VTeam

Mia: We have the most colorful watemelony Torley the Magnificent Linden here with us today

Torley Linden: *blush*

Mia: to talk about all the fabulous tutorials at our fingertips!

Mia: Welcome Torley and the stage is yours!

Torley Linden: thanx so much for the intro Mia!

Torley Linden: i’m so happy to be here… this is gonna be fun!

Torley Linden: soooo first things first, a bit more about what i do…

Torley Linden: i’ve done a lot of various stuffs here at Linden Lab, most recently my focus is those VIDEO TUTORIALS…

Torley Linden: this evolved out of a need to really *show* Second Life as it is, to teach things that are hard to describe in words alone, and have a lot of fun + friendliness doing so

Torley Linden: the other day, not too long ago, George had the fab idea of asking me to do this… and so, here i am with our V-Team and YOU, our Mentors!

Torley Linden: what i’m here to do is to help answer any questions, curiosities you might have about the video tutorials, which i often blog about…

Torley Linden: and you can always view them @ http://secondlife.com/video

Torley Linden: i’m DEFINITELY here too to listen to any suggestions you have for specific future ones that would make your volunteering easier. for example, i know the “Rebake Textures” one was a popular workaround.

Torley Linden: any quick tips or more elaborate stuff you hear about a lot is most certainly welcome.

Torley Linden: soooo yeah, let’s do this! Q&A!

Torley Linden: IM your questions to Mia and let’s get started… i believe that’s how it goes

Lexie Linden: Yes, please send questions to Mia in IM!

Torley Linden: haha i’ll turn my typing anim back on so it’s easier to see what i’m doing.

Mia: ready with questions when u are Torley

Torley Linden: i can keep talking about how excited i am to be here… to have your help… i read the VTeam Blog regularly, it’s awesome.

Torley Linden: READY

Mia: Torley why did you choose to promote the Space Navigator?

Torley Linden: VERY good question… OH I LOVE THAT… OK…

Torley Linden: so basically, some of the 3Dconnexion gurus, thanks to open-sourcing Second Life, were able to make a patch for better compatibility

Torley Linden: an internal team, which i believe was headed by Joe Linden, checked it all out, did quality assurance, and decided that this would be cool to officially implement

Torley Linden: i have a longstanding passion for alternative input devices and more NATURAL ways of enjoying Second Life…

Torley Linden: eventually, through a series of connections, i heard from Melissa Linden that we were planning to launch an announcement

Torley Linden: and so:

Torley Linden: “Torley, would you like to do video tutorials for it?” came up.

Torley Linden: i thought it was a fab opportunity combining my passion to introduce new ways to enjoy Second Life.

Torley Linden: and then that’s how it happened.

Mia: ok … how about a tutorial video for newbies that is offered to them BEFORE they enter orientation?

Torley Linden: AH YES… see, this is one of the chasms we need to fill in better… i know IMVU has a YouTube tour on their page and i was just in Kaneva the other day (they have video tutorials at a low FPS for their orientation)… i’m READY to help our new-Resident-experience folks with vidtuts if they need ‘em.

Torley Linden: earlier internally,

Torley Linden: and there are a LOT of threads here…

Torley Linden: we discussed doing a sort of Flash or web-based tour of Second Life that would include videos.

Torley Linden: that, alas, is still in the “ideas” stage and nothing hard on that i know of yet.

Torley Linden: but like i said, i’m ready to help should we get to that point, and plug those videos in. i’ve made them easily transportable… viewable via YouTube, QuickTime (standard web formats), and am open to adapting them to others for better, more prolific playback both in and out of world.

Torley Linden:

Torley Linden: that is generally a VERY GOOD IDEA tho. =D

Torley Linden: (making the videos more available BEFORE orientation, that is.)

Torley Linden: next question please!

Mia: I would like to know if the video tutorials or rather the links will be saved in a notecard and added to the welcome note every new player has in their “starter pack” because the visuals are much better to trying to explain at times

Torley Linden shouts: ahhhh yes… OMG YOU GUYS ARE GREAT, I LOVE THESE QUESTIONS, SHOULD I SHOUT?

Torley Linden shouts: i can shout

Torley Linden: well, again, a lot of threads are getting attached together… and what i mean by that is… i’m *frustrated* that we have media on a parcel inworld, but QuickTime vids by themselves don’t work in the inworld browser. i asked Callum, one of our experts on the topic, and he was very gracious and said he’d bring it up at the next meeting… i think there hasn’t been enough knowledge YET about how important it is to do that…

Torley Linden shouts: being able to use an inworld notecard WITH video tutorial links AND view them within an inworld browser is better (more integrated) than bouncing someone to an external webpage.

