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Torley Linden

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Blog Entries posted by Torley Linden

  1. Torley Linden
    Fall is upon and so's Second Life Viewer 2.2! As highlighted in Esbee's post, Viewer 2.2 brings more of the "little stuff that makes a big difference".
    In this video, I show you some of the tweaks that could/should very well find themselves into your daily Second Life — from common-sense button bar reordering to Mini-Map improvements — all so you can get on and enjoy.
     
    Don't forget to check out our Release Notes for more details. Many of the 2.2 changes are linked to Bug Tracker issues with explanations, to help you understand the "story" behind why and how something got fixed.
  2. Torley Linden
    Even if your real-world home is in a land of palm trees, you can still enjoy winter responsibly in Second Life! With US Thanksgiving a few days away, winter is upon us and I've been visiting all the Winter Activities in the Destination Guide. Have a cool (hehe) place? Submit it! My wife Ravenelle and I have also been shopping at the Marketplace, because what says "Happy Holidays!" better than being a good consumer, right?  
    If Second Life's sky and water still look too — well, warm — for your snowbound tastes, you can achieve a winter look in seconds. I've touched upon similar things in years past, but for the current Viewer 2.3 UI, you oughta see how easy it is in this video.
     
    Basically,
    Select World menu > Sun > Environment Editor. Click Advanced Sky button. Select Foggy from Sky Presets dropdown menu. Click LIGHTING tab. Increase Ambient sliders to taste... you can have a warmer or colder sky this way, or overall brighter as I do here with all set to 0.22. Many more WindLight/sky/atmospheric settings are here for your downloading pleasure.

    And oh, the sled in the video can be acquired here — it was such a Matrix-esque moment of "We need guns!" except, we needed sleds, and Naxos Loon and Lita Withnail came to join us. The spontaneous rush can't be beat. Here we are all "AHHHH AIR!!!!"

    The reindeer are coming out too, red noses and all.

    I'm intensely exploring Second Life and you can visit Here island (my home) and you can watch my adventures. Who knows when you might bump into me? Don't forget to ask for my bear.
    Now go take some pictures and video and be hawt... in the cold.
  3. Torley Linden
    Ever wonder why other avatars are striding so pretty while you march like a soldier-duck hybrid?
    That's because they have animation overrides, scripted objects that replace your default animations with way cooler ones when worn.
    All you usually need to do is right-click and Wear the AO in your inventory, then click an ON button (if it's not automatically activated).
    Yes, they're that awesome.
    In this friendly video, I show you exactly what animation overrides are and what they can do for your avatar's expression. This is an essential Second Life thing to know, because everyone comes across them sooner or later. (I've often been asked "Why is my avie not walking like yours in a video you made?")
     
    Special thanks to Hellespont Hoorenbeek for reminding me I needed to do this, it's a great example of a "SHOW IT IN MOTION" question that deserves to vividly be answered.
    Go to the Animation Override category in the Marketplace to pick up one or more! They range from free to premium-priced and like cars, there are basics in common but many variations between models. Looking for a specific style of animation override? Head on over to ze Wanted forum and ask away! What other essential product types should all Residents know about?
  4. Torley Linden
    This is another one of those "Mmm subtle" kinda tips. You may already know that with Viewer 2.x, we've superbly integrated SLurls (web-compatible links that teleport you to a specific Second Life place, as used in the Destination Guide), and that pasting a SLurl into chat shows it in brief.
    Side tip: Pasting a SLurl can be a quicker way of broadcasting it to nearby friends while traveling as a group, instead of having to drag a landmark on each person or send individual teleport requests.
    Did you also know that SLurl-pasting works the same way in your profile? Watch this video to see how you can easily include a favorite SLurl or more in your profile, so others can come visit.
     
    What's your fave creative use for SLurls that more Residents should know about?
  6. Torley Linden
    One of the new features we've introduced with Viewer 2.3 Beta are "hints", little text bubbles that come up and tell you more about a feature when appropriate. You may be familiar with this convention in other apps. For example, if someone types to you, you get a prompt on how to text chat. And there's one for the new display names feature too.

    You can click the "X" to hide a hint, but if you'd rather globally turn them off, just disable Help menu > Enable Hints

  7. Torley Linden
    What if I told you that
    you can get less lag in seconds, with a few simple clicks?
    No, this ain't a scam, but like some infomercials, it's completely risk-free. Y'see, I love "smart" defaults because they help give us a better experience out of the box, whether we're new to Second Life or doing a fresh install. But I keep coming across Resis who, despite having a fat broadband connection, feel "laggy" because they didn't know they could up their Maximum Bandwidth.
    GOOD GOSH. SPREAD THE WORD:
    One of the not-so-bright defaults, as I griped about with you guys some time ago (the Internet never forgets), is the default Maximum Bandwidth setting. It defaults to 500 kbps, which makes no sense because HELLO WE'RE NOT ON DIAL-UP ANYMORE.
    But srsly, like Geordi La Forge said on Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it. Try it yourself.
    Go to Me menu > Preferences. In PREFERENCES window, click Setup tab. Move Maximum bandwidth slider all the way to the right... yeah, crank that baby! (Supposedly years ago, setting your Max. Bandwidth too high would result in bad packet loss and overall decreased performance, but tell me if you still notice that. It may not even be true anymore.)
     
