Adjusting Windows and Daytime Lighting

Learn how to adjust windows and daytime lighting in this SineSpace tutorial. Check out the video, or read through the steps below to see how easy it is to get great results on regions that support adjustable lighting and materials.

Region Support Required

Users can’t just randomly adjust the windows and daytime lighting in any region. In order for it to work, the region’s creator has to build that into their design. Interested creators can check out the tutorials on the SineSpace Youtube channel to get started learning, take deeper dives on the SineSpace Wiki to learn more about content creation.

In the case of room lights or swappable materials, the tutorials and info Sine Wave offers were enough to get me started. My Fairfield Deluxe home and region makes full use of adjustable materials, and in the latest update I added support for adjusting windows.

User-adjustable daytime lighting is another story. For that, I created a solution that works via the Room Editor, and lets you save your settings. Read on to learn how to use it, but first let’s check out the windows.

Adjusting Windows

The first step in adjusting windows is to go to your region has support for that. I’ll shamelessly plug my Fairfield Deluxe home & region template again. It’s available now and recently updated. All users automatically get updates at no additional charge. In that update, you get support for adjusting windows. How convenient! 🙂

In the home, I walked into the enclosed porch. Then I clicked on the Edit Room button to bring up the Room Editor. In a deluxe region like the Fairfield there may be multiple rooms, click on the All Areas buton (shown at top right in the image above) and click the Switch button next to the Enclosed porch to switch to that room.

Once the room loads, click on the Materials button along the top row (as shown in that image above. You should then see the Porch Windows on the list on the left of your screen. Click Swap Materials and pick what you want to use from the list. My Glass Materials Pack is shown, and includes 8 different types of glass. As you click on different materials, you will see them change immediately. Once you adjust windows to your liking, , click the Save button at the top right to save your changes. Check out this post for more info on swappable materials.

Adjusting Daytime Lighting

The way I have it set up, adjusting the daytime lighting is easy. If the region has multiple rooms, use All Areas to go to the main area. In the Fairfield region, I labeled it “Start Here!” – but you can use the Edit button to change the name if you like. Once you switch rooms, click on the Options button and you should see a panel that looks like the image below.

There are 7 options on the list, plus the region defaults to mid-day lighting for a total of 8 options. Click Enable to select one of the options, and it will override that default setting. Click it again to turn that option off. Don’t forget to Save your daytime lighting settings using the button on the top right.

Adjusting Room Lights

If the region supports user-adjustable lights, they’re super easy to use. I have them in my Italian Courtyard region as well, but since this tutorial is in the Fairfield region, we’ll stay right here. Use All Areas to switch back to the enclosed porch, and then click on the Lights button on the top row of buttons. You’ll see lighting options on the panel that shows up on the left. A slider for brightness, as well as some simple preset colors. Click on the Custom Color button to bring up another popup that lets you really fine-tune the color (as shown in the picture below). Play around and have fun, and once you finish adjusting your lighting click on the Save button at the top right. See this post for more info on adjusting lights.

Advanced Materials Are Amazing

In addition to what BlakOpal and I make for virtual worlds, we make a wide variety of art in the real and digital worlds. We love working with different tools and materials. We love how light shines, illuminates, and reflects off different surfaces. We’ve both worked on projects with photo-realistic materials. In the past, that required a lot of additional work to set up, plus specialized software and a lot of time to render.

Previous generation worlds like Second Life made an effort to support advanced materials, but fell short of a truly PBR (physically based rendering) model. It was pretty good at the time, but largely revolved around tricks (like baked lighting) that content creators would pull to force an item to look like it was in a particular environment. The results looked great in certain places, but not so great everywhere else.

SineSpace and Unity do support PBR, so our advanced materials render accurately in real-time. Whether you’re outdoors or indoors, in a brightly lit room or dimly light nightclub, whether the lights are white or colored, the piece will look like it is actually in that environment. It really pays off in customizable regions like the Fairfield Deluxe or Italian Courtyard – clothes with advanced materials just look great.

Buy For Yourself Or For Your Friends

Users buy clothing and wearables for their friends all the time, but remember you can buy any item as a gift for a friend. That includes houses! This tutorial will show you how to do it. It’s a super simple process – just buy it normally as you would when shopping for yourself, then search for your friend and click the button to Send Mail to them. You then send the gift as an attachment.

That’s It!

You should now be able to adjust windows and daytime lighting with ease. If you have questions or comments, then please post in the comments below! If you want personal help or private training, please see this post. Good luck with your projects!

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