Friday, February 9, 2007

D'oh!

Despite being a byte-head by trade in First Life, I'm often a DEU (dumb end user) of software when I'm not working. I just want things to go. We should be far past the point where you have to be a programmer to use a piece of software. If a software application is too complicated, I tend to stick with a simplified way of using it if possible. For example, there are many features in Microsoft Word that I've never bothered to learn. I haven't had to.

As well, thinking of Second Life in particular, if I haven't used some feature or command for a long time, I forget that it's there. I'm more interested in living my second life than in exploring the SL client, so I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of stuff that might actually be useful to me. And some of it is dead simple.

I didn't get any suggestions after I posted my photo entry, but I have to think at least someone who read it was thinking, "It's <Alt>click, stupid!" <Alt>click and <Alt>zoom. D'oh! Couldn't be simpler. I learned about those things when I was new. I'd just completely forgotten.

I took my new-found knowledge for a spin last night at Velvet owner Pushbutton Skolnik's rez-day pool party. Here is a gratuitous bikini shot of DJ Vivianne all oiled up (how did she do that?) and dancing up a storm. She was on the other side of the pool from where I was dancing. I zoomed the camera over there and got a decent picture with very little effort.

I still have to watch out how I use it, especially if I'm suffering from lag. My view went outside the club a couple times, and I think it almost went into the washroom once. But it's not hard to get back. Just have to move yourself a bit.

Oh, sometimes I learn everything the hard way, and definitely the slow way. This should really speed up my studio work, though, and not try the patience of my models quite so much.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

My first weekend in Second Life I started playing with the camera view and got horribly, horribly lost. Luckily the werewolf I was dancing with let me know that hitting Escape would zip me back to the default view.

What I didn't know about the alt+click until recently is that it will make your avatar actually focus on that spot. Nice if you actually want to look in the direction of the person you're talking to and not have the constant head turning, eye's darting about, appearance of an ADD child who's been fed Mt.Dew and Pixie Sticks.

Veronique Lalonde said...

<< Nice if you actually want to look in the direction of the person you're talking to and not have the constant head turning, eye's darting about, appearance of an ADD child who's been fed Mt.Dew and Pixie Sticks. >>

LOL! Great analogy.

That kind of <Alt>click focussing behaviour is the kind of thing I wish would happen by default, but at least it's easy enough to do yourself -- when you remember!

Melissa Yeuxdoux said...

Véronique, to get the oiled body look, you can buy clothing that is transparent save for the highlights. I don't recall the vendor(s) offhand, alas.

Veronique Lalonde said...

Thanks, Melissa. I'm not actually in the market for the oiled body look, but I was curious about how it might be done. Your explanation makes sense. You are a fount of knowledge! I suppose it could also be a feature of a skin, but that might be an expensive way to go.