How to Create Gestures in Second Life

Second Life is a completely user-created online virtual world. Gestures are a combination of words, sounds and animations performed by an avatar. Gestures can be anything from blowing a kiss with a smack sound to dancing while the chorus from your favorite song plays and you sing along. Play them from inventory or activate to play with a trigger key or word. Second Life is an open source program, with different viewers available to access the game. Viewer 2 is a bit different than the other viewers in terms of the user interface.

Instructions

1. Left-click the "Inventory" button on the bottom bar of the screen in most viewers. In viewer 2 click on the "suitcase" tab along the right of the screen. The inventory window will pop up.

2. Click the "Create" tab on the top of the inventory window. Choose new Gesture. The gesture window will pop up.

3. Type in a name or description for the gesture in the Description field. Type in the trigger word or phrase. Use the "/" key to keep the trigger word from appearing in chat. Pick shortcut keys to make it easy to use the gesture.

4. Pick the action in the Library area of the gesture window. Click the "Add>>" button to put the action in the Steps area. Use the drop-down menu in the box under Steps to choose the animation. Check the circle to start the animation.

5. Add other actions from the Library. Type in any text where the drop-down window is. Add in wait times to keep any actions from occurring at the same time.

6. Stop animations and sounds using the same method by picking the "stop" circle.

Tips & Warnings

• Preview the gesture as actions are added by clicking the "preview" button. Save the gesture when it is complete.

• All sounds and animations used in gestures must be full permission to play during the gesture. Check the Active box for the trigger to run the gesture.

References

• Second Life: English Knowledge Base