Try Second Life (SL) in EAST

1. Try Second Life (SL) in EAST Welcome to EAST Project Island What is Second Life (SL)? -Or rather, Teen Second Life (TSL) Second Life is an online 3D virtual world (Metaverse) were Residents interact through Avatars. Each resident (person) logs into the client program called the “SL viewer,” which is provided for free from Linden Labs (the owners of SL). Residents can meet other residents, socialize, create, edit, share, and sell objects, and participate in group activities. Facts about SL: At the end of March 2008, approximately 13 million accounts were registered, although there are no reliable figures for actual long term consistent usage. -Wikipedia In January 2008, residents spent 28,274,505 hours there, so on average about 38,000 residents were logged on at any particular moment. -Wikipedia Teen Second Life (TSL) is a separate “grid” where residents must be between the ages of 13 and 17. This separate grid exist to protect teens from any mature content on the “main grid.” The main grid is for 18+ only. -256m X 256m piece of standalone virtual land -have their own controls including: terraforming, textures, and access/activities of other avatars To Get Started: 1. Download SL Client at secondlife.com 2. Create an Avatar 3. Look around This is a free download. You will need to be logged in as an administrator to install the program. You will also want to check the minimum requirements for running SL. Users can edit nearly every feature of their avatar, including: head, torso, legs, arms, feet, face, hair, skin, clothes, and accessories. You can make it look like you, or something completely different. The first time you log in you’ll be on “orientation island.” This is designed like a tutorial and will teach you the basics of navigation. Once you’ve completed these, try teleporting to other places. ? 6. Collaborate with other EASTers 5. Add scripts 4. Create things This is where my help stops. It’s up to you to find ways to collaborate with other EAST students. Identify a need in your EAST lab or community, then log in and find a way to fix the problem. Do it!  Kind of like Sketchup/Softimage/Blinder, you can build objects using “prims” (primitive shapes). You can then “link” prims to make more complex objects (e.g. buildings, cars). You also add textures or colors. Scripts can be added to almost anything and can be used to do nearly anything imaginable. Linden Scripting Language (LSL) is the language used and can be learned fairly quickly. Google “lsl portal.” Resources for Second Life Basic Information Modeling and Scripting Tutorials www.sltutorials.net/ vw.ddns.uark.edu http://secondlife.com/whatis/ www.simteach.com/wiki www.google.com wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page Created by Adam Barnes [abarnes@cast.uark.edu] - Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) - July 08