The toolset for creative players of Second Life is seeing a number of interesting updates, as the sandbox is running some beta tests that try out terrain and texture updates along with the addition of mirrors.
Implementation of mirrors is an apparently granular affair that’s mostly aimed at making the feature as performance-friendly as possible, while placing a mirror in-game is a mercifully much simpler affair; all creators have to do is give a reflective surface the mirror property.
As for terrain updates, those will be using the game’s recently added physically based rendering (PBR) texturing technology in order to make better looking surfaces. Holding hands with that feature update is the introduction of 2K textures, which should help with texture stretching for sloped terrain.
These features are currently being tried out in specific beta areas and will be releasing to the game sometime soon, and are just some of the latest pieces of tech updates Second Life has been trying out, including new voice technology and client-side Lua scripting.
