Beginner’s info for the Second Life
Second Life (SL) is the name for the virtual reality world that you can enter and explore for free. You move there in space and over the beautiful landscapes in the form of your representative in the virtual computer world.This representative is called the avatar. He or she walks on the computer landscape as you would walk in the real life. You can set yourself the form of your avatar, select its face, body posture and of course dress it into the clothes you prefer. You can walk around using the cursors on the keyboard or even fly with the pageUp key and then navigating with cursors. Landing is achieved by pressing the PageDown key.How to start with the Second life? Visit first the website www.secondlife.com. You download then the Second life client which you need to install like some other computer program. If you are lucky and your computer meets the hardware needs (you need a not too old graphic card) the Second life client will lead you almost instantly into the virtual reality of the exciting new world you are going to discover!After you have chosen your avatar name and successfully landed on the Second life (SL) world ground, I suggest you to go first to the orientation island. You learn there how to move around and adapt your appearance. The simplest moving around is by using the keyboard arrow keys. As expected, the upper arrow brings you forward, the left arrow to the left and the opposite for the right arrow while the down arrow turns you back.When I first walked in the second life I wanted to visit the neighbouring island and so walked under the water on the seabed. Quite interesting! Later on I learned that you can also fly in the second life: Press the PageUp key and you lift up! The longer you press the key, the higher you lift! If you have risen too high, the PageDown arrow would help. It lowers you until you touch the ground. Then you automatically return into the walking mode. Let us now stay in the air for a while! By pressing the upper cursor you turn into the horizontal position in the air and fly away, the computer “camera” following you just behind. If you press the right or left arrow you fly left or right, respectively. Pressing the down arrow turns you back – towards the camera allowing to see your face!It is very nice to fly especially in the morning or in the evening… The Second life landscapes and light effects are really beautiful!So fly to the orientation island (help yourself with the map which you can visualize from the bottom menu) and learn there more about the moving and behaving in the SL. You will be able to set your new clothes, new face design, adjust how fat your body is etc.
Apr 21st, 2008 at 9:16 am
[…] Shayne Garcia wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptYou can walk around using the cursors on the keyboard or even fly with the pageUp key and then navigating with cursors. Landing is achieved by pressing the PageDown key.How to start with the Second life? … […]