The third planet I wanted to build in SineSpace is the Izi Sig Volcano World. It features 8 volcanoes, 2 lava flows, 2 lava lakes and hundreds of effects. This would make anything from a great home region to backdrop for a shooter game. Even more, you could even use it as a setting for real-time cinema projects. Check out the video I put together above to get a quick walk-through.
So Much Bigger, And Such A Great Deal
Let’s start by talking size. At 6000 meters x 6000 meters, Izi Sig is significantly larger than my other two regions in the series. That comes out to 36 square kilometers of volcano world! For those coming from Second Life, works out to 576 SL regions in one continuous chunk. No sim crossings, and none of the headaches those users have come to expect when traveling such great distances.
It’s also a great example of the value proposition of SineSpace. Based on current Second Life region pricing, attempting a build on this scale would cost a fortune. It would require over $85,000USD to buy that many Homestead regions. After that massive spend, you would still need to pay more than $62,000USD per month to keep it open.
Here’s how that stacks up to SineSpace’s current pricing. Every user gets a free 128MB region to start, but the Izi Sig Volcano World region template is big. It currently takes up approximately 300MB, so you would need a paid plan. The premium plan costs $9.95USD per month, and boosts your region capacity to 512MB. Add to it the one-time cost of 999 gold ($9.99USD), and you’re ready to go. That’s it. Their $15/mo plan lets you have 3 active 512MB max regions. For $25 a month, they’ll let you have up to 5 active regions, each with maximum of 1024MB. Consequently, that would give you tons of room to add buildings, furniture, and whatever else you can think of.
Volcano World Terrain System
This is a project that I’ve had in the back of my head for months. However I only had a short period of time to bring it to life. Having used MapMagic for a few years now, I was able to create something I liked fairly quickly. Finally it was a matter of unleashing a lot of processing power to get the erosion and weathering to look the way I wanted.
For the terrain materials, I wanted something that was a cross between Earth, and the exotic terrain I made for Tirana. Consequently, I needed to start fresh. In a fairly short period of time I had 16 different material sets ready to use. That turned out to be overkill. My early testing showed that would make for a much larger filesize than I wanted for the region. I soon realized I could probably achieve some great results with less using MicroSplat (which I’ve talked about here).
MicroSplat and its many modules gives me a lot of different options. Striking a balance to get the best results, I created a pretty great terrain shading setup for Izi Sig.
Hundreds Of Effects
There is no single “Press for awesome lava” button in Unity. Creating something convincing requires a lot of different things to all work together. Specialty shaders, vertex painting, flow maps, and particle systems. So many particle systems! I think I struck a good balance for my volcano world to provide a lot of interesting details, but kept from dragging down performance with too many effects.
Glimpsing into the future of Unity, exciting times are ahead. Once SineSpace catches up to newer releases, I will be able to add even more lava and spectacular effects! Exciting times are ahead, and as with my other products, customers will get automatic free updates once they become available.
Advanced Post Processing
I’m a big fan of post processing effects in SineSpace (you can read more about post processing here). After creating a post-processing profile for the world, I created a others for the lava craters, rivers, and lakes. Check out the video at the top of the page to see them in action.
The Sky Is Full Of Fish
I wanted to include an exotic form of life. Something that was visually interesting, but out of the way as you built and played on the surface. Bird focks and fish schools are beautiful to watch, so I combined the idea and gave it a different spin. First I created a custom material for my SkyFish and paired it with one of my exotic shaders. Using Unluck Software tools, I built a couple custom fish school systems. It took more work than I expected to get the results I wanted, but I think it really looks amazing. SkyFish are enabled by default, but region owners can optionally disable them in the Advanced Options of the SineSpace Room Editor.
Izi Sig Volcano World is Available Now
You can find the Izi Sig Volcano World now in the SineSpace shop. You can find it now in the in-world shop. Look in Regions –> Sci-Fi. I have a tutorial on how you can create a region and apply a region template – click here to check that out.
This region was designed with SineSpace premium subscription users in mind. Since it is approximately 300MB in size, it’s too big for a user on a free account to use. Premium users, on the other hand, will be able to place over 200MB of stuff in the volcano world. The region template also offers the ability to sub-lease. Users can add their friends and allocate some of that space to them to build and decorate.
The ExoGenesis Project
Back in September, SineSpace announced the Out Of This World Creator Challenge. I knew immediately that I wanted to participate. With a 20 December deadline that gave me nearly 2 months to plan and build. The challenge motivated me to start working on my ExoGenesis Project – you can read more about that here. I was able to complete ther Erial Wastelands and Tirana Rainbow Forest before the deadline. Just before the contest ended, Sine Wave extend the deadline until mid-January. With the extra time I dove into a third world, and my most ambitious build to date.
Like Erial and Tirana, the name Izi Sig has a Sumerian background. It means to set on fire, or a birthplace of fire. Inspired by the unusual name, I set out to build the biggest and boldest region I could. Weighing in at 36 square kilometers and containing 8 volcanoes, 2 lava flows, 2 lava lakes and hundreds of effects, I was able to get a lot done!
Latest Trilo Byte Design Posts
- Sansar Commentary
- Rim Shader Avatar Skins
- Catwalk Animations
- Izi Sig Volcano World
- Tirana Rainbow Forest
