ODD AND ENDS 2 FOR 4.6.1

Firestorm Odds and Ends 2 class notes. Based on the 4.6.1 release.


****Auto-replace, found in Preferences > Chat > Text Input subtab.

Auto-replace allows for the dynamic replacement of text with other text. This can be used from situations such as automatically correcting words you commonly mistype, to a full blown macro system.

Auto-replace (button) : Brings up a dialog box to enable Firestorm to expand abbreviations and automatically correct misspelled words.

Corrections and expansions occur when the space bar is pressed, so when "afk " is typed, it is only expanded to "(Away from Keyboard)" after a space is added. It is also case sensitive.

Important: This feature does not work with non-letter characters. For example, the autocorrection of a smiley like " :) " cannot be transformed into "smiles," but one can transform "sm" into "smiles."



Enable Auto-replace: Enables the auto correction mechanism.

Import List will prompt you to select a xml file on your computer to be added, or restored from a backup

Export List allows you to backup any selected list you have customized

New List allows you to create a new custom list

Delete List will delete a selected list.

The box just below these buttons are the lists you have loaded, selecting one shows the keywords and their replacements in the box below

Lists have a priority: they are scanned in order, top down. This is you have an abbreviation defined in two or more lists, the first one found will be used. You an change the order of the lists with the up and down arrows to the right.

Add (button): clears the keyword and replacement text boxes to allow you to add a new entry

Remove (button) Removes an entry from a list. Any entry can be removed from any list.

To enter a new entry be sure to have a list selected then click the Add button, fill in the two text boxes and click "Save Entry".

Be sure to hit the Save Changes button when you are done, or Cancel if you change your mind.

CmdLine options


****CmdLine 1 Tab, found in Preferences > Firestorm tab, is where we are starting.

CMDLINE is a set of common features that can make it easier to use Second Life. Each entry is self explanatory, except for the usage. In each text box you will see a word like gtp or rezplat.

That is the name of the command (cmd). When the viewer sees that command in local chat and the parameters are formatted correctly, it will perform the function listed.

Parameters are separated by a space. The default cmds are listed, but they can be changed to anything desired. The command is picked up by the viewer before it is ever sent to SL.

ENABLE USAGE OF CHAT BAR AS COMMAND LINE: When checked, enables the commands.Checking this box turns it on on BOTH CMDline tabs

CALC. EXPRESSIONS: Used to perform a calculation on the command line to figure out an answer quickly. Calculations adhere to precedence rules where multiplication/division occur before addition/subtraction.

Therefore, the example
calc 1.3+2*5
=> results in 11.3 as the answer because the multiplication occurs before the addition.

CHANGE DRAW DISTANCE: Changes the draw distance of the rendered view to the specified number of meters. Example:
dd 32
=> sets the draw distance to 32 meters.

Max Bandwidth: Changes your bandwidth setting. Example
bw 1000
=> sets the bandwidth to 1000 kbps

Copy camera position to clipboard: cpcampos will copy the coordinates of your camera to clipboard, simply paste the text in local or a text document to see the value.

REZ A PLATFORM: Assuming the avatar has build privileges in the simulator, this command rezzes a circular platform of the given diameter beneath the avatar. Example:
rezplat 25
=> rezzes a 25m diameter platform below the avatar.

WIDTH: Specify the width of the platform when using the rezplat command with no size parameter.

GET AVATAR NAME FROM KEY: Looks up the specified avatar key and returns the name for the key. Example:
key2name 5c8c0bc2-04bd-428a-946d-934e017f1531
=> returns that avatar's name.

TURN AO ON/OFF: Turns the embedded AO system on/off. Example:
cao on
=> turns AO on, and
cao off
=> turns AO off.

