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LAND EDITOR 2.1 HELP
====================
This is a NEW version of an older  Terraformer/Land Leveler and hereafter referred as the LAND EDITOR or LE. It is based on work by by JIM LANATE and STRIFE ONIZUKA. The LE works by using LSL scripts that modify terrain, based on its location , size and settings. Because of this it should be used carefully - there's no "Undo" function unless you "bake" the Sim first (see below). 

In many respects the LE is a toy. It does the job, though you could also export terrain files from a Sim and edit that in a graphics editor or dedicated terrain editor (depending on the exported format). Using the LE however allows you to edit terrain with a bit more consistency than the Land Tool tab of the TOOLS window. The LE's position and rotation can be edited directly so that terrain can be flattened to an exact height (as per the LE's Z position. And also, I hope, it can be FUN!

SETTINGS & APPEARANCE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each LE is a single BOX prim initially named "LE 2.1 (Single)" and has three settings that affect how it works: ACTION, MODE and SIZE. By choosing these carefully you can set what modification is made, how often it's made, and how large an are is affected. An LE has a floating title which shows these three settings and its current location (to 4 decimal points). In addition each action has a "skin" texture that shows on each face when that action is selected, and the LE is 50% transparent when OFF, and at FULLBRIGHT when ON. Both title and skin are designed so that the user can see the status of the LE from a distance.

The LE comes with there skin themes: Colour, Symbol, and Mono and you can swap between these by use of the OPTIONS sub menu. You can edit these or make your own.  All three themes are based around a 9x9 grid with red horizontal and vertical centre lines. The horizontal centre line is used to show the vertical centre of the LE, and is used mostly with the FLATTEN action. The grids are also used to help create linksets of LEs that are properly aligned.

The first time you rezz an LE prim the THEME is Colour, ACTION is set to NOT SET, MODE to OFF, and SIZE to MEDIUM (as a safety option). You will need to set ACTION and MODE via the menu before it can do anything. If you Reset a script in an LE it will reset to these values. 

ACTIONS
~~~~~~~
The user has to TOUCH the LE prim to brin up the menu and then chose or change an action or other option. Actions determine how the terrain underneath (or sometimes above) the LE Prim is affected. The "centre" is the Z value of the LE's position. 

* FLATTEN: This levels the terrain with each call, lowering or 
   raising parts of the area affected  so that it matches the 
   centre the LE prim.
   
* RAISE: Raises the terrain with each call, until   it reaches the 
   maximum height of the sim.
   
* LOWER: Lowers the terrain with each call, down  to the 
   minimum height of the sim.
   
* SMOOTH: Smooths the terrain with each call.

* NOISE: Randomizes (adds noise to) the terrain   with each 
   call This generally adds a lot of height when the mode is ON.

* REVERT: Reverts terrain to state to how it was since the 
   last "region bake".

* GROUND: This makes or changes no action, but moves 
  the LE's centre to the current ground level below it.

MODES
~~~~~
A call is the number of times an action happens in the script. The mode determines the frequency of this. The modes are:

* OFF: No calls are made regardless of action, or changes 
   of action.

* ONCE:  One call is made every time the user   selects or 
   changes an Action button on the menu. 

* MOVE: One call is made every time the LE prim is   moved. 
   This can be either by manually by clicking and drag the 
   red/green/blue axes, or by editing the X/Y/Z values in the 
   Object tab of the BUILD window. When manually moving one 
   or more LE prims, it's often easier to use LOCAL instead 
   of WORLD grids.

* ON: There will be a CONTINUOUS number of calls  whether the 
   LE is moving or not. There's not much difference between 
   ONCE, MOVE and ON for the FLATTEN action, but other actions 
   like NOISE can easily get out of control while ON.If you want 
   some subtly, use the MOVE mode instead, and select one of 
   X/Y/Z fields and press the UP/DOWN keys. This will change that 
   value the smallest amount. One call will be made for each press 
   of the UP/DOWN keys.

