New tools for region owners in Second Life

Tags

"second life", improvements, manager, region, tools

Many years ago, in 2012 to be exact, I wrote a blog about how it would be a good idea to give region owners some offline tools to help them manage their sims.

You can read it by clicking here, but in short;
I suggested some tools accessible on the SL official website that allowed region owners so do some things inworld without actually having to start up the viewer as that isn’t always an option.
One of the tools I suggested was to allow us to restart a region from the website.

Linden Lab has now given us this option!
This is very handy, not just because you can’t always go inworld because you’re too busy in RL, the computer you’re on doesn’t handle SL or maybe your sim is under attack by grievers and you can’t even get to it.
And of course, by being able to do this via the SL website means you can also do it on your mobile phone while in traffic and nowhere near a computer.
Click here to read the official announcement.

Region owners can now simply go to their land manager page and restart all their regions from there, you can also restart them in safe mode so with scripts, physics & collisions disabled.
Effectively making griefing impossible.

This is a very handy and some day it may save your bacon.

But I hope this is just the first of more tools to come!
Because I can think of a few more improvements that would be most welcome.
Here are a few ideas for SL website tools (not just for region managers) I wrote about in my blog back in 2012, if you can think of more, please share your ideas in the comments section.

• Be able to send an message to the region.
• Have access to your groups so you can send a group message, join group chat (for instance to explain what you’re doing about the griefer attack) but also give and take away permissions to make things harder for that troll who pretended to be a tenant or to give that new tenant rezing permissions without them having to wait till you get home.
• See who is currently visiting your region and eject someone if need be.
• Have access to detailed visitor logs.
• Change the windlight.
• Allow everyone, not just region managers, to chat, live, with anyone in SL from the SL website.
  Allowing you to talk to your friends but also fellow administrators in case of an emergency or just to check if everything is in order.

In short, all those little jobs that only take a few seconds to do but because you have to do them inworld, can take minutes, even hours if you have to wait to get home to take care of them.

UPDATE;

I’ve contacted Linden Lab and asked them if they are planning any improvements and additions to these tools.
I was told;

Yes, we do – we have a project viewer with an update to estate management tools coming very soon. The simulator changes have just rolled out to support those. We think these are going to be a very welcome addition.

Free Realistic avatar kit updated, now also with tools for kids

Tags

avatars, free, kit, measurements, proportions, realism, realistic proportioned avatar kit, scale, tools

As soon as I rezzed my first prim an realised it was 50 by 50 by 50 centimeters, I realised I could use this scale to make things but to also make my avatar the same height as I am in real life.
And I’ve always been interested in trying to mimic realism in virtual reality.

So when I started building the 1920s Berlin Project, I soon decided to use the so called “Prim scale” and now pretty much everything in that sim has a 1:1 scale compared to RL.

But having such a sim made things difficult for visitors.
Making your avatar realistic is not easy in Second Life, the avatar editor is a bit wonky and the measurements not always reliable.

So I created a realistic proportioned avatar kit for visitors, filled with lots of goodies and gadgets to help you make your avatar look more realistic.

Today I’ve updated the kit, tweaked it a little and also added information and measurement prims that can help children find their right size.
You can get this kit for free at our Teleport area or simply test out the Loomis figures to see if you’re much too tall or short for your age.

Visitors to 1920s Berlin don’t have to make their avatar realistically proportioned, but doing so will help the immersive experience and keep them from bumping their heads.

We also think that it is a good thing to at least know what a realistically proportioned avatar looks like, once you know that you can of course always decide to change your look in whatever way you want.
If most avatars are realistic, someone who is small or large will have more fun standing out.

There are many devices available in SL that claim to help you measure your height but in my experience there is only one way to be completely sure; Rez a simple prim and making it as tall as you want your avatar to be and then stand right next to it, or even inside the prim.

In the free realistic proportioned avatar kit you will find;

• The two Vitruvian shapes made by Penny Patton
• Ideal Loomis proportion female 66″ / 167.6 cm
• Ideal Loomis proportion Adult male 72 inches / 182 cm tall
• Ideal Loomis proportion male 15 yrs 67.5″ / 171 cm
• Ideal Loomis proportion male 10 yrs 52.5 inches / 133.3 cm
• Ideal Loomis proportion male 5 yrs 42 inches / 106.6 cm
• Ideal Loomis proportion male 3 yrs 32.5 inches / 82.55 cm
• Ideal Loomis proportion male 1 yr 24 inches / 61 cm
• TMT Professional Pose Stand

About the Loomis figures:
Andrew Loomis made excellent drawings that explain how the human body is put together.
Of course these shapes are idealistic, but the proportions regarding height, length of arms, legs, etc, are correct.

Good luck working on your avatar.
Please remember that we do NOT demand you to have a realistically proportioned avatar in 1920s Berlin, it is just a suggestion.

Thank you Penny Patton, Tikuf Arun and Andrew Loomis.

The free kit can be found at;
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/1920s%20Berlin/251/214/751