Now I finally have an answer to the ‘What does Debug Beacon Line Width?‘ question (thank you, Claryssa Schmidt), I started using it for snapshotting. Somehow I feel like Debug Beacon Line is Second Life’s LSD packed in the SL client.

The major drawback when using it for SL photography is that you can not capture it as a normal snapshot. You need to capture the entire Second Life interface and then crop later. Which makes that text, teleport arrows and the like can sneak in.

Thus, when you are experimenting with the Debug Beacon Lines, in the Take Snapshot menu, enable ‘Show Interface in Snapshot’ to capture the effect.

Activating the Beacon Lines

1. Under ‘View’ enable ‘Beacons Always On’. (Ctrl-N)
2. Under ‘View’ go to ‘Beacons’ and enable ‘Render Beacons’.
3. Under ‘View’ go to ‘Beacons’ and pick the beacons you would like rendered:
   • Scripted Objects
   • Physical Objects
   • Sound Sources
   • Particle Sources

Color Code

So each type of beacon gets it’s own color.

Scripted Objects > Red
Physcial Objects > Green
Sound Sources > Yellow
Particle Sources > Pink

The Beacons itself look like transparant lines / light beams going up into the Second Life sky, with crosses at the ‘root’ of the beacon. The example on the left I took at the Code Red Gallery.

Beacon Line Width

The width of the Beacon Lines depends on the value you set in for ‘Debug Beacon Line Width’ in the advanced graphics menu. (Edit > Preferences). You can choose any number inbetween 1 and 65, although the default value is 4.

Happy snapshotting to all! ;)

Tags: photography, sl client, tips and tricks, tutorial

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