The Second Life Welcome Island

Typically when you arrive "inworld" at the Welcome Center you don't know what to do next. Depending on your computer it may take a while for you to "rez"-for the pixels to be filled with their proper colors. When you do, you see Avatars wandering around bumping into each other. There is a conversation on your screen that doesn't seem to make sense because everyone is talking at once. People do not have the skills yet to act and interact "normally."



The first thing you want to do is to use your arrow keys to move your avatar a few feet so that the next incoming new person doesn't land on top of you. Once you do we can go over a few basics. The first three skills a person needs to learn is:
  • How to move
  • How to control what you see
  • How to Communicate

How to move

Movement in Second Life, at the basic level is pretty simple. You use the 4 arrow keys. UP moves you forward. DOWN moves you back. The side arrows turn you either direction. Your "camera" follows your movements.

Your PAGE UP arrow causes you to jump if you push it once and fly if you hold it down for a couple seconds. Save these movements for later when you are oriented to the Second Life environment a little better.

How to control what you see

You control what you see by changing the focus, the distance and the orientation of your "camera"-a metaphor for the framing what you see on your screen. The default orientation of your camera is behind and above your avatar, the most useful orientation for moving about.



There are times when you want to focus on an object, for instance you want to read a sign. Or you want to get a good look at you own face. We will use focusing on your face as an example of how to change your camera orientation. To move you your camera, you use the arrow keys like you did to move, only this time you do so while depressing the ALT key.

Start by depressing ALT and using a side arrow to bring your camera in front of your avatar.



Now you can see the front of your avatar, but most likely you cannot see the level of detail you want to see in your face. Since we want to look at your face, we want to center the camera's point of focus on your face. The way you do that is to depress the ALT key, use you mouse to place your cursor on the object on which you want to center (your face) and click. This will move your face to the center of your screen.

Now with your ALT key depressed, use the UP arrow to zoom in on your face.



If your head is turned, with the ALT key still depressed, use the side arrows to come in front of your face. If your camera is above or below your face, you can use PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN keys in combination with ALT to pan up or down. Likewise if you zoom in on a sign and it is hard to read becasue it is at a bad angle, you can adjust to center it by using your arrow keys in combination with ALT.

How to Communicate



There are 3 basic ways to communicate.
  • Local Chat
  • IM or Instant Message
  • Voice

We will deal with voice chat at a later time.

Local Chat

Local Chat is a text-based chat in which anyone within a 20 M circle will hear what you say. Likewise, you will hear anything within spoken within 20 M of you. You hear and talk in the lower left portion of your screen. The text you hear will appear as people speak. You speak by talking into the box in the lower left portion of the screen. That box may or may not be open. Here is a picture of what the box looks like when it is closed.



On the lower left is an icon that looks like the caption in a cartoon. Click it to open your local chat box.



You simply type what you want to say into the Local Chat Box.

IM or Instant Messages.

If local chat is like talking at a party, IM is like using a telephone. Only the person addressed in the message can hear you. You might also think of it as a private chat.

The way you start an IM chat is by right-clicking on the avatar who you want to speak to. IT will give you a pie diagram like this.



At the 5 o'clock position you see the choice "Send IM". Left-click it. You will open up a dialog window called Communicate. You speak by typing on the white box at the bottom of the window. The conversation occurs inside this window.



If someone tries to contact you via an IM, you can open the chat window by clicking on "Communicate" in the lower left of your screen.



Now that you master the basic skills take a few minutes to wander around and read the signs intended to orient new people. When you are done come join us at the Meditation Center.

The Law of Attraction Meditation Center





Chip Engelmann
Light Tappingsm
EFT and Law of Attraction Specialist
Indiana, Pennsylvania
Chip@ChipEFT.com
www.ChipEFT.com



2/27/2010
© 2010 Chip Engelmann