Demo: Vortex Pack 1.1: Warp, Spiral, Whirlpool mapped meshes

Please watch the video.

This is just a demo - is has four, linked and no-modify examples of the mesh.

These vortices are simple mesh shapes but with complex faces and texture mapping to give either a warp-flight-like, 'disappearing into the distance' or a spiral, vortex or whirlpool effect animation like those old 'hypnotic' effects in movies (remember the old Avengers? just like that!). This can be done using any normal, square texture. The trick is with the mapping on the mesh, not the texture. Just drop a texture on and see what it looks like. The only stipulation with the texture is that it works best with a tileable texture, otherwise you'll see the join. You can do these effects, sort of, with basic prims but the effect is nothing like as good as mesh mapped specifically for it.

They are intended for putting into your own builds, not really as stand-alone things. As such they have simple convex hull physics (like a cube). Best to link them to something else, then set the physics type on this to 'none'. Or you could set it phantom if it is not linked; you can't set 'none' physics on something that is not linked because the root prim (or the only one if not linked) must have a physics type. You can always ask me for advice if you can't figure all of this out.

There are nine different types, and all are supplied in three LOD levels so you can choose the most appropriate - except the corridor which is so low LI it only needs one LOD type.

The shapes are supplied at 2m size, and at that they all have a LI of 1. The LI will go up if you increase the size, but the required LOD detail then goes down. That is why I've supplied three LOD levels. The Small set of meshes are intended for use if you want them to be small in size. The LOD is much higher so they don't look nasty at a short distance and at a small size the LI is still low. The Large set has the lowest LOD detail and is intended for very large sizes, say 20m or more. At that size, the mesh will keep the first LOD visible for a long way, so detailed lower LOD levels are not needed, saving LI at the larger size. The Medium set is in between these two, with moderate LOD detail. Pick whichever suits your needs best and gives the lowest LI at the size and viewing distance you require.

Of course the mesh is copy/mod, and the animation script in each of them is full perms so you can see how it works, and change the speed and direction of animation in the code (it is commented with instructions). The script stars and stops animation at a touch; if you rez the mesh and it does not animate, just touch it. Lots of really good effects can be had by changing the speed, texture scaling and rotation, materials effects etc.

The starfield and fire/lava textures supplied have emissive maps in the alpha channel. That is set in the edit window (under alpha mode) and makes the bright parts glow brighter than the darker parts. The glow number in the edit window set the overall scale for this glow, zero will mean no glow, 1.0 gives maximum glow to the bright parts where the emissive map allows. Emissive maps are great fun for glowy stuff!

Most of the mesh shapes have depth for extra (real) 3D effect, but can be flattened to just 1cm thick if you want them as thin panels. The two flat-front types have a second, texturable, square-UV-mapped back face in case you want to use it as the other side of a wall or something. They can be shrunk to 1cm thick too. Other than those two, all others have only the animated face and no other faces.

A: Pyramid back warp flight
B: As above but with smoothed inner corners
C: Conical back warp flight
D: Pyramid back warp flight but the square front transitions into conical (I like this one - great warp effect as a window in your space ship). Updated to v1.2 with slightly different (I prefer it) mapping. Original is still supplied in case you prefer that effect.
E: Flat front square warp
F: Conical back, spiral vortex animation
G: Flat front square, spiral vortex animation
H: Hollow Cylinder with spiral animation on the inside face, like the inside of a wormhole
I: Square section corridor like the above

It is best *not* to put the flattened shapes too close to a backing prim. You'll get texture breakthrough when the viewer decides it's not sure which is closest as you move away. Best way is to put the shapes in front of a hollow in your back piece.

Also available in a full permissions pack for creators.