Second Life Tutorials; Introduction- Creation's beginnings

Tutorial Listing


1. Objects; The wonderful SL World
2. Hair
3. Flexi/ Prim Hair
4. Clothing Basics
5. Little more then Basic Clothing
6. Flexi Clothing
7. Pose Creation
8. Party Planning
9. DJ recommendations
10. Vendor Recommendations
11. Freebies list for Newbies


Welcome to the Tutorials section. Many of you starting in Second Life (SL) are probably looking for fun and entertainment and knowledge on how to get buy with what you need to do or play as needed in the game. But for some of you, there will be that urge to simply see what you can create. Hopefully these tutorials will help those of such nature on their way to become great builders and creators of SL. To further help this at the end of my tutorials will be links to others that I feel may help, or have helped me to learn. This way you get a variety of teaching styles. If you are like me, one way of teaching may not necessarily help you to learn how to do such things very well. So here we go...

1. Basic Building and designing facts. It is always best for new people to do a search for free or open Sandboxes. If you are just starting, a Sandbox is nothing more then an area designated for people to create or build objects. To find the right area for you isn't as easy as just finding them. To do this, once in game go to the search button at the bottom of the screen, or you can access it by going under the Edit tab in the Main menu, or also by pressing Ctrl- F (the Control button and the letter F button at the same time). Once the Search window opens you will see some Tabs at the top of it. Select the Places tab and type 'sandbox' in the find section, then just press the search button beside it or press the Enter key and the list will populate. Note here to new users, this will just bring a general listing of sandboxes. Not all are free spaces, some are privately owned by groups or sims, etc. If you want to search specifically for free sandboxes, just type 'Free Sandboxes' in the find section and it should list them. If you see one you want to try select it in the list and an image as well as a description will appear next to the search list, if you still want to visit that particular one, it's as easy as using the Teleport button which will bring you right there.

Another note about sandboxes: Please be courteous to other builders there. Most places free or not, may have a set of rules and terms to which others are allowed to stay. Be mindful that there are other users in the area trying to create their own things just like you and may not wish to be disturbed, or say, have a house fall on them, or be run over by passing cars. (Believe me I've had these happen a few times.. it's very distracting and often annoying). If you aren't building another use for sandboxes is the rezzing of objects given or bought. But as stated, be mindful of the terms of use as well as others for the reasons of houses or cars or other large objects that could effect others.

2. Creating Objects: Creating objects can be interesting. There are many things that can be done with objects. A person can create hair, homes, clothing, utilitize, furniture, poses, plants, creatures.. etc and I do mean etc.. Now to begin creating something make sure you are in an area that allows this, i.e Sandboxes. To start creating simply right click with the mouse and take note of the option circle that appears. Among the list of choices is Create, select that or, you can also get to the Create options by the following steps;

- Main Menu -> View Tab -> Build.
- Press the Build button at the bottom of the screen. (Right next to the search Button)

Once the Build Menu is up you will see some buttons, and shapes and a button that says More>>. Select the More>> Button and watch the options expand. There will be different options as pointed out in the below images. (I'm a visual Learner so pictures help a lot for explaining to others.)

All right, now that you have a basic familiarity of where things are let's continue this tour. You will notice that shortly after rezzing (Creating in this instance), the selected tool button will switch from the create, to the Edit tool. This will bring up other sets of options specific for the editing process. This is handy in a sense that you won't continually create object after object and trying to figure out how to edit them when the options aren't listed. Also note if you decide you don't like or have too many of an object select it, and for PC users you can hit delete on the keyboard to delete it, or for both Mac and PC You can right click the object, select more from the menu options and then delete via that way.