Second Life: Introduction/Beginner Tutorials

I like to have a collection of tutorials to which I can send new Second Life™ users. Every so often I update my in-world note card list. I give that to new players I meet.

Strawberry Singh has a series of introductory(?) videos and she is adding to and updating her collection. Her post Introduction to Second Life is pretty much an outline of those videos. She has done a good job of answering questions new users have. Including signup, downloading, and installing the viewer, something often missed by tutorial makers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t3tNQ_53us

I find 1 or 2 posts a month in the Second Life Forum asking how to get into SL. These are people that signed up but somehow didn’t realize they needed to download the viewer. It has been a while since I signed up a new avatar. So, I don’t really understand how they miss understanding they need to download the ‘game’. I just know they do. And these are people that write well when posing their question. So, they aren’t mentally handicapped or simpletons.

Strawberry’s article shows two Second Life tutorial videos; Introduction to Second Life (28min) and Introduction to Second Life Part II (29min). She links to more Second Life tutorial videos; Firestorm viewer,  Second Life Streaming – Photography Tips, Photo Tips and Catwa Mesh Head, and she provides a list of hers and others tutorials about aspects of Second Life in the article.

The videos are well done. She starts out doing what many of us do, she encourages new users to use a classic body/avatar. When the video was made the new ‘Fantasy’ Starter Avatars were not out. SL users and the Lab are all pretty much of the same mind, the original classic avatar makes a MUCH better first avatar for the new user to learn with.

If you haven’t seen the Fantasy Avatars yet, check the WAY corny video:

Strawberry gets into naming your avatar. She seems to think Strawberry is not quite as professions as she might have chosen. I think the subconscious connotations the name provides make it an awesome choice for what is proving to be her ‘stage’ name in the public eye.

Watching the video the only part I would change is her mentioning of the Firestorm Viewer. I would rather have seen her refer to it as the power user’s viewer and recommend the Linden default viewer for new users. Something like she did for classic verses mesh avatars.

On the terms of service section I would mention some of the things that are most abused in SL. But, I wouldn’t spend more than about 20 seconds on that. Boring. But, I think it important to point out people do steal stuff and upload it to SL to sell. That can get them prosecuted in RL. So, remember: RL laws affect us in Second Life.

Overall I think this is one of the better introductions to SL that I’ve seen. Strawberry has a clear pleasant voice and she speaks in whole ideas making it easy to listen and understand. So, I’ll be handing out the link.

2 thoughts on “Second Life: Introduction/Beginner Tutorials

  1. thank you for the information on second life.The tutorials are quite usefull.
    greetings from the netherlands.

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