With Real Time Mirrors Officially Part of Second Life, Here's a Tutorial for Reflecting Your Virtual World

In the run-up to its 21st anniversary, Second Life is officially a virtual world with mirrors:

Step into a more immersive world with real-time reflections. Our new mirror functionality uses reflection probes, providing stunning and dynamic reflections. Perfect for adding realism to your virtual environments, whether it's for a sleek modern home or a bustling cityscape. You will find the options to make a reflection probe on the Build window, under Features.

More than just a fun visual effect (as amply demonstrated by Gogo of JuicyBomb above), mirrors are likely to alter the culture of Second Life. We've already seen that happen in VRChat, where mirrors are central to the social experience.  

That said, setting up your own Second Life experience for mirrors takes some work.

First, you need the official viewer (7.1.8), then need to adjust some settings in Advanced Graphics:   

For building a mirror, this tutorial from Dutchie from a few months is still applicable, as is Feorie Frimon's video:

Start with a reflection probe: This invisible box or sphere takes an image of its surroundings, like a room, and uses it as the basis for reflections on shiny surfaces and bouncing light effects. And the best part: anyone can make these themselves and add them to their pre-PBR houses too. It's easier than you think.

How to create a reflection probe:

Create a prim box, go to the Features tab and choose Reflection Probe.

Two important things: Go to the Build Menu, to Options, and choose Select Reflection Probes.

Also hit Control-Alt-T to see transparent objects. It will be hell to grab the reflection probe otherwise.

Then, stretch that box to fit your room like a glove, and watch as your space comes to life with mesmerizing reflections and bouncing light effects.

How to create a mirror with reflection probes:

It works differently, because your avatar has to be outside the reflection probe to be reflected.

In the case of my sink vanity, I made a reflection probe box and linked them together.

I also made the texture and shininess on the mirror surfaces blank, and set the Glossiness and Environments both to 255. Playing around with the size and width of the reflection probe at some point gives you a reasonable reflection.

Not perfect by any means, it only updates every 10 seconds or so, it's a bit blurry and distorted, and the distance is off. But its really fun and great for pictures.

Please share your own tips in Comments! I was actually noodling around with the latest build and having trouble getting it to work. I almost feel like the learning curve is intentional, so as not to suddenly overwhelm the world with mirrors.

Thanks to Gogo for the help!

Comments

[Zosie Resident]

Hi would you please tell me if this is for Firestorm Viewers as well ?

[Dana Enyo]

I want to add a hint about making a Reflection Probe (which I never see in tutorials): THE MOMENT you create that prim, and even before you check the REFLECTION PROBE box, give it a NAME in the General tab. (I use something like "Dana Mirror 1 Probe".) Do it before you forget, because you may end up with these invisible phantom things all over the place and you'll have a heckuva time finding the right one later if they're all called OBJECT.

[Magnificent Dorkivus]

This is a wonderful addition to Second Life for all the deviants and narcissists there, as now they can sit in their own parcels even longer, just staring at themselves. Mirrors should bring more narcissists from other platforms to SL too, so it will be a win for a platform that caters to it, and all other forms of mental illness.