CLEAR THE CHAT HISTORY: Clears the chat history from the nearby chat window. Example:
clrchat

SET THE MEDIA URL: Sets the video media for the parcel as identified by the URL. Only the land owner can set the media URL. If the URL contains a space, use %20 to identify the space. The type is one of: Audio, Image, Movie or Web. Example:
/media URL TYPE

SET THE MUSIC STREAM URL: Sets the music stream for the parcel as identified by the URL. Only the land owner can set the music URL. Example:
/music http://scfire-dtc-aa04.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1010
=> sets a Smooth Jazz sound to the URL


****CmdLine 2 Tab

ENABLE USAGE OF CHAT BAR AS COMMAND LINE: When checked, enables the commands Checking this box turns it on on BOTH CMDline tabs

TELEPORT WITHIN SIM: Teleport to anywhere within the sim instantly according to the position specified. Example:
gtp 45 150 400
=> this teleports to 45, 150, 400.

TELEPORT TO GROUND: Teleport to the current ground position for the avatar's current position. Example:
flr
=> will put you at ground level at the same x and y coordinates that you are at

TELEPORT TO ALTITUDE: Teleport to the specified height. Example:
gth 2800
=> teleports to a height of 2800 meters. It is also possible to teleport higher. Example:
gth 6500
=> teleports to 6500m above the sim.

TELEPORT TO SIM X: Teleports to the sim you specified (defaults to 128, 128, 0 if no landing point is specified on the sim). Must use the full sim name, with spaces and all. Example:
mapto Hippo Hollow
=> teleports you to the Hippo Hollow region

USE SAME POSITION BETWEEN SIMS: When enabled, your entry point at the new sim will be the same coordinates you left the old sim, unless a landing point is specified in the new sim.

TELEPORT TO CAM POSITION: Teleports the avatar to the position the camera is currently. This is useful when camming around in a store and finding the item to purchase.

This shortcut takes you to the position immediately, without having to walk. Example:
tp2cam

OFFER TELEPORT TO AVATAR: Sends a teleport offer to the avatar identified by the given key. Example:
offertp 5c8c0bc2-04bd-428a-946d-934e017f1531
=> would send a TP offer to that avatar.

TELEPORT TO AVATAR: Finds a given avatar within the simulator and teleports to them. Example:
tp2 John Doe
=> teleports to John Doe if they are in the simulator.

Teleport home (tph): Teleports you home. Same as hitting Shift-Ctrl-H.


****Editing Outfits in Firestorm

You can access the outfit window by clicking the icon in the bottom button bar. This opens the appearance window, which allows you to view and edit outfits.

Another way of accessing this window is to right click yourself and select Edit Outfit from the menu (Edit Appearance > Edit Outfit in the pie menu).

If you need to get from the Edit Outfit view to the outfits list, click the left-pointing arrow next to "Edit Outfit."

Appearance Window - Display View

Outfit name: At the top of the window is the name of the currently worn outfit - if any; otherwise, “No Outfit” appears here.

Note that No Outfit doesn't mean that nothing is worn - rather it can simply mean that you wore items manually from different folders, or by some means other than this window.

Wrench Icon: This allows the currently worn outfit to be edited. More on this shortly.

MY OUTFITS Tab: This view displays your outfits, the ones located in your inventory, in the folder called Outfits.

Outfit folders are listed alphabetically and do not show “nesting” (i.e., if you have folders within folders, that structure is not shown in this view). Several things can be done in this view:

Small Arrow: Clicking this will open the outfit to show all items in it. Clicking it again will close the outfit folder again.

Editing Outfits 1
Right Click - Folder: Right clicking an outfit name displays a small menu. With this, you may wear the outfit, replacing the one worn, wear it but adding to whatever you have worn, take it off (if it is currently worn); you can also rename or delete it.

Right Click - Item: If you right click on an item in an outfit folder, you can wear or detach it, get information about it (item profile), and so on.

Editing Outfits2
WEARING Tab: Clicking on this tab gives a list of all currently worn items: clothing and attachments (including HUDs). Right clicking any one allows you to detach that item or edit it (which opens an edit window), or to edit the entire outfit.

