How to turn Virtual Water in to Ice

The “collateral damage” of the Openspace pricing & policy change is enormous, that can not be denied and almost used to saying “nice sim, we’ll miss it, but ah well, there are others”, but when renowned “virtual art” sims such as The Princeton Voids fall victim too, then the gears in my mechanical, virtual heart just stop rotating for a few seconds… . This week it was “last change to vistit Poid Mahovlich & AM Radio’s The Quiet” at Princeton South. So I went to say my goodbyes…

… and of course, take snapshots. All of a sudden, I slipped and fell, which launched my camera under the icebergs and uncovered the ocean. My mind went “Woot! Reflections!” until it realised… water in a frozen landscape does not really make sense. But Lindens gave us WindLight, and everything is possible with WindLight, right? If it can turn water into wine, or blood, or jelly it can definitely turn water into flat ice with the right texture and settings? Sure it can! (For the WindLight water settings to pour over your virtual water, click the thumbnail.)

How do I access the WindLight Water settings? Go to World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor and then click “Advanced Water”. The advanced water editor will pop up, with the tabs “settings” and “image” that you see in the Ice Settings example above.

Which Ice Texture did you use for the water texture? I used Torley’s “Ice Shelves“. His “Ice kapades” does the job too, but is more uniform thus more flat. When using ice kapades you’ll get less the “this ice is transparent and this ice has part of the ice is white” effect, which creates depth. In your library you’ll also have “Ice rock”. Try this one for yet another effect.

Thus, AM Radio’s “The Quiet” on Ice. Because… well… “freeze” is the best way I know off to make something last forever… . And this is how it looks without ice. ;)

Tags: am radio, how to, openspace, photography, SLart, snapshot, tips and tricks, windlight