? think that would get out the blue? Might cause massive client side lag...i don't know..

That might work by itself, though I don't know if colors/textures are rendered that way on solid shapes. The alpha would cause some lag. I wonder if the "luminary" material or whatever it's called would be better for this? That's the proposal to make an object appear lighted, but not generate light that needs to be rendered on other prims. That shouldn't cause any more lag than the phantom alpha fill, but it still might not work if only the surface of the object is rendered.

I agree with Ingot that there's nothing wrong with deliberately going for an undersea look, I just wondered as an academic exercise if using yellow tinted light would minimize the underwater effect.

neko

I am looking for some land underwater.....please let me know who to contact....I would prefer ocean water please...thanks for any response

Should check out the land near the sim of "Duck" lots of deep water land.

Debug -> Render -> Features -> Fog. Turn it off.

Or just build your house with small enough rooms you don't see the fog.

When I did that a lot of visitors who teleported in had no idea we were underwater.

I've recently started what may become an underwater club, for now its just a 35m long X 10m wide/high structure with lots of windows. I had to play with the limited terraforming capabilities to get the water deep enough for this thing... My lots were pretty much underwater from the beginning, and I built my house on pilings. Since this sim (Vashti) is mostly islands/water, I seem to recall there's at least one lot for sale thats waterfront. If you want to see my build, IM me in-world (whenever we're able to get back in) and I'll arrange to show you.. I'd just give you the coordinates, but since I've had rude people walk into my place unannounced, I've locked the parcel down to friends... As for diving gear that someone mentioned, I visited someplace way back when I joined SL which had mask/fins/snorkle and a very nice scripted scuba tank with bubbles and breathing sounds for free as I recall.

Tas

I have similar desires to Gydeon, I have only been in SL for a few weeks and have been doing a lot of learning and building. I have made myself a full set of scuba gear with working depth gauge, and an underwater scooter and an underwater observatory and next is a sub. I plan on making my scuba gear available for sale and also for rent for a cheap price. My rental gear comes with 1 hour of air and can't be used anymore when your air runs out. Now my problem is finding somewhere to set it all up. I just need some deep water, no land at all. Any ideas where I start to find a place? I have been searching around with no luck. I don't have a lot of money to play with, but I am willing to invest a bit. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Tai, the waters are of varying depths - there are a few sims with very deep water indeed. If you want to try out your ideas you could rent a bit of sea land from Salazar Jack - he has a wonderful area that includes a lot of water.