Torley Linden shouts: so, short answer: i have problems with the usability of notecards, but am continuing to look at/do better ways to get videos shown INSIDE of Second Life.

Torley Linden: next please

Mia: Are those videos gonna be dubbed or with subtitles in other languages?

Torley Linden shouts: OH MORE CONNECTIONS!

Torley Linden shouts: so… we hired a localization manager recently… she’s still very fresh!

Torley Linden shouts: i am going to talk with her first chance i get about that

Torley Linden shouts: some Residents have done their own fan-subbed versions…

Torley Linden shouts: i know QuickTime itself supports text subtitles, but YouTube and other popular formats do not…

Torley Linden shouts: and plus, the UI is in English, i know, and that poses additional problems. BUT…

Torley Linden shouts: if anyone wants to translate or sub them, i do have instructions on how to “remix” them right here:

Torley Linden shouts: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Torley_Linden/Vidtut_process

Torley Linden shouts: i’m very appreciative of any help i can get, of course… and always looking at how other people doing Photoshop and other video tutorials are localizing theirs

Torley Linden shouts: i also thank the nice helpy Residents who helped translate http://secondlife.com/video

Torley Linden shouts: so CONSIDER this an ongoing thread which i will closely follow, and if anyone has specific questions about the video tutorial creation process, DO feel free to ask that, too!

Torley Linden: NEXT =)

Mia: Building is basically the foundation of SL. Are you planning any actual building tutorials?

Torley Linden shouts: hahah it’s funny you mention that… oh my gosh, all the connections of stuff i’ve been working on.

Torley Linden shouts: so, i’ve done a number of tutorials which already have dipped into building various things: flexiprim flag, gift box, etc.

Torley Linden shouts: but i understand and have heard requests for a more comprehensive overall suite…

Torley Linden shouts: in the vein of the LAND series i did lately, some nice peeps have requested a BUILD series…

Torley Linden shouts: and i was watching Lynda.com video tutorials the other day and was very much inspired by John Derry, one of the core guys behind Corel Painter…

Torley Linden shouts: and he did such a wonderful creative presentation on that…

Torley Linden shouts: so i may get to that… depending on more feedback/need/changes to the UI that make it easier to build…

Torley Linden shouts: it’s certainly something i’d like to cover more in depth, with ALL THOSE BUILD TOOLS

Torley Linden: next =)

Mia: Cant videos already been seen in SL brwser as its Mozilla based?

Torley Linden shouts: (my apologies, i don’t accept friendships on this account but please send friendships to Torley Olmstead, my alt! )

Torley Linden shouts: OK… well, that’s what i would hope… showing movies in the inworld browser… but it doesn’t work that way so simply for a number of reasons… one being that transport controls weren’t implemented as they are Firefox with the QuickTime plugin, for example…

Torley Linden shouts: so that is more complicated than i’d care for… but if anyone knows of other workarounds/possibilities, let me know!

Torley Linden: next pleaaaaase

Mia: Are you planning to work yur way through the advanced options/ debug lists in a series of tutorials ?

Torley Linden: ahhhhhh MY GOSH MY GOSH i cannot understate the wisdom of you guys, asking all the right questions

Torley Linden shouts: so, MOST of the stuff in the Advanced menu is VERY specific depending on needs. i’ve covered some of the HOTTER ones, and will continue to do them on an as-needed basis. i don’t have plans to do one after another because it’ll likely become outdated and obscure very soon since a lot of under-the-hood stuff is SO subject to iterative change.

Torley Linden shouts: but by all means if you have specific favorites i haven’t covered yet that you think, or KNOW would be useful for a BROAD audience, tell me what they are!

Torley Linden shouts: the connected thread to THIS, of course… is some things EVENTUALLY get moved out of Advanced…

Torley Linden shouts: if they prove to be so popular!

Torley Linden shouts: some of you remember when Force Sun was buried in the old Debug (before it was called Advanced) menu..

Torley Linden shouts: and i was talking to Richard Linden about how many people need that, i think that was back in 2005 or so…

Torley Linden shouts: and then it got moved out to the World menu where it is today…

Torley Linden shouts: our Resident Experience Team continues to work on similar projects to make COMMONLY USED features more ACCESIBLE and somewhere in all of this, i’m in the pipeline and hear about it one way or another.

Torley Linden shouts: so let me know if you feel strongly about any specific Advanced options of BROAD usage. thanks!

Torley Linden: next!

