Jeremy Linden

Adding someone to your Friends list How to accept or decline a friendship offer Friendship etiquette Partnering How to make someone your partner How to end a partnership Partnership history Letting friends edit your objects The group method The friend method A few things to note In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Italiano Português 日本语 Adding someone to your Friends list There are several ways to add a friend: If you are near the person inworld, just right-click their avatar and select Add Friend. If you are not nearby or if the person is offline, click the People button at the bottom of the Viewer window and select the FRIENDS tab. Then click the + button to open a search window and type in your friend's name. When you add a friend, the Add Friend window enables you to enter a custom message. Use this space to explain why you would like to be friends, or to remind the person how you know each other. Once a friendship offer is accepted, your names appear in each other's FRIENDS lists. All friendships are bidirectional, so if you delete a friend, you no longer appear in that friend's list. How to accept or decline a friendship offer When another Resident offers friendship to you, a dialog appears in the upper-right corner of your screen. The dialog also appears in the Conversations window as an instant message from the sender. If you click Accept, your new friend receives an onscreen notification that you accepted the friendship offer. Click Decline to cancel the offer. The other person receives onscreen notification that you declined the friendship offer. Friendship etiquette Completing your profile and reading other Residents' profiles provides ample opportunity for conversation. If you get along well, feel free to offer friendship. For unofficial Resident tips about socializing and making friends, see SLetiquette. Partnering Second Life couples can make their relationships official. Whether you're married or just connected, you can designate your partner on your profile inworld and make your relationship visible to the rest of the community. Note: Creating a partnership costs each partner L$10. Partnership is a vanity display for social purposes only. It does not alter inworld permissions, group abilities, support benefits, and so forth. For example, if you are on a Premium account and your partner is on a Basic account, he or she does not receive any Premium benefits. Partnering also does not affect your Second Life username. Nor does it entitle you to share your partner's Second Life account. For more information on our policies regarding sharing accounts, see Permitting Others to Access or Transferring Second Life Accounts. How to make someone your partner To make someone your partner, follow these steps: Go to the Partners page. Enter your Partner's username. Type in your Proposal to your to-be partner. It can be a love letter, song lyrics, or whatever suits the both of you best. Click Send Proposal. Your potential partner is notified at the email address linked with their Second Life account. He or she has seven days to accept. Once the proposal is accepted, your names appear in one another's profiles. The partnership email should be received in seconds. Please check your spam folder and other email filters to make sure it isn't being hidden. If you receive a partnership request you wish to decline, you can do so on the Partners page. How to end a partnership The person who initiates the "divorce" is charged L$25. Follow this procedure to dissolve a partnership: Open the Partners page. Select "I, (your name), would like to dissolve my partnership with (your partner's name)." Click Submit. Your partnership is dissolved and your now-ex-partner is notified. Once you have dissolved a partnership, you can recreate it by following the procedure previously outlined and paying the L$10 again. Partnership history Your Viewer profile does not show you the date you started your partnership, so keep your original partnership request (sent via email) if you wish to have a record of the date. Letting friends edit your objects There are two ways to enable a friend to edit your objects in Second Life. This is often referred to as collaborative building or collaborative creation. It's a useful way to let groups of people collaborate on a building project together. The method you choose depends on whether your collaborator is in a group or whether he or she is your friend. The group method To enable a member of a group you are in to edit your objects: Right-click the object and choose Edit. The object editor opens. Click on the General tab in the editor. If you can't see the tabs, click on More. Click on the Tool icon to the right of Group and assign the object to the group your friend is in. Click OK. Select the checkbox next to Share. Any other group members will also be able to edit the object. Group members can only edit objects that are shared with the group. Note: If you want other group members to be able to take copies of your object, make sure you set the next owner permissions (Copy, Modify, Resell/Give away) appropriately. The friend method To enable a friend to edit your objects: Click in the toolbar. The PEOPLE window opens. Click the FRIENDS tab to open your friends list. Mouse over your friend's name and click to view your friend's profile. In the profile page that appears, click and choose Permissions. Under Allow (friend's name) to: select Edit, delete or take my objects. Click Save. Important: Doing this gives your friend the same rights that you have to edit all of your objects. Be careful with this permission! ⚠️ As of January 2021, Friend Permissions has a known technical issue. You can currently set Friend Permissions via the my.secondlife.com website portal only. To enable a friend to edit your objects at my.secondlife.com: Go to my.secondlife.com in a web browser. Log in to your Second Life account, if necessary. Click the PEOPLE tab to open your friends list. Locate the friend you'd like to grant permissions to in the list and click the gear icon . Choose Permissions. Under Allow (friend's name) to: select Edit, delete or take my objects. Click Save. A few things to note There are a few things you should be aware of: Your collaborative partners can only edit objects you've rezzed. Nobody but you will ever have access to your inventory, so if you want someone else to edit an object that you own, you need to rez it inworld first. Your collaborative partners can't edit the next-owner permissions on an object they've been granted access to. It isn't technically possible to link two objects together if they have different owners, even if the owners have given each other edit permissions. Your collaborative partners cannot edit your objects if they have Select Only My Objects enabled under Build > Options in the top menu bar.

When to file an abuse report How to file an abuse report What happens when an abuse report is filed Retracting an abuse report Abuse through voice chat In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Português Italiano 日本語 Türkçe Pусский When to file an abuse report Abuse occurs when someone violates the Second Life Terms and Conditions (ToS) or the Community Standards (CS). Every Resident agrees to abide by these rules upon joining Second Life. Some special areas, such as Infohubs, have additional restrictions called the Welcome Area Guidelines. Whenever you see one of these rules being broken and you believe it to be intentional or malicious, everyone present at the scene should file an abuse report. If there are multiple incidents, file multiple reports. File reports on any abuse you witness in addition to abuse that targets you personally. Not every Resident is aware of the abuse-reporting system or remembers to use it, so please help out your fellow Residents! Reports from multiple people underscore the seriousness of an incident. More tips: If you're being pushed or thrown around by scripts, right-click on an object and choose Sit Here. This stops you from being moved. On combat/damage-enabled land, shooting someone with a weapon is not abuse. Look for a little red heart in the menu bar, which indicates your health. If you can see it, you're in a valid combat zone, and weapons fire is permitted. Your avatar can't die permanently: even if you lose all your health, you will simply be teleported back to your home location. Using weapons on non-combat land is usually abuse unless the landowner has clearly allowed it, for example in a role-playing game. If a friendship has gone sour, block the person and remove him or her from your friends list. This will also remove any permissions you may have granted them, like the ability to track you on the map. How to file an abuse report To file an abuse report, do any of the following: Choose Help > Report Abuse from the menus at the top of your Viewer window. To directly report another Resident, right-click their avatar and choose Report To directly report an object, right-click the object and select Manage > Report Abuse. The REPORT ABUSE window opens, displaying a snapshot of what is onscreen at that moment and the relevant identifying information if you selected an avatar or object. If the snapshot helps clarify the issue, check Use this screenshot. Screenshots can be very helpful visual evidence; include them whenever appropriate. If the report is about an avatar or object , click the button to fill in the relevant information automatically. Click Select category and choose a category. If you don't see a category for the particular incident you're reporting, select the closest option you can find and explain in the Details field. The Location of Abuse field is filled in automatically with your current location. Change to specify a different location. In the Summary field, write a concise, one-line summary, much like an email subject line. Be brief yet precise. Use the Details field to give as much pertinent information as possible to help Linden Lab assess the incident. Be specific about this incident, with times and locations if possible. Click Report Abuse to submit the abuse report. Tip: If you don't know the offender's name, please choose "Governor Linden" as a placeholder and explain in the report details. What happens when an abuse report is filed You receive an automated response by email. If you need to add more information after submitting a report, please submit a new report. We try to resolve abuse issues as quickly as possible, but response times vary depending on the number of backlogged abuse reports. For privacy reasons, we are unable to share the details of an investigation into an abuse report. Once your report has been submitted, we'll take it from there. Often all it takes to curtail an issue is an official warning. In most cases, a Resident who violates our Terms of Service and/or Community Standards is given several opportunities to rectify his or her behavior before banishment occurs. In all cases, the Resident's disciplinary record is reviewed to determine an appropriate response. Serious abuse may result in account suspensions or permanent bans. The length of a suspension is determined by the nature of the abuse, previous violations, and how many people are affected. Tip: If abusive behavior is persistent, file abuse reports for each incident. The disciplinary process works only if we are made aware of ongoing abusive behavior. Retracting an abuse report If you file an abuse report and later realize that it was made in error, file a new abuse report stating that you do not want the initial one investigated. Provide any other information you think might be useful. Abuse through voice chat If someone is harassing you through voice, the best solution is to block this person. You can file an abuse report, but it's difficult to provide concrete evidence in such situations, since there are no IM or chat transcripts. For commonsense reasons, we cannot accept recordings of voice chat made by other programs or by holding an audio recorder up to your speakers. There are a couple of ways to mute voice chat inworld: Right-click on the avatar and choose Block. Click the People button at the bottom of the Viewer to open the PEOPLE window. Open the NEARBY tab, select the avatar, and choose Block/Unblock. A small red icon will appear next to their name. Note: If you IM with, pay Linden dollars to, or give inventory to someone you have blocked, he or she is automatically un-blocked. For more information, see Blocking.

