Little things I wish I'd known....

CTRL-0 zooms in. Not the same as scrolling in the mouse wheel, the camera does not move, it zooms.
CTRL-8 zooms out.
CTRL-9 resets the zoom.

For those working with tiny prims and/or perverts, these zoom keys are a great way to get a very close look without having to slide the camera around.

Some of these were stupidly obvious:

- You can IM a person without asking them to be your friend first
- Don't ask someone to be your friend until you have actually met them
- Be sure when buying a skin/shape that you know what you are getting (and NOT getting)
- If you want a specific look when buying a shape, be sure there will be a notecard with instructions on where to get the other items you are seeing (i.e. hair, skin, clothing etc.)
- Along with checking PRIM counts before buying items for your land, check the size as well.
- When buying land, feel free to negotiate with the seller. It seems to have worked for me and its a great way to get to know them at the same time.
- Ask about estate owner before buying or renting private land. Not everyone out there is a scam artists, but its nice to get some background on what to expect up front.
- Landscaping... its not always as easy as it might look. Start slowly with small changes.
- Read the covenant of an estate before renting/buying land. Be sure it meets your needs.
- Adding people to the "allow" list of your land will put up ban lines.
- Nobody likes ban lines.
- Wish I'd know about tools like the Mystitool sooner
- I wish I'd gotten an AO sooner to avoid the default poses
- Wish I had realized that buying cool things like a pool is kind of silly (at least for me) unless you have people to share it with... even even then...
- Just about every money making idea has already been done.

Nearly as evil as very detailed questions about tampons ...

I wish I'd noticed the little arrows on the edit menu more ... typing in numbers is all very well but you can slide things into place so much easier really.

Wow thanks on the steer by mouse one! I didnt know that.

Bec

ok how about if someone is shooting at you just sit on the ground. Someone finally told me that last week for pete sakes.

These tips are great keep them coming.

Bec

yes the best anti push sheild out there is free. Sit on an object...Done.

~Lana Tomba

If you want a complex wall section, say with beams or small columns, make one up, texture it, set it to full bright and snapshot it EXACTLY face-on. Then in Paint!, crop the snapshot to get rid of surrounding scenery, so your wall section fills a square (512x512 pixcels if poss). Then you can open the image in Photoshop to make window openings or to add diffuse shading or whatever. Save the modified image as a 32-bit targa (allowing transparency) if it includes windows. Upload the targa back to SL, apply to a large flat panel prim and...... presto! - a mult-prim looking wall, complete with windows, all on one prim!!

You can make 2-storey wall panels - with upstairs and downstairs windows this way.

A lot of these tips (and others) are in the sticky thread at the head of this forum....

and yes, to officially "own" land you do have to either be premium or buy a private estate. "Buying land" from a private estate owner gives you no ownership beyond what the Private Estate owner chooses to give you, and they may change that on a whim. Some will, some won't but for those that do, you have no recourse.

Not saying that having land on a private estate is a bad thing or anything, just trying to clarify terminology.

So the tip: understand what you are really buying if you are thinking about buying land on a Private Estate.

In making small prims Dimple can be your friend

You can also go to the "Thread Tools" pull down menu in the individual thread and select "subscribe" to subscribe without having to post anything in the thread.

I wish I’d known that.

That skins, shapes, and eyes are not removable, only replaceable. I gave myself a bit of a panic attack early on with a freebie av that I couldn't figure out how to take off.



Ew, I hate steering by mouse...I don't find it precise at all.

/me is unsure of the exact names but under the Tools menu, there are two options named something like Save Object To Inventory and Save Object To Object Contents.

Say you're a builder and you rez your current project then poke at it a bit. Instead of re-Taking it (then remembering to delete the old one and all that) just edit it then Save Object To Inventory and it will update the copy already in your inventory.

Save Object To Object Contents is similar but is used to save a spawned (then edited) object back to its parents object contents.

Just remember to bite into the head and use the tail as a handle.


Ok, another one:
Use "add to outfit" not "replace outfit" unless you really want to replace all attachments, and clothing with whatever it is in your inventory.

Isn't that the way cats mate as well?

I actually kicked myself when I read this one. Wish I had known! All these tips are great; keep them coming!

Next one from me: Over time, prims drift. They will move slightly due to SL rounding their positions. It can be staved off by placing prims at particular intervals. For example, if a cube is located at the X coordinate 34.567, it is more likely to drift on the X axis than a prim at X coordinate 34.500.

If you don't have the "Select Texture" button selected, and select a prim and select a texture, it will texture all sides of the prim.

If you do have the "Select Texture" button selected, you can click on a side, then hold down shift and click on any other sides you want to texture the same, then select the texture you want. You can even shift-select different sides of different prims in this fashion. I do this all the time to "paint" doorframes, or entire rooms, in my house.

My favorite that I learned in the forum:

1. Alt-click on something and you can rotate your camera view around that something. I'm not sure how I built anything before I found this one out.

Regarding aligning prims, I turn on the "Use Grid" option. On the Options... dialog, I set the grid unit to 0.125 m and turn on Sub-Unit snapping. When moving objects, you grab the object and move the mouse pointer appropriately so it is within the little ruler marks to either side of the object and you can drag the object in even increments.

Just hold on tight to his ears and threaten him if he messes up. Like you did in our private time last night...

if you sell something, always have an alt buy it and try it out after you release something new. don't just give them a sample copy, have them buy it from your store from a box like any customer would. you'll find things you didn't even think could be problems.

and always check your product names in google first.

i would have saved myself a lot of headache if i'd known these from birth.