Train's Tech Tips

I can’t have a helpful hints blog, without offering a cheat sheet for keyboard shortcuts, now can I?

17 years inworld, you’d think I know all the shortcuts, but I don’t, I learn new ones all the time. The other day, I found Ctrl+Alt+C brings up some nifty camera prefs that I’d never really explored before. I know they are buried in the top menu, but using the shortcut helped me smooth out my camera settings, and made me say out loud… “Hey, my next blog post!”

These will work with Firestorm viewer and the official SL viewer. There are many more, this is a short list for everyday use, nothing specialized. A photographer, or a builder, would have their own set of shortcuts, as you can imagine. Camera Controls and Second Inventory are Firestorm only and marked.

UI & DISPLAY

Hide UI — Ctrl+Alt+F1
Show/Hide Transparent Objects — Ctrl+Alt+T

CAMERA & ZOOM

Zoom In — Ctrl+0
Zoom Out — Ctrl+8
Zoom Default — Ctrl+9
Camera Controls — Ctrl+Shift+C (FS only)
Reset Camera — Esc
Mouselook — M
Orbit Camera Clockwise — Alt+A
Orbit Camera Counter-Clockwise — Alt+D

NAVIGATION & MOVEMENT

Move Forward/Back — W / S (or arrow keys)
Fly Toggle — F (or Home key)
Always Run — Ctrl+R
Jump / Fly Up — E or PgUp
Crouch / Fly Down — C or PgDn
Teleport Home — Ctrl+Shift+H
Sit Down — Alt+Shift+S
World Map — Ctrl+M
Mini-Map — Ctrl+Shift+M

BUILDING & EDITING

Open Build Tool — Ctrl+B
Upload Image — Ctrl+U
Focus on Selection — H
Zoom to Selection — Shift+H
Link Objects — Ctrl+L
Unlink Objects — Ctrl+Shift+L
Duplicate Object — Ctrl+D
Undo — Ctrl+Z

COMMUNICATION & SOCIAL

Conversations / IMs — Ctrl+T
Nearby Chat — Ctrl+H
Friends List — Ctrl+Shift+F
Groups — Ctrl+Shift+G
Gestures — Ctrl+G
Nearby People — Ctrl+Shift+A
Shout (in chat bar) — Ctrl+Enter
Whisper (in chat bar) — Shift+Enter

INVENTORY & PANELS

Inventory — Ctrl+I
Second Inventory (FS only) — Ctrl+Shift+I
Preferences — Ctrl+P

The Map and Create Landmark Tabs are a dynamic duo together. They show you where you are and make it real easy to get back again, all in a couple of clicks. When you create a Landmark you can call it something you will remember, hit save and it’s added to your Places, and the best part is, you will return to that exact spot, bypassing the public landing point. You can add it to a folder in your places at the same time as well, keeping the inventory tidy.

If you don’t already, start opening your Map screen every SLday. No really. And not the wee little default window, let’s go full screen and pull that focus out, all the way out my friends, and open it up big every time you are somewhere new, and marvel at how small you are in this world we created. The SL world map is a visual metaphor for Second Life, a collection of individual efforts that make a whole. It opens and you can’t help but feel a little awestruck each time, and it’s only when you start zooming in that you see the parts, and you keep zooming until you see the part that is you.

You see the mainland right away in the bottom right, and then the expanse of Linden Lab’s explorations out into the Grid, our small islands of pixelated humanity reaching ever outward one U at a time. Open your landmarks and see where those places exist on the grid. If you’re feeling really adventurous, look up a name and explore why it’s called that, and why you feel a bump in the road when crossing sims.

This is where you live when you’re plugged in my friends. If the teleporters broke down tomorrow and you were on the mainland, could you find your way home hmmmmm? Know your number, and know your surroundings and Second Life won’t be so second after all.

The Windows firewall blues can linger like a cloud, darkening your Second Life without you even knowing it. Are you having teleportation issues? Feeling logged out when you should be snappy? Your Windows machine that runs your viewer could be causing problems by constantly scanning your .exe files, and all your viewer’s contents folders as well. Lets take a mental health break, put the phone on dnd, and let your Second Life viewer breath without constantly asking permission from Windows.

First, lets make sure that your viewer is being allowed through Windows Firewall. This should have happened when you first installing the viewer, but lets check.

Open Firewall Settings.
Windows 10: Open Windows Security -> Firewall & Network Protection -> Allow an app through firewall
Windows 11: Press Win + I -> Privacy & Security -> Windows Security -> Firewall & Network Protection

Scroll the list to find your viewer. If it’s not listed, click Allow another app and browse to your viewer’s .exe file and check both boxes, private and public. Click OK to save.

Now that we know the firewall isn’t interfering, lets whitelist your viewer. Why Whitelist Your Viewer?
“Because some anti-virus programs will incorrectly flag a viewer or its components as a virus or threat, removing parts completely and rendering all or part of the viewer slow or non-functional. One known issue is that antivirus can scan every texture placed in cache, slowing down performance significantly, keeping objects from rezzing, and keeping CPU usage high.” Yes, A.I. wrote that, and it sounds important, so lets add all our viewer cache folders and all the .exe files to the Windows list of exclusions.

-> Click the Start button.
-> Type Windows Security and open it.
-> Click Virus & Threat Protection.
-> Scroll down and click Virus & Threat Protection Settings.
-> Scroll to Exclusions and click Add or remove exclusions. Choose the type, either File (for individual .exe files) or Folder (for the cache folder). Repeat for each .exe file and cache folder.

The files you need to add are:
firestorm.exe (your viewer.exe)
slplugin.exe
slvoice.exe
dullahan_host.exe

And the cache folders:
Windows 64-bit: C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Firestorm_x64 (your viewer_x64)
Windows 64-bit: C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Firestorm_x64 (your viewer_x64)

Ok, done! Re boot your machine and now Windows won’t be side eyeing your viewer and frisking it’s pockets with each Sim crossing and Teleport. I hope this mental health break keeps your Second Life sunny, free of the firewall blues.

How long it is matters, and so does its height, yes we are talking about photo uploads to Second Life in this, my first blog post.

Squishy head, stretch head, or just plain wrong looking, have you ever spent some time getting that perfect shot, only to have it look not so good in your profile? SL can be very specific about how it displays images, which means you need to make sure your upload is the correct aspect ratio, regardless of which viewer you use. Forget JPG’s too, only use PNG or TGA for best quality.

Your Profile Page.
Here are the desired photo sizes for uploads into your profile page.

2nd Life tab-> square, best upload size 512×512, OR
4:3 ratio, best upload size 1024×768
1st Life tab-> square, best upload size 512×512
Picks tab-> 16:9 ratio, best upload size 1024×576
Classifieds-> 3:2 ratio, best upload size 512×341

Notice that only the 2nd life space offers 2 options for uploads, square or landscape. Also, the actual px size doesn’t have to be exactly as listed, anything close enough to maintain that aspect ratio will work.

Textures for Building/Prims.

Must be “powers of 2” – 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048.
SL will auto-resize to the nearest power of 2 which can distort the image.

KEY TIPS for uploading photos to Second Life.

Max standard size: 1024×1024
Max high resolution: 2048×2048
Basic/Plus members: L$10 standard, L$50 high resolution.
Premium members: L$10 standard, L$40 high resolution.
Premium Plus: Free for everything.

I wish someone had told me these things when I was a young(er) avatar, so I hope that the posts in this blog bring you small nuggets of wisdom, or aha moments, to help you navigate this second life without a squished head in your profile pic. So re-size those images before uploading them, cuz size does matter my friends.