What is the Second Life Environment and how do things work?
Lets start with a
great guide to Second Life" written by Silvina Harmony. This handbooks covers many topics that are worth knowng for any Secondlife users and players.
What are Prims?
Prim is short for primitive. Prims are the building blocks of Second Life.
Everything is constructed of prims( All objects in Second Life are made of prims) except for avatars, the natural ground, and trees. People say "prim dress" or " prim hair" or "prim shoes." They mean those objects have been made by someone from prims. A single shape is one prim and can be linked with other objects to make up many prims.
A chair, for example, might take up 11 prim so if you only have 117 prim, you could see that the rezzing 10 chairs on your land would exhaust almost all your prim allotment. So when buying objects always check the prim count first. It is possible the item you are about to buy that looks and seems so cool might be 300 or more prims.
To see how many prims an object is Right-click on the object. Select "Edit" from the pie-shaped menu. This will expose red, blue and green drag arrows used to move the prim (Red is the x-axis. Green is the y-axis. Blue is the z-axis) this will also bring up the properties box, above the 5 tabs on the right hand side you should see Selected objects 1 and then under that "Primitives 47" 47 is how many prims are in your object (your number will be different depending on how many prims it took to make that object).
How do I use the pie menu that comes up when I right-click something?
Right-clicking on almost anything in Second Life displays a radial "pie" menu that shows everything you can do with the object, avatar or land you clicked on. The options are context-sensitive; they change depending on what you click on. Right-clicking on your avatar, other avatars, Objects, land, etc. will produce different options. Once a pie menu is open, move the mouse to the menu item you want and click. You can click with either the right or left mouse button. To cancel a pie menu, simply left-click anywhere outside the pie menu.
Some options, such as Take Off, Rate, edit and Attach , provide other options. Simply select that option, then make further selections from the pie menu.
How do I unpack a box?
Find the box in your inventory, drag it to the ground, right click on open(from the pie menu) then click open and click on copy to inventory, look in your inventory for folder you have just open/made (when you open the box a file is made in your inventory and the contents of the box will go in there), either drag the content onto the floor again ( for example a bed) or wear it if it is a piece of clothing, remember when u have finished to clean up behind you to remove the box right click and right click on take
How to put furniture onto the floor/ground and move it around?
Once you have to join the group and wear your tag, and you have dragged your item from you inventory click on it and select from the pie menu "edit" then you can
*Moving: When the Position option is selected, you can click and drag the SBfooter/green/blue axes on the object to move it around. Clicking on the SBfooter (X), green (Y), and blue (Z) arrows lets you drag the object only along those axes.
*Resizing: select the Stretch option from the Build window. Click and drag one of the white corner boxes to scale the entire object proportionally. (The object's opposite corner will move in the opposite direction if the editor window's Stretch Both Sides option is checked; it will remain in place if the option is unchecked.) Click and drag the SBfooter/green/blue box to re-size a prim's length/width/height without changing the other dimensions.
*Rotating: Hold down Ctrl to bring up the rotation sphere or select Rotate from the Build window. Click and drag anywhere within the sphere to rotate the object freely along all three axes. Click and drag a specific ring (SBfooter/green/blue) to only rotate the object around that axis.
*Entering Specific Values: Click on the editor's More button, then select the Object tab. You can enter in specific X,Y,Z coordinates to move, re-size, or rotate the object. Changes to these values are always based on the center of the object (the point where the SBfooter/green/blue axes meet).
What are groups?
Groups are organizations you can join and belong to in Second Life, group members can take part in certain special privileges:
You can only have one group active at a time. Which group you have active can influence certain events in world, such as whether you can create objects on group owned land. Often, you may want to change active groups in order to change the title that appears in above your name, just over your avatar's head. Toggle between your group titles:
1. Right click on your avatar and select Groups from the pie menu.
2. Select your group from the Communicate window's Groups tab.
3. Click the Activate button. Your group title appears over your avatar name.
4. Click the Info button.
5. Click the General tab from the Group Information window.
6. Click the drop down menu under My Active Title on the bottom of the Group Information window.
7. Select a title from the drop down list.
8. Click Apply.
How to make and send a notecard
In Second Life, notecards are a way to deliver detailed information that won't fit in a single IM (Instant Message). Notecards are often used as product manuals by merchants, but your inventory window's Notecards folder can also be used like an email box to send and receive long messages.
