Isengard

This week was a half focus between not dying of whatever disease the Columbia medical staff thinks I have and using this time to design the tower of Isengard. I'm positive that there is already a model of this building elsewhere in Second Life, but what's the point? Watching the academy awards only made me want to do this even more. Regardless of the fact that nothing from Middle Earth was nominated for an oscar, seeing James Earl Jones somehow reminded me of LOTR, even though he was the voice of Darth Vader. This is just a sample of how my brain works.

I've got most of the basic layout done in photoshop, where I've essentially mapped out the textures I want to use and the shapes I want to incorporate into the 3D rendering of the tower. Unfortunately I don't have enough Linden money to start bringing the textures that I've designed into the game. I've been using mostly grunge brushes that I've adapted from spray paint spatter and manipulation in photoshop. Mostly a combination of gray and black elements with a few hits of red and white for dramatic effect. For the actual tower, I will probably end up shrinking it down to be about twice as tall as a standard avatar, just to keep the thing manageable. Wouldn't want a colossal tower stinking up the island, now would we?

I need to pour some real money of mine into Second Life before I try uploading this, as well as getting a bigger handle on importing 3D frames into this program. Until I figure out how to do this, I can really only post 2D screen grabs of my progress thus far.

Spending Time

Leisure time is more and more relevant to our lives as our entertainment and lifestyles change to this modern day setting.

tbc

Avatar Creation

Creating your avatar can be extremely time consuming, but also pretty fun.  When you first start out in Second Life you are able to select premade models of people, animals and even robots.  I searched through the prebuilds until I found an avatar that looks somewhat similar to me to start out with.  When I look at now and from when I started out, I’ve made quite a few changes.  First of all, I changed some features of my face and even tried out a new hair color.  The coolest thing about Second Life is that the possibilities are endless!  I can, and have, spent hours shopping for clothing online and in different SL worlds.  I like searching around for free stuff because, well it’s free.  Although when I find something that I really want, I just add it to my wish list and debate on if I would like to buy this now or wait a little bit.  One thing I’ve been searching for is a good skin.  I’m wearing one now which is a demo.   

Demo skins are nice because you can try them on to see what they look like, but you really can’t wear them.  This skin in particular has the words Lulu’s Demo~ written all down the sides of my arms and around my neck and shoulders.  It’s okay for now so that I can just test out the skin.  I have found that a lot of free clothes actually look pretty great. The only problem is that once you go on a shopping spree your inventory is going to fill up with tons items that you bought.  Lots of items are variations such as different colors or lengths.  The amazing thing about being able to customize your avatar is that there are so many people out there that create these cool customizations for us to wear.  When I go shopping (or window browsing) I’m usually amazed at the skill that other users have at creating these objects!

Your avatar can even look just like Dexter!

Prim Limits

Renting land in Second Life is great. It also has limitations since too many objects will clutter up any space and make the lag unbearable, especially since so many people think that adding in objects with textures at 2560X1600 isn't going to adversely affect performance. That's why lots have prim limits, meaning that once you own a home, you can't junk it up with your collection of anything and everything since you'll just make the sim crash.

When you have a lot, it's your choice between whether you want to have a house with less privacy but more space or a skybox with less space but nobody will bother you. To be fair, people will sometimes try to be voyeurs if they hear music playing on an empty lot and will fly up to see your skybox. That's why tinted windows and the ability to contact your landlord happen to be important.

Regardless, there are ways to save on prims. For one thing, always check to lower the complexity of your prims and meshes. Lower prim counts and less complex meshes will always be a good idea even if it means less detail. This is especially important if physics are added and doubly so if they're clothing items or attachments that use avatar physics.

Also keep in mind that lots are often small and less is sometimes more, particularly if you're trying to invite multiple people over. Furnish your home with only a small handful of objects. While I'm sadly a sucker for bars, stick to the basics and only put in one or two luxury items. Also, don’t be afraid to swap things out. If you want to rearrange things, feel free to do so.

Even if you can pay more money to overload your lot with prims, it's not a good idea since it's not only expensive, but you're paying to cause lag. Especially if you're using large textures, cramped spaces with prims and textures everywhere is both a system hog and really works to ruin your bandwidth. When searching on the marketplace, look at an object's prim count and then compare it to your land's limit. That really expensive $10,000 Linden bed might sound great but it you have to lose most of your posters, it'll just give your home that much less character.