What are environments? The Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) How to customize your environment Personal Lighting Apply Only to Myself Pause Clouds Parcel environment settings Region environment settings Environment settings objects Skies Water Day Cycles Environment settings permissions Copy and No-copy Transfer and No-transfer Modify and No-modify Creating and editing settings Creating a new settings object Editing settings objects Saving and importing settings Importing existing Windlight settings Editing a Sky setting The Atmosphere & Lighting tab Creating rainbows The Clouds tab The Sun & Moon tab Editing a Water setting Editing a Day Cycle setting Sky and water tracks Frames and the timeline Previewing your day cycle Legacy environment controls What are environments? The Environment Editor gives you a fine degree of control over Second Life's sky, water, and atmosphere. Imagine a strange alien planet with a purple sky, or a smoggy, overcast city! This guide will help you to understand the many controls at your disposal, and set you on the path to becoming a weather-controlling mad scientist. You can also use subtler lighting effects to make your screenshots look fantastic, like adding a rosy glow to a sunset sky or golden highlights for your beach photos. Feeling the seasonal spirit? Add fog and clouds to give your environment a wintry chill, or increase the ambient light and ditch the clouds for a hot summer sizzle. Note: In order to see all of the sky effects you will need OpenGL 2.0 or higher. If you have the latest drivers for your graphics card and still cannot see certain atmospheric effects (such as clouds) try enabling Basic Shaders and Atmospheric Shaders in the Graphics tab of your Me > Preferences menu. The Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) The Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) is a set of viewer- and server-based tools which not only allow Residents to customize their environments even further, but to create objects with their favorite settings to share or sell with others. Instead of a complicated process of downloading settings files from websites or adjusting settings one by one, Residents can trade or buy custom environments and use them on their parcels, just for themselves, or on a full region (if they're a private region owner or estate manager). EEP also introduces personal lighting, a quick and easy way to temporarily adjust environments wherever you go. While these adjustments can't be permanently saved, they're wonderful for making tweaks to your lighting or environment to get that perfect screenshot on the go. In addition to the new settings objects and personal lighting, EEP has added new environmental settings which allow you to add spectacular effects like ice halos around the Sun and Moon and most dazzling of all — rainbows! How to customize your environment Because the viewer determines how to display the sky, water, and day cycle to you, environmental settings allow you to change how the world looks in several different ways. The Personal lighting window allows you to set quick, temporary changes to your environment no matter where you are. These changes are only visible to you, and they go away when you log out and back in again. Want something a little more permanent? You can create or customize a sky or water preset with the Sky Preset Editor and save it to use later. Many great presets are already available in our Library, and can be applied to yourself, your parcel, or your region. You can also copy them to your inventory to edit for that special, custom look. You can also right-click and choose Apply Only to Myself on any settings object in your inventory to update your personal environment at any time. If you own or have permissions to change the environment on a parcel of land, you can set custom environmental settings on the World > About Land > Environment tab. Other visitors to that parcel will share the same environmental experience by default. Private region owners or estate managers can also set custom environmental settings for their entire region through the World > Region/Estate > Environment tab. The Sunrise, Midday, Sunset and Midnight options from World > Environment will set your sky to ✏️ Tip: You can apply any settings object in your inventory or the Library by right-clicking on the object and choosing Apply Only To Myself to test out how it looks. To return to the parcel or region's shared environment, select World > Environment > Use Shared Environment. Personal Lighting The Personal Lighting window can be opened from World > Environment > Personal Lighting. In one window, you can customize many of the most important environmental settings in one place, based on whatever environmental settings you're currently experiencing. For example, if you visit a spooky haunted house region, the environment may be customized to be very dark, foggy, and mysterious. When you load the Personal Lighting window, you see the spooky settings loaded into the options, and can adjust them as you like. You cannot save these adjusted settings, though, and they'll go away once you log out and log back in again. For more information about the various settings options, see the Sky settings, Water settings, and Day Cycle settings sections below. Apply Only to Myself To apply any saved environment preset from a settings object, locate the settings object in your Inventory > Settings folder or the Library > Environments folder, then right-click Apply Only to Myself. This will instantly change your environment to reflect the settings you've selected. You can reset your personal environment at any time by clicking World > Environment > Use Shared Environment Pause Clouds The Pause Clouds option from World > Environment > Pause Clouds stops the animation on clouds and waves, freezing them in place until the option is unchecked. This is only visible to you, and can be checked or unchecked at any time. Parcel environment settings You can set custom environments for a parcel by opening the About Land's Environment panel from World > About Land > Environment. From here, parcel owners can choose to use the region's settings, to apply settings objects from inventory, or to customize the current settings on the parcel. For group-owned land, members must have a role with the ability Modify environment settings and day cycle in order to change these settings. If you right-click on a settings object and select Apply to parcel, the setting will be applied to all available settings options. For a sky setting, this would set the same sky at the ground, Sky 2, Sky 3, and Sky 4 altitudes. If you apply a day cycle setting to a parcel from inventory, it will apply to all available options — water, ground, and all sky levels. Sky Altitudes allow you to set different skies at different heights, creating specific areas. This is particularly useful if you have a skybox or use multiple levels of your land or region for different purposes, but it can also create a lovely visual effect. Imagine taking off from a foggy ground-level airport and climbing to a clear sunrise above! For more information about the various settings options, see the Sky settings, Water settings, and Day Cycle settings sections below. ✏️ Note: Region owners may choose not to allow parcel owners to change their environment settings. If your parcel is in a private region, you may wish to speak to the estate manager or region owner if you have questions about setting custom environments on your land. Region environment settings Region owners and estate managers may set custom environment settings on through the Region/Estate window by opening World > Region/Estate > Environment. Much like the About Land window, this allows region owners to set different skies at different altitudes as well as selecting the specific environmental options they'd like for their regions. Region owners can also check or uncheck the Parcel Owners May Override Environment box. If checked, owners of parcels in the region can set their own custom environments through the About Land windows. If unchecked, all parcels in the region will use the region's default environment settings. For more information about the various settings options, see the Sky settings, Water settings, and Day Cycle settings sections below. Environment settings objects EEP provides 3 new inventory assets called settings. Settings may be created and destroyed through your inventory, and they may be given to other people or sold through the Marketplace. You can view your current environmental settings objects by checking your Me > Inventory > Settings folder, or by opening the My Environments window from the World > Environment > My Environments menu. Skies Sky settings define the look of the sky. They control the color and direction of the ambient light, the images used to display the sun and the moon, and their positions in the sky. They also control the atmospheric conditions, like the color and density of clouds or how much moisture is in the air. Water Water settings define the look of Linden water. Some of the settings include the water's color, how reflective the surface is, and the shape and direction of the waves. From a crystal-clear tropical sea to a murky, apocalyptic lagoon, custom water settings allow you to match your water to your mood. Day Cycles Day cycles are collections of skies and waters that blend together to form the environment for an entire day. You can set a foggy sky for the morning, a bright sun for the afternoon, and a cozy rainbow for sunset; the quality of the light, the colors, and the clouds can be adjusted to change throughout the day cycle. Different water settings can be applied throughout the day to change the appearance as time progresses, too. Environment settings permissions Environment settings objects have a few special behaviors when it comes to object permissions. Aside from these special behaviors, they can be shared, sold at : shops, or sold on the Marketplace like other object types. Please note that environment settings objects can't be set to no-copy — sorry, gacha fans! Copy and No-copy Environment settings objects cannot be set to no-copy. The owner of an environment settings object may always make a copy of it in their inventory. Transfer and No-transfer The no-transfer permission is persistent. For example, if you import a no-transfer day or water settings object into a day cycle, that day cycle will also become no-transfer. Once saved, this permission change cannot be altered. The day cycle will always remain no-transfer. Modify and No-modify Modify and no-modify permissions behave as normal. Creating and editing settings Creating a new settings object To create a new settings object (like a new Sky or Water), click the plus button (➕) in your Inventory window, then select New Settings > New Sky, New Water, or New Day Cycle. You can also access the Settings folder from the World > Environment > My Environments... menu. Editing settings objects To edit a Settings object, select the item in your inventory or My Environments list and click Open. Depending on the type of settings object, an editor will open. The Sky Editor allows you to customize skies, the Water Editor allows you to customize the appearance of default water, and the Day Cycle editor lets you assign specific sky and water settings to different times of day. For more on each of the editors, see the detailed sections below. Saving and importing settings After you've made changes to a settings object using the editor window, you can select Save on the lower left to save the updated settings to your inventory. Please note that using the Save button will override your previous settings, if you had any. If you'd like to save a new copy of the item instead, be sure it has a unique name in the Name box at the top of the editor, then click the up arrow to the right of the Save button to choose Save as.... This allows you to create a new copy of the item with your newly selected name. Importing existing Windlight settings If you've already customized your region, or you have saved personal Windlight settings that you like to use, you can import them to the viewer directly via the Import button. Once you've imported a Windlight file, it turns into a settings object that you can edit in the editor window Open World > Environment > My Environments... At the bottom of the window, click ➕ (+) to Make new setting Select New Sky, New Water, or New Day Cycle A new object is created in your inventory's Settings folder, called New Sky, New Water, or New Day Cycle Double-click or right-click and choose Open to open this new item for editing In the editor window that appears, enter a name for your setting in the Name box Click the Import button on the upper right of the editor window Navigate to your chosen existing Windlight .xml file and select it in your computer's file selection window Your custom settings will be imported. Click Save to save your settings as a new object. Clicking the Import button will open your computer's file selection window, just like uploading a texture or snapshot. To locate your existing Windlight files, you may need to do a bit of searching, depending on which operating system and viewer you use. Importing Windlight settings on a Mac Your existing Windlight settings are saved on your Mac in a Library folder which is generally not visible by default. You can open this folder by using Finder. For convenience, it's often easiest to drag your Windlight folder onto your Favorites list temporarily. This will make it easy to find from the file selection menu later. In Finder, from the menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder… Paste the following link into the entry box: ~/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/user_settings/windlight/ Click Go If you like, drag your Skies, Water, or Day Cycle folders onto the Favorites bar to the left to find them again easily when you use the Import button inside Second Life. Your skies, water, and day cycle settings will be located inside the folders of the same name. Importing Windlight settings on a Windows computer Your Windlight folder location may vary depending on which version of Windows you have, and whether or not you’ve installed the Second Life Viewer in a different location than your primary hard drive. In File Explorer, navigate to the following folder: C:\Program Files\SecondLifeViewer\app_settings\windlight Some earlier versions of Windows, like Windows 7, may have the settings located here: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight 💡 Tip: Having trouble? It’s sometimes easier to search for a folder than to locate the folder directly. Searching for Windlight in your operating system’s search menu should direct you to the right folder if you can’t locate it. This will also help you find Windlight settings from any third party or alternate viewers you may have installed, too. Editing a Sky setting The Sky Editor contains detailed controls for modifying environmental effects in the sky, as the name suggests. It is where you make visual changes to sky settings objects, altering the color and intensity of the light, the density of the clouds, even what the Sun and Moon look like. It contains three tabs, each with a number of sliders and color selection boxes for manipulating the sky's appearance. You may also save, import, and load sky settings to use in Day Cycles or to apply to yourself whenever you'd like. The Atmosphere & Lighting tab The Atmosphere & Lighting tab of the Sky Editor controls the color of the light, the haze and moisture levels in the air. Ambient Color: This is a universal light that applies color across the region equally. It casts no shadows, unlike the sun and moon. In traditional film or television, this effect is often created by placing colored filters across lights to create a gentle, even wash of colored light. Generally, set your ambient color to the color and brightness you want your darkest shadow to be. ✏️ Tip: Cloud cover also affects your ambient light. If your cloud cover is set to 1, your environment will be brighter, with a more intense ambient light effect. Blue Horizon: Use the color picker box to adjust the color of the sky. In meteorological terms, this setting affects "atmospheric scattering", which is the scientific answer to the age-old question, "Why is the sky blue?" Blue Density: Blue Density affects the overall color saturation of your sky. If you move the Saturation slider (right) down, your colors will become brighter and more vibrant. If you move it all the way up, your colors will become duller, eventually fading to black and white. If you'd like to fine-tune your sky's color balance, you can control individual elements of saturation by using the color picker to adjust the color details, like Red, Blue, Green, Saturation and Luminosity. ✏️ Tip: Blue Horizon and Blue Density are particularly closely related. Imagine Blue Horizon as the base color for the sky, and Blue Density as the sky's color intensity and color balance effects. Try turning Haze Density to zero and playing with these settings for yourself to get a better feel for how they interact with each other. Haze Horizon: This setting affects the height of haze on the horizon. At higher settings, the haze will reach up into the sky and obscure the actual horizon. Haze on the horizon can help to accentuate the sun, and create a dusty, smoggy, or humid effect. This setting will not work if Haze Density is set to zero. Haze Density: Haze density affects the amount of haze you can see in the atmosphere. At lower settings, this can make for some great outdoor views in dusty or tropical environments, and at higher levels it can create a thick, vision-obscuring fog. If you set Haze Density to zero, the Haze Horizon setting will have no effect. Moisture Level: The moisture level in the atmosphere contributes to creating visible rainbows. The maximum value for the moisture level setting is 1.0. To see a rainbow, set your Moisture Level to 1.0, your Droplet Radius to 600, and adjust your Sun position to the horizon. Facing the sun, turn all the way around to face away from it, and your rainbow will be visible on the opposite horizon! Droplet Radius: The droplet radius setting influences the visibility of rainbows; adjust the droplet radius to change the intensity of your rainbow. Scene Gamma: This control adjusts your environment's distribution of light and darkness. Lower settings will cause everything to appear dim or extremely dark, while higher settings may make the scene look white and "washed out", depending on your ambient light color. The default setting for scene gamma is 1.0. Adjusting the scene gamma is one way to make an environment more vivid or more gloomy. Ice Level: Increasing the ice level will create a halo-effect around the Sun and Moon. Like rainbows, you must have shadows enabled in your Graphics preferences to see a Sun or Moon halo. Fun fact! If both the Sun and Moon are visible at the same time, only the Sun will show a halo – the halo is formed from direct light bouncing through tiny crystals of ice in the atmosphere, and the Moon's light just can't compete with the Sun. Density Multiplier: The Density Multiplier can be used to affect the overall atmospheric density. At lower settings, it creates a feeling of "thin air", and at higher settings, it creates a very heavy, smoggy effect. Distance Multiplier: This setting affects your perceived distance within the atmosphere. To make everything look hazy and distant, move the slider to the right. If you want to completely remove the Sky Settings' effects from terrain and objects, set the slider to zero. Max Altitude: Adjusts the altitude calculations Second Life makes when it is computing atmospheric lighting. At later times of day, it can be useful for calculating how "deep" a sunset appears, while at noon it can be used to achieve proper brightness values. Creating rainbows To create a rainbow in your sky, you need a few things: A Sun that's low on the horizon (near sunrise or sunset) A moisture level of 1.0 A droplet radius of 600 A camera angle facing away from the sun You can adjust the moisture level and droplet radius to change the style of your rainbow once you can see it, creating a sharper or fuzzier band of colors. Play with the settings until it looks just right! ✏️ Tip: You must have Atmospheric Shaders, the Advanced Lighting Model, and Shadows enabled under Me > Preferences > Graphics > Advanced Graphics to view rainbows. The Clouds tab This tab gives you control over the clouds in the sky: Cloud Color: This affects the color of your clouds, if you have any. Use the color selector to choose the color (Red, Green, Blue values), the Luminosity, and the Saturation of your clouds. Cloud XY/Density: Use the X and Y sliders to change the horizontal position of all clouds in the sky. The D slider affects the overall density of the individual clouds; at low settings you will see thin, wispy clouds, and at higher settings you will see thicker, more solid clouds. Cloud Coverage: As the name implies, this control sets the amount of cloud coverage. At zero, there isn't a cloud in the sky, but at higher settings, you can get a completely overcast effect. Cloud Scale: This setting affects the perceived altitude of the clouds... if you slide the control to the right, it will make the clouds appear to be higher in the sky. Cloud Detail (X, Y, & D): These settings affect the detailed image of your clouds. The X and Y sliders shift its horizontal position, and the D (density) slider controls how puffy or fractured your clouds appear. Cloud Scroll X & Y: These settings affect the direction and speed at which the clouds float in the sky. Cloud Image: This selector lets you choose a new image map for your clouds. For best results, make sure your texture is seamless; the Library has a Default Cloud Map texture available if you need to reset your clouds for any reason. The Sun & Moon tab This tab controls the sun, ambient lighting, and the stars: Sun Color: This setting affects the color of the light your sun and moon produce. Keep in mind that the color of your sunlight/moonlight will affect the color of your sky! To change Sun/Moon Color, use the color selector box. Sun and Moon Position: The Sun and Moon Position boxes adjust where the Sun and Moon appear in the sky, projected onto a sphere. By rotating the sphere, you can change where the Sun (or Moon) is in the sky. ✏️ Tip: Click the Show Beacon box to set a red beacon arrow pointing at the Sun or Moon. Even if they're below the horizon or hiding behind terrain or buildings, the beacon will show where they currently are. Image: This option allows you to set a custom texture for the Sun or the Moon. Scale: This determines how large the Sun is in the sky. Glow Size: This setting defines the size of the sun's glowing aura. Glow Focus: This setting adjusts how much the sun blurs over the sky. At very high settings, Focus can cause the sun to completely wash out a portion of the sky with brilliant light, and at zero, it will cause the sun (but not the light it casts) to disappear from the sky. Star Brightness: Star Brightness defines how visible the stars are in the sky. If you play with this slider while the sun is up, you can see stars in the middle of the day! Editing a Water setting Some of the water settings you can edit include: Water Fog Color: This changes the color of the particulate matter in your water, essentially defining the color of the water itself. If your water has no fog, it will appear crystal clear and colorless. Density Exponent: Controls the density of your water fog; this setting defines how far you are able to see into the water. Underwater Modifier: Controls how the fog density changes when you are underwater. Useful for creating far-seeing views when underwater while keeping the surface fairly opaque. For example, at a setting of 0.25, the water fog is 1/4 as dense while underwater as it appears from above the surface. Fresnel Scale: Determines how much light is reflected at different angles; increasing this slider reduces visual reflection effects on the water's surface. Fresnel Offset: Determines how much total light is reflected; increasing this slider increases the amount of light reflected by the water's surface. Normal Map: Controls the normal map used for determining reflections and refractions. Any texture may be used for this setting, but true normal maps work best. Second Life's wave effects are generated by superimposing a large normal map image over a smaller version of itself. Try snake skin, tiles, or any other normal map for some wacky effects! Reflection Wavelet Scale: Controls the scale of the three wavelets that make up the surface of the water. Big Wave Speed: Adjusting the crosshairs box controls the X and Y direction and speed of the large wave image. Little Wave Speed: Adjusting the crosshairs box controls the X and Y direction and speed of the small wave image. Refract Scale Above: Controls the amount of visual refraction you can see from above the water's surface; this is the "wobbly" effect you can see when you look at an object that is underwater. Refract Scale Below: Controls the amount of visual refraction you can see from below the water's surface. This is the "wobbly" effect you can see when you look at an object that is above the water. Blur Multiplier: Controls how waves and reflections are mixed. Increasing this setting increases the amount of distortion you see in reflections as a result of wave activity. Editing a Day Cycle setting Bring up the Day Cycle Editor by selecting an existing Day Cycle settings object from your inventory Settings folder, or by creating a new settings object. You can open up the My Environments window to easily view your existing environment settings and the Library's collection of settings by opening World > Environment > My Environments... The Day Cycle Editor gives you control over the sky during Second Life's day/night cycle by setting keyframes along a timeline representing times of the day. These are nodes (represented by dots on the timeline) that have associated sky and water presets. As the time of day progresses, the sky "animates" as it shifts between these keyframes. This is useful for creating everything from photorealistic day/night cycles to strange alien environments. For each keyframe dot on the timeline, you can set a different Sky Setting for each altitude level on the left (Ground Level, Sky 2, Sky 3, and Sky 4) as well as the Water. For example, you can create a day cycle that has a foggy sky setting at 6am, a clear sky at 12pm, and a warm sunset at 6pm. To do that, add a keyframe node at 6am on the timeline and choose a foggy sky setting for it from the Load Sky button. Then repeat the process for noon and sunset. To create a basic Day Cycle: Type a new name in the Preset Name box, or click the Import button on the right to import legacy Windlight settings. Move the yellow arrow slider to a time of day, for example, 6am. Click Add Sky to add a keyframe node dot to the timeline. Click the dot to select it; it will turn green. On the right, click Load Sky, then select the sky preset you'd like to use at this time of day from your Settings folder in your inventory. Continue clicking Add Sky at various times of day, selecting the sky you'd like to use at that time of day. If you're on the Water track, the button will say Add Water. It works the same as Add Sky, allowing you to select an existing Water settings object from inventory and applying it to that specific time of day. When you have a day cycle timeline that you're happy with, you can use the Clone Track button to copy it to the other altitudes. As a tip, set your Ground timeline first. Then click Sky 2 and select Clone Track to copy the skies and nodes you added to the Ground level to Sky 2. Repeat for Sky 3 and 4. If you'd like to change the sky based on different altitudes, you can click the button and make any adjustments you want. You can drag the yellow arrow along the timeline to preview what your day cycle will look like at different times. When you're finished, click Save to save the preset. The yellow arrow above the timeline represents your current view, based on time of day. Click and drag it to see how your day will animate. You may add or delete keyframes by pressing the Add Sky and Delete Sky buttons to the right of the timeline. You can adjust the time position of a keyframe by dragging it along the timeline or by entering the time in the Time box with your chosen keyframe node selected. Sky and water tracks There are four Sky tracks in a Day Cycle: Ground Level, Sky 2, Sky 3, and Sky 4. There is one Water track. Why so many? Having multiple day cycles for different altitudes lets you have flexibility for what your environment looks like in different places. If you have a lovely farm down at ground level, but decide to open a spooky castle on a platform at 2000 meters in the air, you can have a sunny day at the farm while the spooky castle is foggy and dark. Frames and the timeline The dots on the timeline represent a time when the sky (or water) changes; it might be as simple as the light changing to pink and orange at sunrise or sunset, or as complex as a dozen atmospheric changes to represent storms moving across the region. Previewing your Day Cycle Click the ▶️ (play) arrow to play your day cycle. The yellow indicator will move along the timeline, showing what your day cycle will look like as time progresses. Click the tab forward or back button next to the play arrow to move to the next or previous dot on the timeline. Legacy environment controls Some Second Life Viewers may not have implemented the new Enhanced Environment options yet. For those Viewers and for older Viewers still in use, the legacy environment controls can provide customization to the Viewer's skies, water, and day cycle. Note: You will not be able to edit some environment settings with legacy controls, and in some instances, viewers that do not support the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) changes may display the environment differently. The Environment Editor (Legacy Controls) To edit the sky and water, you must first open the Environment Editor. You can do this by selecting World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor > Environment Settings. In the Environment Settings window, you can choose between Use region settings and Customize my environment. Using region settings will display the region's shared environment, which is what everyone else in the region would see by default. Choosing to customize your environment will allow you to select custom water, sky, and day cycle options that are only visible to you. The Sky Preset Editor The Sky Preset editor contains detailed controls for modifying environmental effects. It is where you make visual changes to sky and atmosphere presets, also known as "keyframes" (see Day Cycle Editor for more about keyframes). It contains three tabs, each with a number of sliders for manipulating the sky's appearance. You may also save and load sky settings when you find a view you like. Opening the Sky Preset Editor The Sky Preset Editor is located in the Environment Editor: Go to World > Environment Editor > Sky Presets Select New Preset to create a new Sky Preset. Alternatively, select Edit Preset to edit an existing Sky Preset. Editing a Sky Preset The Atmosphere Tab This tab controls elements of the atmosphere itself: Blue Horizon: Use the color picker box to adjust the color of the sky. In meteorological terms, this setting affects "atmospheric scattering", which is the scientific answer to the age-old question, "Why is the sky blue?" Blue Density: Blue Density affects the overall color saturation of your sky. If you move the Saturation slider (right) down, your colors will become brighter and more vibrant. If you move it all the way up, your colors will become duller, eventually fading to black and white. If you'd like to fine-tune your sky's color balance, you can control individual elements of saturation by using the color picker to adjust the color details, like Red, Blue, Green, Saturation and Luminosity. Tip: Blue Horizon and Blue Density are particularly closely related. Imagine Blue Horizon as the base color for the sky, and Blue Density as the sky's color intensity and color balance effects. Try turning Haze Density to zero and playing with these settings for yourself to get a better feel for how they interact with each other. Haze Horizon: This setting affects the height of haze on the horizon. At higher settings, the haze will reach up into the sky and obscure the actual horizon. Haze on the horizon can help to accentuate the sun, and create a dusty, smoggy, or humid effect. This setting will not work if Haze Density is set to zero. Haze Density: Haze density affects the amount of haze you can see in the atmosphere. At lower settings, this can make for some great outdoor views in dusty or tropical environments, and at higher levels it can create a thick, vision-obscuring fog. If you set Haze Density to zero, the Haze Horizon setting will have no effect. Density Multiplier: The Density Multiplier can be used to affect the overall atmospheric density. At lower settings, it creates a feeling of "thin air", and at higher settings, it creates a very heavy, smoggy effect. Distance Multiplier: This setting affects your perceived distance within the atmosphere. To make everything look hazy and distant, move the slider to the right. If you want to completely remove the Sky Settings' effects from terrain and objects, set the slider to zero. Max Altitude: Adjusts the altitude calculations Second Life makes when it is computing atmospheric lighting. At later times of day, it can be useful for calculating how "deep" a sunset appears, while at noon it can be used to achieve proper brightness values. The Lighting Tab This tab controls the sun, ambient lighting, and the stars: Sun/Moon Color: This setting affects the color of the light your sun and moon produce. Keep in mind that the color of your sunlight/moonlight will affect the color of your sky! To change Sun/Moon Color, use the Red/Green/Blue (RGB) sliders, or use the Intensity (I) slider to move all three RGB sliders at once. Sun and Moon Position: The Sun and Moon Position setting affects the vertical position of the sun and moon, from sunrise (0.0) through noon (0.25), sunset (0.5), midnight (0.75) and back to sunrise (1.0). Note that this setting is different than Time of Day in the Basic Environment Editor. The Time of Day setting shifts through your WindLight keyframes (see The Day Cycle Editor), while the Sun and Moon Position setting only affects the physical location of the sun and moon. East Angle: The East Angle affects the horizontal position of the sun/moon, and is similar to azimuth. At settings of 0.0 and 1.0, the sun will rise in the East and set in the West. The settings in between define the entire circle of the horizon; at a setting of 0.5, the sun will rise in the West and set in the East, at a setting of 0.25 the sun will rise in the South and set in the North, etc. Sun Glow: There are two settings under Sun Glow: Size defines the size of the sun, and Focus adjusts how much the sun blurs over the sky. At very high settings, Focus can cause the sun to completely wash out a portion of the sky with brilliant light, and at zero, it will cause the sun (but not the light it casts) to disappear from the sky. Ambient: This controls the color and intensity of ambient light in the atmosphere. This is used for simulating how the light from the sun is scattered by the atmosphere and other objects once it hits the Earth. You can create a very bright sun, and a relatively dark world (think of a sunset!) with an Ambient setting of zero, but if you want to simulate mid-day illumination while the sun was low in the sky, you need to increase the Ambient setting. Scene Gamma: This control functions similarly to the Gamma setting in the Graphics Hardware Settings (formerly Adv. Graphics) tab. It adjusts your screen's distribution of light and dark output. Lower settings will cause everything to appear dim, while higher settings may make the scene look gray and "washed out". Scene Gamma is more precise than the older Gamma in that it only affects your rendered view of the SL world- not the menus and rest of your computer's screen. Star Brightness: Star Brightness defines how visible the stars are in the sky. If you play with this slider while the sun is up, you can see stars in the middle of the day! The Clouds Tab This tab gives you control over the clouds in the sky: Cloud Color: This affects the color of your clouds, if you have any. Use the individual Red/Green/Blue sliders to change the color, or the Intensity (I) slider to drag all three at once. Cloud XY/Density: Use the X and Y sliders to change the horizontal position of all clouds in the sky. The D slider affects the overall density of the individual clouds; at low settings you will see thin, wispy clouds, and at higher settings you will see thicker, more solid clouds. Cloud Coverage: As the name implies, this control sets the amount of cloud coverage. At zero, there isn't a cloud in the sky, but at higher settings, you can get a completely overcast effect. Cloud Scale: This setting affects the perceived altitude of the clouds... if you slide the control to the right, it will make the clouds appear to be higher in the sky. Cloud Detail (XY/Density): These settings affect the detail imagery of your clouds. The X and Y sliders shift its horizontal position, and the D slider controls how puffy and/or fractured your clouds look. Cloud Scroll X and Cloud Scroll Y: These sliders affect the direction and speed at which the clouds float in the sky. You may also check the Lock checkbox to prevent clouds from moving on the selected axis. Naming and save your Sky Presets Enter a name for your new sky preset in the Preset Name box and click Save at the bottom of the window to save your preset for future use. Sky Presets are essentially snapshots of WindLight slider settings you can re-load later or use as keyframes in the Day Cycle Editor. Creating presets is useful both for re-loading your favorite settings and for creating day cycle animations using the Day Cycle Editor. Edit Day Cycle Bring up the Day Cycle Editor by selecting World > Environment Editor > Day Presets > New Preset or Edit Preset (to edit an existing preset). The Day Cycle Editor gives you control over the sky during Second Life's day/night cycle by setting keyframes along a timeline representing times of the day. These are nodes (represented by dots on the timeline) that have associated sky presets. As the time of day progresses, the sky "animates" as it interpolates between these keyframes. This is useful for creating everything from photorealistic day/night cycles to strange alien environments. For each keyframe dot on the timeline, you can set a different Sky Setting in the box below the timeline. For example, you can create a day cycle that has a foggy sky setting at 6am, a clear sky at 12pm, and a warm sunset at 6pm. To do that, add a keyframe node at 6am on the timeline and choose a foggy sky preset from the Sky Setting dropdown, then repeat the process for noon and sunset. To create a basic Day Cycle: Type a new name in the Preset Name box, or choose an existing day cycle preset to edit by choosing it from the dropdown menu. Move the yellow arrow slider to a time of day, for example, 6am. Click Add Key to add a keyframe node dot to the timeline. Click the dot to select it; it will turn green. From the Sky Setting dropdown menu, select the sky preset you'd like to use at this time of day. Continue adding keyframe nodes at various times of day, selecting the sky you'd like to use at that time of day. You can drag the yellow arrow along the timeline to preview what your day cycle will look like at different times. When you're finished, click Save to save the preset. The yellow arrow above the timeline represents your current view, based on time of day. Click and drag it to see how your day will animate. You may add or delete keyframes by pressing the Add Key and Delete Key buttons to the right of the timeline. If the Add Key button is grayed out, you may need to move the yellow timeline slider to a different time; when a valid time is available, the Add Key button should light up. You can adjust the time position of a keyframe by dragging it along the timeline or by entering the time in the Time box with your chosen keyframe node selected. Edit a Water Preset The Water Preset window contains detailed controls for modifying water effects. Here you can modify water fog, reflection properties, refraction, and reflection normal maps. Opening the Water Preset Editor Advanced water settings are located in the Water Preset window: To create a new water preset, go to World > Environment Editor > Water Presets > New Preset You can edit an existing water preset by clicking World > Environment Editor > Water Presets > Edit Preset Some of the water settings you can edit include: Water Fog Color: This changes the color of the particulate matter in your water, essentially defining the color of the water itself. If your water has no fog, it will appear crystal clear and colorless. Fog Density Exponent: Controls the density of your water fog; this setting defines how far you are able to see into the water. Underwater Fog Modifier: Controls how the fog density changes when you are underwater. Useful for creating far-seeing views when underwater while keeping the surface fairly opaque. For example, at a setting of 0.25, the water fog is 1/4 as dense while underwater as it appears from above the surface. Reflection Wavelet Scale: Controls the scale of the three wavelets that make up the surface of the water. Fresnel Scale: Determines how much light is reflected at different angles; increasing this slider reduces visual reflection effects on the water's surface. Fresnel Offset: Determines how much total light is reflected; increasing this slider increases the amount of light reflected by the water's surface. Refract Scale Above: Controls the amount of visual refraction you can see from above the water's surface; this is the "wobbly" effect you can see when you look at an object that is underwater. Refract Scale Below: Controls the amount of visual refraction you can see from below the water's surface. This is the "wobbly" effect you can see when you look at an object that is above the water. Blur Multiplier: Controls how waves and reflections are mixed. Increasing this setting increases the amount of distortion you see in reflections as a result of wave activity. Big Wave Direction: Controls the X and Y direction and speed of the large wave image. Little Wave Direction: Controls the X and Y direction and speed of the small wave image. Normal Map: Controls the normal map used for determining reflections and refractions. Any texture may be used for this setting, but true normal maps work best. Second Life's wave effects are generated by superimposing a large normal map image over a smaller version of itself. Try snake skin, tiles, or any other normal map for some wacky effects!