Mia: Can a video be made about land commands? and the differences in the control given to mainland sim owners and island sim owners?

Torley Linden shouts: which land commands here? (specifics, please?) i am *planning* to do an ESTATE LAND series eventually but there may be some major feature changes that come before that…

Torley Linden shouts: there’s been other exciting things to be aware of like the revamped Land Store recently… so any more details as to what you’d like to see covered are *most appreciated*

Torley Linden: neeeext

Mia: Will you be doing more Photoshop tutorials, the other rocks!

Torley Linden shouts: hahahahahaha

Torley Linden shouts: yayzerama

Torley Linden shouts: i love Photoshop… use it a lot…

Torley Linden shouts: and i presume you’re referring to my Transparent Textures one, in which i partially parodied “Donnie Hoyle” of the “You Suck At Photoshop” series…

Torley Linden shouts: i may be doing more Photoshop vidtuts that relate to Second Life…

Torley Linden shouts: like i’m up for doing one on how to make clothes…

Torley Linden: and showing how other external applications interact and can be used with Second Life…

Torley Linden shouts: like, you may have seen the sculpted prims and creating animations ones recently, those are sort of in the same vein…

Torley Linden shouts: so i’d say “yeah i’m eventually gonna do more, just a matter of t-t-time!”

Torley Linden: NeXT

Mia: 1. Could he please talk just a LITTLE slower during the vidtuts as it is sometimes too quick to follow? 2. I wonder if it is possible to have a series of Orientation Island vidtuts that can be called up to a newbie’s SL Web Browser when needed ? These would cover such simple things as — locating Inventory, finding Library, opening Clothing folder

Torley Linden shouts: oooooh two part question! okay… so this is a very interesting one that delves into philosophical aspects and specific usages…

Torley Linden shouts: i’m really glad you asked.

Torley Linden shouts: (1) you may’ve noticed i do talk slower in ones oriented towards newcomers, like the BASICS series… let me get a link to those…

Torley Linden shouts: (they’re all linked from the main page but i wanna make it easy for ya)

Torley Linden shouts: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials/Basics

Torley Linden: sometimes i DO rush on the QUICKTIPS to keep them shorter, i know, i know… i have a large variance/cadence of speaking style… but the nice thing with the videos is you can always rewind and replay if you need. i understand what yer saying so thanks for bringing that up!

Torley Linden shouts: (2) something similar to that is Help menu > Tutorial in the Release Candidate viewer (if you’re on that), some of the specifics aren’t finalized but i can definitely provide more video tutorials as needed, and hope they can be viewed easier from within Second Life.

Torley Linden shouts: so yup

Torley Linden shouts: NEXT

Mia: my question for Torley is : his tutorials are arleady wonderfull, but does he needs a french translator to translate them ? Or does he has already found some ?

Torley Linden shouts: i definitely need help with translations in many languages, French included. even if someone’s already doing translations in a given language, alternatives can be useful, helpful, handy to have.

Torley Linden shouts: i haven’t found a dedicated French translator yet.

Torley Linden shouts: i have met French Resis who needed help making video tutorials,

Torley Linden shouts: and some of those are on http://secondlife.com/video

Torley Linden shouts: but by all means if you’d like to help, I WELCOME IT, send me an email to discuss further… torley at lindenlab dot com and all that good stuff

Torley Linden shouts: thanks VERY much in advance

Torley Linden: n e x t

Mia: Has Torley thought about a specific mentor offering. going through those advanced items that are most useful to do our job

Torley Linden shouts: YES YES YES

Torley Linden shouts: that’s why i’m here today… if you can organize a list, or come together as a group and send me some HOT points that i haven’t covered yet…

Torley Linden shouts: LET ME KNOW…

Torley Linden shouts: i’m CERTAINLY up for helping with that…

Torley Linden shouts: i believe if i can spend a little time to save you a lot of trouble and make Mentoring more rewarding, well, i’d like to help.

Mia: any chance of making at least one vid introducing what SL is and why its important to go thro OI/HI and what OI/HI is, a compulsory part of SIGN-UP. might save a lot of frustrated signups

George Linden: (Maybe we can set up a wiki page or a PJIRA for listings or something like that to aggregate suggestions after this Q&A X) or hold a follow up Q&A down the road as needed )

Torley Linden shouts: ahhh so as i mentioned earlier, yes, there are going to be changes to the signup/new Resident orientation process and the “What is SL?” ideas are still on the table, but haven’t been formalized yet. i’d be working with other Lindens to round that up…

Torley Linden: it’s a big question mark tho, i agree… part of the problem we’ve encountered is…

Torley Linden shouts: “What Second Life is” also depends on who you’re targeting.

