Most people who start investigating Second Life building tools soon comes across Robin Sojourner's name (Robin Wood in RL). Her tutorials are great, and her t-shirt tutorial (and template)must be one of the most popular in SL. I just recently decided to visit her site again and came her page about The Macintosh Color Picker, which she just updated a couple of months ago. Some really great color tool info here, even for those not on Second Life!
Hey, and I just discovered that she's on Twitter.
Inkygirl Haven For Children’s Writers & Illustrators will be hosting a critique circle for children’s writers at 8 pm EST tonight (5 pm SLT), moderated by author Kristen Darbyshire. Get your writing critiqued in a supportive atmosphere! Max 5 pages per participant.
If you’re new to Second Life, I strongly recommend that you show up earlier to familiarize yourself with the interface. You can find tutorials and tips for newcomers on the Second Life Support page.
Location of critique circle:
Inkygirl Haven For Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators
(http://tr.im/kidlit)
Hope to see some of you there!
I've also found that higher-priced items in SL don't necessary translate into quality, and that low-priced/free items are sometimes better than their more expensive competitors.
In hopes of saving the rest of you from spending unnecessary Linden dollars and time, I'm going to start highlighting some of my favourite products.
First up: Inkwelle's Plumb Bobs. I love the Inkwelle shop in general; it's simply designed, easy to navigate, and everything I've bought so far from this shop has been top quality. One of my favourite and most useful purchases so far has been Plumb Bobs. What are Plumb Bobs, you ask? From the product description card:
"Use the InkWelle PlumbBob to measure distances, align things horizontally or vertically, and find your land boundaries even in the air. Rez a PlumbBob and move it around. Hovertext above the PlumbBob will tell you its coordinates and whether it is still on the same parcel it was rezzed on, even if you are high above the ground."
This is hugely useful when trying to figure out if you have the right amount and layout of space needed for a prefab building, for example.
Cost: L$100. The Plumb Bob is copyable, which means you can rezz as many as you need.
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nevia/128/128/24
I recently interviewed Alas Zerbino (real life author Joan Kremer) about Story Mountain Center For Writers; you can find the interview on Inkygirl.
I tried embedding a sitting animation in one of my new Cat Stools a couple of nights ago. As you can tell, it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. :-)
Some useful resources I've found so far:
Second Life wiki on animations (links to related wiki entries)
Torley's tutorial on how to create and upload animations (video)
QAvimator - free, open source software (but if you're a Mac user, see below)
I had trouble making QAvimator work on my MacBook Pro so went searching for help; apparently some other Mac users were having problems as well, but one person uploaded a better version for Mac.
Check out my Book House! I created most of it from scratch.
The house is only 9 prims and has two floors; the second floor is accessible via a ladder and is more like a loft area but there's enough room for a couple of chairs and a small table.
I've textured the windows so that someone inside can look out but from the outside, the book cover texture looks solid.
I'll be adding a door soon once I figure out how to make sure the script works no matter where the house is moved. Not only will it be fun to live in a book, but I figure this could be a useful way for an author to promote his or her new title! :-)
Feel free to come visit:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Balista/111/102/38
I've exploring Second Life for just over a month now, and I wish I could have shared some advice with myself a couple of years ago when I first visited SL and disliked it enough not to come back until recently.
Take the time to learn the camera controls.
I was too impatient to practice with them, and figured I'd be able to wing it. What I didn't realize: knowing how to use the camera controls properly has a BIG impact on my enjoyment of SL.
Some useful resources:
Movement, Camera Control and Interaction Guide - From Natalia Zelmanov's Mermaid Diaries
Second Life Camera Control Help
Video: Using Your Avatar's Camera Controls
Do go through all the tutorials in Help Island.
Yes, you're anxious to start exploring but believe me, getting a solid grounding in all the basics will save you a ton of time and frustration later on. I speak from experience.
You can make your avatar walk right or left in one step instead of two.
I'm sure this was explained on Help Island, but I missed it. Suppose you're walking up to a wall and you want to take a look at a poster, but the poster's a bit off to the right. Up to recently, I figured I had to turn my avatar right, walk a few steps, then turn left again to face the wall. But there's a shortcut: hold down SHIFT while you press either the right or left arrow. Torley Linden explains it best:
Advanced movement controls (with Torley)
To be continued in a future post.
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Second Life Updated: Dec 1, 2009
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