Before you begin: environment considerations Creating terrain shapes Show land owners Subdivide Join Land owners or members of groups with the Always Allow Edit Terrain ability assigned to their role can use the Edit Terrain tool to change the shape of land. Members in a role with this ability can edit terrain only on a parcel owned by their group. Important: Assigning Always Allow Edit Terrain to a group role gives the members in that role full access to the Edit Terrain tool. This includes the Abandon Land option. Before you begin: environment considerations What type of environment are you making? Simplify the process of creating terrain by planning properly in advance. You can use simple prims to create a layout of your ideas, for example, or set up marker objects to make it easier to know how deep a divot might be, or how tall a hill should be made. In the image above, each colored section of the pole is 1 meter tall, making it easier to determine the right size for the new hill. What are the slope extremes? Steep slopes can have undesirable effects on terrain textures, depending on their complexity, contrast, and saturation. A texture might look great on subtle, rolling hills but terrible on more extreme slopes. Be aware that textures will "stretch" or "smear" on steep slopes, and more experimentation may be necessary to make them look good. Generally, gradual changes in elevation look best. Are there adjacent regions? Crossing region boundaries can be a tricky situation, so it's always best to develop adjacent regions in tandem. If you own adjacent regions, the job of matching texture sets is straight forward. However, if someone else owns a region adjacent to yours, it's a good idea to ask the owner for copies of the textures being used on it so you can match your land textures to theirs for a better blending of the land along the border. Creating terrain shapes The Edit Terrain tool allows you to create many different shapes for your land. These shapes are stored as RAW terrain textures, with different colors corresponding to different heights. Region owners can download and upload these terrain files directly to their region, updating the terrain's shape for the entire region at once. RAW terrain files can also be edited externally in some graphics programs. For more information about working with RAW terrain files, please see the Second Life Wiki. The Edit Terrain tool To access the Edit Terrain tool, right-click on your land and select Edit Terrain. This opens a tool with many different options for terraforming your land. The Edit Terrain tool contains seven land edit options: Select Land - Use this option to select the land area you want to edit. Click and drag your mouse on the land. The selected area shows outlined in yellow. If you do not select part of your land, the tool defaults to the whole parcel area. Flatten - Makes the selected area flat. Raise - Raises the selected area. Lower - Lowers the selected area. Smooth - Smooths gradients to create a natural slope of the selected area. Roughen - This option gives the land bumps and ditches. Revert - Undoes terraforming based on the terrain's baked shape, or baseline terrain elevation. Several clicks may be necessary to return land to its original shape. Note: Mainland regions can be raised/lowered by +/- 4m. Private Regions can be raised/lowered by +/- 20m by default, but this setting can be increased to 100m by the region owner. These Bulldozer sliders allow you to adjust the size and strength of your edit tool. Size - Adjust the slider to determine the size of the area affected by your bulldozer Choose the size of your land edit tool. Strength - Adjust the slider to determine how subtly or radically the landscape is transformed. Apply - Use this button to apply your edit option to the whole selected area. Show land owners Select World > Show > Land Owners to color code the land according to who owns it: Reddish brown is land owned by others. Green is your land. Aqua is land owned by a group of which you are a member. Grey is public land (rare). Purple is land in the auction system. Buy Land The Edit Terrain tool provides the option to purchase land set for sale. Click this button to open the land purchase confirmation Window. The confirmation window provides information about any tier changes that might be incurred by making this land purchase. For more information about finding land to purchase, see Buying land. Abandon Land Land which is abandoned in a mainland region immediately reverts ownership to Governor Linden; land that is abandoned on a private region reverts to the region owner. Please use caution with this option; you will not receive compensation or payment in Linden dollars for abandoning land, and abandoning land is permanent. It may not be possible to recover land once you've abandoned it. If you've abandoned a parcel of mainland by mistake, and it's now showing as owned by Governor Linden, please contact our Support team for further assistance. Subdivide You may want to break a parcel of land into multiple pieces, for example if you want to sell part of it. Select the section of your land by pressing down the left mouse button and dragging to create a yellow selection rectangle around the land you want to subdivide. Then click the Subdivide button. This will create a new parcel. The new parcel will share the name and traits of the parcel it was separated from by default, like the parcel's name, object settings, and media streams. To edit the new parcel's information, you can enter the parcel's boundaries and click World > About Land to open the land information window for the new parcel. Join If you want to connect two or more pieces of land that you own, drag a rectangle that overlaps each of the land parcels you want to join and click the Join button to combine them into one. You can now use the About Land tool to set the features for this new piece of land. Note: Land parcels cannot be joined across region boundaries.

General information Information for landholders and other stakeholders How venues and content are selected Editors' picks Destinations floater Newcomer friendly Adult-rated areas Submission guidelines Image specifications Text specifications Contact the Linden Lab editors General information The Second Life Destination Guide highlights some of the best inworld locations and Resident creations. For new and existing Residents alike, it is the place to go to explore and discover what's most exciting in Second Life. Linden Lab keeps the Destination Guide fresh with regular updates, so check back frequently! The Destination Guide is available in several different ways: See all destinations listed on the guide directly on the Web at http://secondlife.com/destinations. In the Second Life Viewer: Click in the toolbar, or Destinations under the World Menu (it opens the destinations floater in the viewer). The DESTINATIONS floater displays a few categories of destinations that are hand-picked by our Editorial team. Click to open the Second Life Search window. Then check the Destination Guide box and search or peruse the incredible variety of locations and events! Information for landholders and other stakeholders Currently, the best way for a Resident to promote a venue, event, or business is through inworld search or the classifieds. We encourage all venue owners to review the guidelines at the Search FAQ for information on how to maximize your presence using inworld Search. Venues and content featured in the Destination Guide are not paid placements. However, we welcome Resident suggestions for cool spots to feature. Some entries included in the Guide are also surfaced on the website for Residents exploring SecondLife.com for the first time. You can submit a venue for consideration on the Destination Guide Suggestion Page. Be sure to follow the submission guidelines below. Note: By nominating a venue, you authorize Linden Lab to use its content. Journalists, publishers, filmmakers, and others interested in Second Life often contact Linden Lab for images of Second Life. Linden Lab may direct these parties to the Destination Guide for promotional shots. How venues and content are selected Selections for inclusion are at the sole discretion of Linden Lab. Criteria favoring selection: The venue is a high-quality implementation of the Second Life experience. The venue appeals broadly to the Second Life community, including new Residents. The submission includes a compelling and visually interesting screenshot. The submitted description text accurately describes the location. Criteria weighing against selection: The venue has been warned for failure to comply with some aspect of the Terms of Service. The venue and/or submitted screenshot appears to contain unlicensed, copyrighted, and/or trademarked content that may not be authorized by the rights holder. The venue is currently violating the Terms of Service through use of bots, campers, illegal gambling, or mainland Adult content. The venue is not open to the public and Residents must join a group to enter. The submitted screenshot contains photoshopped text over the image. The submitted description text is not in complete sentences or third-person voice and includes lists of keywords and/or incoherent or inaccurate text. Editors' picks Editors' Picks features fun and beautiful destinations selected by our Editorial team. It is rotated every couple of weeks to give other destinations a chance to be featured. To increase your chances of having your Destination featured in Editors’ Picks, consider whether your venue meets some of the following criteria: Is it newcomer-friendly? Does the region have scripted kickers, age limits, or other payment info restrictions set in place that would restrict access or reduce a quality experience for newer users? Are all areas of the destination open to the public? In an effort to make Editors' Picks more new user friendly, we are not considering any Adult rated regions for it. Please note that you cannot request to be featured in Editors' Picks. Who is featured, when they are featured, and for how long they are featured is up to the discretion of the Editorial team. Destinations floater The destinations featured in the Destinations Floater in the viewer are just a small selection that are picked by our Editorial team and are often rotated (except for the "What's Hot Now" category, which is auto-generated.) To increase your chances of having your Destination featured in the floater, consider whether your venue meets some of the following criteria: Is it newcomer-friendly? Does the region have scripted kickers, age limits, or other payment info restrictions set in place that would restrict access or reduce a quality experience for newer users? Are all areas of the destination open to the public? In an effort to make the floater more new user friendly, we are not adding any Adult rated regions or categories to the floater. The "What's Hot Now" category is auto-generated by the system and is not controlled by us. It randomly features any destinations listed on the Destination Guide that currently have 20+ avatars on the region. Newcomer friendly The destinations featured in the Newcomer Friendly Spots category of the Destination Guide are part of our Community Gateway Program or have been picked by our Editorial team because they may meet some of the following suggested guidelines: Is the landing point (and any immediate surrounding areas) optimized for new residents? For example, is it set correctly so arriving visitors land at the right spot? Also, do navigation tools like teleporters route people to the right place? Avoid use of "insider" language or instructions that may be confusing to someone accessing Second Life as a new Resident. Is the venue arrival experience free of unsolicited group invites, excessive notecards, and other inventory offers? These notifications are confusing to many new Residents, who are unfamiliar with how groups and inventory work in Second Life. Are there clear pointers to get further help with Second Life? For example, a link to our Support Portal or the Second Life Answers community help. Does the venue have an active and welcoming community within close proximity of the landing point? Are there Residents available to give guided tours? The region must not have scripted kickers, age limits, or other payment info restrictions set in place that would restrict access or reduce a quality experience for newer users. Adult-rated areas Second Life’s Destination Guide aims to include a wide variety of communities and venues, including those in regions with Adult ratings. However, as a globally available service, Second Life is subject to many regional restrictions that prohibit advertising or promotion for some types of content and services, such as escorts and explicit content, including nudity. Because content listed in the Destination Guide can be seen by users of all ages and in all territories, no descriptions — regardless of rating — should contain explicit or overtly sexual language or imagery. Linden Lab’s guidelines for inclusion of adult-rated content in the Destination Guide aim to be consistent with the search-industry standards for advertising and search-engine promotion, as seen in these published guidelines by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo: Google AdWords Adult Content Guidelines Bing Ads/Microsoft Adult Content Guidelines Verizon Media Adult Content Guidelines As with all Destination Guide submissions, each entry is subject to review and editing by Linden Lab editorial staff. For more information on Second Life and Maturity Ratings, see Second Life Maturity Ratings page in the Knowledge Base and the Adult_Content_FAQ in the wiki. Submission guidelines You may suggest a destination using the form if: You personally own the parcel. You belong to the group that owns the parcel. You are on the access list of the Private Region that contains the parcel. The parcel belongs to Governor Linden and is set in ABOUT LAND > OPTIONS tab as a Hangout. The parcel belongs to a friend and is set in ABOUT LAND > OPTIONS tab as a Hangout. The parcel is 512m2 or larger. Suggested venues must comply with all of the following: Community Standards Trademark Guidelines Terms of Service DMCA policy Snapshot and machinima Policy Warning: Do not suggest content that is copyrighted or otherwise subject to another party's proprietary rights (including privacy, publicity, trademark, and trade secret rights) unless you own the rights or have the owner's permission. Content determined to infringe upon intellectual property rights is removed from our website and services. Residents are limited to two suggestions per month. You can also email the Destination Guide editors your suggestions. Please include a link to your image that meets the submission criteria below: Image specifications The quality and aesthetic composition of your image helps persuade Residents to visit your suggested inworld location, so submit a well-composed screenshot that captures the creativity, community, and/or aesthetic beauty of your venue. Do not photoshop, layer, and embed any text or logos on the photo itself. It should be a clear image of the inworld location. The Destination Guide submission form asks you to include a link to a web-hosted screenshot of your venue. Your image can be hosted on any photo-sharing or web-hosting site, such as Flickr. Use JPG format with the dimensions of 657 width by 394 height, in pixels (657x394 has a 5:3 aspect ratio). For example (see on Flickr) Be sure to include the full URL to the web-hosted screenshot for your listing. Please note that the Destination Guide user suggestion form may reject images that do not meet this exact criteria. In some cases, Linden Lab editors may re-shoot images to improve visual clarity or composition, but we strongly prefer you submit quality images to begin with. Note: If you receive a form error when you try to submit your suggested destination, please email the Linden Lab editors. Include the submission suggestion and the info requested in the form (title, description, SLurl link) along with the image as an attachment. Text specifications On the submission form, aim for a description under 400 characters and a title under 25 characters Destination Guide uses third-person voice, so avoid the use of first-person language (such as I, we, our, us, and my). Also, refrain from using adult language, overly-hyped or promotion-heavy language, or advertising job vacancies. Destination Guide entries should be informative rather than overtly promotional. Lists of keywords are not acceptable as descriptive text, please use complete sentences. Linden Lab reserves the right to edit material for length and clarity. Contact the Linden Lab editors For questions or update requests to existing entries, or to report an error — like a wrong SLurl or place that's gone — contact the Linden Lab editors via email. Please note that we are not able to respond to every inquiry, however, we welcome all comments, feedback, and suggestions.

Creating a notecard Sending a notecard Receiving a notecard Embedding items in a notecard How to stop notecard spam Creating 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. The New Note will pop up. Now, you should write something appropriate. 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. Sending a notecard Now that you've written your notecard, you may want to send it to someone. If that person's avatar is standing nearby, simply drag the notecard from your inventory to the avatar. Otherwise: 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. If 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. If the recipient is online, the notecard is received immediately. If not, it is stored to the person's inventory. Receiving a notecard Check for new notecards when you log in by opening the inventory window's Notecards folder. You can read any notecards inside by double-clicking on them. Embedding items in a notecard You can attach nearly any type of inventory item to a notecard. Attached images and landmarks can make a fabulous addition to informational notecards, and notecards-within-notecards can provide you with some interesting options for organizing your text. To attach an inventory item to your notecard: Open a notecard you own or create a new notecard. Make sure the item you wish to attach is fully permissive. The next owner permissions must allow copy, modify, and transfer. For more information, see Permissions on objects. Drag the item from the My Inventory window onto the Notecard window. You can drop in any kind of inventory item, excluding calling cards. The item appears as a hyperlink in the notecard. Tip: If Second Life does not allow you to drop the item into your notecard, make sure to check the permissions on the object. If applicable, also check the permissions on any inventory items contained inside the object. A notecard will only accept fully permissive attachments, so it is not a good idea to attach anything you do not want other people to copy. How to stop notecard spam In rare instances you may get spammed with notecards, so that notecard after notecard pops up on your screen. If this happens to you, select Block Owner from the dialogue box that offers you the notecard. Notecard spam is often caused unintentionally by scripting errors. However, intentional notecard spam constitutes abuse and is considered "Disturbing the Peace" by Second Life's Community Standards. If you believe you are being spammed deliberately (for instance, because the content of the notecards is vulgar or threatening), please use Help > Report Abuse to send an abuse report. See Filing an abuse report for more information.

