Help Island

I'm sure this is posted somewhere but I'm having difficulty finding the specific informations. First of all is the help island only available to greeters, mentors, and brand new residents? I am wondering because a lot of the information that is supposed to be available there I never received and still don't know. I often feel confused and lost about some terminology and skills. I can't even make a cube. I know that the Ivory Tower exists to help with building but I would like something with bit more personal touch and not self serve stations where there is no one to ask questions and demonstrate things to me. Sometimes I feel as though the newbies that come through the WA know more about SL than me.

It's true that you can't get back to Help Island, however most anybody in the mentor group would be happy to give you the information that you need. Feel free to IM me in world and I'll load you up with notecards and try to answer any questions you might have.

You should be able at most times to ask on the Live Help channel for a Linden staff member to relay a message to the Second Life Mentor group if you want help from a mentor group member. It's a volunteer group, and the members who are inworld may be busy, so you may have to try at different times to find someone.

There is a group called Builders of Second LIfe (and several others) that can answer questions about building.

The Scripters of Second Life group is a good one to ask for help with scripting.

You can look up the group Second Life Mentor and double click the names in the member list to pull up a mentors profile, then send them an instant message with your request.

Asking for lessons in the building forum might work.

There is all sorts of info about Second Life on the web at secondlife.com/help.

Only a handful of volunteers are in Help Island at a time, sometimes none. The rest are either not inworld or out in the mainland or on an island like they have always been.

Don't forget there is an instructor grouo, it's just called Instructor, it has 235 members, you can also use the Find group to get the member list and contact them.

Posting a request for help in the Second LIfe volunteers forum group could also yield a result.

If the University of Second LIfe group is still open for members, you can join that and ask if someone can give you building lessons.

Drop by the Shelter, chill and ask for help with building, or anything else. Or any of many social gathering places could serve as well.

I see a building lesson offered by Dreams Lightcloud today at noon SLT , listed in the events as Building Basics for SL

Hanging out in the sandbox sims Cordova, Goguen, Newcombe, Sandbox Island, or the Morris Building Area , and saying "Would someone teach me to build?" will probably get a useful reaction before too long.

Forming a group and making the title say "Building Lessons, Pleaee" and wearing that all the time might work too.

Welcome to SL Ami

When any of us mentors are at help island we do are best to help, anytime I have been to help island this week 5-6 hrs a day there are mentors there or live helpers. And like Sue said you can use live help or ask any mentor or greeter for help

I read what you really want is someone to help you build online. But anyway, to answer your basic question of how to make a cube.

First you have to be on land where you can build. If building isn't allowed you'll see a red circle on the top of your screen with a cube in it.

If you don't want to search you can go to Newcomb (one of many places) which is a place meant to experiment and build. Click "Map" at the bottom of the screen and where it says - Find Region - type in "Sandbox Newcomb". Click Teleport and you are off.

I suggest hitting Page Up now to fly as high as you can. Then use the left and right arrows to find the red beam which is Newcomb, your destination. Hit the front arrow to go forward and the left and right arrows to steer till you get there.

Once you are at the beam fly around the area for some ground to land in and press the "Stop Flying" button to land.

Oh yes, we were talking about making cubes

Once you are in area where you can build all you need to do is...

Right click on the ground
Choose create from the pie menu
Left click on the ground and a cube will appear

A menu should have appeared too. Try clicking "Edit", "More" and "Object". There are all sorts of things you can change your cube with here. The size, moving it, even whether you can walk through it or if it moves when something bumps it. You can also do odd things like twist it or make it hollow.

There is anotber item to click on there, "Texture". With that you can put any image you wish onto the side of your cube. You can upload them so long as the filename ends in .jpg/.jpeg, .bmp or .tga (well mostly). And it doesn't matter if you twisted them or whatever, you will get the texture on there. It might look funny though. You can put your image on every surface of the cube or just one.

I've been rambling too long but hope that gives you some things to try.

Hi Ami

if you look in the library section of your inventory there are some useful notecards that can give you some help.

Also if you contact "live help" in-world, and ask for tips on a topic that you need help with, the live helpers will be able to pass note cards to you on lots of topics. I have quite a collection. (All the ones that you can get from Help Island)

I know how daunting it is when you don't know what to do, I still sometimes feel like a newbie with lots of things - but you will pick it up if you persevere. Good luck!