Now when building your own furniture and meshes, keep them as low poly objects with simple textures. Not everything needs to look like something out of Crysis. Usually if people can tell what something is, they'll use it.

Now when it comes to land that has a very high prim limit because the builders had this great vision for how their sim could turn out, they more often than not find that people with weaker computers can't use their sim without crashing. Even now with an Intel Core i7 and an NVIDIA GTX 560 ti, I still have trouble maintaining a good frame rate when maxing out the added effects on third party viewers. User created content is great, just be sure that others are able to use what you make if you choose to sell objects.

Primhead Costume

 

This is my avatar wearing a prim head!

Items: Primhead Outfit

Shirt that I made (new)
Black Pants
Female Future Punk Socks
Vest (new)
My Gloves (new)
Symmetry - Karley - Skirt Glitchpants
Female Future Punk Alpha ( wear with boots! )
Female Future Punk Boots Left
Female Future Punk Boots Right
Female Future Punk Hair
Object
VA Creations - Straight Jeans - Belt 1
Female Future Punk Shape (new)
Female Party Skin
Clubgoer Female Hair
Eyes (Roast Brown)

 

Scripting

I heard a lot of bad things about Second Life from many different people. Not once I heard something about it outside of class. To me I think Second Life is cool and fun. The people who use it and don’t like it are most likely thinking of it as just a video game, but it so much more than that. I use Second Life as creative space and to learn a little bit about 3D modeling.  I have fun making things in world.  I think I’m really getting the hang of the build tools. The objects I make are liked by many people. I have not yet used the tools to change the land and stuff though but I will soon. The thing I’m really want to learn is how to script. I make some nice object but they can be better. Script objects are cool and fun to interact with. Right now, I’m using ScriptMe! to help me make easy and small scripts, but I want to do something more.  If I can learn how to make scripts for my objects, it would be an endless list of things I can do. I already have so many ideas for the objects I already made.  I also have some new idea I want to make that would be based on scripting. After learn scripting and the other building tool (that’s use for building island and things) I would like to make a big interactive place for the users. I already know a little bit about coding but not enough to do it on my own. So I think I’m going to do some research on scripting and play around with the building tools some more. I going YouTube it first so I can watch some videos on it and then go from there.

Introducing... the Game Master!

The Game Master is my first creation and it a generic version of the Gameboy color.  I created the skin for the Game Master in Photoshop. It was my first time using the program and I found it very fun and easy to use for a beginner like myself.  The self-made texture wraps around the full object. The device is created from a prim block.  It attatches to your hand just like you're really holding it. The top button is a linked circular object. Also, the Game Master is scripted.  If someone would like a copy of the Game Master, all they would have to do would be to type out "Game Master" into the chat while mine is present, and they will receive their own in their inventory.

Avatar Editing

Over the weekend I spent time changing my avatar in Second Life.  Other than what was required for class, I haven’t really spent any time on my avatar.  I decided to edit my skin and form and find some new hair.  The editing system is a little challenging.  I wish it worked the same way building does.  It has these preset limitations with sliding bars to adjust it.  I wish there was a stretch tool like when building to alter the body parts.  It’s not that the system is bad, it’s just a little limiting.  For example, when I was editing the eye brows; sliding one bar affects all of the other ones, and getting the right thickness is difficult.  Where as, being able to directly edit edges would be easier for the user.  It’s not too bad though, it certainly could be worse, that was my only real hang up with the avatar editing.  

The hair was pretty frustrating, the editing does not work well at all, but as stated in class, flexi-hair is better anyways.  I didn’t spend too much time on the hair, I decided to explore and look for free or inexpensive hair.  I clearly still have more to learn about the world.  I was bombarded with chats, notecards, half rendered items and people running all over.  I’m sure this is routine for Second Life, but I’m used to the Columbia island and newbie areas.  I did end up finding some free flexi-hair to wear and it was much easier to resize and adjust.  I think I’ll explore attachments more and try to make my own objects for my avatar.  I was also wondering about the attachment limit and if it applies to body parts too.  Can an avatar be made from scratch?  The interface for the standard avatar seems limiting, I would like to try other alternatives.  

My primhead and linked object

Virtual Worlds Concepts class photo from Feb 13.