Creating clothing Creating new clothing in Appearance mode Creating new clothing outside Appearance mode Video tutorial Creating tattoos Creating clothing Clothing in Second Life® can refer to two things: Mesh clothing items - These include textures that are baked directly onto your avatar mesh in a specific location and order, as well as customizable settings like length and height. There are 9 types of mesh clothing including shirts, pants, and socks. This article covers how to create this kind of clothing. Objects made of prims - These attach to specific attachment points on your avatar. Many clothing designers make prim skirts, cuffs, collars, and shoes in tandem with mesh clothing to create a richer effect. You can learn more about attachments in our articles on building and attaching items. If an item of mesh clothing is modifiable, you can alter it using the My Appearance editor. Note: If an item in My Inventory says "no modify," it can't be changed. You can create custom textures for clothing using an image editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP. There are many ways to do this; visit the Clothing Tutorials wiki page for resources such as templates and guides. Creating new clothing in Appearance mode If you want to use a custom clothing texture, select Build > Upload > Image (L$10) to add it to My Inventory. (It costs L$10 to upload an image.) Right-click your avatar and choose My Appearance. The APPEARANCE window opens. Click the Gear icon in the bottom left corner and select New Clothes. Select the clothing item you wish to create (for instance, New Shirt). The item automatically appears on your avatar. Adjust the sliders until the clothing is the shape you want. Click the Texture box to select a clothing texture from My Inventory, or drag the texture from My Inventory onto Texture. It is applied to your clothing item and becomes visible within moments. If desired, click Color/Tint and add an additional color to the entire article of clothing. Click Save As at the bottom left of the APPEARANCE window. Add a description in the text box, then click OK to save your work. In the Edit Outfit tab, remove any item of clothing you don't want to wear by clicking the X to its left or right-clicking the item and selecting Take Off. Creating new clothing outside Appearance mode Click the Inventory button on the left side of the viewer to open the INVENTORY window. Choose a folder in which to create your new clothing item, for instance, Clothing. Right-click the folder and choose New Clothes > [clothing item name]. Rename the clothing item as desired. To add a texture or otherwise edit the new clothing item, double-click it to wear it, then right-click your avatar and enter the My Appearance editor. Click the Gear menu in the bottom left corner and select Edit Outfit. Click the Edit Wrench icon next to the item you wish to edit, or right-click the item and select Edit. Refer to steps 7-10 above to customize your clothing item. Note: All mesh clothing you make using New Clothes will show your name as the original creator. Modifying clothing made by someone else, even if you change the texture, will not make you the creator. Video tutorial This video visually guides you through the above steps. Creating tattoos You can apply images and textures of your own design to your avatar's skin. However, most avatars use the skin texture layer for wearing custom skins and use clothing layers to wear tattoos. Here we explain how to wear tattoos you have created using both the skin layer and the clothing layers. Tattoos, like other forms of texture transparency in Second Life, require a special part of an image known as an alpha channel. The alpha channel serves as a "hidden color" that shows where to draw the texture and where to remain transparent. One such use for alpha channels would be to "paint" a window into a wall without physically building the window. While detailed image editing and alpha channels are beyond the scope of this article, you can find Second Life's fashion templates and other useful information in the Clothing Tutorials page on the Second Life wiki. If you have a tattoo texture you would like to apply to your avatar, just choose one of the following two methods. Tip: Do not use the first method if your avatar wears a custom skin. To apply the tattoo directly to your skin layer: Import your texture into your Inventory by selecting Build > Upload > Image (L$10). (It costs L$10 to upload an image.) Right-click your avatar and choose My Appearance. Click the Gear menu in the bottom left corner of the APPEARANCE window and select New Body Parts > New Skin. Select the appropriate box: if the tattoo is designed for your face, double-click the Head Tattoo box. If the tattoo is designed for your chest, double-click he Upper Tattoo box. If the tattoo is designed for your legs, double-click the Lower Tattoo box. The PICK: TEXTURE window opens. Select and double-click the desired texture. It appears on the part of your avatar you indicated. Click Save. To apply the tattoo as a clothing layer (use this if you wear a custom skin): Import your texture into My Inventory by selecting Build > Upload > Image. Right-click your avatar and choose My Appearance. Click the Gear menu in the bottom left corner and select Edit Outfit > New Clothes > [clothing item name]. Tip: Tattoos usually work best when created on the undershirt or underpants layer so that they appear underneath clothing layers like shirts and pants. Adjust the sliders until the clothing is the shape you like. Keep in mind that tattoos should be skintight. Click on the Texture box to select a texture from My Inventory. Click on Color/Tint and apply an additional color to the entire tattoo if desired. Click Save As at the bottom left to name and save your work.

What is a click action? How to set a click action Click action types Touch/grab (default) Sit on object Buy object Pay object Open Play parcel media Open parcel media What is a click action? A click action enables you to interact with an object with a single left click. In addition, each click action has a special cursor indicating what it does. This makes using objects easier, especially for new Residents. For example, if something has the Buy object click action, you will see a L$ cursor when you hover your mouse cursor over the object. You can then purchase it by clicking once, then clicking again to confirm the purchase. How to set a click action To set a click action for an object: Right-click on the object. Choose Edit. The Build Tools window appears (shown at right). In the General tab, choose the desired click action from the Click To: list. Close the Build Tools window. Click action types You can select the following click actions: Touch Sit on object Buy object Pay object Open Zoom Touch This is the default, and invokes no special click action. If the object is scripted, it responds to what it's programmed to do when someone clicks on it. Also, if you hold down Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac), the cursor changes to a hand, and you can move objects you have permission to. Sit on object The cursor changes to a chair when you hover over the object. When clicked, your avatar sits on it (or tries to), with the same result as right-clicking the object and selecting Sit Here. Also makes it easier to sit on an object instead of right-clicking and choosing Sit Here repeatedly, which tends to result in "No room to sit here..." error messages on narrow and odd-shaped objects. Make stuff easier to sit on from Torley on Vimeo. Buy object Requires the object to be set for sale. The cursor changes to a "$" when you hover over the object. When clicked, a Buy window appears, then you can purchase, with the same result as right-clicking the object and selecting Buy. Pay object Requires a pay script in the contents to work, and is a common alternative to Buy object when choose-your-own-price flexibility, stats tracking, and other options are needed. The cursor changes to a stack of coins when you hover over the object. When clicked, a pay window appears, with the same result as right-clicking the object and selecting Pay.... Open You must own the object and it must have contents to open it. Very useful if you sell content which is intended to be packaged and "unwrapped" from boxes. The cursor changes to an open box when you hover the object. When clicked, an Object Contents window appears, with the same result as right-clicking the object and selecting Open. Play parcel media Requires a parcel with associated media (see parcel media). You can make the media screen itself a click action-enabled object, which allows someone to click on the screen to start or pause a movie. If the parcel movie isn't playing, the cursor changes to a play icon when you hover over the object. When clicked, the movie plays. If the parcel movie is playing, the cursor changes to a pause icon when you hover over the object. When clicked , the movie pauses! The result is the same as clicking the Play button on your toolbar, only more immersive since it's inworld. PARCEL MEDIA: Click actions from Torley on Vimeo. Open parcel media Use this with web pages and similar web media to provide a larger view. The cursor changes to a link icon when you hover the mouse cursor over the object. When clicked, the webpage opens in the inworld web browser OR your external web browser, depending on your preferences. If used on a parcel with a movie, it functions the same as Play parcel media, but with no pause option.

How to browse and search classifieds How to place a classified ad Confirming your classified ad How to view and edit your classified ad Viewing classified ad statistics How to find out what a classified ad cost The in-Viewer classifieds system allows content creators to advertise products and services to fellow Residents. You can gain additional exposure and sales by advertising effectively. How to browse and search classifieds To search and browse classified ads, either click in the Second Life Viewer toolbar or go to the Second Life Search website. Then follow these steps: In the search field, enter terms describing what you are looking for, such as jewelry or skins and click Search. A list of items matching your search terms appears. Click on any classified to learn more. Click Teleport to go to the location the classified is advertising (commonly a store), or click Map to show where it is on the World Map. To search only classified ads: In the Second Life Search window, click the dropdown next to the search input box and change it to Classifieds. In the search box, enter a query and press Enter (or the Search button). This searches only classifieds. To browse classifieds by category, such as Employment or Property rental,select the desired category from the dropdown menu at the left of the Search window. To browse the classifieds, select All Categories from the Category dropdown. Tip: To get the most targeted results, enter search terms in the Search field and refine your search by selecting a specific category from the Classifieds Category dropdown. How to place a classified ad Classified ads are sorted by price or by relevance, depending on where they are displayed in search. The highest-paid classifieds appear on top when searching in Everything, and the most relevant classifieds appear at the top when searching in the Classifieds section. To create a classified: Position your avatar in the location where you want the link in the ad to teleport people to. For example, at the entrance of your store. Choose Me > Profile Select the Classifieds tab At the top, click the New... button. The Edit Classified window opens. Fill out the fields as described below. You can edit everything about your classified, except the price, at any time. When you've filled out the fields as desired, click Publish. The Publishing Classified window opens. Enter the price you want to pay in Linden Dollars (L$). Higher prices are ranked higher in search (but the price paid for each classified isn't publicly shown). If you checked Auto renew each week, this is also the price you're charged each week for your classified, so make sure you have enough in your total L$ balance. Click Publish to publish your classified ad. The sidebar refreshes with a notification of what you paid, and shows your new classified under the Classifieds section of your profile. Important: To change the price of a classified ad, you must create a new classified and copy information from the original ad into the new one. Then, let the old classified expire by itself, or if you're sure, delete it manually. If you delete a classified early, you won't receive a refund for any remaining time left on your classified listing. If you want to stop paying for a recurring classified, make sure the Auto renew each week checkbox is unchecked. Classified ad fields: Picture - By default this will have a picture of the parcel where your avatar is standing (from World > About Land). To change it, click the picture, choose a texture (image) from your inventory, and click OK. You can upload a new picture from your hard drive by using Build menu > Upload > Image (L$10). Title: By default, the parcel's name. If you are advertising a specific product rather than a location, you can change the title text appropriately. Description: By default, the parcel's description. You can change the text in the field if you wish. The maximum length is 256 characters. Unless you're paying very highly in a broad category like "hair" or "shoes", it is generally more useful to use keywords specific your product niche. Use relevant keywords, but don't spamdex or your listing may be removed. Keywords are "stemmed", meaning that you don't have to enter every variation. For example, a search for "dance" also searches for "dances", "danced", and "dancing". Entering a hyperlink automatically makes it clickable. Location: This shows the exact coordinates at which your avatar is positioned. You can always change this by moving your avatar somewhere else and clicking Set to Current Location. Category Select a specific category. By default, the Classifieds tab in Search window shows all categories, but you can use a dropdown to narrow it down to one of the selections shown here. Content type: Classified ad content is filtered by maturity, which includes keywords consistent with search in general. Choose an appropriate maturity rating, or your classified might be removed without warning. By default, the maturity rating will be Moderate or General, depending on the rating of the region in which you create the classified. Note: If you're in an Adult region, there is no option for an Adult maturity classified at this time, only General or Moderate. Auto renew each week - Check this box if you want this classified to run automatically and continuously without your intervention. Each week you'll be charged the price you choose for your classified after you Publish it. Confirming your classified ad Follow the instructions in How to browse and search classifieds to find your classified the same way potential customers will: by searching for keywords. If you can't find it at first, try using keywords that are more unique to your listing. Tip: Allow at least an hour for a classified to appear and update in search. How to view and edit your classified ad After placing a classified ad, you can edit everything except the Price for listing. Follow these steps: Select Me > Profile and click the Classifieds tab. Click a classified, then click Info at the bottom. Notice that Clicks stats are also shown. If you want to edit, click Edit at the bottom. You can edit all of the details you entered when you first placed the classified. When you're done editing, click Save at the bottom. Viewing classified ad statistics Use classified ad statistics ("stats") to see how much attention an ad is getting. To see your stats, view one of your own classifieds as described above. You'll see Clicks: with stats next to it: Teleport - Number of times people have clicked the Teleport button when viewing your classified shown in both the Search window and the extended Classified Info. Map - Number of times people have clicked the Map button when viewing your classified, shown in the extended Classified Info. Profile - Number of times people have clicked the Profile button in Find to show your classified ad. Only you, as the classified creator, can see these. How to find out how much a classified ad cost As an advertiser, you may want to find out how much competitors are paying for their classified ads. To do so: Search for classifieds as described above Click a classified ad to expand it, Click the More Info button to view the full add. The Price for listing field shows the price paid for the advertisement.

Keyboard controls Onscreen controls Mouselook Avatar mouse steering Advanced camera controls This article explains how to control your point of view in the 3D Second Life world. Keyboard controls By using your keyboard and mouse to control the camera, you can view nearly any object or avatar from any angle or distance. Alt + Left mouse button: Press and hold to zoom your view in when you move the mouse up or down. Orbits your view around the focal point when you move the mouse left or right. Ctrl + Alt + Left mouse button: Press and hold to orbit your view around the focal point when you move the mouse in any direction. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Left mouse button: Press and hold to pan your view parallel to the plane of your screen. Mouse scroll wheel: Zooms in or out. Escape key: Resets your view to its default location behind your avatar. Moving your avatar also resets your view. Onscreen controls There are three ways to access onscreen camera controls in the Second Life Viewer: Click the Camera Controls button on the bottom bar of the Viewer From the menu bar, select Me > Camera Controls Or use the keyboard shortcut Control-K (Windows) or Command-K (⌘K) (Mac) Once the Camera Controls floater is open, you can use the precise controls to adjust your camera to your liking. If you like your adjusted camera angle and would like to save it, you can click Save as preset... to give it a unique name and to make that view available from the Use preset dropdown in the future. The profile icons include five default camera presets as buttons: Front View, Side View, Rear View, Object View (represented by the magnifying glass icon) and Mouselook. You can switch between these default views by clicking on the icons. Rear View is the typical default camera position in the Second Life Viewer. Holding the Alt key and clicking on any object will center your camera on that object; from there, using the precise camera controls allows you to zoom in, orbit, or pan your camera from that object's position. Holding the Alt key and clicking on distant objects can be a fun way to explore a region without physically moving your avatar from place to place, and is especially helpful for getting a closer look at things at busy events. Mouselook Mouselook sets the camera to a first-person perspective, allowing you to view the world through your avatar's eyes. You can enter mouselook by pressing the M key or by using your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom all the way in on your avatar. When in mouselook, your avatar turns to face the direction in which you are looking, which allows you to steer with your mouse while you walk or fly. Mouselook is also often used in order to aim or activate scripted objects. Tip: Should you ever find yourself navigating a tight space, entering mouselook can help you get your bearings. Avatar mouse steering You can orbit your view around your avatar by clicking anywhere on your avatar and holding the Left mouse button. As you turn your view left or right, your avatar turns to face the same direction as the camera, allowing you to steer your avatar. Advanced camera controls There are two options in the Advanced menu that allow you to see objects or terrain at a considerable distance from where your avatar is standing: Disable Camera Constraints increases the distance you can zoom. Limit Select Distance allows you to right-click on faraway objects to find their owners. To enable these features: Select Me > Preferences > Advanced. Select the Show Advanced Menu checkbox. The Advanced menu now appears at the top of your Viewer window. From the Advanced dropdown, uncheck Limit Select Distance (this is on by default). In the same menu, choose Disable Camera Constraints. Click the Alt button, left-click your target, and zoom in using the scroll wheel. Right-click any object you see and select Edit > General to find its Creator and Owner.

