Newbie Here, Some Questions

[Wren Skydancer]

Hi! I started playing 2 days ago at the recommendation of a friend in one of my The Sims 4 groups. I finally decided to check it out. 

Boy, is there a steep learning curve! 

I have been finding shops, saving them and picking up all the freebies I can lol! I love thrifting IRl so this is a lot of fun trying to see what I can get. 

I think the most frustrating thing is I am using the Firestone (I think it's called) viewer because someone told me it's better, I cannot figure out how to move with aswd. It keeps typing in the chat window. 

I also don't know why the free head I picked up is a different color than my body. Do I need a new skin? 

The inventory system is horrible, but I think I can learn to organize it with folders. 

Thanks in advance!

[KT Kingsley]

ASWD: Preferences (Ctrl+P), Move & View tab, uncheck "Letter keys..." second from top.

[kali Wylder]

Welcome!  It's not easy, but it's worth it.  Try this place for help:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Caledon Oxbridge/92/198/29

or this one:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm Social Island/11/5/2701

There are usually helpful people there who will be glad to answer your questions.

[Marigold Devin]

41 minutes ago, qpmomma13 said:

Hi! I started playing 2 days ago at the recommendation of a friend in one of my The Sims 4 groups. I finally decided to check it out. 

Boy, is there a steep learning curve! 

I have been finding shops, saving them and picking up all the freebies I can lol! I love thrifting IRl so this is a lot of fun trying to see what I can get. 

I think the most frustrating thing is I am using the Firestone (I think it's called) viewer because someone told me it's better, I cannot figure out how to move with aswd. It keeps typing in the chat window. 

I also don't know why the free head I picked up is a different color than my body. Do I need a new skin? 

The inventory system is horrible, but I think I can learn to organize it with folders. 

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to Second Life.

You might find the Second Life official viewer better - it really does depend on the individual. I am a Firestorm user, and have never learnt how to navigate using the AWSD keys, so well done you for that one in any world. 

What did you think of the first place you arrived at in world? The original orientation I mean?  It does seem a bit basic, but really worth going over again. Alt view was my favourite thing to learn, being able to snoop around without actually moving, but it really has always been rather a steep learning curve. I nearly gave up during my first couple of weeks.

Kali is right though. It is worth persevering with, and you have experience with Sims 4 and no doubt other online stuff that I would have no clue about, so you've got it in you to really have a great time discovering Second LIfe.

I love that you are a thrifter. Look for a group in world called something like Fabulously Free or Fab and Free. And any shop you go to that you like the look of, see if there are any freebies. There are Demos to try things before you buy. That's always fun to do and there is no obligation to buy at all.  

Most importantly I think is pace yourself. Don't try to do everything in one day, or you will seriously get burnout.

The inventory system is horrible (and I laugh out loud here). The bane of all our lives, except those who are the most organised. You will have seen that your inventory already contains rather a lot of items in the "Library". These are in everyone's inventory. Under the sub-folder entitled "Clothing" (I think it is) there are tons of starter avatars. They are really quite interesting to go through as there are the modern mesh-type complete with animation overriders (we didn't get animation overriders when I started in Second Life and everyone walked ... well, like a duck I suppose it was).

And there are also a load of videos on Youtube on how to do various things. It all depends how you prefer to learn and what you want to learn really. 

There are interesting videos about why heads and bodies don't match, and how to get them to match, but I think that really should be saved for Week 2 at least (although others might disagree with me here). 

Second Life has it's own official Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Secondlife/videos

Covers a lot of interesting stuff, but plenty of residents have also made informative videos. 

And of course keep bringing your questions here. There will always someone with an answer, but no one knows absolutely everything. 

 

[Wren Skydancer]

1 hour ago, KT Kingsley said:

ASWD: Preferences (Ctrl+P), Move & View tab, uncheck "Letter keys..." second from top.

Omg THANK YOU!!!

[Cali Souther]

Welcome to Second Life !!!    I hope you enjoy yourself.   It does take a bit of getting used to. 

I also play Sims4 now and then,  and this is similar and very different.  LOL    

There's a lot more social options in SL.   Did you ever play Sims Online?   That was pretty fun while it lasted.

I wish building was as easy in Second Life as it is in Sims!!!! 

Best of luck to you!

