New to SL with some questions.

Hey all, I am currently at work, but have installed SL and even done a little bit of the character customization (alt tabbing constantly as to not get caught at work). I basically have some questions. I have read all over the site and SL seems to be one of the only virtual worlds with no restrictions, and an amazing society. I actually found this game (no joke) by going on google and searching for some clients for my real life company on google, and came across a link that linked to second life selling something similar in the "virtual world".

The questions I have though, I have not been able to find in the FAQ or after a thorough search on google (one suggestion I would add is a newbies question/answer forum on here or a link to one if one already exists).

First of all, I am on a basic account, and obviously, I would eventually like to upgrade to a premium account. I was wondering though, does the creation of new products, animations, or basically things to sell in SL, fully based on coding? For example, if I want to jump in and create my own new clothing line, will I pretty much need some coding program to create anything of any value or would my own imagination and fashion sense be enough to make it profitable?

Can you provide services without a home to gain L$, so that I can purchase land (or even my premium account) later on? If so, what are some of the services or things I should do that you guys think, would help me gain $L the most?

I used to frequent a chat program that had a lot of focus on roleplaying nightclubs, coffee houses, and even brothels (completely roleplay, no real money exchange), and all are very fun and have a lot of friends there. I am working to own atleast a small piece of land, to host this for my friends from those chatrooms, get them over to SL and creating a more interactive approach among all these people. I know this has probably been done, but I think it would be great fun to have a place to call home.

Another question is the ability to play music if I were to start a night club. Is there any way to stream music, or maybe even do a direct feed into my winamp so that I can play music and change it on a whim in game? There is so much to learn, so many questions, and I am very eager to find out (I can't wait until work is finished so I can go home and play around). Anyways, hello to all my new to be friends in the SL world, and I hope to meet, greet, and befriend a lot of you soon!

Jon

Howdy Jon. Soon many others will provide you better answers but here are a few.

For clothing and other things make sure you start here
https://secondlife.com/community/downloads.php

These templates require external software such as Poser or an bitmap paint program, and you need L$ to upload your creations for those. In-world builds don;t require L$ or external programs (like building a club) if you are happy with the textures that came as part of the "Library" section of your inventory.

While you can earn L$ in-world and rent land from many people, to actually own land you will have to become a premium member which has to be bought with USD not L$, which requires at the moment either a Credit Card or PayPal.

As for music, many rented areas allow you to change the parcel media URLs, and of course if you upgrade and buy land you have access to those options. In order to play custom music streamed from your own computer you need a couple of programs as well as decent upload bandwidth as each client listening to your stream will access your computer directly. SL itself doesn't re-broadcast a stream, the user connects directly to you. How's that for near repitition?

Good luck and have fun!

hey clubside, thank you for the quick reply and all the help! I realize now that basically, to create anything of value (meaning that goes for more than 2 $L), I will need an external program and some proficiency in it. I used to have poser, but got bored of it as I had no application for it. I thought it was for 3D animations though, not design?

As for the premium service, I understand that paypal or a cc is required (which is no problem to pay, however I just spent 60$ on my world of warcraft account so want to take it light on my cc for now), however I was thinking if I could provide a service of value to people in game, maybe like "dancing" as one post spoke about, or some other job I could get to earn some $L, convert it to $USD (10 usd, so 3000 $L) and then use that to start my premium account. I'm not sure if that's possible but that would be great.

One way that the chatrooms I frequented used to play music was through the voice chat service provided by the chatroom. I guess voice chat is not implemented in SL, however there's always shoutcast solutions that I could go thorugh for winamp, and providing users with an IP.

My end result, or dream rather, is to create a nightclub/bar/lounge/hotel where people can meet others, listen to live music from DJ's that I hire who broadcast their mixes over shoutcast, live performances at times, and eventually contract a deal with a radio company like di.fm to allow me to stream their radio station live to the members. I think there are many opportunities here in this as I used to manage a nightclub in Canada, and believe it could work. I'm sure there is probably many of the same idea already, but I will strive to make it the most hospitable, friendly, fun, and artistically developed place I can.

Poser's only function is creating animations, gestures and other "poses" your avatar can take. You see such poses everytime you walk or stand still or do any of the basic movement commands. Check your library for other built-in gestures.

Other programs like Photoshop (or Paint Shop Pro) are necessary for creating clothing. You can find many free textures of the web or create your own. Just load the templates from the download page and see what it takes. Experiment with a few uploads to see the work involved.

To convert your L$ into real money you hve to provide PayPal and then basically link back in the payments. You do lose some money in this transaction but it is certainly possible I believe. Rather than converting your L$ earned from working or campin you may want to search out some land to rent and try your building there and use L$ for uploads. That way you can see what is involved in creating an environment like a club before marching towards direct payments.

thanks clubside, that helps me out a lot. I am fairly well versed in Photoshop for website/graphical design, so maybe I can make some money in this endeavor. I don't have the time, nor think its worth it to camp, maybe I will need to to get my first marketable item uploadable, however I hope to have selling something as my main source of money until I can get enough $L for a place to rent.

You are an awesome new person.

lol, well from what I hear, camping doesn't really earn you nearly enough to be worth it. Plus to have my computer on just for that, its a waste of resources. However, I don't know the game thus far, but if its the fastest way to make $L, then there's not much I can do ha.

What I did when I started was use money trees.

What did when i started was enter as many contests as I could.

My goal was to win at least ONE constest a day.
Sometimes I was lucky to win 3 contests a day.

Back then we didn't have dance pads or money trees.

