While artifacts associated with the rendering of the vine texture are being accepted as a given, Second Life’s set of Estate tools allow us the opportunity to alter the ground textures from the default set. The tool enables the utilization of four separate textures, for the highest and lowest elevations, as well as two additional intermediate levels. The default island set utilizes stone textures at the peaks, sand textures at the valleys, and grass textures in-between. The interesting part is that the lowest elevations by default are represented by some of the lightest tonal values, when intuitively the lowest areas might in fact want to be darker by virtue of the fact that they are perceived as getting less daylight than the higher elevations.

The image you see above is from a diagnostic process to see which of the four images were being utilized in specific circumstances. Based on this a new custom set of ground textures have been utilized on the island to provide a greater degree of consistency with the color and tonal value of the vine textures, darken slightly the lowest elevations, and establish the highest elevations of the vineyard as being composed of soil instead of stone (and the improbable growing conditions that go along with it).