Prim Head

Crystal Head  Prim outfit

For my prim Head outfit I want to make an outfit that float and move with the avatar. The last project I did pretty well with linking of objects and texturing them so for this one I want to do the same thing. First I started off with two pyramids and add the same texture I use for my light sabers. I also use full bright and 18% transparency (which you can do in textures) to make it have a glass look to it. I also add a red light (which you can do in feature) and hollow out the pyramids (which you can do in object). Then I added a box and did the same thing to it. After sizing it up to make a diamond shape object, I link all the objects together.  I copy the crystal shape a few more time and made it smaller to place them around the avatar. The smaller crystal are attach to different body parts which is they are on the opposite side of, so I can get a crazy movement that don’t flow with the avatar. For my shirt I put a picture of Kirby doing a kick because I thought it look cool but it didn’t come out like I wanted though.

Kirby shirt

Male cosplay top down

Male cosplay socks

Black vest

Black gloves

Male cosplay pants

Male cosplay boots (left/right)

Male cosplay boots low (left/right)

Crystal prim head

Crystal prim arm (left/right)

Crystal prim leg (left/right)

Primhead

Female Party Dress Top
Female Designer Shoes Footshaper
Female Goth Bolero Jacket
Female Cosplay Gloves
Female Action Pants
Female Designer Shoes (Left)
Female Designer Shoes (Right)
primhead
Female Party Shape
New Skin
Female Party Eyebrowshaper
Eyes (Amber Brown)

prim head avatar

This is my character's new avatar appearance. He used to be a cat with a lot of textures and transparencies, but now he is just a human. I choose a standard steampunk, Asian male model. I removed his crazy hat and tie and gave him so tie dye colors. Now that's more like it!
I added a crazy big prim head because that's just how I roll. I like purple and made it glow because everyone else likes glowing objects, too! I made skinny black pants, which don't fit his style, but fit the assignment.

I made a scripted object for my last assignment, but like I said in class, my object didn't save its textures or scripts. I'll look into why it was this way. I think it might have to do with the fact that I use Phoenix Viewer at home.

Prim Head

So this was the prim head assignment, I made a yellow cone head and put the shine up to 1.00, I then added glow. I made black pants and then a shirt with a texture that showed diamond patterns. But for some reason when presenting the shirt disappeared so I will have to either find it or make a new one so that everyone can see it I will then re-post a picture of the shirt. This was relatively easy to do, the only thing I had trouble with thus far was the shirt texturing. Trying to get it over to secondlife was a problem not because of what I was doing but because of my broken laptop at home. So the only thing that was a little challenging was the shirt. There are a few ways to put together a shirt with a texture or picture on it. One is to simply use a shirt from the game and import a texture from a place of your choosing i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator etc. for this you have to pay I believe 10 linden dollars. The other way is to design your own shirt from a template, which is a little bit tougher to do. When making mine I chose the easier way because unless I am at school it is difficult for me to get on to secondlife. The only computer I currently own is a piece of crap laptop which can barely run secondlife on the lowest settings, but I will have a brand new laptop by next week, so no more excuses for me. Anyways, back on to my costume, for the pants all I did was create new pants, pull and stretch them to a comfortable fit then slap some black coloring on them. The prim head was also easy, I simply built a prim, attached it to my skull, re-sized it then messed with the color and texture. All in all it was fairly simple except for when I was on my P.O.S. aka my laptop, at home.

Custom Object

I created a custom object named Snowlight. It is a combination of three different primitive objects, with a custom texture and a script. The script sets the light to be a more transparent and glowing color when touched. The objects are simple enough to create and use. I get the hang of combining and stretching out primitives, but it seems to be constrained to very simple types of objects. Perhaps I don't think in the form of primitives, which is a skill in it of itself.

My Avatar Benchmark AND My linked object!!

All right. Since I missed last class, I just thought I would combine both assignments in one. My linked object is a little Staples Easy button, and when you click on it, it says "That was easy!" in chat. I thought it would be cute. I made it a little bit bigger in this picture so you could see it better. What I originally wanted to do was to have the easy button say 'That was Easy!' out loud using a sound file, but I had problems uploading various objects through my laptop, including my texture for my t-shirt and the texture for the button. Like I said earlier, the button in this picture is bigger than how it actually is, but it is pretty small, and you attach it to your hand. You just click on it at anyplace or anytime and 'that was easy' will show up in chat. The picture on my shirt is supposed to be two rubber ducks in a bath tub. I made it in windows Paint. Because I am amazing. It wrapped all the way around the shirt so you can't see it clearly, but you can see the left side of one ducks face.