Torley Linden shouts: some people will care a LOT about medical science research here, others just wanna shop and have fun.

Torley Linden shouts: and doing a single one-size-fits-all video which is brief and not too drawn out explainign *everything* is not going to effectively reach the hearts of people with deeper interests.

Torley Linden shouts: i’ve thought about several ways to approach it tho, but i’m pretty much waiting to work with bigger teams on that one =)

Torley Linden shouts: and yes George, i know some of you Mentors have been SUPER AWESOME on the wiki, so i may setup a wiki page and let you know so we can get organized!

Torley Linden: NeXt Please

Mia: Will you balance PS tutorials with vidoes on GIMP etc. Many people cannot afford PS

Torley Linden shouts: AHHH MORE PHILOSOPHY… which i’ll get into…

Torley Linden shouts: okay… so…

Torley Linden shouts: some free software is super fabulous and very easy to use.

Torley Linden shouts: other free software can generate high quality results but has a harder learning curve.

Torley Linden shouts: because of GIMP’s origins, even with GIMPshop, its windowing is weird and… sadly, it crashed on my system repeatedly. maybe i just had bad luck, but i was hoping to have a better time with it.

Torley Linden shouts: i do like highlighting free stuff like QAvimator and Sculptypaint because it IS accessible, and in those cases,

Torley Linden shouts: they were made by Residents… even cooler!

Torley Linden shouts: but ultimately, it’s a good thing some image editor conventions, like selection paths and paintbrushes, are essentially the same

Torley Linden shouts: alas, i tried, but like i said, crashed a lot. :\ wasn’t easy to use as i hoped for.

Torley Linden shouts: i may investigate in the future but i’ll also look into any other free, hopefully elegant image editors.

Torley Linden shouts: i was looking at PAINT.NET but that’s Windows-only i think… :\

Torley Linden shouts: neeeeext

Mia: Is there any sort of TV that can play his tutorials, perhaps randomly?

Torley Linden: ahhhh

Torley Linden: so @ http://torley.com/office (leads to SLURL to my office) i’ve setup a screen…

Torley Linden: the media scripting powering it was made by Geaven Gall, haven’t talked to her recently but i wanted a way to update ONE notecard and have a server transmit that Gridwide so i don’t have to update every “video tutorial kiosk”.

Torley Linden: it works OK, “randomly” is harder tho…

Torley Linden shouts: since it’s very hacky to specify durations for videos, and people who come onto a parcel at different times will see different things.

Torley Linden shouts: i’ve heard suggestions to get a Darwin streaming server setup or something, but that may be too costly (for now). nevertheless, open possibility to have a live inworld stream of video tutorials.

Torley Linden shouts: actually, what i hope is that eventually, there’ll be so many FANTASTIC Second Life video tutorials made not just by me, but many Resis, so we have far more than enough to have in rotation around the clock!

Torley Linden shouts: the future awaits.

Torley Linden: n e x t

Mia: How about making a video to help new mentors get started? With more mentoring tips and tricks?

Mia shout: Please do not speak in Open Chat and IM all questions to me Mia Linden….Thank you!

Torley Linden shouts: re: video to help new mentors, if you have specific needs, organize them on a wiki page and i can work with VTeam… i’m mainly focusing on things that are hard to explain in words, because depending on the medium, some things *are* best presented in literary form. but i’d certainly be up for doing videos for stuff that requires or is well-conducive to motion and, like i said, showing Second Life as it is.

Torley Linden shouts: next

Torley Linden shouts: doo be doo be doo

Mia: I have just tested inworld browser with Flash media Server.. Appears to work fine as FMS uses Port 80 for tunnelling communications this could be used for media streaming or live video/audio

Torley Linden shouts: i’d need more details on that, i’ve heard anecdotally from some people that they were able to play Flash media like YouTube in the inworld browser but it lacked interactivity and i haven’t gotten it to work (Callum mentioned there’s a hack with installing libraries, but that’s too troublesome for most people).

Torley Linden shouts: any further technical specs and details of solutions i should check out… mmm… please email them to me as soon as you can, that’s torley at lindenlab dot com … thanks so much

Torley Linden: Miaaaa next!

