blimp TV screens

So, what every self respecting blimp needs is a giant TV screen. That'll be what this is :)

It's a mod for my blimp, the blimp is not included and must be purchased separately. You must own my blimp to be able to make use of this.

Three screens are included.

There's a double screen object, which has a screen on both sides of the blimp.

Then there are individual screens for port/starboard sides of the blimp, which seems to be the case for RL blimps.

Hey, you could even add *both* port and starboard screens to your blimp, and run them independently of each other. Do the red team on one side and the blue team on the other side. I'm not much good with sports, so that might not be an apt demonstration of using two screens ;p

Basically, choose whichever screens fit what you want to do. How hard can that be? Choose port, or starboard, or the double screen or both port *and* starboard for two independent screens.

The double screens are 3.5 land impact. The single screens are about 1.5 land impact each.

Installation

Nice and simple, especially if you've ever had one of my cub mods (cos it's the same method I use for those).

For those experienced in modding/editing, I'm sure you already know what to do. Rez the blimp, rez the screen(s) of your choice, make the position/rotation of the screen(s) match that of the blimp, link it/them to the blimp (but not the box that carries it/them), then pick up your blimp.

For those less experienced, there are some more explicit instructions in the manual.

Using the screen(s)

The screen(s) come with a set of example textures inside them to let you play with the features. Once you're comfortable with the features you should drop in to the screen whichever set of textures you wish to use for whichever sort of flight that you have in mind, and maybe remove ones that you don't intend to use (slideshow will show *all* textures). You'll also see a notecard that contains the settings needed for the notecard slideshow mode, feel free to modify that once you understand what's going on inside it :)

The screen's aspect ratio is about 17:10, which isn't too far from the common widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 so you should be able to make images fit easily.

Touch the screen(s) to get a menu.

The main menu has a whole bunch of buttons on it:-

pick texture - this selects a texture to use with the scroll, scale, rotate and animation display modes. If the screen isn't turned off, the texture will appear. If it is turned off, it'll magically appear when you turn the screen on or hit the go button on any of the display mode menus.

scroll - this display mode will scroll the chosen texture sideways, a very common texture animation in SL

scale - this mode will let you zoom the chosen texture in and out

rotate - this mode will let you spin the chosen texture around, looks a bit odd cos of the aspect ratio but might suit your needs

animate - this mode will let you use a tiled texture to display a moving animation, another common texture animation in SL

slideshow - this mode will display all of the textures one after another, it doesn't discriminate.

options - lets you set the generic options, like reversing texture movement and bright/glow settings

stop - stops the current display mode, leaving the texture displayed on the screen (which may look a little goofy if you were using scroll/animation mode)

screen off - stops the current mode and sets the screen black, allowing you to continue setting up display modes and picking textures

screen on - just illuminates the screen (after turning it off), doesn't resume any of the display modes

reset - resets the script, I doubt you'll use this often but there it is

<exit> - common to all menus, this will close the menu

Copy/Modify

The scripts are copy only, but the screens are copy/modify so that you can a) attach them to the blimp and b) change their contents to be able to use them :)

There's not much to modify, really. There are separate faces for the edge of the screen and the patterned cover over the screen faces. They share the same UV map (included), but are separate for convenience's sake. The border is probably best tinted, though you can paint it if you wish.

The display screen faces (for the 4 different screen widths) are next to impossible to select by clicking on the screen surface itself. With that in mind, behind the screen you should see 4 faces pointing upwards. They are 4 different widths to mirror the screen widths, and are very useful if you need to select faces individually or want to see how a texture is displayed on all 4 screen widths to judge the correct aspect ratio and screen to use for scrolling mode.

See a little demo screen in world at the See item in Second Life link down there...