Gear Icon: Below the outfit list view is a gear icon. This behaves differently, depending on whether you are in My Outfits view or Wearing view:

In My Outfits View: Many of the options are also available when right clicking folders or single items. But in addition, it is also possible to create new clothes or new body parts.

In Wearing View: Allows you to edit the outfit, remove a worn item, or Copy Outfit List to Clipboard. When you copy the outfit list to clipboard, you can paste it (Ctrl-V) into any notecard or text file for a list of every item worn.

Appearance Window - Edit Outfit View

If you click the Wrench at the top of the window, you are taken to the Edit Outfit window. Here, you may add or remove items from the currently worn outfit.

The outfit window is organized into three tabs: Clothing, Attachments and Body Parts. If you mouse over a worn item, you will see two icons appear, on either side of the item:

X on the left: clicking that will remove the item from the outfit.

Wrench or Lock on the right: If a Wrench shows, the item is modifiable by you; click this to edit the item directly - except for attachments. If a Lock shows, you cannot modify it.

On the clothing tab, below the list of worn clothing items, are types of items not currently worn.

For example, if you are wearing a shirt, then Shirt will not appear here.

If instead you are not wearing a jacket layer, then it will be listed - and to the right, a Plus sign, which allows you to add a new clothing item of that specific type from your inventory.


Beneath the list is an Add More button. Clicking this splits the view in half, horizontally, as shown here. In this lower window,

You can scroll to select items to add to the outfit. To the right of the (now pressed) Add More button is a drop down which you may use to filter the list below. Once you have found the desired item, click the Wear Item button below the window.

This filter can display specific clothing types, so if you are looking for tattoos, socks, jacket layers, and so on, you can restrict the list to just one of those types at a time.

Below this button are two buttons that allow you to view the list in an inventory tree, or as a flat list.

When done, click the Add More button again.

To save your modified outfit, click the Save button at the bottom of the window. Or, if you wish to save this with a new name, click the up arrow to the right and select Save As.
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Alternate Method

This isn't the only way to work with outfits in Firestorm. If you prefer, you can work with your inventory directly, by creating folders yourself in the Outfits folder and moving or copying items into it.

You may also copy an item and then Paste Link, which is very useful if items are no copy. One advantage of using this method is that you may structure your outfits by category. For example, you can create folders such as:

Casual
Formal
Fantasy
… and so on. And in each of those, create folders for single outfits. This method may be more tedious but it does give greater flexibility.


****Editing Shapes and Other Body Parts

This section deals with editing “system” body parts: shape, hair, eyes, skin. It does not deal with editing attachments.

It should be noted that an avatar must wear one of each of these body parts, and it cannot wear more than one at a time (usually).

In order to access the editing window for body parts, you can either:

Click on the Appearance button on the bottom button bar, click the Wrench icon at the top to enter Edit mode, and then click the Body Parts tab or right click yourself and select Edit Shape from the menu.

NOTE: Editing a body part requires that the part be modifiable by you. If you purchased a shape, for example, the creator may have flagged it to be no modify for the next owner - that is, for you.

In that case, you will be unable to change it. However, if you purchased a modifiable one or made your own, then you can edit it. The same holds for the other types of body parts, of course.

Editing your Body Shape

At the top, you specify the sex of the shape, by selecting either the male or the female symbol. Right below this, the name of the shape is shown, and may be changed.

Underneath, the shape's height is displayed. SL operates in metric, so by default the height is given in meters; you can click on feet to show that measurement, if you prefer.

There are a large number of aspects of a shape which can be edited. As a result, the shape edit window is organized into tabs. Scroll through the list of tabs. The following major body areas are listed:
Body, Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, Chin, Torso, and Legs, each with a number of details you can fine-tune.

In all cases, each aspect of the shape can be set anywhere between two extremes, by using the slider or by typing a number in the box to the right of the slider. Values may be between 0 and 100.

The two pictures give an approximate idea of what the two extremes look like as applied to your own shape.

Shape Hover
Body: Overall body size and shape. Details are fine tuned in subsequent tabs. At the bottom of the body section you'll find a setting named Hover.

