*20 Video QUICKTIPS* to ultracharge your Second Life!
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 AM by: Torley LindenYAYZERAMA! Back by popular demand, it could only be a matter of time before another round of QUICKTIPS arrived. This series is warmly treasured by Second Life Residents for delivering the goods — not counting intro/outro, 
each tip is 2 minutes or less, so even if you don’t have a lot of time, you can choose what you’re interested in and learn! From basic need-to-knows to strangely handy advanced features…
This is Torley with QUICKTIPS VOLUME 7. LET’S ROCK AND ROLL!
DOWNLOAD HIGH-QUALITY VERSIONS
Voice Chat: Customize Speech Gestures
Harmony Linden got me thinking: I haven’t yet seen a custom speech gesture pack. Has anyone made one? In the meantime, watch this to get started. Do backflips and belly laughs while you enunciate, for all I care.
Voice Chat: Turn on Lip Sync
Make your avatar’s lips move while talking. One of the coolest “hidden” features we have; you’ll need at least version 1.20 (not the existing 1.19 viewer) to play with this. Don’t forget to check out the documentation!
Camera Options sliders in action
What do they do? I’ll show you!
Boost performance with Graphics Preferences
With a few clicks, you can make Second Life run faster/smoother. Especially recommended if you’re new to SL and having a tough time.
Increase graphics detail beyond Preferences
On a powerful enough computer? Want to take extra-high-quality snapshots? Maybe you need to do this!
Change the viewer’s skin
New in Second Life 1.20 is the easy option to choose how the user interface looks. Don’t forget, more customizability is on the way!
Explore with Profile Picks surfing
I’m crazy about sharing better ways to get around. Here’s an unobvious-but-valuable way to “connect the dots”.
What are coalesced objects?
They’re what happens when you take more than one object at the same time. See this to understand why they’re both a pleasure and a pain.
Linden trees in coalesced objects
Got Linden trees in a coalesced/combined object you can’t rez because you don’t have land? Courtesy of our Support Team comes a workaround.
Sitting
You need to know this. But even if you do, did you know these tricks? See inside!
Make stuff easier to sit on
You should also know this. The sit click action lets people sit on your creations (both scripted and not) with one left-click! There’s hardly ever reason to not use it on chairs, poseballs, and so on.
Restore your lost Local Chat tab
If you forgot where it went, don’t panic. Just watch this and you’ll be on your way.
See who’s looking at you with Show Look At
By popular request! Know if you’re being watched. Thanx to Richard Linden for info on what the different colors mean.
See where you’re pointing with Show Point At
A related feature to Show Look At. Hopefully per VWR-8144 on the Issue Tracker, it’ll be easier to use.
Show invisible objects with Highlight Transparent
Ever run into a wall you couldn’t see? Here’s how to reveal them. Other uses of invisible objects also covered.
View webpages with the Media Browser
Ever wanted to easily pop open an in-viewer web browser? Here’s how!
What is that white dot over my head?
It’s your voice chat status indicator. Here’s how to turn it off.
What is the Library?
In your Inventory window is a folder with Linden-provided stock content, including avatars, textures, etc.
Bookmark Second Life places in your web browser I
You can use the familiar comfort of Firefox or another browser to store inworld landmarks.
Bookmark Second Life places in your web browser II
Here’s more info on SLURLs and how to control where you teleport. By understanding this better, you’ll be closer to mastering inworld exploration as I have.
Many of the above QUICKTIPS make reference to other ones I’ve done. You can find them on secondlife.com/video, the BIG LIST O’ VIDTUTS.
Enjoy, and I always appreciate hearing if you find these video tutorials useful and/or fun — so let me know! 
-Torley Linden 
Hang out with me inworld Thursdays @ 12 PM PDT (noon) on the awesome region of Here!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:06 AM
AWESOME TORLEY!!! As always Thank you! Just a quick Question,..LOL..ignore if you must…any more work on “shadows”? The pack rocks but do you think it will ever be a part of the regular viewer or is it too soon to tell? My best to all the Lindens and hope to see you soon!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 AM
Excellent collection, and not just for noobs. Well done, Torley!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 AM
Great Work Torley, always bringing in the better way the simple life of SL =]
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 AM
Don’t know why! I just wanted the first posting:)
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 AM
Ack! I type too slow
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 AM
shame i cannot sign in to try some of these wonders.
lol
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:39 AM
As ofcourse the statuspage is always behind, I like to tell you here that if you are having asset related problems, it is not you. TP’s are failing, taking objects are failing and uploading textures is also not working.
