One Lucky Elf - Aggi's Blog

 I've never been a big fan of the editing poses and whatnot that go on while I'm editing items in Second Life.  I know I'm building or moving things, and no one else needs to know!  Fortunately, it's easy to turn it off. Turn off Editing Poses In Firestorm, go to: Avatar Menu Preferences Move & View View Find 'Automatically Pose Avatar During (select one or more): Deselect Build/Edit Deselect Show Visual Hints Deselect Appearance (you may want to keep this, especially if you have an AO that moves a lot) In The Second Life Official Viewer, go to: Me Preferences Move & View, Look for 'Automatic Position For:' Deselect 'Built/Edit' We're done with this tab, but not this menu. In the Firestorm Viewer: Click on the Movement Tab. Deselect 'Turn Avatar Towards A Selected Object' Click OK. I could not find this option in the Second Life Viewer. Turn Off The Select Bars This removes the annoying lines that run from your avatar to the item ...

When working on a pose involving multiple avatars, I like to cam in inside their heads (ctrl + alt + mouse-click-and-drag) and make sure everybody's eyes are looking where I want them to look.  It'll end up looking something like this: That's Milo, you can read about him in my  Aggi's Tale series. He's an unintentional work in progress. I swear he looks different every time I try to include him in a photo. He's abnormally tall for an elf, so pretty much everyone sees this view, even other elves. It also makes getting group photos challenging! The scene:   The backstory: Prince Elorhyn is a hot mess. He's taken up with humans and wizards, seems to have some sort of curse on him, and keeps slipping away from his duties and his minders.  He's frightened five Royal Secretaries in eight months, and they're running out of willing candidates. Milo Tillock was a Royal Secretary for one of Elorhyn's brothers, who recently passed. He's rated for comba...

In this post I'm going to show you a way to change your snapshot resolution in Second Life, which can make a huge difference in your photos. Basically, more pixels = clearer, higher quality photo, and that is calculated by the width times the height of the image. We can change that for photos in the Avatar/Snapshot menu. Check out the items under the Disk section at the bottom of the menu.   They offer a few preset aspect ratio sizes in the first dropdown menu. You can use those if you want.  You will be able to see what part of the screen it covers in the preview window at the top. For this example I made a simple custom 1:2 configuration that fit around my avatar: 100 x 200. That covers the area I want to photograph, but the resolution isn't nearly high enough. so I need to scale it up.  My laptop struggles to produce a photo with any numbers over 5000, so I try to keep the larger dimension around that size. Yours may do better. Time for some math! I take those n...

I love how you can customize everything in Second Life.  EVERYTHING.  From the pores on your face to the colors in the sky. Yes, that's right. You can control the sun. You have that power.  It's all in your windlight settings, or environments, or EEPs (environmental enhancement program). I'm calling it all these things because people use them interchangeably. EEP is an upgrade to the original Windlights.  There's so many options, and I don't feel qualified to talk about them at all. I've never made one. I mainly use them for photos. I set up a scene, and then scroll through the options forever until I find one I like, then take the picture. You can read all about the technical aspects and learn how to customize or make your own on the Second Life Wiki , and in the SL Forum Knowledgebase . If you also just want to play around with presets, read on. Setting the Environment in your Viewer You can find some basic environment files in Firestorm by clicking on the Wor...

You've probably seen an object called ' Facelight ' in your evoX heads folder, or sometimes they come with an outfit.  Just what are they, and what do you do with them? Read on to find out! Glowing Objects A facelight is a very basic build - an invisible round ball that gives off light. They're very helpful in creating light effects for photography, or to make shimmer effects on skin or clothing more noticeable. I use them particularly in darker scenes when I want my avatar's face to be more noticeable. Before Facelight (left)            After (right) You can either add them to your avatar or rez them on the ground.  You can add multiple facelights, move them around, and adjust their intensity. Moving Facelights Right click on a facelight in your inventory and select 'add' to wear it. Then right click on it again and select 'edit'. You'll get a Build menu and a bunch of multicolor arrows around an invisible spot in front of your avatar. That'...

What is Gacha? In the real world, gacha comes from the Japanese word for toy vending machines: gachapon. Put in a quarter, get stickers, or a ball, etc.  In Second Life, it's pretty much the same thing.  You pay a vendor display or machine (they vary depending on how the seller sets it up) and get an item from a random selection that the machine has been loaded with. These items are no copy and transfer, meaning you only get one, but you can resell it or give it to others.  A sample gacha key by Raindale Participating vendors tend to make them in themed sets, some of which become limited edition. Some of the items in the set are rarer than others. The items are whatever they want to make: clothing, home decor, houses, polish for your nails, etc. Prices range from 25L to 100L for each 'pull' of the machine. Is it legal? Back in 2021, randomized gacha machines were banned in Second Life due to gambling laws in certain countries, but machines that displayed what you were ...

  How To Test A Texture In-World Without Paying To Upload Making your own textures can be a complicated process, particularly if you are trying to fit a 2D texture to a 3D shape. For best results, you'll want to see how the final product looks in the game. You also don't want to have to pay 10 lindens every time you look. Fortunately, you don't have to!  There are several places where you can do this, but in any editing window where you are expected to select a texture, look at the radio buttons directly beneath the texture square. The Inventory button is generally selected. To test your texture: select the Local button. This will open up yet another window, allowing you to browse your computer for a texture file.   Select the texture file that you want to test, and click 'Open.' That window will close and you'll go back to the previous window. The texture's file name will appear in the big box to the right of the window.  Click on it.  You should now see t...

