Mescaline's View: Watch "Pipedream", and Get the WindLight Preset It Was Made In

This is one of the most beautifully photographed Second Life machinimas I've ever seen, a travelogue exploration through the Bogon Flux, a wonderfully strange, self-assembling, self-destructing, steampunky city comprised of rusty pipes and metal chambers. (Here's a great write-up of its creation on NPIRL.)  On first viewing (recommended to me by Geuis Teses), I thought the video with its smoky and grainy sepia visuals were heavily processed in post-production.  But Mescaline Tammas, the mohawked Wasteland inhabitant who shot the machinima, says not so.

"I make my own custom WindLight settings," Tammas told me from the platform of his home above the post-apcalyptic desert, "[and] go for realism as opposed to a lot of the garishness I see on Flickr [screenshots of Second Life.]  "So yes, pretty much all of what you see is 'in camera'.  I do add a slight lens vignette in post, makes it feel more like real memories."  (A vignette is the slightly rounded edges of a lens, creating the effect of being shot in an ancient film camera.)

A film editor in real life, Mescaline Tammes is in Second Life "exploring virtual worlds for their film making possibilites," he tells me.  He shot a lot of timelapse segments at the Flux, located in Hambone Slash, over a three day period.  (Direct SLURL teleport to the location at this link.)  "I was asked by the builders, Cutea Benelli and Blotto Epsilon, and well, I just loved the build."  He edited in Adobe Premiere, adding effects (frame blending, graphics, vignettes etc.) in After Effects.

"What excites me is if this is what we have now, imagine Second Life filmmaking in 10 years," he says. "I truly believe that virtual worlds like Second Life need more narrative, narrative is the skeleton on which to hang content.  'Pipedream' however is almost the reverse, narrative hanging on content. Still, stories, stories."

And now because of WindLight preset, stories like these can be shaped and accentuated by the way Second Life's graphics are displayed.  Mescaline Tammas generously gave me the preset data he used for this machinima, which he calls, appropriately enough,  "London 2026".  (There's more post-nuclear WL presets in the Wasteland forum here.) 

Get the code and instructions for installing the "London 2026" preset after the break. 

London 2026, WindLight preset, by Mescaline Tammas 

To install, explains Tammas:

"Copy the code [below] into a Windows notecard, then save as a .xml file then place it in the Second life > windlight > skies folder."

<llsd>
    <map>
    <key>ambient</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.29999998211860657</real>
            <real>0.17999999225139618</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0.29999998211860657</real>
        </array>
    <key>blue_density</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.97999995946884155</real>
            <real>0.97999995946884155</real>
            <real>0.97999995946884155</real>
            <real>0.48999997973442078</real>
        </array>
    <key>blue_horizon</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.31999999284744263</real>
            <real>0.31999999284744263</real>
            <real>0.31999999284744263</real>
            <real>0.15999999642372131</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_color</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.50999999046325684</real>
            <real>0.50999999046325684</real>
            <real>0.50999999046325684</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_pos_density1</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.5</real>
            <real>0.5</real>
            <real>1</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_pos_density2</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.5</real>
            <real>0.5</real>
            <real>0.125</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_scale</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.079999998211860657</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_scroll_rate</key>
        <array>
            <real>10.49940013885498</real>
            <real>10.01099967956543</real>
        </array>
    <key>cloud_shadow</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.25999999046325684</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>density_multiplier</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.00031000000308267772</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>distance_multiplier</key>
        <array>
            <real>6.8000001907348633</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>east_angle</key>
        <real>0</real>
    <key>enable_cloud_scroll</key>
        <array>
            <boolean>1</boolean>
            <boolean>1</boolean>
        </array>
    <key>gamma</key>
        <array>
            <real>1</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>glow</key>
        <array>
            <real>5</real>
            <real>0.0010000000474974513</real>
            <real>-0.33000001311302185</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>haze_density</key>
        <array>
            <real>1.8899999856948853</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>haze_horizon</key>
        <array>
            <real>0.23999999463558197</real>
            <real>0.19915600121021271</real>
            <real>0.19915600121021271</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>lightnorm</key>
        <array>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0.36227512359619141</real>
            <real>-0.93207120895385742</real>
            <real>0</real>
        </array>
    <key>max_y</key>
        <array>
            <real>752</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>0</real>
            <real>1</real>
        </array>
    <key>preset_num</key>
        <integer>21</integer>
    <key>star_brightness</key>
        <real>0</real>
    <key>sun_angle</key>
        <real>2.7708849906921387</real>
    <key>sunlight_color</key>
        <array>
            <real>1.3799998760223389</real>
            <real>1.3799998760223389</real>
            <real>1.3799998760223389</real>
            <real>0.45999997854232788</real>
        </array>
    </map>
</llsd>

Comments

[Lili]

Thanks a ton for sharing that atmosphere set-up! Really. I'd been trying to get a hold of Mescaline for over a week after viewing the machinima before I gave up, he seems not to be online an awful lot. I'd been hoping that dust effect was something you could just rezz, but meh, that'll be nice to play with as well. ;)

Speaking of which, immersive content creators out there might be interested in voting on this issue here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7677 - to let it be known how much we think it would improve general SL experience for a lot of us if Estate managers could have the freedom to override the default windlight settings with their own, server-side, right there in the Estate menu, making it easier and better possible than it is now to let people experience their work the way THEY envisionned it in their mind.

[Mark]

NICE

[charlotte bartlett]

Amazing film and I have come to know Mescaline recently. Very talented chap who is seriously raising the bar on machinima. :) Great piece.

[awoman]

I'm trying to find the track on that video and its not easy. Help? JD Birch? Who the heck is that?