 

 

[Persephone Emerald]

Welcome to Second Life 🙂 

You don't need to spend money to fix up your avatar right away, but when you want to, folks on this forum can advise you on the best and/or free mesh bodies & heads, skins, clothes, etc.

Marigold suggested Fabulously Free as a good freebie group. SL Frees & Offers is another good one.

The learning curve is steep, but it gets easier when you ask for help.

SL isn't like any other virtual world because 99% of it is created by other uses. This means content is not consistent. You'll find many different ways to open a package to deliver a product. You'll see variety like nowhere else when it comes to customizing your avatar. People do all different kinds of things for fun, but they tend to be spread out over the grid. You should use Search to find groups & activities that interest you. 

 

If you post a picture, people here can help better with your skin/ mesh head problem. If your mesh head or body is BOM (Bakes On Mesh) compatible, it's easier to get the skin to look seamless. Is your head the free one from Genus? That one is BOM compatible.

 

Be patient & have fun.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Lindal Kidd]

You can set "WASD keys always move me" in Preferences. I do that, but don't use the letter keys much. Instead, I use the arrow keys on the keyboard, and the Home, PgUp and PgDn keys above those. If you use the letter keys, W moves you forward, S back, A and D turn you left and right. F starts or stops flying (so does Home). E makes you jump, or go higher if you are flying, C makes you crouch down or descend if you're flying. (PgUp and PgDn also do these).

If you have set the letter keys to control movement, you can still use them to chat. Just make sure your chat or IM window "has the focus" by clicking in it before you start typing. When you are done typing and want to go back to moving, hit ESC a couple of times to make sure the main viewer window has the focus.

Some people like to use the on-screen camera and movement pallets, but I don't; they eat up screen real estate and their functions can be done by using your keyboard.

There is also Mouselook, a first-person view. Spin your scroll wheel forward until your avatar vanishes, or hit M on your keyboard. Now you can use your mouse to point your avatar in the direction you want to go, and the Up arrow will move you wherever you point with your cursor. Flying can be very fast and precise in Mouselook with a little practice.

As someone mentioned, it's often faster to move your camera rather than your avatar. Hold the ALT key and the left mouse button. Move your mouse to swing your camera hither and yon. Hit ESC to return the camera to its default position behind your avatar. (Someone once described this as being like Spider-Man swinging from his webs, and that's not far off; your mouse cursor must be on some object, or an avatar, to have something to "grab".)

Besides these methods, the Advanced tab of Preferences has two other options. You can set it so that if you click your mouse on the ground ahead of you once, you'll walk to that point (assuming no obstacles are in the way). And a double click can teleport you to that point (with certain exceptions. If the land owner has restricted teleports to an arrival point, it will zip you there instead.)

[Lindal Kidd]

@Quistess Alphaposted a link that will show you nearly 50,000 free items on the SL Marketplace. See:

 

[Lucia Nightfire]

Truth be told, I never understood the fascination with WASD movement.

I've been using arrow keys since Apple \\c days.

[Marigold Devin]

7 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Truth be told, I never understood the fascination with WASD movement.

I've been using arrow keys since Apple \\c days.

It's really all about what's comfortable for each of us. Like some people prefer laptops over desktops, and t'other way round. 

[cunomar]

I don't even know what WASD is i either tap my cursor on the little direction hud i keep on screen alongside the look around thingy or just use arrows .

I guess the experts do it different because they learned how long before most people had a computer .

[Wren Skydancer]

12 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

You can set "WASD keys always move me" in Preferences. I do that, but don't use the letter keys much. Instead, I use the arrow keys on the keyboard, and the Home, PgUp and PgDn keys above those. If you use the letter keys, W moves you forward, S back, A and D turn you left and right. F starts or stops flying (so does Home). E makes you jump, or go higher if you are flying, C makes you crouch down or descend if you're flying. (PgUp and PgDn also do these).

If you have set the letter keys to control movement, you can still use them to chat. Just make sure your chat or IM window "has the focus" by clicking in it before you start typing. When you are done typing and want to go back to moving, hit ESC a couple of times to make sure the main viewer window has the focus.

Some people like to use the on-screen camera and movement pallets, but I don't; they eat up screen real estate and their functions can be done by using your keyboard.