Overview Why buy land? Types of land How to buy land Buying mainland Buying Private Regions Additional tips Land allowance (tier) Land use fees Exceptions Finding land to buy Land sales in Private Regions Object land capacity More than one parcel in a region Vehicles and parcel limits Object bonus factor In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Italiano 日本語 Português Pусский Türkçe Overview Why buy land? Owning land can be one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences in Second Life. Once you become a landowner, you truly become a part of the Second Life community, and can create and keep things inworld that will be there when you return. Your own land is a space you can customize however you want, and a canvas where your creations can come to life. Land in Second Life is a place to call home, where you can invite friends to hang out, hold events, and more. You can use many of the virtual items you purchase in Second Life—like clothes, accessories and cars—anywhere. But if you purchase a house, a garden, or an entire forest, you're going to need somewhere to put it: your own plot of land! Types of land Mainland Mainland refers to places located on the Linden Lab-owned and operated mainland continents. These continents are made up of regions connected to one another, with roads, waterways and railroads that run between them, which make them particularly well-suited to exploring in vehicles like sailboats and aircraft. Within these Linden-owned regions, the land is divided into parcels (or smaller pieces) which eligible members can own for themselves and use for businesses, homes, and more. You must be a Plus, Premium or Premium Plus member to own a parcel on the mainland, but most areas are open for visitors and exploration. Look for the blue Infohub (ℹ️) logo on the World Map to find a public meeting space to start your explorations. Private estates and regions Private estates and the regions in them are operated by Residents who pay for the entire region directly to Linden Lab. In private regions, the owner has more control over access, appearance, and the content inside the region. Private regions are typically standalone or connected to other private regions, allowing for the highest degree of privacy and customization of experience in Second Life. Private regions come in a few different types, largely differing based on their capacity for content and their intended use. For more information, see Private Regions. Land terminology There are a lot of different terms for land in Second Life, which can be a bit confusing. Here are a few of the more common terms and what they usually mean: A parcel is a piece of land within a region. It can be as small as a 16 square meter of grass or as large as the entire region's border (65,536 square meters, or 256 meters per side of the map square). Different parcels within the same region can have different owners, access settings, music stations, or rules about who can rez content on the land. A region is a uniquely named square on the Second Life map. They might be owned by Linden Lab as part of the mainland continent, or individually by a Resident as a private region. Every region exists in an estate, which is what determines the owner. An estate is an administrative container for regions, much like a country in real life controls a specific piece of land or territory. Estates can have only one region in their jurisdiction, or in the case of the mainland estate owned by Linden Lab it can contain thousands of regions. This is similar to the idea of a country controlling different land areas in real life, with estates acting like a country and regions the land inside the country's possession. For example, the country of Barbados is a single island (region) that is also a country (estate). Compare that to Indonesia, which is made up of 17,504 islands (regions) in a single country (estate). In these examples, the islands in the countries share common laws, currency, and government officials -- much like the different regions in an estate share an owner, estate managers, and selected settings like access. How to buy land There are several ways to buy land: Buy a parcel on the mainland if you have a Plus, Premium, or Premium Plus membership. Premium and Premium Plus members can receive a free Linden Home, which is a great way to get started with land ownership. See Linden Homes for more information. Buy an entire region (a private island). Instead of buying land, you can rent land: On a private estate - see Renting land from other Residents. On the mainland - see Renting a region for a special event. Buying mainland Most land on the mainland is owned by other Residents, who may choose to sell their land if they like. Residents can set the price for their land parcels by setting it for sale in the World > About Land interface, and when they make their land available for sale it will appear in Search. To search for land for sale by another Resident: Open the World > Search menu, or click the 🔎 icon on the toolbar in the Viewer. Select the Land to buy or rent tab on the left menu. Select your preferred options for your search: You can choose to look for land on the Mainland, on a full or homestead Private Region, or for mainland available for Auction. You can choose to look for land to Buy or to Rent. Private region offerings are considered rentals; the owner of the private region always fully owns the land inside it, but may choose to rent parcels in their private region to others. Please be sure to read the Covenant of any region you buy or rent land in, and be aware that rental land on private regions is available by the region owner's choice. You can select which region Maturity levels you prefer for your search results. Linden Lab does not usually set land for direct sale on the mainland. However, there are two special cases in which you can obtain mainland parcels from Linden Lab: Auctions: Linden Lab regularly auctions mainland parcels via Second Life Land Auctions. Land owned on the mainland may be subject to an additional land use fee (also known as a tier fee), which is a monthly charge in addition to a membership subscription based on how much land you own. Abandoned land: In some special cases, Linden Lab sells abandoned mainland parcels to individual Residents. For more information, see Abandoned land. Remember that you can buy land from your fellow Residents, and if you want a whole region to yourself, you can buy a Private Region from the Land Store. Land owned by Governor Linden named "Protected Land" will not generally be terraformed or sold to Residents. Requirements To purchase mainland land in Second Life, you must have a Plus, Premium, or Premium Plus membership with current payment information on file and your account must be in good standing. You may also be required to have a clean disciplinary record. Plus members receive 512 square meters of land allowance included with their membership. Premium members receive 1024 square meters of land allowance (tier) included with their membership, meaning that they incur no extra land use fees for owning mainland as long as they own 1024 square meters or less. For more information, see Land tier. A Premium account also provides many other benefits. For more information, see Premium membership. Premium Plus members receive 2048 square meters of land allowance (tier) included with their membership. How to buy mainland Once you find the land you want and have signed up for an eligible membership (like Premium), buying it is easy: Right-click the parcel you want to purchase. Choose About Land. Click the Buy Land button. Review the purchase information. Click OK. Buying Private Regions A private region is a 256m x 256m piece of virtual land -- an entire square of the map with a unique name that a single region owner controls. Regions run on a single server and have their own set of controls beyond those provided to mainland parcel owners. For more information see: Private Regions: Buying Private Regions Managing private regions Requirements By purchasing a Private Region, you are agreeing to pay the initial setup fee, plus monthly service fees for as long as you own the region. You are also agreeing to a restocking fee if you cancel your order. You will be charged the setup fee once the order is completed. Monthly fees begin 30 days from the date you complete your purchase. Residents don't require a special membership or a subscription like Plus or Premium to purchase a private region; Basic members are welcome to do so. Private Region owners receive Concierge level service from our Support team in order to assist with any questions or issues they might have about their region. Additional tips The following tips will help you purchase land wisely and confidently: Make sure you know exactly what you're purchasing! Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-P on your keyboard to toggle parcel boundary lines. Right-click the parcel to bring up the About Land window, which shows you the land's Area in square meters. Look at the About Land window's General tab to see if objects are included in the sale. Check the Parcel land capacity entry in the About Land window's Objects tab. This indicates how much land impact the land can support before it stops allowing new objects to enter.. Important: If you don't own the land yet, the Region capacity entry is not a measure of the object usage you will receive! If the Advanced menu is active, try hiding objects by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift-1 on your keyboard to make sure there isn't a hidden "hole" in the property that you are unwittingly purchasing with the rest of the land. Make sure you're happy with the overall shape of the land. Most land in Second Life can only be raised 4m above or below its original position, and the previous owner may have already reached that limit. Land allowance (tier) The mainland is a continent of conjoined regions that can be split into smaller parcels, and many Residents own parcels of different sizes spread out across several different regions. Because of this, land ownership is charged not based on a flat rate (like a private region) but on how many square meters a Resident owns simultaneously, billed in increasing levels (often called 'tiers'). For example, owning up to 1,024 square meters of land is included in a standard Premium membership. If you buy a little more land and now own 1,100 square meters of land, you've moved up to the next tier level -- between 1,025m and 1,536m of land. Because you've purchased more than the included land allowance, a monthly land fee will be charged to your account. Each tier level has a set price, whether you have just a little land over the limit or if you're using every square meter allowed by that level. 1,025m of land costs the same as 1535m of land, in terms of monthly land allowance fee. Land allowance (often simply referred to as "tier) is a key concept of Second Life land ownership. "Tier" refers to the maximum amount of land you can own on the mainland before your land fee goes up to the next level, measured in square meters (m2). Plus members receive 512m2 included in their membership subscription. While they can't receive a Linden Home, Plus members can purchase parcels on the mainland as well as take part in Second Life Land Auctions. A standard Premium membership includes 1024m2 of tier, which can be used for a free Linden Home or to own other land elsewhere on the mainland. Premium Plus members receive 2048m of land allowance included in their membership fees. Please note, every avatar is limited to one (1) Linden Home per avatar, regardless of their available land allowance. For the most up to date information on current mainland pricing and fees, please see our Mainland Pricing and Fees page. Example 👤 Hiccup.Gardener loves the mainland and owns several parcels. As a Premium member, they receive 1024m included with their membership. They also pay for an extra 4096m of land allowance so they can enjoy a few different locations. They have a coveted corner lot Linden Home in Bellisseria with a great view (1024m) They own a waterfront beach near the Blake Sea so they can go sailing (2048m) They also have a parcel near Bay City for their giant robot fight club business (2048m). The two 2048m parcels together equal 4096m, using up their extra allowance. The Linden Home uses their included 1024m land allowance, leaving them with no available land allowance remaining. If they want to expand their real estate empire, their monthly land fee will increase based on how much they choose to purchase. Land use fees If you want to own more land than you have available at your current land allowance level, you must upgrade to the next level up. You can use the Land Use Fees page to update your tier level, or in some cases you can simply purchase a larger piece of land and (with your approval) the system will move you to the next tier level as part of the purchase. Upgrading to a higher tier will increase your monthly land use fees, but you will be able to acquire more land for your use or to donate to one of your groups. Before you purchase a parcel of land, check the purchase window carefully. The system will warn you if purchasing a parcel will increase your monthly land fee. You can manage your land use fees and see which level you're at on the Account Dashboard at SecondLife.com. Land use tiers and pricing are shown in the Land Use Fees page. If you find that you're using quite a lot of land allowance, you can continue to increase your allowed holdings to meet your needs. If you sell the land and move back to a lower level of land usage, the system automatically reduces you to that lower level's fee -- but please be advised that land allowance that is donated to a group is not automatically lowered if the land owned by the group is sold. Anyone contributing land allowance to a group will continue to contribute until they manually reduce their donation. Please see Group-owned land for more information. Note: Private Region (island) fees are charged independently, and do not affect your land fee tier level. Exceptions Note the following exceptions to the general rules stated above: You can own a private estate yet not have a mainland tier. Group-owned land gets a 10% bonus tier. See Group-owned land for more information. Some Resident-owned private estates have their own distinct tier systems which are not part of Linden Lab's land use fees. If you are renting from such an estate, contact the owner or another appropriate Resident directly for assistance. Finding land to buy The inworld Search tool enables you to browse and filter a comprehensive database of real estate listings. Simply follow these steps: Open the World > Search menu, or click the 🔎 icon on the toolbar in the Viewer. Select the Land to buy or rent tab on the left menu. Select your preferred options for your search: You can choose to look for land on the Mainland, on a full or homestead Private Region, or for mainland available for Auction. You can choose to look for land to Buy or to Rent. Private region offerings are always considered rentals; the owner of the private region always fully owns the land inside it, but may choose to rent parcels in their private region to others. Please be sure to read the Covenant of any region you buy or rent land in, and be aware that rental land on private regions is available by the region owner's choice. You can select which region Maturity levels you prefer for your search results. Add any keywords you're interested in, like "waterfront" or "snow", or leave the Optional Keywords blank. Click Search. Use the filters on the left to adjust your results, including the Area of the parcel (size) or the Price in Linden Dollars (L$). Click on the column names to sort by Name, Type, L$ Price, Area, or L$/m (Linden dollars per square meter) Click on a listing to view more details. When you find a property that interests you, click Teleport to go explore it! Tip Looking for land on the mainland near you? Select World > World Map to open the map, then select the Land for Sale checkbox. Nearby land for sale is highlighted on the map. Second Life's Auctions also list land parcels up for sale to the highest bidder. Auction parcels are priced in Linden Dollars (L$). Land sales in Private Regions The mechanics of buying and selling land in a Private Region are very similar to the process on the mainland. However, there are a few key differences that buyers and sellers should take into account when making a land transaction in a Private Region. Similarities As the seller, the Private Region owner can split parcels of the region and set them for sale. The technical steps for buying the land are identical. Differences 'Buying' a parcel in a private region puts that parcel in your name, but you must pay rent to the region owner to maintain the land. Check the rental rates of a parcel before you purchase it! Private regions typically have a scripted rental system which Residents must pay in order to keep the land they've acquired. Parcel rentals on private regions may be rented by the month, week, day, or in some cases hours -- a private region owner has complete control over how they prefer to charge tenants for land in their region. Parcels in Private Regions are governed by covenants. A covenant is a kind of contract, defined by the owner of the Private Region, to which you must agree before buying the land. It may outline details such as local theme, rental fees, architectural regulations, and rules of behavior. Land purchased in a Private Region does not count against your land use tier or require a Premium membership, however the region owner will typically charge you a fee for continuing use of the land (rent). The Private Region owner may evict you from your parcel in a Private Region at any time. Private Region owners have absolute power over their estates and are within their rights to reclaim land as they see fit. Make sure to read your region's covenant closely for terms of use before you acquire your parcel. Private Region owners have use of the Region/Estate window which includes such region access options as: Access restricted to Residents based on payment status Region maturity can be set to General, Moderate, or Adult Important Note If a region owner changes the maturity setting for their region, it may affect who can access your parcel and view search listings made from it. Read the region covenant and communicate with the region owner (or estate manager where applicable) to avoid any disruptions to your parcel settings or access. Object land capacity Every region has a finite capacity for content -- that is, there's a limit to how many objects a region can hold that's determined by the type of the region (a full region versus a homestead, for example) and the hardware running that region. The limit for how much content a parcel can hold is typically based on its size -- the large a parcel is, the larger percentage of a region's content budget it can hold. This is called object land capacity (sometimes referred to by its old name of 'prim limit' -- before mesh, all objects were created out of 'primitive' objects like cubes and spheres linked together). With prims, a chair made from four linked cubes would have a land impact of four (one for each cube). The corresponding calculation for mesh objects are different, since they're complex and can't be measured as simply as a stack of prims. For more information on how mesh objects contribute to a parcel's available object capacity, see Calculating land impact. More than one parcel in a region All parcels belonging to the same owner (or group) in the same region share their land capacity. You can view this represented as Region capacity in the About Land window. In this way, it is possible for the Parcel land impact number to be higher than the Parcel land capacity number. To view the About Land window, stand on a parcel and select World > About Land. For information about objects on the land, select the Objects tab in the About Land window. Vehicles and parcel limits Objects that are Selected / sat upon do not count against the Parcel land capacity. This allows vehicles to pass freely through parcels that might not otherwise be able to support them. However, objects that are sat upon or selected (for editing) do count against a region's total capacity. If a Region is full, you cannot drive a vehicle into it. Object bonus factor In Private Regions, the owner may set an Object Bonus to increase the land capacity of each parcel. This setting multiplies the capacity each parcel can support by the Bonus Factor. It is important to note that this does not increase the maximum capacity supported by the Region, which means that not all parcels in the Region will be able to reach their listed maximum capacity.

The coalesce feature Coalesced object relationships Caveats about coalesced objects Troubleshooting selecting objects Sandboxes Public Linden sandboxes Building with other Residents The group method The friend method Tip: For an overview of the tools available for building objects in the Second Life world, see the Build Tools article. The coalesce feature A coalesced object is a combination of objects taken or returned into inventory together. If you select multiple objects and choose Take from the object menu, they'll be taken into your inventory as a coalesced object Try this experiment to locate your coalesced object in My Inventory: As this experiment shows, coalesced objects are found in My Inventory with the name of the last object selected. When the selected objects are taken into inventory, the coalesced object is located in the Objects folder. When they are returned, the coalesced object is located in the Lost And Found folder. Note: Single objects in inventory have an icon that looks like a cube (), while coalesced groups of objects have an icon that looks like a stack of cubes (). Coalesced object relationships When an object is placed inworld, it has coordinates that identify its location on the grid. These XYZ coordinates are relative to the region the object is placed in. When more than one object is taken or returned into a coalesced object and then rezzed at a new location, each object shows different XYZ values relative to the new location, however the objects maintain their spatial relationship to each other. For an introduction to coalesced object relationships, take a look at this quick tip video: Now that you see how objects maintain their relationships to each other, you can use this information when creating a coalesced object on a large parcel and rezzing that object on a smaller parcel. Since the objects maintain their relative positions, you will need enough square meters of land to rez the coalesced object again. Caveats about coalesced objects Rezzing a coalesced object near a parcel/region boundary may result in objects being returned to inventory. Coalesced objects have prim limits because the time required to rez them can exceed the capacities of Second Life's servers, causing problems when Residents attempt to take complex coalesced objects into inventory. To rez an object that exceeds the prim limit, create a support ticket requesting that the object be broken into a set of smaller objects. Parcel owners can rez Linden trees. When using the Click-Drag-Select method for your content, make sure the selection area does not contain Linden trees unless you are planning to rez the coalesced object on a parcel that you own. Take the same precautions when using Shift-Select. If you have a coalesced object with Linden trees or would like to learn more, watch this video tutorial: Selecting moving objects can cause those objects to go offworld when you rez the coalesced object. Either take those objects into inventory separately, or, if you want to turn off all scripts in all of the selected objects, go to Build > Scripts > Set Scripts to Not Running. Warning: If your coalesced object contains one or more no-copy objects and is rezzed across the boundary of a parcel where building isn't allowed, the content will not return to your inventory, resulting in content loss. Don't rez coalesced objects close to no-build parcels from Torley on Vimeo. Warning: A maximum of 1000 scripts can be rezzed at once! If you are creating a coalesced object with many scripts, try creating objects in sections that contain scripts so that you will be able to rez those objects again. If you have valuable content, take those items into inventory before taking or returning your other items. If you're having trouble rezzing a coalesced object, please contact Support for further assistance. Troubleshooting selecting objects Right-clicking an object and choosing Edit selects the object, opening a floating window with many editing options. Alternatively, in Edit mode, you can drag and draw a selection rectangle over multiple objects. If both of these fail to make object outlines appear (indicating they have been selected), then try the steps below. Go to Build > Options. Uncheck Select Only My Objects if you're trying to select objects owned by another Resident. This includes a friend who's given you permission to edit their objects. Uncheck Select Only Movable Objects if you're trying to select an object you can't move. This is generally determined by Allow anyone to move in the General tab of the build tools, but also applies to group-deeded objects and objects a friend has allowed you to edit. Uncheck Select By Surrounding if you have a hard time using the selection rectangle to select objects. Re-select the desired objects. Sandboxes A sandbox is a parcel of land which has been put aside for building practice. Much like real sandboxes and conceptual sandbox games, these are spaces of creativity and chaos. Several sandboxes exist for specific purposes — such as the Weapons Testing Sandbox — but the majority are simply for regular building. Signs within each sandbox area make it clear what kind of activities are allowed there. Sandboxes usually have auto return enabled to clean themselves several times a day; look for auto-clean info before building, so you aren't caught by surprise. Since sandboxes are experimental, they may also be unstable — be sure to regularly take inventory backups of anything that's important. What is a sandbox? from Torley on Vimeo. Public Linden sandboxes These full-region sandboxes are owned by Linden Lab: Sandbox Cordova - Push scripts off. Sandbox Goguen - Push scripts off. Sandbox Newcomb - All scripts off. Sandbox Wanderton - All scripts off. Sandbox Island - Push scripts off. Sandbox Island Extension - Push scripts off. Sandbox - Weapons testing (no damag - Push scripts on; damage off. Combat (sandbox) - Red Team's HQ - Damage-enabled; you can be killed here (and teleported home). Combat (sandbox) Rausch - Damage-enabled; you can be killed here (and teleported home). Combat (sandbox) - Blue Team's HQ - Damage-enabled; you can be killed here (and teleported home). Zindra Vortex - Located on the Adult continent Zindra. There are also these partial-region sandboxes, smaller than the above but still useful if you're nearby: Sandbox Morris - Near the famed Morris-Ahern Welcome Area. Sandbox Plum - Near Lime, which was at one time a Welcome Area and a copy of the even-older Morris design. Here "landbox" for terraforming - Feel free to reshape the terrain. Watch a video tutorial showing you how. Building with other Residents There are a few ways to allow friends to edit your objects in Second Life. This is often referred to as collaborative building or collaborative creation. It's a useful way to let groups of people work together on a building project. The group method Right-click the object and choose Edit to bring up the object editor. Click on the General tab in the editor. Click on the Edit Wrench to the right of Group and assign the object to the group you and your friend are in. Select the checkbox below. Note: If you want other group members to be able to take copies of your object, you should make sure to set the next owner permissions (Modify, Copy, Transfer) appropriately. Note: Any other group members will also be able to edit the object. Group members can only edit objects that are shared with the group, according to their Group Role permissions. Object-related group permissions (and friend permissions) are explained in this video tutorial: Let friends & groups edit your objects from Torley on Vimeo. The friend method Open your friends list by clicking Communicate > Friends. View your friend's profile by clicking the View profile icon on the far right by his or her name. Click the Gear button on the upper right of the profile window that appears and select Permissions from the dropdown. Select the Edit, delete or take my objects checkbox. Click Save. Important: This gives your friend the ability to edit all of your objects. Making sure you are shown as the creator of an object It sometimes happens that a skin or shape you've modified and prepared to sell still lists someone else as the creator. (To view the item's creator, right-click it in Inventory and select Object Profile.) This tends to happen if you use one of our system default avatar templates in your Inventory's Library > Clothing folder. If the item is fully permissive, then there are no functional restrictions: you can modify and sell it. For the sake of consistency, you may still prefer to have your name listed as its creator. To make sure your name is listed as the creator of an object: Click the Inventory icon on the toolbar. Click the + button at the bottom. You'll see you can make new item types like scripts, notecards, gestures, clothes, and body parts. All of these will list you as creator. Try it and see! While you cannot change the creator of an item, you can copy a modifiable item's settings to another item that lists you as creator. For example, a body shape consists of numerous slider settings, so you can reproduce the shape by using the same slider settings. Important: Respect intellectual property! Don't use the technique above to infringe on someone else's copyright. All objects you originally rez inworld are created in your name. If you link multiple objects together to form a linkset (Build > Link), the last selected prim will be the visible creator when an object's properties are shown, although that doesn't tell the full story. To show all prim creators in an object: Right-click the object. Click Object Profile. The INVENTORY window opens. Click the Details button at the bottom of the window. This opens a window that lists the individual prims and who originally created them.

