| Cartifex was a project to map the
topography of all of Second Life's terrain in order to render dramatic views of
the entire world. Typical draw distances in Second Life are below 256 meters,
meaning that users lose the sense of being in a world that actually spans many
kilometers. By using the topographical data to create a model in 3DSMax, I was
able create images like the ones on this page at an "infinite" draw distance.
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| The process
involved a number of steps. A control panel application written in C# managed
scanning objects inside Second Life through XML-RPC. The scanners used
mutliple, concurrently running scripts to scan a sim's terrain at 1 meter
resolution and sent their data out in chunks through e-mail. The control panel
retrieved this data and assembled it into heightmaps stored as grayscale
bitmaps. The control panel also generated textures for each sim based on its
particular texture scheme (snow, tropical, etc.). It exported a text file with
data on the sim names, locations, and water levels. A script in 3DSMax then
read this file and modeled each sim as a plane with the heightmap applied as a
displacement map and the texture applied as a diffuse map.
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| The images on this page reflect different
stages of mapping and modeling as the project progressed. Flat planes are
placeholders for sims without height data. Throughout the project I fiddled
with lighting, water textures and other elements. Late in the process I adapted
the system to model regions of sims with a single plane, making it more
efficient to change the level of detail for sims depending on camera distance.
The last picture below shows an example of 2D images I generated which mapped
terrain height to color hue. Although the Cartifex project has ended, I'm now
working on a new project to allow real-time
viewing of a 3D model of Second Life.
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| Copyright 2005 Patrick Rutledge - Contact
patrick@spinmass.com |