There is also Mouselook, a first-person view. Spin your scroll wheel forward until your avatar vanishes, or hit M on your keyboard. Now you can use your mouse to point your avatar in the direction you want to go, and the Up arrow will move you wherever you point with your cursor. Flying can be very fast and precise in Mouselook with a little practice.

As someone mentioned, it's often faster to move your camera rather than your avatar. Hold the ALT key and the left mouse button. Move your mouse to swing your camera hither and yon. Hit ESC to return the camera to its default position behind your avatar. (Someone once described this as being like Spider-Man swinging from his webs, and that's not far off; your mouse cursor must be on some object, or an avatar, to have something to "grab".)

Besides these methods, the Advanced tab of Preferences has two other options. You can set it so that if you click your mouse on the ground ahead of you once, you'll walk to that point (assuming no obstacles are in the way). And a double click can teleport you to that point (with certain exceptions. If the land owner has restricted teleports to an arrival point, it will zip you there instead.)

Thank you all for the information! I found a YouTube video on BOM and how they work and now my head matches my body! 

I also love exploring! Pubs, museums, ect!

[Lindal Kidd]

4 hours ago, cunomar said:

I guess the experts do it different because they learned how long before most people had a computer .

Sonny, when I first got into Second Life, we used rocks for computers. We had to carry them from one register to another, five miles in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.

[Wren Skydancer]

36 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Sonny, when I first got into Second Life, we used rocks for computers. We had to carry them from one register to another, five miles in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.

 

Hahaha!

I have used aswd to move in games since I started playing.some games I use the mouse.  I understand some like the arrow keys. I don't get what the issue is. Different flavors for different people lol

[Sid Nagy]

The SL viewers have tons of options.
That makes the learning curve steep, but it makes it highly customizable as well.
Just don't make the mistake trying to master it all within a short time. Search for answers for the question that pops up.

I'm more than 15 years active in SL now and I still don't know everything about the viewer possibilities and certainly not about all the third party viewers around like Firestorm.

[JeromFranzic]

12 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Truth be told, I never understood the fascination with WASD movement.

I've been using arrow keys since Apple \\c days.

If one plays a lot of first person games (DOOM comes to mind for me but there are many others, including less gruesome games), WASD is often the recommended setting. That's because of the mouselook movement that's used to simulate head movements in first person view. 

Arrow keys are how I began to play first person games, but mouselook as I just described was a real game changer for many players when that was achieved. Speaking of Apple, anyone remember the Marathon FPS games? That was one DOOM's rivals back in the 1990s. It's Open Source now* so anyone can try it.

Back to the main thread then... obviously most people TP in SL in third person view, but I still find WASD useful there. Makes it easier to work with the interface and HUDs IMO. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by JeromFranzic
*Oops, my bad... the Marathon 2 files are available as freeware...

[Ayashe Ninetails]

13 minutes ago, JeromFranzic said:

If one plays a lot of first person games (DOOM comes to mind for me but there are many others, including less gruesome games), WASD is often the recommended setting. That's because of the mouselook movement that's used to simulate head movements in first person view. 

This is very true. Also MMOs, life sims, 3rd-person action, platformers, BRs, walking sims, RPGs, even city builders often use WASD as a default to move your character or pan the cam, with most "actions" (attacking, selecting things, harvesting, opening menus, moving inventory around, rotating the cam, etc.) being bound to the mouse or additional keyboard shortcuts. The main exceptions are those "click to move" RPGs and point & click adventure games, which always take me some time to get used to.

Buuuut, if you're a right-handed gamer, WASD + mouse is really common these days and most newer games are built around that config. Older games and those without mouse controls sometimes use the arrow keys and give no option to remap,  which usually results in lots of whining on the Steam discussion boards and Reddit. 😂

[Ceka Cianci]

13 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Truth be told, I never understood the fascination with WASD movement.

I've been using arrow keys since Apple \\c days.

No matter what I'm doing unless it's typing up a letter, My left hand is always on the far left of the keyboard, my right is always mostly on the mouse. That's SL or most of the programs I use, So it's much more comfy for me to stay uniform with other things i do..

I guess it comes down to which way someone is used to the direction they sweep over the keyboard. I sweep right with my left..

[Bree Giffen]

I used to play games with AWSD and the mouse for computer games but I have switched to an xbox controller plugged into usb. Keyboard and mouse gaming causes too many problems with repetitive strain injuries.