SIZES 
~~~~~
The OPTIONS sub-menu allows you to choose size of the LE prim. The sizes are 3x3m (Small), 5xm (Medium) and 9x9m (Large). This matches the brush size of an current action. The strength of an action  other than FLATTEN is related to the brush size, with the larger size showing more effect. 

BAKING AND REVERTING
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It very easy to lose control of the LE if it's always in ON mode, because multiple calls are made every second. Actions like NOISE can quickly change the terrain in an unexpected way. You can use the REVERT action to restore the area under the LE to it's last "baked" state, but this is is only as good as when the sim was last baked.

* REGION OWNER If you are only the Region owner   you can only 
   change  the Sims that you own or manage. If your sim started as 
   a pinhead island or flat land, and you've never baked it, that that's 
   what the terrain will revert to when you use the REVERT action. 
   You can access the REGION/ESTATE window via your viewer and 
   can BAKE and/or SAVE/RESTORE a .raw image of the sim on 
   the TERRAIN tab.

* GRID OWNER If you are the Grid owner, you can also use server side
   commands to BAKE and SAVE/RESTORE  the terrain of a region (in a
   variety of formats). See the help page at
 http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Server_Commands#Details_of_Terrain_Module_Commands 
   for details. There are also other server commands that you can 
   use, but do so at your own risk. 

LE PRIM LINKSETS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Instead of only using one LE, it's just as easy to use a linkset of LEs. There's lots to play around with LE linksets, and making them was the main reason I created this update.

The easiest way of doing that is to copy an existing LE by using SHIFT-MOVE. That moves the existing LE to the new location and leaves the copy in the old location. A new LE created this way will need to be set correctly before use, and defaults to OFF mode.

You should also name a linkset you'll be using again uniquely, so that if you take a copy into your inventory you'll be able to tell them apart. The default LE Prim mis named "Land Editor 2.1 (Single)". Some descriptive text in the brackets (like "(3x3 Large)") might help you find the correct one later. 

You can an LE linkset about and each prim in the linkset will call their Act Ions depending on their MODE. You can also link them together in a Linkset and because each LE prim has its own script, each can behave independently of the other. Simply touch a prim in the linkset to change a setting. You can also link LEs to in a linkset with prims that aren't LEs. This might be handy when you want to sit your avatar int the middle of a linkset, or create a linkset between two or more LEs that are not adjacent to each other (e.g. creating two parallel raised pathways several meters apart). 

Having a grid (e.g. 3x3) or a row (e.g. 1x5) linkset of LEs allows you to affect an area great than 8x8m at a time. Moving such a linkset (especially using a LOCAL grid)  can make c hanging terrain manually a much quicker process. A linkset row of Small LEs on flatten, and angled other can horizontal can build a consistent slope along one of the axis of the linkset. 

Several factors will affect the results of moving a linkset. 

* ORDER: The order of the prims in the linkset will   determine which 
   script is executed first, with the ROOT prim first, followed by the 
   other prims. For example, a two prim linkset of LEs will have a 
   different final effect if the settings are FLATTEN and LEVEL 
   depending on which is the root.

* OVERLAPS: You can have linkset prims overlapping   though the 
   order of their effects is dependent on the linkset order. The problem 
   with overlapping is being able to clearly touch an overlapping prim 
   in order to use its menu.
    
* PIVOT: Viewers can change how the pivot point of a   linkset is
   determined. Firestorm for example allows you to set the pivot 
   point at the axis of the root prim, or as an offset of the centre 
   of the linkset (in either metres or percent). A single LE prim that 
   has its rotation changed (either manually or by inputing a value) 
   hasn't moved as such, because the script still sees the same 
   value for its position. But for a linkset, any prim not at the pivot 
   point will be moved when the linkset's rotation is changed.

* MODES: Mixing modes in the linkset is on way of   using it 
   differently. For example if you have a 3x3 linksets and set all 
   prims on one edge to OFF mode, it's the same as a 2x3 linkset. 

* ACTIONS: Mixing actions on different prims of the   linkset can 
   create mixed effects. You might have a 3x1 linkset where the 
   middle prim is set to FLATTEN and the two side prims are set 
   to SMOOTH. Moving this might create a sloped pathway with 
   with gentle slopes on either side.

* SIZES Mixing the sizes of prims in an LE linkset  may have 
   unexpected results. e.g a linkset of on small LE set to FLATTEN 
   surrounded by for median  prims set to SMOOTH might be used 
   to create several small hills.

Also note that a 4x4 linkset of Small size LEs is not the same as one Large LE prim - moving the 4x4 linkset about will apply 16 actions over the same area that only one action will be applied with the large LE. If you're building a controlled slope it will be much smoother with a linkset of smaller LEs. 

EDITING THE SCRIPT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I rewrote the original script as the LE 2.0 script partly to teach myself LSL script creation and editing. Feel free to modify the script further for your own purposes. If you make major changes renumber the script as 2.2, or 2.11, or whatever. It's easy to lose track of who did what, so add your details in the script header as I have. 


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