.gallery { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: center; gap: 20px; } .gallery img { width: 300px; height: 200px; object-fit: cover; border-radius: 10px; } How to build objects Getting started Editing prims Using Shift-drag to copy objects Using the Copy selection feature Using the Content tab Linking objects Linking The Undo Feature In other languages: Français How to build objects This page presents a short "crash course" on building in the Second Life® virtual world. Getting started You can create objects only on land that permits building. Land that prohibits object creation is marked Building/dropping not allowed: when you are on such a parcel, you will see an icon at the top of your screen as shown in the image at right. To begin building: Right-click the ground and choose Build to open the Build window. You can also press Ctrl+4 or Ctrl+B or select Build from the top menu on your Viewer. In the Build window, choose the type of basic shape (or primitive) you wish to create, then click the location inworld where you wish to build it. The shape appears (typically with a resounding "whoosh" sound). Editing prims Use the Build window to move, resize, rotate and otherwise manipulate inworld objects. Tip: Checking Snap to grid in the Build window forces you to position objects on an arbitrary grid. This is helpful in making sure that objects line up correctly and are precisely spaced. The video tutorial below discusses working with the building grid, which is useful for precision in building. Topics include: Turning on the grid Adjusting grid increments Adjusting grid snap-to increments Altering grid length Snapping objects to the grid How to use the building grid from Torley on Vimeo. Moving Right-click an object and select Edit. This opens the Build window to the Object tab. Choose Move to enable the Position function. Click and drag the red/green/blue axes on an object to move it around. Clicking on the red (X), green (Y), and blue (Z) arrows lets you drag the object only along those axes. Rotating Right-click an object and select Edit. Choose Rotate in the Build window to bring up the rotation sphere. Click and drag anywhere within the sphere to rotate the object freely along all three axes. Click and drag a specific ring (red/green/blue) to rotate the object only around that axis. Resizing Right-click an object and select Edit. Choose Stretch from the Build window to bring up the sizing box. Click and drag one of the white corner boxes to scale the entire object proportionally. Click and drag a red, green or blue box to re-size a prim's length, width or height (respectively) without changing the other dimensions. If the Stretch Both Sides option is checked, the object's opposite corner moves in the opposite direction. If Stretch Both Sides is unchecked, the opposite corner remains in place. If the Stretch Textures option is checked, the object's textures are proportionally resized together with the object. If unchecked, the textures retain their original size. This means that if you are increasing the object's size, the textures repeat rather than stretching to fill the additional area. If you are downsizing, you will see only as much of the original texture as fits on the smaller object. Entering specific values Under the Object tab (shown above), enter specific X, Y, and 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 red, green and blue axes meet). Advanced edits Advanced building tools on the Object tab. Slice takes volume from the object. Path Cut removes pieces from within. The Object tab offers several additional options for editing basic prim shapes. Here are some common examples: Path Cut (begin/end): Takes out a slice of the object around its local X-axis (except for boxes and cylinders, which have slices taken from the Z-axis). You can specify where the cut starts and ends. Hollow: Puts a hollow center in the object starting from the center of the shape and expanding out. You can specify what percentage of the radius is hollow. Twist (begin/end): Puts twists into the object, warping its shape as well as texture alignment. Taper: Reduces the size of the top or bottom sides (x or y axes, negative or positive) of the prim. Top Shear: Shifts (shears/skews) the top surface of the object away from the bottom. You can shift the X and Y axes separately. Dimple (begin/end): Cuts a hole in a sphere from ring of latitude (you specify the percentage) to the top or bottom of the Z axis. The dimple cuts straight to the origin of the object (leaving a cone-shaped hole). Slice: Cuts vertical slices from your object along the Z-axis. Three useful features You may find the following features useful as you build and move objects: Show Hidden Selection - Choose Build > Options > Show Hidden Selection to see the hidden contours and planes of a selected object. Show Light Radius for Selection - This feature shows the range of illumination for a lighted object. To use it: Right-click the desired object and select Edit > Features. Select the checkbox next to Light.The object is now a light source. Choose Build > Options > Show Light Radius for Selection to see how far the emitted light from the object travels. To adjust the distance of the object's emitted light, right-click it, select Edit > Features, and click the up and down arrows to increase or decrease the Radius. Show Selection Beam - The selection beam is the line of particles you see when you are pointing at and manipulating objects. The feature is on by default, but if you think it gets in the way, you can disable it: Choose Build > Options and uncheck Show Selection Beam. Using Shift-drag to copy objects You can Shift -drag to copy an object you have permission to copy. This isn't obviously stated in the build tools but is a popular way to copy objects. Here's a simple example: Right-click the ground and choose Build. Click the ground again to rez a generic cube. Right-click the cube and choose Edit. The positioning arrows appear. Hold down Shift , left-click one of the arrow heads, and drag the object. You're dragging the original, and a copy is left behind at the original location. Tip: If you use Build > Undo (Ctrl+Z) after Shift -dragging an object, the original snaps back to its original position — a creative use of selective Undo. You can do this to align it another way. Using the Copy selection feature Copy selection allows you to duplicate selected prims and align them adjacent to each other. For example, if you're copying sections of a wall and Shift -dragging to copy is proving tricky to fine-tune, you may want to take advantage of this alternative. To understand how this works, let's use a simple example: Right-click the ground and choose Build. Click the ground again to rez a generic cube. From the Build Tools window, select Create. Check Keep Tool selected so we can do the following steps repeatedly. Click the Copy selection checkbox. For now, check Center Copy and uncheck Rotate Copy. Now, click on the faces of the cube. Each time you do so, the cube is duplicated, aligned edge-to-edge with a previous cube. Here's what the options do: Center Copy - Copies are centered on the target object, which is useful for neat building in-a-line where you want objects to be aligned along an axis. Otherwise, objects will be placed edge-to-edge, but may be staggered or askew. Note that with curved prims like spheres, this means one of the copy's edges is touching the source, but isn't interpenetrating (overlapping). Rotate Copy - Copies rotate to match the target object, instead of the original values the source object has. This can make it easier to line up something that's already at an angle, such as a house's slanted roof. Using the Content tab If you have permission to modify an object, you ca use the Content tab to:: Drag any objects from your Inventory into the Content folder. Copy or move the contents of an object to your Inventory. Permanently delete objects from the Content folder. To add inventory to the object Content folder: Right-click the object inworld and choose Edit from the pie menu (or press Ctrl-3 and click on the object). Open the Content tab (click More if you can't see it). Drag the desired item from your Inventory into the Content folder. To remove objects from the Content folder: Right-click on the object inworld and choose Open from the pie menu. Use one of the following options: Open your Inventory and drag the contents to your Inventory window. Click Copy to Inventory. Click Copy and Wear. Note: If the contents have copy permissions, a copy is placed in your Inventory. If an object is (no copy), the object will leave the Contents folder and move to your Inventory. Select one or more objects (Ctrl-select more than one object), right-click and select Delete (or press the Delete key on your keyboard) to remove objects without placing them in your Inventory. Important: Objects that are not rezzed, but are instead deleted from a Content folder do not go to your Inventory Trash folder! They are permanently deleted. If the object is (no copy), be aware it will be gone if you select it and press the Delete key! Note: Unlike your own inventory, an object's inventory cannot have two items with the same name. If you copy an item with the same name as an existing item into the object's inventory, the new object will be renamed; e.g. object, object 1, object 2 etc. Linking objects You can link several primitives (prims) together to create one cohesive object. A linked object is, for all intents and purposes, considered one object. It has one name, acts as one object (for example, if physics are enabled on it), and it cannot be broken apart unless you Unlink it. However, a linked object still counts as the sum of its prims when determining your land's object limits. One prim of the object is considered the parent or root link. The name of the parent link is the name of the whole linked object. The inventory of the root prim is, for most purposes, the inventory of the whole object. The center (or origin) of the root prim is the center of the whole object, even if the root prim is not the physical center of the object itself. Vehicle scripts look at the root prim's orientation to determine the "front" of the vehicle. As a result, it is important which prim you select as the root prim. Linking Follow these steps to link together two or more prims: If you are not in the object Editor already, right-click any object and choose Edit, or open the Editor with Ctrl-3. With no object selected in the editor, hold down Shift and click on each prim you wish to link together, one at a time. Make the most important prim and/or scripted prim (root) the last one you select (such as the seat of a vehicle). Then, go to the Tools menu and select Link, or just press Ctrl-L. You can select Tools->Unlink or press Ctrl-Shift-L to break the object apart. Be aware of the following limitations: A linked object cannot exceed 54 meters in any dimension. Normally a linkset can have up to 256 prims; sitting avatars count as one prim each. Vehicles, or any physics-enabled object, cannot have more than 32 prims (sitting avatars don't count toward the physical prim limit). There is no nesting of linked groups. In other words, if you link a third object to two objects already linked and then unlink them it will not yield two groups but three. The Undo Feature Second Life's Undo is used to revert certain changes to an earlier state. While selecting an object, use Build > Undo, or the much quicker keyboard shortcut of Ctrl-Z. Watch this video to learn more: How to use Undo from Torley on Vimeo. Limitations Undo doesn't work if you have: Changed any of the texture settings on an object. (It won't switch back to the previous setting.) Deleted an object. (It won't bring it back inworld.) Added contents to an object. (If you drag a no-copy object from inventory into another object's contents, selecting Undo won't take it out.) This isn't all-inclusive; Undo generally doesn't work for most of an object's parameters. What does undo work on? Undo primarily reverts changes made to the position, size, and rotation of an object. For example, if you accidentally move a sofa inside a wall, undo snaps it back to where it was last. As shown in the video above, Undo can help you retrieve objects lost in walls. If you change the position, size, or rotation of an object using the numerical entry fields in the Build window's Object tab, you must click the object again to bring into focus and make Undo work. You can also use Undo when writing notecards or editing scripts; in this context, it functions similarly to a word processor's, and untypes what you last entered. Undo should also work on attachments. Please note that: Each object has its own independent "chain" of undos which remembers multiple steps. Since this data is stored on our servers, you should be able revert changes to objects inworld even after relogging. Remember that you must specifically select an object to undo changes to that object. (You'll see the positioning arrows and a yellow silhouette glow.)