Use this setting to adjust the avatars height offset.


Head: Overall head size and shape. Details are adjusted in subsequent tabs.

Eyes: Here you adjust details concerning the eyes, such as their size, distance apart, slant, depth relative to the face, and so on.


Ears: Details of ear size, shape, position on the head, ear lobes, etc.

Nose: Nose size, width, nose bridge shape, nostril size and flare, shape of the nose tip and other details.


Mouth: Width of the mouth, size of the lips, their thickness, upward or downward curve, position relative to the face, and other details.

Chin: Here you can modify aspects of the chin and jaw, like angle, shape, over/underbite, chin cleft, etc.


Torso: This allows you to vary the upper body, from the head down: neck thickness and length, arms length, torso length, and so on.

Legs: This tab allows you to change the shape from the waist down: leg length, width of the hips, size of the butt, the feet, etc.

If you are happy with the changes you have made, click the Save As button at the bottom. You will be prompted for a name for the new shape. It will be saved in the same folder as the original shape was located.

If instead you decide you don't like the changes made, click on Undo Changes; any modifications you made will be lost and the shape will revert to how it was.


Editing your Eyes

This tab is much simpler than the one for your shape.

There is a texture box which shows your current eye texture. If you wish to change this, simply click the image; a texture picker will appear and you may select a new eye texture.

Below this are two sliders, one to set Eye color, the other for Eye Lightness. These allow you to achieve some truly unusual effects with even the most normal looking eye textures.

Editing your Skin

This tab has three texture areas; these are called: Head Tattoo, Upper Tattoo and Lower Tattoo. (This may seem unintuitive, but this was the original intent for the textures, and the naming has stuck.)

As with eyes, you can change any/all of these textures by clicking on them and then using the picker to select a new one.

Below are four tabs.

Skin Color: There are three controls here which allow the skin tone to be changed.

These have little to no effect with most typical skins, which are opaque. However, some skins are made slightly transparent, so these controls can be used to alter the skin tone.

Face Detail: Several controls to vary aspects of the face. Once again, since most skins are opaque, these will have no effect.

Makeup: The controls here allow various changes to facial make and fingernail color. The same note on skins applies as before.

Body Detail: Body definition and freckles. And as before, these will have no effect on the majority of acquired skins.


Editing your Hair

The kind of hair this edits is not prim hair but "system hair," which most people in SL today do not use as visible hair. Most of the time it's edited down into a bald base and primarily affects eyebrow shape.

So if you ever wondered why the item you know as eyebrows or a bald cap has a hair icon in your inventory, this is why. Nonetheless, we will cover both the original and current uses for system hair.

Similarly to the previous tabs, this one starts with a hair texture. You can click on it to change it. A texture picker window appears, which you can use to select a different texture.

Below this are four tabs.

Color: The controls here are used to tint the hair texture in various ways. If the hair texture is white, then varying the values of these controls will color the hair. If instead your texture is already the right color, set them all to zero.

Style: The controls here affect the shape and size of the hair - the hair style, in other words.

Eyebrows: These controls affect the size and shape of your eyebrows. Some will have no effect if you are using a regular purchased skin.

Facial: This group of controls affects facial hair: thickness and style.

How to Make a "Bald Base"

Use a fully transparent texture; there is one in the Library folder of your inventory: Library -> Textures -> *Default Transparent Texture, or you may use one of your own.
In the Style tab, set all values to zero.
Click on Save As and give it a name you will remember easily.

Face Shaping Tip

In the first section above, shape editing was discussed. However, many overlook the fact that some other aspects of the shape of the face/head can be changed in the Hair section. Specifically…

Eyebrows: You can change the arc and other shape values here.

Facial: Some of the values here will affect the shape of the jaw and chin; it is possible to get a more square jaw than can be achieved by using the shape controls, for example.

Both of these work best with a bald base as described above. Thus no “system hair” is visible, and the changes only affect the shape of the head/face