My costume

If it weren't for the jacket, you'd be able to see my shirt image.

Second Life Interface

The SL interface is a bit confusing.  Now that I've had time to play around and experiment with different stuff, I'm aware of where objects are and menus that I need.  Building was definitely confusing as the beginning.  There are a lot of options to select from and you're able to customize pretty much any object that you'd like to. Communicating with people is very simple, all you have to do is select the Chat tab and you can speak to anyone within the area. The windows are stackable and don't take up too much room. The world tab allows you to do many things such as change the scene to nighttime, take a snapshot or even see where you are located in the world map.  The search tab allows you to search for different characters or even explore a new area.  I am now beginning to become familiar with doing things and locating what I need to since I've spent more time exploring.

Interface

At first glance Second life can be pretty overwhelming, there are a million different options to choose from. This is a place where you can quiet literally play god. Now I know you believe that with most sandbox games this is the case but in all actuality you can not do whatever you want to do. In second life you can build anything you want and with the proper knowledge of how to script you can make your objects do whatever you want them to do. For example, I made a broom the other day and if I wanted to, we'll not if I wanted to but if I knew how to, I could make the broom a vehicle that you could ride or fly. The options are limitless, from making a soda machine to a gun. Or in my case I built a super Broom that I was attempting to script to be able to ride it.

   

  As I started working on making my own objects and trying to script it was very tricky at first. Trying to figure out how to work with the X, Y, and Z axis' or better yet trying to figure out how to get the object to work on these axis was very tricky at first but I quickly learned. That's not all, there was the texture size color and shape of the object. Then you have to fit other shapes together to make whatever it is you want to make i.e. a gun or chair or.... well whatever. This is all a small part of it, there is also the scripting then you can name your object and even sell it. So like I said on the surface Second Life can look pretty but underneath it can be overwhelming. As long as you have the patience and proper knowledge second life can also be very fun, being able to become whomever you want and better yet do whatever you want.

My New Secondlife

After a four mile walk from La Grange Pk. to the train station and then a twenty minute train ride to Union Station, then another three mile walk to class I arrived at 916 S. Wabash, the Interactive Arts and Media "department". I wasn't sure what to expect here at Columbia College. I was a little worried it would be like my previous college Lewis University, where the teachers were twenty years or more out of touch with the profession they taught. Walking into class I immediately felt at home, being greeted by the other students and talking about what games we played with the teacher.

  One of the first things we did in class was jump onto secondlife.com and make our avatar. We then got our self familiar with the controls and layout of the secondlife world. I couldn't believe what I was doing, in class and playing video games, wow! But that wasn't all, I was learning how the world of games worked, something I have wanted to learn for as long as I could remember.

  I'm 28 years old, I've been playing video games since I could remember but never considered pursuing a career around them. Not that I didn't want a career in game development but I just never thought of it as a career, if that makes sense. It took me a while to finally get into college as I have been on my own financially since high school. I've always loved flying as my grandfather was a mechanic for United and never stopped talking about flight. It only made sense that I go to Lewis University since that was where my grandfather graduated from back in 1947. Unfortunately flight as a career wasn't for me, I did get my private pilots license while I was there but I soon realized that was as far as I wanted to go. I was left to think about what I wanted to do for a living again. No matter how many ideas I came up with I never felt confident about any of them. Until I was playing Battlefield 3 with my brother and brought up how I was having trouble figuring out what I really wanted to do. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, duh, games! I've been playing games since 1984, I have played almost every system made since then and even before then. Every time I'm upset or stressed I jump on my 360 or PS3 or computer and all my troubles seem to fade away.

  Needless to say being in a class that revolves around gaming and game design just feels right. As I had said before, I was a little nervous with anticipation wondering what was in store for me. But for the first time  since I could remember I finally feel like I belong. When I leave class for the day and head home I don't feel like I just got out of class, instead I feel a little down like I left a friends house after playing online for hours. Even though It's a long walk home and a long walk back to school I'm more than happy to do it because I love what I'm doing, and that's what you need to make it a career.

Lightsaber

The first image is a double lightsaber that say "join the dark side twice". One is a shout and one is normal. The second picture are two lightsabe that do the same thing. It change color. When Said "May the force be with you" turn blue. When said "Join the dark side" turn red.

My stuff

The final object is called a Rant In A Box. When clicked, it says angry Mel Gibson quotes.