Eventually you'll come across mesh clothing that doesn't fit properly, and bits of your body poke through, or you want to wear something special, like a peg leg, that obviously requires part of your leg to be gone.  Alphas to the rescue!  No, not that kind. These are texture files that are worn on the skin layer of BOM capable bodies. They make your body, or parts of it, invisible. Most mesh bodies have a built in alpha section in their HUD, but not all do, and not all of them can be lined up properly for some clothing. Or, sometimes, you have a piece of clothing meant for another style of body, and it ALMOST fits, but there's just this one section . . . Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.  Fortunately, you can make and upload your own. This requires 10 lindens, a UV body grid, and a little work on your computer with image editing software capable of transparent layers. I use Krita , which is a free, open-source program.  Second Life UV Templates The best way to m...

Get Ready - MerMay is coming! There is a significant amount of ocean in Second Life.  Why not explore it as a mermaid? All's you need is a mertail and a swimming AO (animation override). Where do I shop? Mertails are one of those mysterious things that are essential to have, but not widely advertised.  I've provided a starting point below for tails and other accessories.   MerTail options: Tails by Aii Riptide  (2kL) Siren tail (1kL) Nemissa by Cynefin 1200L (available at Mermade ) Valenne by Petrichor 1299L OpenMerTail on MP (free) Brine's Odessey at  Zen Child Design  (1kL) Level 9 's Taniwha tail (a shark tail!) (640L) The Cove Tidal base tail (499L) Big Mershops: Mermade Krature Auro Also Visit: Amadeus Antaya Devious Mind (also search Marketplace for 'Erielle' - some fabulous gacha older mertails) Tir Na Nog (they have a free gift AO) Yabusaka - They also have mertails for Petite bodies! How do they work? Mertails are worn as an object.  ...

There was an announcement in April 2026 about Linden Labs making an unusual and rare change - they are going to alter some continents.   You can read about it here: https://community.secondlife.com/news/featured-news/a-new-chapter-for-mainland-gaeta-1-transition-zindra-expansion-r11269/ I don't quite understand what they mean by 'not a lot of use' because I was eyeing properties for sale there regularly, hoping to snatch a beachfront property near a friend's place, and it always looked like there was plenty going on. I am sad for my friend, though, and hope he gets a good replacement deal. My main confusion over this is TIL that continents have names. 18 years and going and I was unaware. I looked around in the game and couldn't find labels anywhere.  My own property just says 'Mainland.'  Where is this information? How do they expect you to know which continent is which? I did a little digging and found the continents section in the Second Life Wiki.  I had...

Hi!  Hello?  Hey! Down here!   Let's go explore the smaller parts of Second Life. It's time to get Petite. This rabbit-hole dive into smaller sized avatars is not about the Maitreya Petite body, but I will warn you that it will cause havoc in your searches. I'm talking about 'petite' bodies, which are much smaller than the average avatar. They're about 2 feet tall, a great size if you want to be a pixie or fairy. They are still big enough to fully customize your look. It's a very niche market, so I will also be covering alternative clothes that will work with these bodies, and how to shop for non-mesh clothing for a mesh body. As far as I can tell, there are two major Petite bodies, Yabusaka and Jinx. The Yabusaka Petite Mesh Body   Cost: 1,500L At the Yabusaka store on  Marketplace . You can also find it at  Petite Bare Rose . Some notes: This is an older mesh body.  You can alter its shape, but only to a certain extent. You can't do much with th...

The bad thing about mesh BoM skins is that they are designed for specific bodies. If a skin made for a Legacy body is worn on a Maitreya body, it may misalign the skin at the fingers and toes, making them look weird.  The same is true for most older skins designed for the system body. Many of them still look good, there's just an ever so slight texture alignment issue. Fortunately, there are several free tintable coverups (BOM Tattoos) available on Marketplace.   I tested out three of them. From left to right Unaltered (skin: Pink Fuel - Renee on a Maitreya body) AlaskaMetro Izzie's Yes My Love The last one worked best for me. You can adjust the tint by wearing the tattoo, right clicking on it in your inventory, and selecting 'edit.' Then it's a matter of eyeballing it with the color selector until it looks right. Don't let the minor details get you down! There's a fix for it somewhere.

Time for Part 3 of my Second Life animation series - Static Poses.  But They Don't Move! Yes, I know, they shouldn't be called 'animated' if they're static, but they work exactly the same way as the Sit Animations and Animation Overrides. You drop them in an object with a script, and sit on them to pose your avatar.  Static poses are perfect for Second Life photography, and I use them a lot. Check out my  Flickr  and  Primfeed  pages for examples. And then everybody else's, because there are some amazing scenes out there. Ways Static Poses Are Used In A  Poseball -  One pose stored inside a simple sphere with a script. Right click and sit; the ball disappears and your avatar is in the pose.  In A Stand - basically a rug or tiny platform, with buttons or a menu to shift you from pose to pose. In the photo above, I am using a stand by pose maker Pixit. I can click on it to make it disappear when I am ready to take a photo. In A Handheld Object...