I wrote a script that, attached to a HUD object in Second Life, lets you teleport to the current camera position.
This is useful in combination with a couple of options in the Advanced menu (Ctrl-Option-D to enable):
- "Limit Select Distance" (disable this to select objects far away), and
- "Disable Camera Constraints" (enable this to let the camera move independently of the avatar).
Turn "Draw Distance" up to full in the Graphics preferences, and you'll be able to zoom the camera around the landscape easily. Once you've found a good location, this HUD script will teleport your avatar there.
I made a little screencast (no audio) with Istanbul to demostrate, but it's hard to see at this size. Here's an embedded video tag for Firefox 3.1 anyway:
or download the video file directly.
It looks like some existing HUD objects—MystiTool, DynaCam and HUD Warp—might also do this (and more). Here's the script:
// Teleport to Camera Location
//
// Instructions:
// Insert this script in a small prim.
// Attach the prim to any convenient HUD position.
// Touch the prim to teleport to the current camera location.
default {
attach(key id) {
// If we're attaching, initialize
if (id) {
llRequestPermissions(llGetOwner(), PERMISSION_ATTACH | PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA );
llSetColor(,ALL_SIDES);
}
}
// Sort through required permissions.
run_time_permissions(integer perm) {
if (perm & PERMISSION_ATTACH | PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA) {
llOwnerSay("Camera enabled.");
}
else {
llOwnerSay("Camera refused. Detaching.");
llDetachFromAvatar();
}
}
// Teleport!
touch_start(integer total_number) {
llSetColor(,ALL_SIDES);
vector CamPos = llGetCameraPos();
rotation CamRot = llGetCameraRot();
vector CamFoc = CamPos + llRot2Fwd(CamRot);
llOwnerSay("Teleporting to camera position on " + llGetRegionName() + ": " + (string) CamPos);
llMapDestination(llGetRegionName(), CamPos, CamFoc);
llSetColor(,ALL_SIDES);
}
}