Build Interface

At first, the interface in Second Life was a bit confusing; there is definitely a learning curve.  I couldn’t even use the camera controls properly, but I’m starting to adjust.  Aside from learning and adapting to the basic interface of Second Life, I think what I will spend the most time on is building.  While I’m glad to have an avatar, I’m not that interested in changing it around that much.  I would really like to focus on building objects and working with Photoshop to make textures.  The interface for building is organized in one main menu with a a few tabs.  I really like that everything is in one location for building.  While building needed to be explained and I still had to learn all of the symbols and key features, there wasn’t too much memorizing involved.  It easy to navigate because the player doesn’t need to search through a maze of drop down menus to find something.  

I also like the instant gratification that the building interface gives you.  Objects never feel completely unfinished.  If I stop building midway it’s not unusable or far off from complete.  The second the user starts building there is something tangible (virtually tangible) to put back into the inventory or even use right it away.  I was not expecting to be able to immediately test or wear objects.  That feature makes the process easier and a little more rewarding.  I’m also looking forward to using the option of importing 3D models from other programs.  The building tools in Second Life are a good option for people, like me, who have never even dabbled in 3D modeling.  I think that as I get more comfortable with Second LIfe I will get tired of its limitations and I’ll want to move on to something more complex.  For a beginner this interface presents a learning curve that is surmountable and rewards the player immediately for creating something.

Snapshots

 My scripted object is this party hat that says, "Happy Birthday" when an avatar is within 3 meters.  The hat has some text that says, "Party Hat." Unfortunately, it's not visible so I'll have to work on considering the shape I'm applying the textures to.

This is my first snapshot of my avatar wearing the party hat prototype, and hanging out in a flying chair.

interface

Second Life gives any user god like power to change but mostly create almost thing if you are in the area that allow you to do so. I figure out now that I will use Second Life as an art space. Second life will be the perfect place to learn how to model and change virtual object. It seem to be easier to learn this than Maya which I will learn later. Before I’m able to do that I have to learn some of the small tips and tricks to do some simple things. Right now I trying to learn how to customize my avatar some more, I learn that the outfit and clothes are made of small object that are put together to make something cool. At first I was a Werewolf but now I’m a human character. I learn that human avatar is easier to customize than others. The inventory house all the outfits and items that I own. At first it look like a long list of clothes and attachments but it hold so much more. From your hair to something as small as my nails are all found in the inventory. The inventory is the gate way of customize the avatar. Everything is organized to different folder base on how it attachment to your avatar. Attaching items is not always as easy as it would be in video game. Just like in real life, everything don't fit everybody. This mean a jacket might fit one avatar but don't fit another avatar the same way. So in order to make something fit on my avatar I will have to move it around and or make it big or small. To do this I will have to edit the object which is right clicking it and clicking on edit. This will allow me to move the object back, forward , up, and down on the X, Y, and Z axis.

Assignment 1

Second Life at first reminds me of the video game Sims by EA Sport. Both are alike in many ways. The interactive media allow the player or user to create an avatar and customize it to almost anything you wish. Also allow them to interact with other users online but in Second Life you can do so much more.  It is more complex. It takes some time to get use to the game but once you find out what you can do, it pretty fun and cool. Second Life is not just a game or some social virtual world. It can be use as a business or even an art space to express one self. You can do almost anything you can do in real life and more. Hint the name “Second Life”. Even though almost anything is possible, it takes time to learn how things work. It is like being reborn and learns how everything works just like when you were a baby. It not easy to understand some of the things that people do or even how they do it sometime but I’m very interested it. I always like creating things in video games but in second life I will be able to that and more. I won’t be limit to the rules of a video game and plus I might even make some money creating and selling so stuff. In a way it like I’m getting a head start on the career that I wanted which is to become a game designer. I can’t wait to learn some more cool stuff about Second Life.

Second Life's Interface

Last post I talked very briefly about how much I disliked Second Life in general from a technical aspect so let's bash it some more there. The interface from Second Life is like World of Warcarft, Blender 3D modeling software, and Microsoft Excel had a baby. To start off the sheer number of options is staggering to the point of overloading new players. One could say this is a good thing and that it shows everything the game has to offer at once. In reality this is the root of the problem, some people don't want to build complex structures or have to dig though menu after menu to find an object. This is need is very apparent in the build menu. The options include 13 "basic" shapes and 2 plants but form there you have options to manipulate the object, edit it's features, change textures, and connect it with scripts. While this may be very similar to other 3D modeling programs it is all shoved into a single small box rather then spread out intuitively. To make things worse there are no snapping options and having mouse only controls while also lacking X Y and Z 2D screens just exacerbates the issue. This means the user is pushed to go and buy 3rd Party Modeling software just to make a simple object.