Mia: there is another free program out there that does wonderful Tag images .. called Paint.net … need to take a look at that as well and it is free and almost like the windows paint program but very nice graphics

Torley Linden shouts: ah yes thanks for mentioning Paint.net… i like to, as much as possible, show cross-platform stuff, since Second Life itself runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc…

Torley Linden shouts: but i also do know that Windows is the large majority of computers out there (interpret that how you will)

Torley Linden shouts: i do want to check out Paint.net more in detail later tho thx for bringing it up

Torley Linden: next

Mia: What is a Darwin Streaming Server?

Torley Linden shouts: oh let me get a link with Apple’s own explanation

Torley Linden shouts: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/

Torley Linden shouts: but long story short, it’s live streaming instead of media files that sit on a server

Torley Linden shouts: it’s what a lot of broadcast shows are done with and such

Torley Linden shouts: it CAN read from files, but it also means everyone would essentially see the same thing on a parcel (with a latency of several seconds, likely)

Torley Linden shouts: (i’m sorry i can’t get to my IMs right now either!

Torley Linden: NEXTastic

Mia: I’ve seen the TV on his land but is it copyable? Can it be made available?

Torley Linden shouts: Geaven Gall’s scripted media player is not open source and not freely copiable. let me ask her about that, tho. i would like the ability to give away videos as freely as i have with my textures (if you haven’t gotten them yet, http://torley.com/textures for the goods)

Torley Linden shouts: i did look at several media players and i liked Geaven’s implementation, in particular because it can read from a playlist notecard. of course, one of the fundamental things i’d need to share it more widely in the future is making it more networkable. something else to followup on.

Torley Linden shouts: thanks so much for being here and Q&Aing with me, you guys are greater than great

Torley Linden: NEXT!

Mia: LAST TWO IMS FOR YOU TORLEY! 1. I just went to paint.net and the url has changed to getpaint.net 2. I don’t remember there being much in your vids about scripting…any thoughts ?

Torley Linden shouts: thanx so much for our VTeam for setting this up, yo!

Torley Linden shouts: AHHHHHHHHH

Torley Linden shouts: (1) okay thanks for the update, kewlies

Torley Linden shouts: (2) i’ve only done a couple or so that touched on that. i may do more, but scripting of course, is very literal, and i haven’t found an easy way to address problems like blurry text on YouTube, or an outright way to copy and paste code snippets FROM videos.

Torley Linden shouts: so video in some cases may not be the best medium…

Torley Linden shouts: but i’m open to exploring that if there’s a lot of demand. keep in mind tho, Second Life has so much awesome scripted stuff, but the actual percentage of creators (who can script, build, etc.) is very small to those who simply want to enjoy those wicked, delicious creations.

Torley Linden shouts: so i’m focusing generally first on reaching as many people as possible (which is why Mentor-stuff and helping other Residents DOES take precedence), and then maybe moving onto core areas of focus in more esoteric areas

Torley Linden shouts: this is NOT to say that won’t change, but it’s how structure is kept for now so i can continue to be effective, as you can imagine, i get a lot of requests and that’s a good thing

Torley Linden: nnnnnnext

Mia: That’s it Torley and wow do we Love YOU!!!!!

Torley Linden shouts: ooooh way kewl!

Torley Linden shouts: thanks so much i am so thrilled to be here, my gosh…

Lexie Linden: Woot! Excellent Q&A!!

Torley Linden shouts: if you told me five years ago i’d be doing this…

George Linden: Thank you so much, Torley!!

Amber Linden: Incredible Torley! Thanks so much!

Torley Linden shouts: i would’ve been skeptical. but i’m incredibly grateful to be here, and hopefully to help you more actively…

Torley Linden shouts: hahha yes, all of me, all of my avatars and personalities!

Torley Linden shouts: thanx sooo much sooo much

Mia: Torley ty so very very much!

Lexie Linden: Thanks for coming today everyone!

Mia: And ty to all the Mentors for your brilliant questions and information!

Torley Linden shouts: it’s been magnificent. so…. i think in next steps anyway, i’ll be letting you know about a wiki page to get priorities for Mentor-focused video tutorials

Torley Linden shouts: SUCH great questions, you can see how much i appreciate it!

Torley Linden shouts: it’s beeen….. mahvelous and i look forward to the transcript and the followup…

Torley Linden shouts: the adventures have gotta continue!

Torley Linden shouts: *takes pictures, i’m forever a tourist here*

Torley Linden shouts: i totally think it’s awesome how you, VTeam, do these Q&As… getting more Linden specialties introduced… i like to make myself available for that

Torley Linden shouts: wooot WATERMELONS

Lexie Linden shouts: wooot!

Torley Linden shouts: last Q&A i did was awhile ago on WindLight with Pastrami, i remember that one too