Advice Pls - How much to pay for v. patient, knowledgeable tutor for in-world help?

It's the Ivory Tower of Primitives - possibly the best self-paced tutorial place for building in SL.

Torley did a quick video of it recently: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/17/learn-building-at-the-ivory-tower-of-primitives-video-tip-of-the-week-34/

Just search places for Ivory Tower and you'll find it. If you're into building at all, even if you've been building for a while, it's really a must-see.

Ivory Tower Library of Primitives

Do a search for it in-world.. not too long ago it was also featured by Torley in one of his vids I believe.

Anywho, it's an in-world, quite thorough and well done tutorial for the basics of building.

I recommend anyone who ever wants to build anything (Hell, even those that don't) go there and go through it. It's always useful.

A small part in my land is set to a different group, for the purpose of allowing the homeless to set this place as their home location.
You can find the group in search and join: Lake Gnoma Information group.

You need to wear the group tag to set home location there, but after that you don't really need to wear it.

You can tp there from this map:
http://www.gypsygadgets.com/blog/#
Currently the 5th entry from the top.

I don't bite unless asked to.

Oh shoo - where's the fun in that? << >>

lol Gabriele.... maybe you could just ask?!!!

Ty all for the info on Ivory Towers, I'd never heard of it (and it's probably well advertised.... I'm just good at missing the important info. as I'm too busy filling my head with worthless stuff!).

I'll go pay it a visit later on today and see what it's all about - if it helps me to complete a house, maybe I could stop selling off all my worldly goods in auction sites to fund SL - particularly as my cat is now looking nervously at the large box with air holes in it!!!).

Twirly

You have not been around many vampires have you Twirly?

Lol Gabriele, I've never met one.... yet! But I am starting to wonder whether I should quit the whole house building thing and attempt to make myself an armored suit, a string of garlic cloves and some cross accessories? Then again, if I'm still struggling with basic wall alignment and scripting errors, I might as well just advertise my neck on SLExchange right now and be done with it!!!

Where people often call me arrogant (no clue where that comes from) you seem to be quite the opposite Twirly. Maybe you should start a course in self-confidence before the building.

On the other hand... don't. Your style of writing is very cute and always makes me smile as well Good luck building!

(garlic has no effect on SL vampires by the way, they will go fow your pixel blood anyway...).

Marcel is right Twirly, garlic and crosses would not help you one bit. We are the ones who tread unseen in the shadows, we are the chill down your spine. Sleep well Twirly *smiles*

Not all of us mortals mind being bitten by a vampire named Gabrielle though

Ooooh... do I sense a wee bit of flirting between you two?!?!? I'll build you a room, if you can wait that long lmaoooooo!

Dull house building question, sorry......

A long time ago I purchased a great window tint system (script & glass with switch) that I've rather foolishly used in all my builds (doh!) so that when I have 2 or 3 of my 'something resembling a house' objects out together, the switch works on all of them together.

Can anyone please tell me if this means that for each build I have to go and find new tinting packages by different sellers? The one I have is non-modifiable so I cannot alter it, but it actually is ONE thing that I've got to grips with using! I'm guessing I'm going to have to spend out and read more instructions.... sigh

TY in advance,
Twirly

First of all I was doing the flirting, Gabrielle is sensible enough not to react on it though But if we ever need a room I knw where to find one... though I heard the window tinting system is a bit borked

Most tinting systems should have a notecard or so on which you can change the channel. As long as each switch talks on the same channel as the windows are listening to, it works. If you do not change any of the notecards, all switches will talk on the same channel, and all windows listen on that same channel as well. Hence your problem.

How is that for a serious note

It depends on the window tinting script, Twirly.

The controller prim and the script in the window have to talk to each other. Often, you can specify what chat "channel" this communication will use.

My Hippo Windows system, for example, suggests using a high negative number for this channel, e.g., -314159. The same number is set in the controller script and in any windows that you want it to affect.

By giving each controller and its windows a different channel, the controller won't darken your neighbor's windows.

If your tint system is No Modify, you may be out of luck. However, there are freebie window tinter scripts available. Check out the Script Library here in these forums.

That "No Modify" is the kicker. I suspect the creator of this system *expects* you to re-buy it per use, which I find borders on robbery. Unless the script does something vastly more complex than change the window's alpha (opacity). Using a channel is also somewhat sloppy anyway. How comfortable are you with linking objects? A better way is to have a controller box which changes alpha of all linked child objects. Then when your house is all built, you link which windows you want to the controller you want to control them. Viola, no crosstalk and no wasting resources on listeners. You can even have a different controller per room, etc.

Thanks again you lovely people for the tips and also for the laughs! In response:-

'THE WAFFLE'
Yes, I did get lumbered with the 'under confident' gene in my RL family... my brothers chose the better options before I was born and yes, I'm too insecure to demand my money back!!! hehe

As for classes in confidence or even arrogance (!!), sadly I cannot attend any more as, after my last experience, I managed to convert everyone there to babbling, paranoid, useless individuals and that particular event was closed down... on the bright side, psychiatrists should really be giving me commission for increasing their popularity!