The issue of the interface also extends to the organization of items. Menus after menu all up to the player to keep clean with no system to auto sort items. In a weird twist all of these frustrations are relics of the past. When second life came out the iPod was just been revealed to the world and Windows XP was still king with its now ancient file structure and interface. But today things have changed, Windows 7 uses a smooth interface that puts everything at the user's finger tips without being overly complex while the iPod has moved on with iOS to show that smoothing and streamlining can make an interface great. Second Life could have been the next big thing like the iPod became but instead it got stuck in 2003.

My Avatar

Second Life First Impressions

Second Life is an example of something that could have been much more if the developers had pushed the limit a bit more. I had a short stint with the game back in 2004 and 8 years later things have not changed much including all it's problems. One of the glaring problems I had back in the day was Second Life's lack of proper optimization . Sadly 8 years down the line this has arguably gotten worse. Back in 2004 it ran fine on a midrange laptop on medium settings while today it can't go any further then high on my MacBookPro that blows my older laptop out of the water by miles. This problem is made even worse when I fired up my desktop, a computer that can max out Battlefield 3 and Metro 2033 without any effort yet Second Life has massive amounts of slowdown reloading areas of the map that I have already been to.

Now one could make the argument I am not being fair as Second Life steams it's content using a lightweight client whereas Battlefield 3 and Metro 2033 require 20GB of hard drive space. However, that does not excuse the lack of proper optimization for even low quality textures. Nevertheless, I think I may have forgotten what Second Life is really about, other people. Thinking back Second life is really a overblown IM client born out of the times when texting and AOL Instant Messaging was the hip thing. It also helped lay the groundwork for what we now know as Free-to-Play gaming. I could go on for ages about how horrible things like the interface are but that is for another time. I guess I am left conflicted with the nostalgia for one of my first big online experiences only to see how bad it was and how it's not any better now.

Searching through SL

Adventuring through randomly has been pretty fun. I have used to search function to look for environments before, for Game Culture. For that class, I went to environments like farms or zoos, looking for animals or scenery. Now when I search, I look for more cities or popular places, just to explore. I have the same complaint as before, that sometimes there are no people around or it is too laggy because of the number of assets or people. My annoyance with this is slowly going away, and I recall in class that just because there are no people around, doesn't mean that there's nothing to explore.

I've primarily been using the Search function just to teleport. I am learning more about the search function, such as more shopping features. I'm still reluctant to spend any money in SL, as I'm a pretty frugal gamer. And yeah, yeah, I know SL isn't a game.

I went to this extremely popular gaming place and was disappointed to find that it was largely money driven. I should have expected as much, because of the popularity and sponsored top links. I didn't realize I was unable to play the games because I was wandering around the casino for 15 minutes before everything loaded and the barriers would stop me from exploring the games.

I like visiting the shops and seeing all the hard work people have put into these assets. The search function can bring me to endless places to look around. I'm just hoping now that I will get more places to bookmark so I can streamline my SL experience, instead of just wandering aimlessly.

Neat Buttons

So, one of the things a lot of us are still perfecting is how to get the exact look we want our avatars to have. Or not, and in which case, never mind. Personally, I think it's much cooler if someone makes their own avatar's clothes, rather than just purchasing it. I know I'm being hypocritical because I bought mine, but I do hope to get better at making clothes that I will be confident enough the make my own some day.

Here's what I know about the wonderful Appearance mode:
~If you want to use a custom clothing texture, select build, then upload, then image. And of course, it costs money to add it to My Inventory, because let's face it, how else can they get money from you. Sorry, that's just me being bitter about my fraction of a penny being lost.

~Right click on your avatar and click My Appearance

~Afterwards, click the picture of a little gear at the bottom of the appearance window.  Then select new clothes.

~From there you can choose whatever you want: shoes, shirts, skirt, whatever. With whatever item you choose, you have multiple sliders on which to adjust you characters clothing.