Overview Why provide billing information? Second Life billing policies Premium membership Land use fees Private region fees Auctions Region rental Linden dollar exchange How to view or change your billing information Adding a new payment method Associating payment methods with payment types Changing stored payment information VAT and changing your billing country Processing credit on your US Dollar balance Accepted currencies and payment methods PayPal Skrill Understanding Transaction History Understanding Account History LindeX Land fees Billing for land holdings Private Regions Mainland holdings Preventing common billing problems General Credit cards PayPal Using PayPal How to setup payment with PayPal Contacting Linden Lab billing support Common issues and frequently asked questions I can't update my payment information I'm having trouble paying—what's going to happen? I paid US$ for something, but it's not showing up yet I get a "Not Authorized" message when entering billing information Why was I charged $1.00 on my credit card? Issues with American Express Why was I billed an additional transaction fee? Issues with prepaid and gift cards I receive an error message when I try to make a Marketplace purchase using my Credit Card or PayPal account In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Italiano 日本语 Português Русский Türkçe Overview Why provide billing information? Although a basic account gives you full access to Second Life and does not require a credit card or PayPal account, if you add a credit card or a verified PayPal account you can: Get a premium level account. Own land. Buy or sell Linden dollars. Second Life billing policies Read the full Second Life Billing Policies, also linked to from the Terms of Service. Linden Lab® will bill your account only under very specific circumstances. All charges are deducted from your U.S. Dollars (USD) balance first, and then from your credit card or PayPal account if your USD balance is insufficient. Premium membership Premium account holders are charged according to the payment plan they have selected. Depending on the plan, charges may occur monthly, quarterly, or yearly. See your Account Summary to find out your current billing rate. To change your billing rate, see the Upgrade/Downgrade Membership page. Land use fees The land use fee (also known as tier) is a variable monthly charge that increases with the amount of land you own in Second Life. For more information about land use fees, see the Land Pricing & Use Fees page. Land use fees are separate from private region fees. Private region fees In addition to the initial charge to buy a private region, owners of private regions pay a monthly fee to Linden Lab. Private region fees are charged directly to your credit card or PayPal account, and are separate from other land use fees. See Buying private Regions for a comparison of private region fees. Note: Private Region fees exclude VAT and GST. Visit the Land Portal for more information about land types and pricing, including access to the Land Store and Auction site. There are fees for certain region changes, such as renaming, moving, or converting to a different region type; see Managing Private Regions for details. Auctions Some land auctions are denominated in U.S. Dollars. Winning an auction incurs a one-time payment, but can cause an increase in your monthly Land Use Fees if the additional land moves you to the next Land Tier. For more information about land auctions in Second Life, see the Auction FAQ. Region rental It is possible to rent an entire Region for a short period of time. The cost of renting a Region is L$4000 per day, paid in full on the first day of the rental. Note that this price is listed in Linden dollars (L$) instead of U.S. dollars. For more information on Region rental, visit the Land Portal. Linden dollar exchange All Residents have the option of trading U.S. Dollars for Linden Dollars (L$) on the Linden Dollar Exchange (LindeX). LindeX charges are generated on a per-transaction basis; you will only be charged if and when you decide to make an exchange. You may also purchase Linden Dollars inworld by clicking the Buy L$ button next to your inworld Linden Dollar balance. For additional information on LindeX transaction fees, see the LindeX: Fees page. Some credit card issuers charge a small fee if the payment settles in a currency that is not native to the card. If you're in the United States and are being charged a foreign transaction fee with your current credit card, try deleting and re-entering your payment method. This should resolve your foreign transaction fees; if it does not, consult your financial institution for details on their schedule of fees. Warning: If you find any suspicious or unexpected charges on your credit card or PayPal statement that appear to be from Linden Lab, gather all available information and open a billing support case for investigation. How to view or change your billing information To view your billing information, see the Billing Information page on the Second Life website. Note: For security reasons, you can only view the type of card affiliated with your account and the last four digits of the card number. You cannot view the full number. On the Billing Information page, you can view your current Linden dollar (L$) and US dollar balances, view and add US dollar payment methods for your account, and set which payment methods will be used for different types of purchases. Adding a new payment method To add a credit card, PayPal, or Skrill account to your Second Life account, click Add a Credit Card, Add a PayPal account, or Add a Skrill account. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up a billing agreement with PayPal or Skrill, or fill in your credit card information accordingly. Once you have added a payment method, it is saved for your account and you can associate it with various types of payments. See the next section for more information. You can also add a new payment method during a transaction, when selecting a payment method. If you add a credit card, PayPal account, or Skrill account in this way, it is automatically associated with the type of payment being made. Associating payment methods with payment types You may specify which payment method you would like to use for each of the following payment types: Buying L$ in the Viewer Buying L$ on the web Buying land, Premium fees, recurring fees To associate a payment method, go to the Other Payment Methods section of the Billing Information page and click Change next to the payment method you would like to use, then check boxes next to your desired payment types on the provided list. You may remove this association at any time by clicking Change next to the payment method, then un-checking the boxes next to the associated payment types. You can also change an associated payment method during a transaction by choosing a different payment method or adding a new payment method for that transaction. Changing stored payment information To change stored information about one of your payment methods, you must delete that payment method and re-enter it. You may delete a stored payment method by clicking Remove next to that payment method on the Billing Information page. VAT/GST and changing your billing country Your selected country determines the payment methods available to you. Normally, you should not need to change your billing country, but you may need to update it if you are traveling or have moved to a new location. You can change your billing country by clicking the Change button next to your country's name on the Billing Information page. Countries and Areas Subject to VAT or GST Countries belonging to the European Union (EU) United Kingdom Norway Australia If your billing country is on the list above, you may be subject to the collection of value added tax (VAT). In Australia, this tax is called the Goods and Services Tax (GST). If you are a business and are reselling, or adding value to Second Life before providing it to a consumer, you may be eligible to provide your government-issued VAT ID number or your Australian Business Number in order to be excluded from the collection of VAT or GST. If you see "Subject to VAT" under your billing country's name on the Billing Information page, you can add your exception by clicking Add VAT Exception or Add Australian Business Number and providing your ID. For more information, see VAT frequently asked questions Processing credit on your US Dollar balance You may request that some or all of your US Dollar balance be credited to a PayPal or Skrill account by performing a process-credit request. Please see the corresponding section of the Account balance article for full details. Accepted currencies and payment methods You may use the following payment methods with Second Life: Visa American Express MasterCard Delta Online (non-U.S. Residents only) JCB Diners Club Discover (U.S. Residents only) Visa Electron (non-U.S. Residents only) PayPal Skrill The currencies accepted for payment include: CAD, AUD, JPY, EUR, GBP for non-U.S. Residents, and USD for U.S. Residents Note: If you have had a payment method on file since before December 7, 2011, you may need to remove and re-add that payment method before making payments in non-USD currencies. PayPal To use an existing PayPal balance when making transactions with Second Life, it must be in USD. You can convert your balance to USD at paypal.com (PayPal may impose exchange fees). Skrill Skrill offers a variety of payment options including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, along with over 100 local payment options listed on their Payment Options page. For a complete list of currencies accepted by Skrill, visit their official website and view the page on Fees and Availability. Understanding Transaction History You can view your transaction history in two places from your account page on the Second Life website: Account > L$ Transaction History Displays your Linden Dollar (L$) transactions for the selected date range (up to 32 days with a basic account, or 90 days with a premium subscription). You can also download the data in XLS (Excel) and XML format. Linden Exchange > Manage > LindeX Order History Displays: Your Linden dollar and US dollar account balances. Your remaining LindeX™ trading limits for the next 24 hours and 30 days. Your remaining account billing limits for the next 24 hours and 30 days. Your LindeX™ Exchange Transaction History, including both closed and open (unexecuted limit buy or sell) orders. Understanding Account History Choose Account > Account History/Statements from the sidebar on your Second Life account page to access your account history. This page shows all your account transactions for the previous 45 days that involve real-world currency. LindeX For purchases of Linden dollars on the LindeX, you will see two entries: one corresponding to the L$ buy, and one corresponding to the transaction payment. So, for example, this is correct: Time Confirmation ID Note Amount Ending Balance 08/17/2010 08:41:22 102230685019 Customer Payment ($7.75) $23.23 08/17/2010 08:41:22 - LindeX Currency Buy $7.75 $30.94 Because of timing issues these may appear in the opposite order. So, for example, this is also correct: Time Confirmation ID Note Amount Ending Balance 08/17/2010 08:41:22 - LindeX Currency Buy $7.75 $30.94 08/17/2010 08:41:22 102230685019 Customer Payment ($7.75) $23.23 Land fees When you purchase land, pay land maintenance fees, or premium membership fees, you will see three entries: One entry for the payment One entry for the purchase One entry for the VAT charge (if applicable). Time Confirmation ID Note Amount Ending Balance 09/09/2010 09:42:18 - My New Land (Estate: My New Land) $1,029.00 $0.00 09/09/2010 09:42:18 - VAT charge for United Kingdom at 17.50% $180.07 ($1,029.00) 09/09/2010 09:42:18 102234890171 Payment of 814.49 GBP, Visa ending with 1038 ($1,209.07) ($1,209.07) Again, the entries can appear in any order, so the far right column can look different in each case. Billing for land holdings Private Regions As with all US$ transactions, Private Region (island) setup fees first bill against any US$ credit in your account and then against the payment method you have associated with buying land. If you are using PayPal, you may need to adjust your monthly billing allowance. See the next section for instructions. If you use a credit card, you may need to notify your credit card provider of the upcoming purchase. See Account balance for details. Mainland holdings On the mainland, billing is based on peak usage for the prior 30 days. As stated on the Land Use Fees page: Once the peak usage has been billed, your peak usage is reset to the current amount of land you own or have donated to a group. All land owned or donated during the prior 30 days is counted regardless of the amount of time for which it was held. Account fees, which are separate from mainland billing, are based on the user's signup date and are paid in advance. Preventing common billing problems Below are some common causes of billing problems and steps to prevent them. General Make sure that you have payment information on file when attempting to make a purchase. Transactions with Linden Lab require you to specify a form of payment to charge when you make purchases or payments. Credit cards Here are some common reasons for credit card failure: You entered the credit card number incorrectly. You did not enter the billing address or entered it incorrectly. It should be the same address that appears on your bill. You did not enter the name on the card or entered differently from how it appears on the card. Billing Information page. The credit card is not in the list of accepted payment methods (see above) You did not enter the CVV (3 digits on the back, or 4 digits on the front for AmEx) or entered it incorrectly. The card is expired, or the expiration date was entered incorrectly. There are no funds available on the credit card to validate it. We send a US$1.00 authorization to ensure that a credit card is valid. This is not a billing, but the card must have at least US$1.00 available on it to pass validation. Your monthly payment limit is reached, and/or your bank is not authorizing any more transactions. The issuing bank has not pre-approved transactions with Linden Research, Inc. Contact the issuing bank to resolve the problem. If you are outside the US, your card may not be set up for international/overseas transactions (this is very common with Visa Electron). If none of the above applies, contact your credit card provider to determine the cause. You may also contact Linden Lab Billing Support. PayPal One of the more common issues with establishing PayPal as a method of payment is that the PayPal account isn't Verified. To use your PayPal account with Linden Lab, it must be verified and be capable of making instant transfers. See PayPal's Help page for information on how to verify your PayPal account. Linden Lab does not accept e-check (bank account) payments through PayPal because they cannot be processed quickly enough to match the instant delivery of virtual goods and services. Therefore, we require that you have a credit card on file with PayPal as a backup payment source, or that you have an existing USD PayPal balance sufficient for any purchases you'd like to make. Without a sufficient USD balance in your PayPal account, you will not be able to use it with only a bank account. ⚠️ If you'd like to use your PayPal account without having a backup credit card on file, please add USD funds to your PayPal balance before you make a purchase. When you add PayPal as a method of payment for Second Life, it creates an automatic payment agreement. These automatic payment agreements have a default monthly limit (usually US$250.00). You can raise or lower that limit for your agreement with Linden Lab to meet your needs at PayPal's website, but if you'd like specific steps on how to do that, please visit PayPal's Help page and search for automatic payment. See Using PayPal for more information. Using PayPal How to set up payment with PayPal First, if you have any existing automatic payment agreements with Linden Research or Tilia, Inc at PayPal, please remove them. To remove existing payment agreements, follow these steps: Log in to your PayPal account. Click the Gear Icon. Click the Payments tab. Click Manage automatic payments. In the Automatic payments section, if you have any existing billing agreements with Linden Research or Tilia Inc, select and cancel them. Next, return to SecondLife.com and add your PayPal account as a method of payment: At SecondLife.com, click Login on the upper right (if you are not already logged in). On your Account Dashboard, click Account on the sidebar on the left to expand the Account section. Select Billing Information Under Other Payment Methods, click Add a PayPal Account From here, you'll be taken to PayPal's site to log in and set up the automatic payment agreement. Once your preferences are saved at PayPal, the Billing Information page will show your PayPal account has been added successfully. If you wish, you may also select what types of transactions you would like to use your PayPal account for by clicking Change under the 'Used for' column on the Billing Information page. Some Residents prefer to use different methods of payment for purchasing L$ in the Second Life Viewer, for example. You must have funds available in your Preferred funding source (PayPal balance) for any purchase to go through. If you do not have enough funds in your Preferred source, the remaining balance will be drawn from your Backup funding source (bank account or credit card). Note: Regarding PayPal passwords and security: The page where you log into PayPal is a PayPal page. We do not receive this information; PayPal does. It's a good idea to look at your browser address bar to ensure you see a lock icon to the left of the webpage's address; this helps to ensure that you're on a secure website. Contacting Linden Lab billing support If you have a non-technical issue related to billing concerns, you can call the Linden Lab billing team at the following numbers: US/Canada (toll free): 800-294-1067 Long distance (not toll free): 703-286-6277 Our Billing team is available from 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM PST, Monday through Friday. Common issues and frequently asked questions I can't update my payment information If your payment methods are not updating properly, it often has something to do with the bank or card issuer. Some credit card companies will automatically decline or hold for review international charges (or "online gaming" charges) as a safeguard against fraud. If you are located in the U.S., delete and re-enter your payment method. This will make it go through the domestic processor, which reduces the chances of your financial institution putting a hold on the transaction. Important: Credit and debit cards may require up to 30 minutes to update in our system. Even if you receive the message “your payment information has been successfully updated,” it may take up to 30 minutes for purchases to successfully complete. If your purchase fails, please wait 30 minutes before trying again. If you're having trouble getting a payment method to update: If you have waited at least 30 minutes and are still experiencing failed transactions or information that is still marked as "pending update", please delete and re-enter your billing information or try an alternate method of payment (credit or debit card). To update your billing information: Go to Your Dashboard. Click Account. Click Billing Information. Update your billing information then click Submit. If the update is successful, you will see the message "Your information has been successfully updated". To avoid the risk of failed transactions, please wait 30 minutes before transacting. This allows the payment processor time to fully update. After the second attempt, if transactions are still failing or information is still pending update, contact your credit or debit card issuer: Ask to speak directly to the risk and security department. Explain that you wish to authorize your card for charges from Linden Research and Second Life. While on the phone, clear and re-enter your billing information. The bank or card issuer should then see (and approve) a temporary $1 verification charge. (This verification charge will disappear automatically; you will not have to pay it.) If you are still unable to complete a transaction after following the above steps, please contact Linden Lab billing support for further assistance. I'm having trouble paying—what's going to happen? If we are not able to bill your account for the balance due, your account has 30 days to settle this balance due before we place your account on hold. During this first 30 days of delinquency, you can continue to use Second Life and log in as usual. Your Premium membership stipends, if you have any, will be placed on hold until your balance due is settled, but will be delivered once your account balance is cleared. After this 30 day grace period is over, if you continue to have a delinquent balance, we will place your account on hold. During this period, you can go to your account page and update your credit card information and manually settle the balance to immediately reactivate your account. While you can still access secondlife.com to clear the balance due, you will not be able to access your inworld accounts while delinquent. For more information, see Delinquency policy. If you're concerned about upcoming Premium charges, you can convert your account status to basic membership to keep it available to you at no charge by downgrading your account. Please note that if you own land, you may need to sell or abandon ownership of that land in order to downgrade. Charges for mainland are based on the maximum amount of land that you owned in the last billing period, so there may be one more payment due before fees cease to be incurred. You must clear all charges for land owned and land tier donations to avoid additional fees. If you have any questions or concerns about maintaining your account or making payments, please contact our Support team for assistance. I paid US$ for something, but it's not showing up yet There are a few things related to Second Life that you need to pay for using US$. These things include: Premium account Land use tier Purchasing L$ from the LindeX In most cases, charges for new premium subscriptions or increases in land use tier should appear and be available immediately after purchase. If you're on the website, you may need to log out and log back in again to refresh your information. If you've purchased L$ and you haven't yet received them, it's possible that you have made a Limit Buy, a special type of L$ purchase that may take longer than usual to arrive. For more about Limit Buys and how they're created, please see Limit Buys on the Buying and selling L$ page. You can also check your LindeX Order History on your Account Dashboard page at SecondLife.com, under the Linden Exchange section on the left sidebar. When something like your land fees are due, the charge is applied to your account automatically in the evening (Pacific time) on the scheduled due date. In some instances, you may see a balance due message on your account if you check your account around the time that land fees are charged; don't worry, this doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem. Balances are typically charged automatically overnight, or you can click the pay your balance link from the Account Dashboard at any time to resolve the message if you'd prefer not to wait. In general, if you're having problems that seem to indicate the system doesn't realize that you've paid for something, please contact our Support team for assistance and they'd be happy to help. I get a "Not Authorized" message when entering billing information This error message typically means that the institution issuing the card you're trying to use has rejected the attempt to set up a payment agreement. You should contact the card's issuer to resolve this problem. This can sometimes happen if the card issuer believes activity to be unusual, or if you haven't used a particular card before, and can only be resolved with the card issuer (as they're the source of the rejection). Why was I charged $1.00 on my credit card? We have to attempt a small, temporary charge in order to establish your method of payment in the system. These are sometimes known as temporary preauthorization charges, which are relatively common when establishing a new payment method. These temporary charges are only visible on your account until we receive confirmation from your payment method issuer that everything updated correctly and is working properly. Once we've received confirmation that your method of payment is valid, we cancel the temporary charge, which tells the credit card company to remove it. While these temporary preauthorization charges might appear on your account statement, you don't have to pay them, and they will disappear automatically on their own. If you have any questions about a temporary preauthorization charge, please contact your credit card issuer or PayPal customer support for more information about how they might appear on your account statement. Issues with American Express If you're planning to purchase land or L$ through Linden Lab with an American Express card, you should first call American Express and authorize an open billing agreement with Linden Lab. Once American Express has enabled it, you should be able to use your American Express card to buy land or L$. Why was I billed an additional transaction fee? When payments are settled in a currency not native to your payment method, your bank may charge what is commonly called a "foreign transaction fee." This fee is not generated or collected by Linden Lab, and we can't control or cancel it. If you're in the United States and are being charged the foreign transaction fee on your current credit card, you should try deleting and re-entering your current payment method at https://secondlife.com/account/billing.php. This process should stop the foreign transaction fees in most cases; if they continue, you should contact your financial institution to learn the details of your personal situation. Issues with prepaid and gift cards A common cause of payment method failure is the use of unsupported card types. At this time, the majority of prepaid cards are not compatible with our system, even if they bear the VISA/AMEX/MasterCard logo. This may include prepaid cards purchased at retail stores, rechargeable credit cards, and bank-issued check cards. As a note, some Residents might find that a prepaid debit card will work once for a one-time purchase, such as Linden dollars, but fails to work after that. This is generally related to limitations in how many prepaid cards are authorized for transactions, so a prepaid card might stop working even if there are funds available. Some Residents without a credit card find PayPal to be an acceptable alternative, as there are ways to verify and fund a PayPal wallet that don't require a regular credit card, such as linking directly to a bank account. In general, when using PayPal as your method of payment without a credit card, adding funds to the PayPal account before using it in Second Life works best. I receive the error message "This transaction cannot be completed with your chosen payment method, please purchase L$ and reattempt your purchase." when I try to make a purchase using my Credit Card or PayPal account on the Marketplace Occasionally, purchasing L$ with your credit card or PayPal account as part of a Marketplace transaction can fail, particularly if the Marketplace is unusually busy. As a workaround, purchasing L$ separately at SecondLife.com and then returning to the Marketplace to complete checkout will typically resolve the problem. To purchase additional Linden dollars to complete your purchase: On the upper-right of the Marketplace page, click Buy L$. If you don't see a Buy L$ at the top of the page, you can also visit SecondLife.com and select Buy L$ from the Linden Exchange section of your Account Dashboard. In the Linden Dollars (L$) box, enter the amount of Linden Dollars necessary to complete your purchase. Click Place Order. Return to the Marketplace and check out using Linden dollars as your method of payment.

Moving your avatar Walking Running Jumping and ducking Flying Double-tap run Using vehicles Physical v. non-physical vehicles Where to use vehicles Scripting a vehicle Troubleshooting avatar movement In other languages: Deutsch Français Moving your avatar Walking Watch this video tutorial to get started, then read on for details: BASICS: Moving & flying from Torley on Vimeo. There are three ways to walk your avatar with the keyboard: Arrow keys W A S D keys - Inworld must have focus, meaning that the chat bar is closed or you've clicked inworld. Otherwise, these keys will type in the chat bar. Numeric keypad - Not all keyboards have this. You can also strafe — walk sideways without changing your camera focus — by holding Shift ? and the left and right movement keys. For example, Shift ?+←. Instead of turning, your avatar will walk in those directions. Running Running is done with the same keys as walking. Running is usually a toggle: press Ctrl+R and try moving around! Jumping and ducking Tap Page Up or E to jump. Hold Page Down or C to duck (squat). Tip: After jumping, hold down Space to slow your ascent dramatically. It looks almost as if you're frozen in mid-air. Flying Holding the same key to jump makes you fly. Tip: If that doesn't work, go to Me > Preferences > Move & View and enable Arrow keys always move me. You can also select Move > Fly from the toolbar at the bottom of the Viewer window. Note: In Second Life, there's no effective height limit to flying. Unaided, an avatar can reach approximately 200 vertical meters, but if you've got a flight assist script, you can continue to propel yourself upwards to millions, even billions of meters. See also Limits. Double-tap run If you don't want to always run, you can make your avatar walk or run with use of your arrow keys. Double-tap and hold the up arrow key to run forward. Tap and hold the up arrow key again to walk. This feature gives a more realistic appearance to avatar movement. To enable double-tap run: Open Me > Preferences to open the PREFERENCES window. Click the Move & View tab. Check the Tap-tap-hold to run checkbox. Using vehicles In Second Life, there are many kinds of vehicles, from realistic sports cars to fantastical spaceships. You can browse and buy from thousands of vehicles on the Marketplace. Vehicle operation varies widely; consult each vehicle's specific manual, or ask the creator for help. You can however operate most vehicles by right-clicking and selecting the appropriate option. Your avatar is seated in control of the vehicle, and the same directional keys used to control your avatar are now operating the vehicl, as shown in this video: Driving a vehicle from Torley on Vimeo. All capable vehicles are scripted; there is an amazing array of possibilities. Vehicles come in physical and non-physical varieties (although some can "switch" from one to another as-needed for specific purposes, like dampening the adverse effects of region crossings). Physical v. non-physical vehicles Physical vehicles behave according to Second Life's physical rules. For example, if you drive a car over a ledge, it may coast for awhile due to the momentum propelling it forward, but gravity acts upon it until it hits the ground. Physical vehicles must be 32 prims or fewer (see Limits). This prim economy makes vehicle-creators quite savvy and resourceful about how each prim is used in vehicle's overall construction. Non-physical vehicles can be 256 prims or fewer (see Limits), including the driver and passengers, each of which counts as a prim. Since non-physical vehicles are not affected by physics, their motion may appear stilted and stiff, although their visual appearance may be more detailed. This generally makes "non-phys" vehicles a better choice for floating UFOs and large warships which don't need to interact with collisions and other kinetic behaviors. The best way to understand is to learn, so try out various vehicles of each type. Where to use vehicles Your vehicle can go just about anywhere your avatar can go. To rez a vehicle, you need to find a buildable parcel of land (make sure that there is no icon in the menu bar that shows a prim with a slashed red circle on top of it). There are many public roads and waterways constructed by Linden Lab to enjoy traveling on. Some of these are marked as Protected Land (shown as the parcel name in the menu bar); others have been crafted by the Linden Department of Public Works. Scripting a vehicle If you are interested in learning how to script a vehicle yourself, the Linden Vehicle Tutorial is a good place to start. Troubleshooting avatar movement If your avatar begins moving erratically or uncontrollably: Try logging out of Second Life and restarting the program. If that doesn't work, try right-clicking on yourself and selecting Take Off > Detach All to remove your attachments. Then, try relogging. Scripted attachments have the ability to affect your avatar's movement, so always try to make sure you know what you are attaching to yourself! If you have dropped an object on the ground which is animating your avatar, follow these steps to stop the animation: Locate the rezzed object. Right-click on it and select Take. Locate the object in your inventory, right-click on it and select Wear. Detach the object. A simple wear-and-detach can often "reset" unexpected scripting problems in attachments. If that still doesn't work, try unplugging your modems and routers for a full minute, then plug them back in and log back into Second Life. If you get stuck in something (like a box or a cage): Look for the ground or an object in the open. Right-click on it and select Sit Here. It takes a few seconds, and you may hear some bumping noises, but your avatar should magically fly out of there soon enough. If that doesn't work, remember that you can always teleport somewhere else to escape!

Adding attachments to your avatar Editing attachments Removing attachments from your avatar Any object in your inventory can be attached to your avatar and worn as part of an outfit. Examples of attachments include customized hair, jewelry, shoes, weapons, and other accessories. Attachments may contain scripts, but they do not count against a land parcel's object limit. Adding attachments to your avatar The easiest way to add an attachment to your avatar is to click the Inventory button on the left side of the Viewer window, find ithe attachment in My Inventory, right-click it, and select Wear. This causes the object to attach to your avatar at its last known attachment point and rotation; if you position a hat object on your avatar's head and then remove it, it will reattach itself in the same location next time you wear it. If the object has never been attached to an avatar, choosing Wear attaches it to your avatar's right hand, replacing any attachment that is currently worn on that attachment point. If you wish to attach an object to a specific part of your avatar's body, find it in your inventory, right-click it, select Attach To, and then select an attachment point. Attachments move and rotate relative to the attachment point to which they are attached. For example, a wristwatch object attached to your avatar's left forearm moves with his arm, even if you use the Build Tools to edit its location. To wear multiple attachments on a single attachment point, find an additional attachment in your inventory, right-click it, and select Add or Attach To. Add works similarly to Wear but does not replace existing attachments. Editing attachments You can use the Build Tools to edit or adjust attachments on your avatar. However, some building options (such as linking and physics) are unavailable while the object is attached to your avatar. Residents commonly edit attachments in order to fit hair, clothing and accessories properly to their avatars' unique proportions. Removing attachments from your avatar To remove an attachment from your avatar, find it in your inventory, right-click it, and select Detach From Yourself. Objects worn by your avatar appear in bold text in your inventory along with a note showing where each object is attached. You can also right-click directly on the object and select Detach. Note: Remember that you can only remove objects made of prims; you cannot take off any body part but must replace one with another of the same kind, or edit the one you're wearing. For more information, see Editing your appearance.

