fs_eep - [Introduction]

The Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) is an environment system created by Linden Lab that completely replaces Windlight. It is a complete rewrite of the previous Windlight code, so many things are done differently, and new features and capabilities have been added.

Unlike Windlight, EEP Presets (settings) are inventory assets. In other words, they “live” in your inventory, rather than as XML files on your hard drive. This makes it much easier to share them with friends, and yes, they can also be sold. The standard permission rules apply (i.e., copy, modify, transfer).

Many Windlight settings have been converted to EEP presets. You will find them in the Library folder of your inventory, under Environments (If this folder is empty, or if any of its subfolders are empty, use Missing Inventory and click Library where indicated). You can easily use any of these, as described in the next section. If you wish to modify any of them, you will first need to copy them to you main inventory; the default folder name for EEP presets is Settings, so it is recommended that you place them there. You should also create new EEP presets in that folder.

This page gives an overview of commonly used functions, and then gives links to further information.

Many like to have their own sky set where ever they go in SL, and for that sky to persist. With EEP, this is quite straightforward.

• Click the QuickPrefs button (usually located on the bottom button bar, far right) shown to the left, and click on the Sky drop-down. Select any of the listed skies.
• OR find an EEP setting (Sky, Water, or Day) in Inventory, right-click it, and choose “Apply Only to Myself.”

Once either of the above steps are done, then go to Avatar menu → Preferences → Firestorm → Extras → enable “Persist Environment settings throughout sessions”. Both of these methods will apply automatically, and the setting will stick through teleports and logouts.

In order to again see sky and water as set at specific locations (the Shared Environment), you will need to clear your own lighting; do this by clicking the X in the lower section of Quick Prefs.

If you want to change your Sky/Water/Day, simply make a different selection the same way as above.

If you want to permanently modify the EEP setting you have applied to yourself, find it in Inventory, edit it, modify as desired, and Save or Save As. Reapply to yourself if you wish to use it now. (See Editing or Making Your Own EEP Presets, below.)

If you want to temporarily modify your own lighting, such as for photography, go to the top menu bar, World → Environment → Personal Lighting, OR choose “Personal Lighting” from Quick Prefs. Edit as desired. Note that changes made to Personal Lighting do not last after logging out; they are temporary. To clear the changes in your view, click the Reset button.

You can use an EEP day cycle on your own land, something that was not possible with Windlight (though you could set a fixed sky and water). Also, the day cycle is no longer constrained to 4 hours.

Go to top menu, World → Parcel Details → Environment. The quickest way is to use an existing sky, water or day cycle; you an drag one onto an appropriate slot on the right of this panel. Alternately, click Use Inventory and select one.

You can also create a day cycle on the fly by clicking Customize.

To revert to the region EEP, click Use Region Settings.

If a group member other than the owner needs to apply an environment to a parcel, assign the ability in the Group profile, Roles & Members→ Roles, under Parcel Settings - Modify environment settings and day cycle.

For details on this tab, refer here.

Go to top menu, World → Region details → Environment.

This panel works exactly the same way as the parcel one described above, except that changes apply to an entire region. Naturally, you need to be an estate owner or manager to change these settings.

For details, refer to this page.

Since EEP presets are assets, you generally edit them from inventory, as you would edit, say, a notecard: find the preset, double click it. This opens the preset editor, and also applies the preset so you can see what you're doing.

Remember that presets in the Library cannot be edited, and need to first be copied to regular inventory.

To create a new EEP preset, right click any folder (but preferably use the Settings folder) → New Settings, then select Sky, Water or Day.

Another way to edit or make a preset is via top menu, World → My Environments. See here for information on that window.

Details of how to edit each type of preset are given on the following pages:

• Skies
• Water
• Days

Note: As stated previously, approximately 200 Windlight settings have already been imported and can be found in Library → Environments folder. They are also visible in Quick Preferences and can be selected there.

All of the other old built-in Windlights have been imported into EEP settings files and are available on Marketplace for free: Firestorm Default Sky Windlights for EEP.

If you created custom Windlights of your own, those can be individually imported into EEP settings files as follows:

1. Create a new Settings item in inventory (right click Settings folder or a subfolder → New Settings → New Sky, Water, or Day Cycle).
2. Open that new settings item.
3. Select the Import button; this will open a file picker dialog.
4. Navigate to where you have stored your Windlight XML files and select the file you would like to import:
   • Windows:
     • C:\Program Files\Firestorm_64\app_settings\windlight (old built-in Windlights)
     • C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Firestorm_x64\user_settings\windlight (personalized custom files)
   • Mac
     • ~/Applications/Firestorm_64; right click > show package contents > Contents/Resources/windlight (old built-in Windlights)
     • ~/Library/Application Support/Firestorm/User Settings/Windlight (personalized custom files)
   • Linux
     • ~/Phoenix_Firestorm*/app_settings/windlight (old built-in windlights)
     • ~/.firestorm_x64/user_settings/windlight (personalized custom files)

You should import Windlights of the same type as the editor you have open (Day Cycle, Sky, or Water). For example, to import a Sky, create and open a Sky setting from inventory. On your hard drive, you should find the files laid out as follows: ./windlight/days ./windlight/skies ./windlight/water.

Select the Save As option from the drop down menu.

There is also a way to bulk import: top menu, World → Environment → Bulk Import → Days/Skies/Water. One you have imported all your settings, it is recommended that you review them in case they need to be tweaked.

This section gives links for further reading.

• For complete instructions, see SL’s Knowledge Base: Environment Editor
• Second Life EEP wiki
• SL's post EEP Is Out! Introducing the Environmental Enhancement Project for a full description.
• For discussion you can follow SL’s EEP forum.
• Here’s a thread where you can give Feedback to SL.
• For those interested, you can see a filtered list of current issues with EEP in the official SL viewer on SL’s bug-reporting site. Remember to log into the site using your SL user name and password.

• See Inara Pey’s blog post Environmental Enhancement Project: A Primer.
• Inara Pey also has a blog post on this Firestorm EEP Beta: Firestorm 6.4.5 Beta: EEP and Camera Presets.
• Inara Pey also has an EEP tutorial.

• Starfields: Step by step gimp tutorial here.
  Starfields can be used as cloud textures, but in that case, they need to be grey-scale.
• Planets:Creating Planets and Planetary Rings in GIMP

• How can I easily create cloud texture maps?