Rocks, boulders and other truly heavy items do not hover in RL. Really. They don’t. I’m not kidding. Neither do plants. Trees don’t hover. Flowers don’t hover. Grasses and other foliage do not hover.
In Second Life though, anything is possible. I’ve seen more hovering, floating and other weightless demonstrations by plants and boulders in Second Life than one would expect. It really ruins the effect of a natural setting to see a boulder floating.
Since I’ve run across yet another poorly thought out landscape, I’m writing my first of several landscaping tutorials. For this one, we’re going to start with the most basic and obvious: Rocks, trees and plants do not hover. Yes… I know…it seems obvious…but sometimes stating the obvious leads to an “Aha! moment.”
The rule in Real Life when putting boulders and other big rocks into a previously un-rocky area is that by nature, at least one-half to two-thirds of the rock is underground. This makes the rock or boulder look like it’s always been there. Do the same in SL. Your landscape will thank you.
And as for plants and trees hovering… When you rez a plant from your inventory, Second Life automatically places it so that the entire prim is above the ground level. Which is fine and good normally, but plant textures often don’t start exactly at the bottom edge of the prim. Grab your prim and yank it down a little…put the bottom of the stem just under the ground.
Your landscape will be much improved just by doing those two things.
Caliburn Susanto on January 19, 2009
I have an entire sim bursting with trees, flower, shrubs, and boulders. Nary a one floats. And all the plants are firmly rooted in the pixel-thick soil.
Okay, well a couple of water lillies are floating, but that’s in water.
And the plants at the bottom of one waterfall don’t count; there are so many transparent prims fighting with each other you could never tell anyway.
So what do I win?
Emerald Wynn on January 19, 2009
Dude, stop HANGING AROUND my YARD.
**I keed**
But my neighbors always say things like, “Hey, your snowman is floating.”
I guess I have no sense of space.
Or PERHAPS my sense of space is just more evolved. Maybe we bad landscapers are just operating on a WAY THE HELL higher plane of consciousness than you, PRAD!
Ryker Beck on January 23, 2009
The only rocks that hover in my sim are the ones that emit firefly particles under my boat dock >.<
Trinity Dechou on January 27, 2009
I find floating plants, trees and rocks somewhat offensive I agree… I also have a loathing for water reed style plants resting on top of the water. :@