There are many (many many) a new person who want to earn money as fast as possible without putting forth any effort so they can go buy thier e-penis. At which point I try to explain that the glory of SL is that YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN E-PENIS! And after you do you can resell it and make enough money to get all of the other jazz you want. At which point they express that they have no desire to create original content. Basically I dig when creative people come into the game and create new and innovative things right from the get go.

which beckons me back to my original question of, will I need to pretty much get a whole bunch of 3rd party programs (I already have photoshop) to create anything of any value, or would in game tools suffice in making some start up capital? I'm not looking for the innovative item of the century, but if I can make something with in game tools that's "creative" and still be able to sell it, then it would be nice.

I guess the ending question is, can the in game SL tools allow such creativity, or does creativity stem from learning some code?

I rarely use any external tools. The objects in game are done with the in game building system. On occasion I use gimp to do up a texture, or audacity to mess with some sounds (both of those programs are free). Poser is used to create animations and poses, however there is a free one somewhere called avimator. I almost exclusivly use the ingame building system.
Here is an example that required no external application to create.
http://slexchange.com/modules/Marketplace/Images/8f64cb2dba3d1641c5f21749f71f0cba.jpeg

How it works for me is I get an idea, then I figure out how I'm going to achieve it, learning along the way.

Lately I'm getting to grips with scripting. I generally do what I can, then ask questions either on Live Help or in the forums with the bits I'm struggling with. Lots of people are happy to help with what may seem to them a very silly basic question but then again we were all new once.

Over the course of this weekend, I created a fully working synchronised 3 way and 4 way set of traffic lights, and a speed camera that flashes and gives the avatar a ticket if they are going too fast, as part of a road network system that I am building.

The most important thing you need with SL, in my opinion, is imagination and vision. Once you have an idea of what you want to do, figuring out how to do it tends to fall into place when you have a basic grasp of the tools available to us.

There's no "right" or "wrong" way to do things in SL, although we may all have different opinions on what is the better thing to do in game. The good thing about it all is that apart from sound/texture uploads, you don't actually need to spend much (if any) money whilst creating stuff.

Lewis

For the most part, you should be able to come up with satisfying results using Photoshop (for textures & clothing), the in-world building system (look up "Ivory tower of primitives" in Find for an awesome self-guided tutorial on that) and the in-world scripting language LSL (wiki to be found here). LSL should be rather easy to learn if you have some previous coding experience, but even if you do not, there's a lot of open-source code in the scripting forum to solve common (and uncommon) tasks. For poses / gestures there's Poser or the free Avimator.

The in-world building system alone already allow a lot of creativity, and by no means do you need to script items to make cool stuff. I'd really recommend checking out the Ivory Tower to get an overview of what's possible with the building system.

Jon, you don't need to spend big bucks on software to create anything in SL.

Photoshop is the tool of choice for most texture/clothing makers, but you can also get GIMP for free, which does about everything PS does. You can also get used copies of older Photoshop software cheap on eBay or other discount sites.

You only need Poser if you're going to design animations (or gestures which use animations). But you can also use the free software Avimator which does most of the work, as well.

I strongly urge you to visit the Content Creator sections of this forum to talk to Designers, Scripters and Builders. They'll have plenty of free advice to offer.

Modifying .WAV sound files for use in SL can be done with any of the free WAV utilities found around the internet. They need to be 64Khz and 9 seconds or less to work.

As noted, you still have a $10L per upload fee to meet. If you hit enough money trees and win a few club raffles it should cover your upload costs. You don't need to own land or be on a Premium account to run a store -- I pay $50L per week rent for my new store location and it does not count against my tier.

Welcome, I hope you enjoy SL and building in it as much as I have.

In addition to all the resources and other suggestions mentioned, here are a couple more which you might find useful.

First ... The Shelter ... they are a great resource for new players, offering many freebies, as well as the opportunity to meet people, attend game shows, and other events they host.

Then ... New Citizens Inc ... NCI ... also has lots of resources for new players, including Show n Tell for newbies. Show n Tell is one of my favorite things. People show things they made, tell about them .. and frequently the audience votes on which they liked best with a cash prize for the winner. Check events for other show n tell events. (I like the one on Sunday afternoon at Primworx.)

Classes ... there are lots and lots of free classes inWorld ... check Events to see what is available. They can give you a solid idea about what you can do in SL and what tools might be best suited.

As well, on the subject of freebies. Many of them were intended by their creators as learning tools. If you get a fully modifiable freebie, it was most likely intended to be a learning tool ... Take it apart. See how it was put together, what makes it work. See if you can put it back together again, with your own modifications.

Finally, my advice is to explore, explore, explore. SL is a huge place, and ever changing. Explore both the mainland and those private islands which are open to the general public. As you explore, talk to people. Ask questions. Most will be very glad to help.

Also while exploring, check things you like ... there are an amazing number of freebies out there and you never know when one might be sitting there as part of a scene. (Not to mention your own inventory ... you get tons of stuff just for showing up. People often forget about all the stuff in their inventory right from the beginning. Explore that too. )

Again welcome, and good luck

Ooops .. sorry that got to be very long-winded ... my bad.

Hi Jon,

You don't need any third party tools, especially if you already have Photoshop. All you need to do to make clothes is to download the templates (either Linden Labs's or Chip Midnight's), which are free. Building is done within Second Life, as you probably already know, and animations can be done with the free AvMotion software.

You don't need coding/programming skills to do any of these. In fact doing creative coding is probably a bit harder to harder to get paid for than any of the above

If you need L$ for upload fees, you can get them from money trees. New Citizens Inc also offers L$10 donations to newbies at certain times and events. Of course, becoming a Premium member would also instantly get you L$500 a week.

Also, contrary to some above posts, you do not need to have PayPal in order to pay for your land via L$. What you will need to do is to sell your L$ on the LindeX for US$. These US$ are then put onto your SL account, and you can withdraw them to your real bank account (via PayPal) or just leave them in your SL account where they will be used to pay any SL bills, such as your Premium membership or land fees.