Tutorial: Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

Back to Top

Viewer UI Elements

EEP introduces changes to some elements of the viewer UI and adds a group of new floaters. The following provides described the key menu and region / parcel options, together with a brief outline of the new floaters which are examined in detail elsewhere in this tutorial.

World → Environment Menu

The Environment options found in the World menu have been changed with EEP, with the old Sun and Environment Editor sub-menus replaced by a new Environment sub-menu (shown right). The options on this menu comprise:

• Sunrise, Midday, Sunset Midnight: these all function as per the old settings of the same name previously located in the Sun sub-menu, applying the selected time of day to your own viewer only.
• Use Shared Environment: this replaces the Sun → Use Region Settings sub-menu option. The name change reflects the fact that when checked, it will cause the viewer to display whatever EEP settings have been applied at the region or parcel level.
  • Note that Parcel settings are dependent on whether or not they have been expressly permitted at the region level (see below for more). When active they will override the region settings for those within a parcel that has local EEP settings applied to it.
• My Environments…: allows you to work on your EEP assets from a single location. It provides:
  • Access to all folders in your inventory that contain EEP assets (e.g. the Settings folder and the Library Settings folder).
  • The ability to filter the listed EEP assets by type (Day Cycles, Sky, Water) or by entering your own filter parameters.
  • The ability to edit and / or apply a selected EEP asset.
  • Options for creating new EEP assets.

• Personal Lighting…: provides access to the Personal Lighting floater, for making viewer-side changes to environment settings that are otherwise No Modify – see Personal Lighting for more.
• Pause Clouds: as the name implies, will pause cloud (and wave) motion in your viewer (others will continue to see any cloud motion).

Region and Parcel Controls

A further aspect of are the region / estate and parcel controls. These are found, respectively, on the World → Region / Estate panel and the About Land panel, appearing in each under the Environment tab.

The options in either Environment tab are mostly the same, although the region options take precedence over those at parcel level. Both tabs can be split into three section, as described below.

Notes:

• Access to the options in the Environments tabs is dependent on having the required rights, or some (or all) of the options on either panel might be greyed out.
• EEP adds new a permission in the Group Abilities list (Modify environment settings and day cycle). This is enabled for region officers and owners by default.

1. Select Environment: Allows the environment to be set at region / parcel level. Comprises three buttons:
   • Use Default Settings (region only) – sets the region’s environment to the SL default environment; OR Use Region Settings (parcel only) – sets the parcel’s environment to that of the region.
   • Use inventory: will open a settings picker to allow a specific sky / day cycle asset to be selected and applied.
     • This replaces all sky tracks in the Day Cycle floater with those from the selected inventory asset.
   • Customise: opens the Day Cycle floater with the current settings for the region / parcel, allowing them to be adjusted changed – see Day Cycles for more. Note that applying changes from the editor in this case will immediately apply the changes to the region / parcel, but will not save them to inventory.
   • In addition, the region level control has a check box to enable / disable the ability for parcel holders to use their own environment settings. If unchecked, this will grey out all the options in About Land → Environment for all parcels in an estate.
2. Day Settings: sliders and spinners to:
   • Set the length of day (min. 4 hours, or the SL default; max 168 hours or 7 days).
   • Set the time offset from GMT (by default set to -8.00 (e.g. roughly equal to SLT).
   • In addition, this section includes an apparent time of day local to the region / parcel.
     • This is dependent upon the defined length of day.
   • By setting the length of day to 24 and the time offset to match your own local time zone, you can have the day cycle on your region / parcel match that of your local time.
3. Sky Altitudes:
   • Region: allows the altitudes at which the Sky 2, 3 and 4 sky tracks are set (default: 1,000, 2,000, 3,000); a Reset button will reset any custom levels to these altitudes).
   • Parcel: inherits the altitudes set at region level (cannot be modified).
   • Both: allows EEP assets to be dragged and dropped into the different track names from either inventory or World → Environment → My Environments.
     • This will only apply the corresponding track from the asset into the selected track name (e.g. if an asset is dragged and dropped into the Ground name field, only the Ground track from the dragged asset will be applied.

New Floaters

EEP introduces three further new floaters alongside of Personal Lighting, each described in its own section of this tutorial:

• Fixed Environment – Sky: allows you to define fixed sky (i.e. the time of day is static).
• Fixed Environment – Water: allows you to define Linden Water settings.
• Day Cycles: allows you to define a set a dynamic day / night cycle of up to 168 hours in length.