Living Low Tide Kelp swings down current

~ Kelp plants turn and point down "current"
~ Leaves float on the water surface
~ Bobs up and down in the waves
~ Not just another flexi plant!
~ Attractive to watch from above and below
~ Almost as mesmerizing as the real thing
~ COPY so you can plant a whole kelp forest

Find links to my stores at http://magic.kayaker.net

Thanks for your interest in my Low Tide Kelp! These kelp plants float their leaves just at the waters surface, dipping above and below. They turn to drift down “current” and bob up and down in the waves. The texture maps are from a photograph I took of bull kelp on a kayaking expedition at Vancouver Island BC. Constantly changing to mesmerize you. Attractive to watch from above or below the water surface. Plant a whole kelp forest on the bottom of your lake or bay. These plants are COPY so you can plant as many as you want for one low price!

These plants work best if planted in 3 to 10 meters of water. If planted in water too deep, the stalks will not reach all the way to the bottom. The leaves will always reach the surface for the best wave bobbing and wind blown effect. If you place them too close to shore the wind may blow the ends ashore, so it is best to plant them around 10 meters offshore. If you plant them too close to the edge of your parcel the wind may blow them off your parcel where they will generate error messages or get deleted. If this happens, plant a new kelp plant a few meters farther from the edge. The ends of the kelp leaves can hang out onto your neighbors parcel, so ask permission or plant them 10 meters from the border. The ends of the leaves can also hang out into the Void Sea when the wind is blowing offshore! (And that is OK and a cool feature).

Why is it Pointing That Way?
To simulate kelp pointing down-current, I used the wind in Second Life. Yes, SL has wind and it is done using a cool, interesting, complex, fluid dynamics simulation. See http://www.multires.caltech.edu/teaching/demos/java/stablefluids.htm for a visual demonstration of how this works and some references. This causes the wind to swirl around in ways that are impossible for us mere mortals to predict. But now you can tell which way the wind is blowing by looking at how the kelp is hanging. (Surface water in RL does flow in the same direction as the wind if not overpowered by tides).
The wind in SL can change direction in a very short distance. So the wind at the kelp center stalk may be pointing in a different direction than at the end of the leaves! The flexi leaves will curl around to indicate this. Your viewer may also have a wind direction that is a few seconds out of date from the server. The stalk uses the server value while the flexi leaves use the out-of-date viewer value. At very low wind speeds the kelp may quickly point in random seeming directions.