    Links to followup on:
    How to open the Advanced menu (so you can see the STATISTICS BAR in the video) "Default Bandwidth Setting Too Low bug - VWR-21872, which you should vote for if you care... and see my comment in there, more history
  8. Torley Linden
    Skip if you already know this — apparently it's been around for awhile and I had no clue.
    You can drag an open texture preview onto any applicable surface, whether it's a prim face or a profile picture.
     
    This may be a quick shortcut if you've already got a texture open and were under the assumption (like me) that you had to drag it from the PICK: TEXTURE window or from your inventory.
    What's a Second Life trick that you wish you discovered earlier, because it seems totally obvious in hindsight?
    (Don't be shy, there's always something new to discover in Second Life, and I encourage this curiosity! The only wrong answer is not learning.)
  9. Torley Linden
    Jack Linden recently announced "Viewer 2.3 Beta Available Today With Display Names and More"! In response to hot Resident requests, we made a bunch of design upgrades so that it's simple to do some everyday things you'll be using often.
    Question: "How can I grab a complicated display name made out of characters I can't even type?"
    Answer: We've added an easy Copy To Clipboard button. All you need to do is open a Resident's profile, which is is accessible in many places via an inspector (green circle icon with an "i").
    Just click Copy To Clipboard, then Ctrl-V (Cmd-V on Mac) to paste both the display name and unchangeable username in any standard text field, including outside of Second Life. This video shows you how in action:
     
    Remember, this is currently only available in the Viewer 2.3 Beta, so be sure to get the special Viewer and go to a supported region like this:
    Learn more about display names in our help pages!
    ^ I was writing these but have been transitioning them into the care of Bea Linden, feel free to comment and let us know your suggestions.
  10. Torley Linden
    The Second Life Discussion Guidelines have moved here.
    ^ As a friendly reminder, please read the guidelines before commenting on the blogs or posting in the forums so you can be awesome!
    This change was done by Torley Linden as part of making help easier to find... because the previous version couldn't be read by non-logged-in Residents and contained numerous formatting glitches and old references (for example, "Xstreet" instead of "Marketplace"). The meat and spirit of the Discussion Guidelines' content remains the same, and been cleaned up on the wiki help pages, where future versions can be updated easier. Please let Torley know if there are further errors to correct.
  11. Torley Linden
    There's an amazing array of events in Second Life. Many of them have "real world" analogues... with a twist! For example, first life concerts aren't inundated with nearly as many ASCII art audience reactions.   Whether you want to attend a crowded party that packs the hizzouse or are more into relaxing art shows, all that's missing is HOW TO FIND THOSE EVENTS, ARRRR.
    Well fear not! I've been compiling a
    Guide to Finding Events
    which, as the name apparently suggests, is exactly about that. It covers the default secondlife.com and in-Viewer events search, as well as manual methods, and Resident-created callouts. Try 'em all out and see what's most comfortable for you, because your interests are an extrusion of your unique personality! I happen to enjoy the serendipitous spontaneity of flashmobbing. I used to drop in on gameshows a lot because I'm trivia crazy. And I ♥ seeing many awesome avatars in the same place at once, 'cuz having a remarkable avatar is a key conversation-starter.
    But I'm sure stuff is missing from this guide, which is where you come in.
    Let me know your favorite ways to find events in this forum thread,
    such as... hunting the green dots, those "poker chip stacks"!
     
    But do heed this gem from Veritable Quandry in response:
    Wise words. And this being Second Life, it's not limited to two dots, either.
  12. Torley Linden
    Curious about the history of Second Life scripting? This is for you!
    Preserving our history is essential to understand the progress of earlier generations that in turn, informs our future decisions and prevents us from making the same mistakes they worked through, so we don't have to. Hopefully.
    As one of the lead Lindens working on wiki.secondlife.com, I love seeing exceptional contributions to the help pages, and I wanted to highlight Cerise Sorbet's
    Old forum Scripting Library index
    Contains links to templates, examples, and more you can use in your creations. Shows that one Resident can make such an overarching, positive difference! Not only does it have sortable tables and brief descriptions to quickly summarize what's in each thread, older threads are colorfully catalogued (as "Museum" and "Attic"), making their historical status clear. In turns, this builds upon the previous, venerable curation by Nada Epoch, whose scripting forum moderation was already esteemed when I joined Second Life in 2004.
    Forums as a tool have their uses for thriving discussion, but the wiki is often a more effective medium for collaboratively upgrading a single source, including the LSL Portal. But I've found using both are quite complementary, since (1) wiki talk pages can be awkward for newcomers to chat in and (2) vibrant forum discussions often lead to wiki help pages, as I've done and seen across 1,000s of edits. Resis who are wiki-shy often team up with the more experienced to learn and communicate changes. Further behind-the-scenes on how I apply this to help you and fellow Residents of Second Life can be found on Rapid Knowledge Iteration.
    To discuss the Scripting Library index with Cerise and others,
    jump into the matching forum thread
     