'THE 'SHOW THE WORLD WHAT AN AIRHEAD YOU TRULY ARE' BUILDING QUESTIONS'
Oh boy, I'm just about to lose what very little pride I had left by asking (I'm attempting to get my fingers to actually type this, whilst my head is saying 'don't do it') about the channels - the window tint system I have does not allow any viewing of the content, but if I purchased one that does, would I then see what the channels are about and save some further embarrassment, or do I need someone to come down to my pathetically low level and explain it to me please?

And still I'm sitting here, wondering whether I should hit the 'submit reply' button or just hit myself!!!

Yes, if you used a free window script, or bought one with modify perms, you'd be able to see the script and therefore the line in it that pertains to the chat channel used.

Before you do that, though, check the instructions for your tinter again. It may have an option for you to change the chat channel via a menu or by a chat command.

Now...What are chat channels?

Normal, open chat is on channel 0. Everybody hears it.
Sometimes, you'll buy an item (jewelry, let's say, or a MystiTool) that accepts commands on a different channel.

For example, I might chat "/1 light off". Nothing would appear in the chat history, since it is only displaying the chat in channel 0. Nobody would "hear" me say that. But my MystiTool Implant would hear it, because it's listening to channel 1...and turn my facelight off.

There are scanners that listen to all the channels, and can tell you what's being said by devices, and occasionally avatars, on chat channels other than the one we all normally use.

There are a huge number of possible channels. I know that it's way over 65K, but I don't recall the exact limit at the moment.

There's a few more than that. Valid numbers are -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 so there's about 4 billion of them..

"channels" is taken from RL devices that operate on a frequency. A cordless phone might say on the box that it "uses 9GHz band". The SL equivalent would be "channel 9000000000". All of your window controllers are using 9000000000, when you want one on 9000000001 and another on 9000000002 etc. In RL if you and your neighbor both happened to be using the *exact* same 9GHz frequency you would hear each other on the phone! But RL devices have built in ways to detect the other phone and automatically switch to a different channel. There is a possibility your purchased script has a mechanism for choosing a channel. Did it come with a notecard "manual"?

ETA: *If* you could see the script, there would be a command llSay in the controller script. The first thing given to the command is what channel to "say" it on. The window script would have a corresponding llListen command on the matching channel. This will trigger a "listen" event (a separate chunk of code) which runs when a message is received in that channel.

Thanking you all most muchly! The info. about channels does make sense (yay!!)... and what a major surprise bearing in mind it's me saying that!! I just hadn't seen it before as the particular tinting system I've been using is no mod and therefore I can't see what the script is. When I've attempted to tidy up my inventory (why does it feel like dull housework?!) I'll go on a major hunt for useful items rather than the pile (pile? who am I kidding? more like mountain) of 'interesting' cr*p I've accumulated!.

If (in the meantime) anyone wants to come over and remove my bracket keys - please feel free (I appear to be obsessed with them!).

Twirly

Hello again...... I don't know quite where to start and if you've read my previous posts you'll probably have gathered that I am one VERY Twirly person so the following just adds to my confusing little life

Firstly, sooo many thanks to those that offered their knowledge and brains (though none of you would actually let me have your RL brains!) for assisting me in learning SL terminologies and the joys of building. I am sooo very sorry that I haven't spoken to you - I attempted to tidy up my land and my inventory first (I've already embarrased myself enough with my confessions in here and didn't want to show off my complete uselessness!), but in doing so, I actually took any pleasure away from SL and stopped going in-world..... yep, I know, the words 'cause and lost' make a well known saying made for me!

Last night the guilt hit me so hard that I logged on to face my duties and pretty much decided to quit SL after experiencing the following problems ongoing:-

Group Chat/IM's - constant error message everytime anyone tries to post a message that I have to clear before I can continue

Friends List - won't load, only shows 'waiting'

Freezing - game freezes every 10 mins or so which means I either wait several minutes for it to resume itself or repeatedely log off and start again

Uploading textures - keep getting 'experiencing prblems with the server at this time' messages

Lost 'work' - if I do manage to achieve something in the precious 10 mins play I have, it is often gone when I log back in

I do have patience, I don't have many brain cells, I do love SL.... but after last night I actually wondered if the problems above along with my own personal knowledge hindrances are trying to tell me to give up spending hundreds of dollars/creating new swear words and to sell up, quit SL and find a kid's game to play instead?!?!?

Gosh, if this is typical SL life, I'm not sure I can handle the stress!

Oooops, I've waffled on again - sorry all, I'm frustrated and possibly should hunt for a tree in a forest to go and live in

Twirly xx