~ Then click the Texture box to select a clothing texture from My Inventory, or drag the texture from My Inventory onto Texture.  This is pretty vital. Without it, your clothes will look bland and kind of awful. You CAN make textures with photoshop, but lets face it, I'm lazy and too poor for photoshop, so I (and potentially you!) just buy textures from the Shop icon at the top of the SL viewer.

~The last step is to obviously save. It would be a damn shame to have all that effort put to waste because of something dumb like that (but lets face it, we've all had our moments).

Now, I realize that there's a way to create clothing outside of the My Appearance, but I haven't quite figured it out and am far too lazy to tinker with it quite yet. Perhaps in the future I'll go more in depth. Because after all, your avatar is supposed to be a representation of who you are, blah blah blah artsy Columbia stuff. Either way, you should probably take time creating a neat looking avatar, because it's the first thing you'll learn to make in this class, and that in itself is pretty rewarding.

First Impressions

I wasn’t sure what I was really signing up for when I registered for this class and I honestly didn’t even know we would be using Second Life in the class.  Second Life certainly has a reputation, and not a very good one amongst my peers outside of the department.  I told one friend outside of Columbia that I was in a class where the medium of learning and progress is Second Life and the response was, “How can that even be a real class? Do you get regular credit for it?”  This leaves me to defend the curriculum of the course and Second Life’s reputation.  Plenty of people view it as this place where awkward people go to do sexual things they can’t do in real life because they are too introverted, or because it’s illegal.  I suppose if that is the reputation, I can understand someone questioning the class.  I explain it the same way it was explained to me, it doesn’t have to be social or a game, Second Life can be a place for art.  

When this first came up in class, I had never really thought of it that way. I didn’t know anything more about Second Life than the reputation it had.  I didn’t believe it, or I wouldn’t have registered for the class, but I didn’t know how wrong the stereotype was.  Columbia’s sim is filled with art and some interactive things to do.  I have not had the chance to go on Second Life again, but I have hope that there are many other active sims that don’t fit the stereotype of what some think Second Life is like.  From the introduction I got I saw how in depth the tools are in Second Life and knowing that anyone can import 3D objects for a fee is a shock to me, but it shows promise for unique art to show up in other places.  I am very eager to see more and to try making things myself.  

The Joys of the Search Button

I strongly, strongly approve of people using the magnifying glass on the left side of the screen since let’s face it, Columbia Island sucks compared to everything that you can find in SL. Anything that you want to find, and I mean anything, is available to you. Whether it’s people, places or events, if it exists, there is usually a place for it.

Classifieds is reserved for advertisements. Unless you own a sim or a shop, you won't be listed on there but a number of good sales can be found. Keep an eye out for interesting sims and shops that might pique your interest.

Events details upcoming shows, parties, RP events and other notable things happening in the near future. If there’s something notable going on, it'll be listed. Keep checking it since there will always be something to do.

The Destination Guide only shows off the best, most professional sims in SL. There are categories detailing everything from religion (including education about often misunderstood religions like Mormonism, Wicca and Islam) to virtual art galleries to zombie hunting sims. While there are way more than just these categories, the sims selected will always have a professional quality to them.

Land Rentals shows sims and lots for rent so you can build outside the Columbia sim. Get people to visit what you make. Want to create a new game in Second Life? Maybe build a home or better yet, an apartment building. The choice is up to you with what you do on your land. Keep in mind that land is incredibly expensive and generally not worth purchasing until enough places have been explored and friends made. Plus, the Columbia College Sandbox is still available as long as you’re a student.

People is kind of a useless tab since it's way better to meet people on your own but if you want to check to see if there’s anyone with a certain name, feel free to look around. Just keep in mind that random IMs from across the grid to people you've never met is incredibly intrusive and not something that I personally would do. It's best use if if somebody mentions that they have an alt.

Groups allows you to join a group to display your inters to the world. Are you a gamer? Are you interested in jazz music? Are you a dog owner in RL? Join up with like-minded people for group chat while displaying your interests to everyone you meet.

Places is a more in depth version of the Destination Guide. Every sim on the grid is displayed but there's also a lot of unfinished crap out there and seeing something with an great description and then looking at it and seeing how it's unfinished and nobody's there is always a bummer. Then again, some of the best sims in SL aren't listed on the DG so feel free to search here.

Support is for when you're stuck and you need answers. You'll find questions that have already been answered on the forums so if you don't know how to do something, ask your question here and hopefully you'll find an answer.