    And...
    Curious about editing the wiki yourself? Learn more!
    Often, I've found editing the wiki stems from a personal perspective, passion about a topic, where you not only wish something could be better, you act on it — whether it's correcting a typo, adding a key fact, leading all the way up to writing whole guides and indexes. What you spend a few minutes on could save many hours for yourself and others in the future.
  13. Torley Linden
    Do you want to have Second Life instant messages forwarded to your email address when you're not logged in? Or do you get many IMs and find them spammy? Whatever your choice, you can
    toggle offline instant messages (IMs)
    ^ As that help page explains, you can do it from Account > Contact Information in your secondlife.com Dashboard, which is handy if you're somewhere you can't login to Second Life, or would rather not bother logging in. (I love convenience, don't you?)
    While you're at it, you can also change your email address on the same page.

  14. Torley Linden
    No matter how much changes here, some things are still around. Among them, classic clouds.
    Do you turn classic clouds on or off (or switch depending on context), and why?
    Also relevant: if you didn't know you could turn them off — maybe you're a new Resident — you should try and decide for yourself!
    After my last post on skyboxes, classic clouds is a natural followup topic: the ground, water, and clouds are so much of what you see in Second Life, so changing their appearance (or entirely removing them from view) can have a massive effect on your inworld experience. Think about the real-world and how even hearing rain results in, uh, a certain urge.
    I show you how classic clouds affect performance here:
     
    And there's...
    More on the "Classic clouds" help page
  15. Torley Linden
    Ah, skyboxes, a special part of Second Life culture alongside other product types like animation overrides and terrain extenders. Not only can our avatars defy gravity, our buildings can, too. That's right, you can rez (create) something in the air and it'll just stick there. Somewhat self-explanatory skyboxes have been with us since near the beginning of Second Life, and if you're new, you're bound to run across them sooner or later, even if you don't realize it (by checking your height coordinate).
    But what do you need to know, and how are skyboxes relevant to you? And hey, how do you get up there, anyway?
     
    Whether you're looking to make your castle in the clouds or purely want to explore that extravagant third dimension, there's more help in...
    The Guide o' Skyboxes

    As always, let me know what's missing from this guide that could make it awesomer, or go ahead and edit the wiki help page (
    ). Your suggestions will help spread cultural knowledge that future generations of Residents shall benefit from!
  16. Torley Linden
    Residents asking if the Second Life Viewer is compatible with Windows 7 is a very hot! question in the forums.
    The answer is YES, the Second Life Viewer is supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7.
    Long story short: the current System Requirements page is confusing because it says "Windows 7 (32-bit only)". That refers to the Viewer being a 32-bit executable, not that "Second Life only works with 32-bit Windows 7".
    A SysReq update is pending, but since this is often a time-sensitive question that affects the next operating system and computer you choose (and what a pain it is to change that once you've installed), I've chopped the slop and put up a wiki help page (which can be updated in seconds) to clarify this, with more details. Special thanks to Q and Esbee Linden for confirmation. Bookmark and share with your friends:
    Windows 7 compatibility help page
    Move lively context found in this forum thread which you can comment on, thanks to Irene Muni for encouraging more visibility.
  17. Torley Linden
    I'm regularly in the blogs.secondlife.com forums, not just helping where I have knowledge, but staying in touch with our culture and encouraging you HOW to share info easier.
    I keep seeing "OMG HELP ME!" questions where the original poster seems at a loss for how to describe something in words, and there's a big gap between what they saw and how they're struggling to explain it. Also consider language barriers: instead of trying to tell, simply SHOW!
    Well, that's where we need to go beyond words: whether techy terminology confuses you or you wanna be a more effective, vivid communicator, consider adding pictures and videos to your posts to make it clear what you mean!
    It takes a little bit of patience to get started, but hey, so did learning how to read, how to use a computer, and Second Life itself. I have faith in your smartosity!
    I've attached multimedia thousands of times, and have seen what a positive difference it makes to have this skill, whether you're asking or answering on SL Answers, reporting a bug, giving a product demo for the Marketplace, and so on! SUPER-USEFUL.
    I highly recommend watching this video tutorial, which shows how to take a snapshot in Second Life and put it into a forum post. It's terribly easy.


    For further details with tips and tools,
    see the "Visual communication" help page
    which you can add to. (Please do.)
    I'm continuing to be out and about in the forums, promoting these opportunities so you can help others help you. (Clichéd but true, hehe.)
    Feel free to ask in the comments if you have process/workflow questions about spicing up your text with pics and vids.
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