Lets hope Linden announces it quicker this time.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 AM
I’ve been in SL for over a year and a half, and I learned something from this collection, so it isn’t only for noobs!
Great work, Torley!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:46 AM
ty dear LL, u just killed the Grid….. who wonders….
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:48 AM
yes unable to log in…..
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 AM
hope u will pay back this time the people they lost inventory , because YOU AT LL MADE A FAILURE!!!
so set all back 12 hours earlier!!! or pay the people they lost their inventory from your faults.
dont look at my face, its not nice yet to view at….
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Hmmm, no logins!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:55 AM
I found a few of these really helpful! Thanks so much for your work, Torley (and all the behind the scenes coworkers)!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 AM
TORLEY -
Any way lip movement can be made to work in sync with keyboard use as well as voicing…. ??
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Wow! Great job Torley! You never stop amazing me.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Torley for president!!
…Hmm, wait, can a god be president?
Anyway, YOU R0KKZ0RS MY B0XX0RZ
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 AM
I really like your tutorials, Torley. Keep them coming. On the matter of show-lookat, this little hidden feature could stand to be improved. I’d like to see a small list of the avies looking at you, similar to the active speakers list. Having range specifier for greater than X distance, would be really useful roo.
In keeping with the blog tradition of saying something out-of-topic, I have to say that losing 2000 items from my inventory, which I never rezzed durng the asset server meltdowns, and having had rezzed objects (many no-copy) disappear into the void after the rolling restarts and rollbacks, leaves me seriously discouraged and not confident in LL’s ability to retain asset integrity. LL needs to develop externally backed inventory blobs, encrypted, authenicated, whatever it takes to prevent spoofing, copying, etc. This is something people can do to checkpoint their inventory onto their system to then use it as a restore point. We’d all be better off with capability.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 AM
@14 That would be cool! A lot of us don’t use voice,..ooops….I said that out loud!
O.O
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 AM
A quicker way to get the secondlife:// URI: Open any slurl.com location and copy the “teleport now” link (right click the button, and choose “copy link location”).
I would also like to blame bad Torley who introduced the concept of facelight. ^_^
(There can only be a few lights - 6 I believe - in the scene at one time, and too much light may contribute to some lag. This may change with the experimental real-time shadow branch, though.)
Kudos again for such usefun video tutorials!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Thanks for these!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Thanks for highlighting the lip sync, Torley. I was afraid it would get lost there in the Advanced menu.
Mm Alder (pronounced without the space: “Mmalder” Yes, the truth is out there.
)
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:23 AM
If the lip-syncing doesn’t already work with typing, then LL should really consider adding it. That’s a very popular option with Muzzletalk users. I suspect it’d go over just as well with more human-ish avs, too.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 AM
@Malestrom: No, the lip sync works on top of gestures, so it can’t be invoked by text chat.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:13 PM
Pity
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:44 PM
@23,24: But gestures are based on animations, and animations can be run from scripts, and scripts can detect typing… so it should be possible to make some kind of mouth movements as a typing animation.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 PM
i’ve been selling speach gestures packs since voice was introduced
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 PM
@25: If the mouth movement is actually part of an animation and not just a hardcoded viewer hack, then it will probably be scriptable eventually. Though, as we saw in the case of Windlight Glow, it sometimes takes awhile for new viewer features to be made scriptable in the server even when it *is* planned.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 PM
Great videos Torley. Always learning something new. Thank you.
O.T. - Please vote for and comment on
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-729
if you are affected by this. Thanks
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:53 PM
Yes, I have made a set of voice gestures - I can see I shall have to drop you a box of them when I get in world, Torley.
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:23 PM
Great VidTuts - as ever
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 PM
Your video tutorials are always fun and no one I know has any difficulties with them. Gee, you’d think you did them for a living
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 PM
Sedary@27: You can trigger the built-in facial animations with llStartAnimation(”express_open_mouth”) etc…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 PM
Wow.
No, wait…
Wow.
LOL!
; )
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:41 PM
A real way to ultra-charge your SL is to buy a quad-core processor :), Yes it’s expensive (not everyone can pay the $230 upfront fro a AMD Phenom 9850 black Edition I know. But save your money if you can, then get it.) but it’s an upgrade that pays for itself especially with SL, I’m using the aforementioned CPU and I’m getting great frame rates in the production viewer and they’re even higher in the Release Candidate thanks to SL being switched from CPU to GPU reliance.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 PM
Torley,
Awesome tutorials and thank you as always. Is there any date yet set on the 1.20 version Mac for release since I’d really like to use voice chat lip sync for some movie trailers and I would rather not use the beta version yet due to other issues I may encounter? It would be a great addition in using machinima and most HUDs are not up to par but, it appears you’ve resolved that. Thank you again these were awesome keep them coming!