In My Inventory, simply right-click anywhere and select New Notecard, or click the + button at the bottom of the window and select New Notecard, when you're done, click Save and close the notecard by clicking the X. To rename the notecard, right-click it in your inventory, select Rename, and type in a more personalized title.
Now that you've written your notecard, you may want to send it to someone, there are several ways of doing this
1. If that person's avatar is standing nearby, simply drag the notecard from your inventory to the avatar.
2. Right-click the notecard in your inventory and select Share. The CHOOSE RESIDENT window opens, if the recipient is your friend, click his or her name under Select a person, f the recipient is not on your Friends list, click the Search tab, type the name into the search field, and click Go. Click on the correct name in the list of search results, a window opens asking if you are sure you want to share your note with the Resident you've selected. If you're sure, click Ok.
3. Open up the persons profile you wont to send the note card to, and drag and drop (like 1) but into the person's profile where is says "Give Item"
If the recipient is online, the notecard is received immediately. If not, it is stoSBfooter to the person's inventory.
Tips
How do I turn of the camera sound so others wont no when im taking a picture?
If you don't see the word Advanced next to the word Help at the top of your screen press Ctrl + Alt + D. then scroll down a click on " Quiet Snapshots to Disk" now you can take a picture and no one else will here.
How do I stop the the typing animation
If you don't see the word Advanced next to the word Help at the top of your screen press Ctrl + Alt + D. Now click on the word Advanced and then near the bottom you will see Debug Settings... click on it. the Debug Settings window will open up (usually bottom left) .In the white field type playTypingAnim, click on the arrow at the end of True and select False then close the window.
When i teleport the camera gets left behind
Just hit Esc and the camera will catch up.
You may have noticed that a lot of time when you move away or move your camera away from a sculptie it often changes shape becoming rougher. This is due to LOD or Level Of Detail. The farther away from an object the lower the level of detail becomes.
You can change the distance the level of detail changes it is not in the usual preferences graphics window.
1. If you don't see the word Advanced next to the word Help at the top of your screen press Ctrl + Alt + D.
2. Now click on the word Advanced and then near the bottom you will see Debug Settings... click on it.
3. The Debug Settings window will open up.
4. In the white field type rendervolumeLODFactor and change the value to 2.5 or higher. Then close the window.
NOTE: The higher the value the slower it can make your graphics card depending on how many sculpties are nearby.
Interesting Facts about Second Life
A day in Second Life is 4 hours long, with 3 hours of daytime and 1 hour of night meaning in a real-world 24-hour day, there are six Second Life days don't worry we use real time for our rentals not sl time
Normal text chat has a range of 20 meters; you must be standing within 20 meters of the source to hear the chat.
Shouted text chat has a range of 96 meters. If you are addressing a large crowd,
WhispeSBfooter text only has a range of 10 meters.
Voice Voice in open chat can travel the length and breadth of a sim.
It can cross the border! If you want fully private chat.
use voice in IM. This works like regular IM and you can chat to anywhere on the grid.
Instant Messages, Group Chats, and Friend Conferences have no arbitrary distance limitations. You can send an instant message to someone who is anywhere in Second Life!
In the Second Life economy.
there exists no taxes.
low "government" regulations and low production costs.
It's as if they're paying you to invent something that could turn a profit in US dollars
Second Life was originally named LindenWorld. The name was changed before Beta testing to give a more descriptive and creative feel. See Linden World for more details
Wont to learn more?
1. How to improve your appearance in Second Life A YouTube video.
2. Kama Sutra Exotic Dance and Strip Club - Part one
a YouTube video. Don't let the description of this video fall you.
this video introduces emoting and looks at the science behind emoting and how this can explain our emotional responses in Second Life.
there was never a part 2 released.
3. Xah's Second Life Build Tutorial The basics on how to build in Second Life.