Creating and uploading animations Uploading animations into Second Life Using animations Using QAvimator to create animations Creating and uploading animations An animation is a set of instructions that causes an avatar to engage in a sequence of motions. You can create custom animations with commercial and open source tools such as Poser, Blender, and others. Important: Animations should not be confused with gestures. For information about gestures, see Using gestures and animations. Residents have created several animation applications especially for Second Life, some of which are available on the Second Life Marketplace. Check out the Second Life Community Animation Forum for tips, tricks, and links to tools to help you create animations for Second Life. Uploading animations into Second Life To upload an animation into Second Life: Save the animation in biovision hierarchy (BVH) format Choose Build > Upload > Animation (L$10)... in the Second Life Viewer. There is a L$10 fee for uploading an animation for Basic, Plus, and Premium members. Premium Plus members can upload animations for L$0 per animation asset. For more information on uploading an animation, see Uploading assets. Using animations You can use animations in gestures, but don't confuse the two. To activate an animation in your inventory, double-click the animation name. This opens a dialog box with the animation name, a field in which to see or enter a description of the animation, and two buttons: Play Locally allows you to see the animation, but it will not will be visible to others. This is useful to make sure the animation is really something you want others to see your avatar doing. Play Inworld allows those within visual range to see your avatar perform the animation There are many scripted objects within Second Life that contain animations, such as furniture, vehicles, and more. Residents also often use HUD (heads up display) objects to animate their avatars with dances, new standing animations, and emotive animations like laughing or hugging. The interface for using animations inside scripted objects can look very different depending on the content, but most objects have basic instructions on how to use them included in their packaging. The Second Life Marketplace has an entire section devoted to animations -- some are designed to be purchased and then added to inworld content or to be played from inventory directly, while others might be sold as a tool like an animation override (AO) HUD or a dance HUD that contains several animations which can be played by a menu.

Parcel management Estate management In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Português Italiano 日本語 You can restrict access to your parcels and estates based on whether users are over 18 years old and whether they have payment information on file with Linden Lab. Important: If your land contains adult content, as defined by the Second Life Maturity Ratings, it is your responsibility to restrict access only to those who are at least 18 years old. Parcel management To restrict parcel access: Choose World > About Land. Alternatively, right-click on the ground and choose About Land. In the About Land window, click the Acces tab. Make sure Allow Public Access is checked. To restrict access to those who are at least 18 years old, under Allow access only to Residents who:, check Are age 18 or older. To restrict access to those who have registered a payment method (such as a credit card or PayPal) with Linden Lab, under Allow access only to Residents who:, check Have payment information on File. Estate management To restrict estate access: Choose World > Region/Estate. In the Region/Estate window, click the Estate tab. Make sure Allow Public Access is checked. To restrict access to those who are at least 18 years old, under Allow access only to Residents who:, check Are age 18 or older. To restrict access to those who have registered a payment method (such as a credit card or PayPal) with Linden Lab, under Allow access only to Residents who:, check Have payment information on File.

Accessing adult content Limiting land access by age In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Português Italiano 日本語 Русский Türkçe When you register for Second Life, you provide your birth date, because you are required to be at least 16 years old. If you are 13-15 years old, you may be allowed if you are restricted to the estate of a sponsoring organization. For more information, see Teens in Second Life. To access adult content, you must be at least 18 years old. Accessing adult content To visit Adult-designated regions in Second Life or view Adult-rated search results, you must: Be 18 years or older. We determine your age based on the birthdate you provide when you set up your Second Life account. Set your Viewer preferences to view adult content. See Accessing Adult land and content for instructions. For information on what constitues adult content, see Maturity ratings. Limiting land access by age Estate and parcel owners of adult-rated regions must limit access to Residents who are 18 years of age or older. Underage Residents are blocked from entry and receive a notification to this effect. For instructions on how to restrict land access, see Age restriction parcel and estate management features.

Account types Basic Plus Premium Premium Plus Concierge Scripted agent status Inactive or canceled accounts Canceling an account Re-activating a canceled account In other languages: Deutsch Español Français Italiano 日本語 Português Русский This article describes the different types of Second Life accounts. You can manage your Second Life account on the web at https://secondlife.com/my/account/. Account types There are several types of Second Life accounts: Basic, Plus, Premium, Premium Plus and Concierge. Basic A basic account is completely free. With a basic account you can: Own estates or Private Regions. Rent land anywhere, depending on the landowner's renting preferences. Have a covenant agreement on Private Regions or estates owned by other Residents. Submit support cases for a limited set of problems. However, with a basic account you cannot: Own land on the mainland. Access live chat customer support. One person can have multiple free basic accounts, subject to the alt account policy. Plus A Plus membership subscription requires a monthly fee. Plus memberships offer several benefits and perks that are not included with a Basic membership: The right to own mainland parcels in popular areas (Linden Homes not available) A weekly stipend of Linden dollars - see Linden dollar rewards for more information Maximum number of group memberships increased from 42 to 50 Additional ticketed technical support options available Note As a Plus member, you will receive a weekly stipend of $L150 and a 512 square meter land allowance included with your subscription. Plus members do not receive a sign-up bonus at this time. Premium A Premium membership subscription requires a monthly fee. With a Premium membership you can: Own land on the mainland, including a Linden Home. Get free exclusive virtual goods Have access to premium sandboxes Submit support cases for an expanded set of problems. Initiate live chat sessions with customer support. Get a weekly stipend of Linden dollars. For more information, see Linden dollars (Getting your premium account stipend). For more information about specific Premium membership benefits, see Premium membership. Signup bonus When you register a Premium account, you receive a one-time signup bonus of L$1000 in approximately 45 days. Premium Plus A Premium Plus account also requires a monthly fee. Premium Plus memberships include the perks and advantages of a standard Premium membership as well as: The ability to belong to up to 140 groups An increased number of instant messages saved while you're offline (up to 160) A larger starting allowance of mainland included with your membership Discounts on L$ fees for uploading assets like textures, animations, and sounds Discounts on L$ fees for creating recurring events and creating groups Discounts on changing your username Direct phone access to assistance from customer support The ability to acquire an additional land-based experience in Second Life And more to come! For more information, see Premium membership. Signup bonus Premium Plus memberships receive a one-time signup bonus of L$3000 approximately 45 days after upgrading to a Premium Plus membership. This bonus is automatically deposited to your avatar's Linden dollar balance. Concierge Any account that owns an estate, pays for an estate, or pays tier for more than half a region's worth of mainland parcels qualifies for Concierge status. With a Concierge account, you also have access to a special live chat area and phone number through the support portal. It is possible to have a basic account and still qualify for Concierge service. Basic account holders can own estates and Private Regions, the setup and monthly costs for which are billed separately from land on the mainland (which can be owned only by premium account holders). A basic account that satisfies the requirements for Concierge service described above qualifies as a Concierge-level Resident. Scripted agent status If you own a Second Life account that is primarily operated by a scripted agent, or "bot", you must identify it as a bot by setting its status on your Second Life Account page. By identifying bots, you help us provide you with more accurate account statistics and inworld search results. For more information about bots and scripted agent status, see: Scripted Agent Status section of your account page on the Second Life website. Bot policy. Inactive or canceled accounts As long as you're in good standing with Linden Lab (not delinquent with billing or otherwise in violation of the Community Standards and Terms of Service) your Second Life account can remain inactive indefinitely. This means that your avatar and inventory will continue to be stored on the Second Life servers. Canceling an account If you're thinking about canceling your premium account, consider leaving it active with a basic membership, which costs nothing to maintain. If at some point in the future you should choose to revisit Second Life, your avatar and your inventory will be here waiting for you. If you do decide to cancel your account: Log in to the Second Life website with your Second Life username and password. On the Account Dashboard, click Account on the upper left, then click Delete Account. Select the reason you'd like to close your account, then click Delete Account to proceed. Your account will remain open until your billing review date, as account maintenance fees are paid in advance. Re-activating a canceled account If you have canceled your account, you may be able to restore it, depending on how long ago it was cancelled. Warning: While we do our best to reactivate older accounts fully, in some cases the associated inventory, land, and Linden dollar balance may be unrecoverable. To reactivate your account if you remember your avatar name and password: Visit our Second Life Support site Select Sign In to your Second Life Account and log in as the account you wish to reactivate. If prompted to reactivate your account, follow the provided instructions. Otherwise, click Submit a Support Case to contact our Support team for assistance. Under Issue Type, choose Account Issue. Under Account Issue, select Reactivate Account. Enter the required information. Click Submit. If you don't remember your avatar name or password, or to create a support case for assistance when prompted by the login page: Visit our Second Life Support site. Select Continue as Guest and enter your email address in the Requester field. Please be sure this is an email you have access to, so our Support team can respond via email. Under Issue Type, choose Account Issue. Under Account Issue, select Reactivate Account. Enter the required information. Click Submit.

What to do if you forget your password What to do if you forget your Second Life username Retrieve your name from your welcome email Retrieve your name from the Second Life website How to change your password How to change your email address Account Security Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) How do I add MFA to my account? Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Removing MFA from your account What to do if your account is compromised What to do if you forget your password If you know your username but have forgotten your password, go to the password recovery page. Enter your username and click Send Instructions to have instructions on how to create a new password sent to the email address connected to the account . You'll need to answer the security question you chose when creating your Second Life account. ⚠️ Please be sure to check your junk mail/spam folder, as some automated messages like password reset requests can be sent there by some email providers. If you can't recall the answer to your security question or no longer have access to the e-mail account you provided, just contact Customer Support, preferably by opening a support case. You'll be asked to verify your identity and, working together, we can reset your security question. We apologize in advance that support cannot retrieve passwords. Luckily, this won't be an issue once we reset your security question. What to do if you forget your Second Life username The username you created during registration is required to login to the Second Life® virtual world. If you forget your username, you can retrieve it: From your welcome email From the Second Life website Note: If you forgot which email address you used when you registered, you can find out on the Contact Information page of the Second Life Dashboard. You must have either your username or email address to recover your account credentials. Retrieve your name from your welcome email You provided an email address to register your account. A welcome email containing the Second Life username you created was sent to this address. To locate the email: Log into your email account and search your archives for "second life". Look for an email with your username in the subject line: "Welcome to Second Life, YOUR NAME!" Retrieve your name from the Second Life website Warning: If you registered multiple Second Life accounts with the same email address, you will be able to retrieve the username of only your first account. This is a known system limitation. Before you ever have to use this form, write down your usernames somewhere you'll remember! If you have forgotten your username or password: Click Login on the Second Life website. Click Forgot your login information? Under Forgot Your Name? enter your email address. Click Forgot Account Name. Your Second Life name will be sent to you shortly. How to change your password You can change your password, along with other account-related information, on your account page. To view your account page, log in and select Account > Account Summary from the top left side of the page. Click Account > Change Password to change your password. You'll need to know your current password in order to reset it; if you don't know your current password, or are having trouble, you can use the Forgot your login information? link from the Login page for assistance. To change your password: Login to your Dashboard. On the left, click Account, then click Change Password. Enter your current password in the top box. In the Choose a new password box, enter your new password. Please note, your new password must meet the minimum strength requirements. For tips on creating a strong password, see our Password Protection page. In the Confirm your new password box, type your new password again. Both boxes must match exactly. Click Save Changes. How to change your email address Your Second Life account is linked with an email address of your choosing, which is where things like announcements from Linden Lab and offline instant messages (if you have those enabled) are delivered. It's very important to keep your account email up to date. If your email address changes, or if you lose access to your email account, please update your email address as soon as possible. You can easily change your email address on the Second Life website: Login to your Dashboard. On the left, click Account, then click Change Email Settings. Enter a new email address after Enter your new email address. Confirm your new email address by entering it again after Confirm your new email address. Click Save Changes under Confirm your new email address. When prompted, enter your account password and click OK. Shortly afterwards, your old email address will also receive a "Second Life Email Changed" email to confirm that the change was done by you, the actual account holder. To take advantage of all of the Second Life systems which rely on sending you messages via email, like receiving copies of your Instant Messages via email when you're offline, be sure to verify your email address. Account Security Tip: Keep your account safe! Don't give your password out, and make sure your web browser's address bar shows secondlife.com to prevent being phished. There are a number of reasons why it's important to protect your account's security, including preventing financial loss, content loss, and making sure that you have access to your account so that you can continue to use Second Life. Only the original owner of an account is permitted to log in to Second Life on that account; please don't share your password or account with other people, including friends and family. Creating a Second Life account is free and easy, and it's much safer if everyone has an account of their own to use. Some tips for maintaining your account's security: Use an up-to-date email address that you check regularly. Use a unique password for Second Life; don't use this password or one that's similar to it anywhere else. Consider using password manager software to make using unique, complex passwords easier. Add multi-factor authentication to your account to add another layer of security to account updates like email or password changes. Consider using the inworld viewer setting Use the built-in browser for Second Life links only (Me > Preferences > Setup), which will make it easier to spot when you receive a link to a website pretending to be part of SecondLife.com to trick you into logging in with your Second Life username and password. You can always copy the link and paste it to your preferred web browser, like Firefox or Chrome, once the built-in browser has loaded the page. Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) What is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)? Authentication is how Second Life knows it’s you attempting to log in, by verifying the username and password you provide. For many websites and services, authentication consists of a username and a password. Both must be correct for login to succeed; this is called single-factor authentication, because the user only has to know the password to gain access to a known account. Multi-factor authentication adds a second method of verification to the login process, in addition to a password. This second method is a code (or token) that's generated by a special app called an authenticator. Once enabled, MFA requires someone to enter a unique secret token to be entered when making changes to your account, protecting it from unauthorized changes to your password, email address, or payment method. There are several types of authenticator apps available for different types of smartphones and mobile devices, including Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, LastPass Authenticator, and Authy. Multi-factor authentication can be enabled via your SecondLife.com Dashboard. It's opt-in and not required, though it is an excellent addition to your account's security. Please continue to use unique, strong passwords for your account and to follow good security practices. Multi-factor authentication is great tool to help protect your account, but it's not a replacement for a good password and good security. Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Once you've enabled multi-factor authentication for your Second Life account, you'll be prompted to enter your authentication token when attempting to view or update sensitive account information on the SecondLife.com website or when logging into the Second Life viewer. After successfully authenticating using your MFA authenticator token, your login will proceed as usual. For convenience, saving your password in the viewer for an easy login will also save your MFA token locally. Even if your token is saved (and the viewer does not ask you for a new one when you try to log in), someone attempting to log into your account from a different location or machine would still need to pass an authenticator challenge. 🗒️ If you have chosen to save your password information in the viewer, a valid MFA token will be locally stored for 30 days. After 30 days, or if you login from a different location or machine, your next login attempt will require another token. When the Second Life viewer or the website asks for your authentication token, open your chosen authenticator app and locate your Second Life account name. Your authenticator app will have a unique, six-digit number that is valid for a specific short time period. Enter this six-digit number at the prompt to continue logging in. You may find it works best to wait until a fresh number is generated to give you the longest amount of time to enter your verification number. Example On the left is an example of the multi-factor authentication challenge on the SecondLife.com website. On the right is an example image of an authentication token generated by Microsoft Authenticator for the avatar ExampleResident Tester. The example token will expire in ten seconds and a new six-digit number will be generated. How do I add multi-factor authentication (MFA) to my account? Multi-factor authentication at SecondLife.com supports many different authenticator apps with a variety of layouts and tools, but in general, setup works like this: If you don't already have an authenticator app on your mobile device, install the authenticator app of your choice. Most authenticator apps, like Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator, are free and available in your device's app store, and are regularly kept up to date with automatic updates. If possible, please choose a mobile device that has a working camera. You'll need a camera to scan a QR Code during the setup process. If you don't have a working camera, some authentication apps will also allow you to use a setup key. A setup key is a long string of letters and numbers you can enter by hand; it's visible under the QR code during the setup process. Visit your SecondLife.com Dashboard and login, if necessary. On the left side of the Dashboard under Account, click Multi-Factor Authentication. Read the instructions on how the process works, then click Get Started. Follow the provided steps to add Multi-Factor Authentication to your account. Step one is to add an entry for Second Life to the authentication app of your choice. Step two uses that authentication app to generate a pair of codes (tokens) to verify that setup is working properly. You can add an entry for Second Life to your chosen authenticator app by QR Code or Setup Key. Once you've added an entry for a Second Life account to your authenticator app by scanning the QR code or entering the setup key, click Continue. On the next page, enter the current code your app has generated for Second Life, then wait. When the app makes a new code a few seconds later, enter that new code as your second code token. These two tokens, in sequence, will confirm your authenticator app is setup correctly. In the future, you'll only need to enter one code to log in. Example: Adding a Second Life account to Microsoft Authenticator Here's an example of how the process works when adding a Second Life account to Microsoft Authenticator, a commonly used authenticator app: On a computer or second mobile device, navigate to the SecondLife.com Dashboard and under Account, click Multi-Factor Authentication. Read the instructions and click Get Started to continue to Step 1 of 2 (Scan QR code below); leave the webpage open on your computer monitor. On your mobile device, open Microsoft Authenticator Sign in with your Microsoft Account (if necessary) On the upper right corner, click the plus icon (+). When asked what kind of account you are adding, select Personal Account to continue In the pop-up that appears, select Scan QR Code Your mobile device's camera will activate (though you may need to give your permission to use the camera to allow the app to continue) Position your device's camera so the square QR Code from SecondLife.com lines up with your authenticator app's indicator. Once lined up, your authenticator app will take it from there, adding an entry for Second Life and beginning to generate 6-digit number tokens that refresh automatically. Once you've scanned the QR Code, click Continue to enter the tokens your app is now generating. On the Step 2 of 2: Enter Tokens page, enter the token that is currently visible on your authenticator app in the First token box. Wait until the app generates a new token, then enter the new token in the second box. Click Activate MFA to complete setup -- if successful, the website will confirm you've activated MFA on your account. Removing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) from your account To remove Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) from your account: Login to your Dashboard on secondlife.com Under Account on the left, select Multi-Factor Authentication If you have multi-factor authentication enabled, you will see two options: Click Disable Multi-factor Authentication with Token if you have access to your authenticator app. On the next page, MFA Removal, enter the token code from your authenticator app and click Remove MFA Alternatively, click Disable Multi-factor Authentication via Email if you do not have access to your authenticator app. A link will be sent to your verified email address. When it arrives, click it to remove MFA from your account. If you do not have access to your verified email account or access to your authenticator app, please contact our Second Life Support Team for assistance. Lost your phone? Don't worry! If you've lost access to your authenticator app, you can use your verified email address to remove your MFA token. Be sure to keep your email address up to date! To remove MFA by email, click Multi-Factor Authentication > Disable Multi-Factor Authentication via Email from your Account Dashboard at SecondLife.com. What to do if your account is compromised Your account may have been compromised if: You can't access your account. You suddenly notice a reduced available balance on the payment source you have on file. If this happens, contact us immediately! Here's what to do: Go to the Second Life Help page and log in if you can. If you can't access your account, use the Forgot your login information? link on the right to recover your username and reset your password. Then log in. On the Second Life Help page page, click Submit a a Support Case. Under Issue Type, select Account Issue. A second dropdown appears. Under Account Issue, select Account Compromised. Fill in the rest of the fields as directed. Click Submit. Check your email for your case number. Call our fraud number: 800-860-6990. Once you do this, Linden Lab will place your account on hold and investigate the relevant transactions. This may take a few days. Once we have concluded the investigation, we'll send you an email explaining our conclusion and the action we will take. Note that all transactions involving Linden dollars are subject to Linden Lab's Terms of Service. Tip: Even if you are able to log into your account, we recommend that you change your password immediately to something secure and unique. Changing your password regularly is one good way to protect the safety of your account. For information on how to change your password, see the How to change your password section of this article.