Toni
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 PM
I really hope the customizable skins come out really soon - I wanna skin my viewer in my two favorite colors, green and purple!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:09 PM
OMG!!! Torley rocks :-)). Thank you, thank you, and oh yeah… THANK YOU!!!!!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 PM
You know. I always wonder why isn’t there a ‘photograph quality’ option in the preference. Once activated, everything will be rendered at max quality with smooth tree and terrain and all, without having to set back and forth debug option every time.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:33 AM
Fantastic videos again Torley as always.
You have made my Second Life so much better
July 24th, 2008 at 3:06 AM
Absolutely great….use them a lot……. its amazing what sl can do….love it!
July 24th, 2008 at 3:42 AM
Hello, thanks for the tut.
Can you make a short Tut on “How to wisper”? I know how to talk/type and i know how to Shout/type.. even with the STRG short cut. But i ever wondered how to whisper Or can only scripted Objects wisper?
July 24th, 2008 at 4:00 AM
Great VidTuts as always Torley
Love your work and great information you provide us with . I get a kick out of watching them all.
Much appreciated {:+)
July 24th, 2008 at 5:10 AM
#14 there are lip sync to type add ons available for your avatar, If you wish IM me in game if we are online at same time.
Look for Uke Takashi
July 24th, 2008 at 5:16 AM
Andrea, I’m pretty sure only objects can “whisper”… not a real loss, though, as the only difference between talking and whispering is the distance which is 20m vs. 10m.
If you REALLY wanna whisper to someone, just IM them. 
July 24th, 2008 at 5:18 AM
Nargus: I think that’s a great idea, there should be a one-for-all checkmark to temporarily enable ultra-high detail… but remember, the debug settings are just multipliers and you don’t have to keep resetting them. Just dial back the sliders in the graphics prefs instead after you’re done with the photo shoot.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:56 AM
***I repeat***
TORLEY ROCKS, TORLEY ROCKS!
Thanks for the info.
/me laughs @44, shameless plug!
July 24th, 2008 at 6:30 AM
Great videos Torley!! -laughes at the first one-
July 25th, 2008 at 12:37 PM
Absolutely Fantastic videos THANK YOU!!!!!
July 27th, 2008 at 5:20 PM
Great tips Torley, just one question, can you tell me how I can pay the same amount for services that most countries do, it seems that LL are racialy discriminating against europeans.
July 28th, 2008 at 5:36 AM
[...] you’re updating your SecondLife don’t forget to check out Torley Linden’s seventh set of QuickTip videos. I definitely want to check out the Customized Speech Gestures, Lip Syncing (while talking, not [...]
July 29th, 2008 at 9:42 AM
WOW !
Sea!
Sky!
WOW !
Speechless, well almost LOL
1.20 viewer, Wish I had tried it earlier, I had kept with an old version, as was getting more concerned with the stabilty, than additional features.
For some time Second life has been very unstable for me, since the voice option was introduced.
Dont get me wrong although I rarely use voice I can see the attraction of it, and feel it is a great feature.
But my main concern is not crashing every ten minutes, which had began to happen:-(
So thats what made me take the plunge and download the new viewer, the change in graphics was astounding and so far it has not crashed either
So for anyone who hasnt tried it yet, all I can say is DO! this release is excellent, I love it!
So credit where its due thanks Linden Labs:-)
July 31st, 2008 at 2:16 AM
Kinda late of me, but, because Googling “Second Life” whisper still lands me here, I think it’s worth mentioning to Andrea and others that http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3434 offers a straightforward patch which you can vote to include in the viewer. This patch places “Whisper” next to Say and Shout in the chatbar’s Say menu. I hope to try it someday but I myself know little about patching, so I can only wait for some form of help (or explanation as to why we don’t have this already?).
While I’m at it, thanks to Torley for exposing yet more fun hidden features. Plus, the profile picks surfing was hilarious. XD
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 PM
Can any of you out there tell me if there is a way to disable the white dot for voice chat without disabling the function? I’m using machinima for some video production and would like to use lip sync without seeing the annoying white dot with the red and green waves. If anyone can help with that I would greatly appreciate your input. If this is not possible could Torley please add this to advanced someday for us wanting to see lip sync and use it in machinima videos without the white dot?
Thanks! Toni
August 19th, 2008 at 7:12 AM
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