Designing Your Second Life

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Designing Your Second Life

General Introduction
Tier fees, prims, square meterage, and building for "free"
Overall Design Advice
The Second Life window, toolbars, and interface

Chapter 2: Designing Yourself

Choosing your name
Choosing your basic/beginning avatar
Customizing your avatar's shape: the head and face
Customizing your avatar's shape: the upper & lower body
Customizing your avatar's other features: eyes, hair, and skin
Going non-human: ears, tails, wings, and other extras
Going non-human: tinies, furries, dragons, robots, and other "species"

Chapter 3: Designing Your Style

Clothes: dos, don'ts, and going for broke
Shoes, jewelry and other accessories
Makeup, facial hair, and other grooming possibilities
Piercings, tattoos, and other body modifications
Postures, poses, and other self-expressive animations

Chapter 4: Designing Your Social Life

Your Profile
Using Search
Joining Groups
Social Etiquette
Hookups, Dating, and Partnerships
Second Life pregnancy and children

Chapter 5: Designing Your Career

The Second Life economy
Help Wanted: how to find a job using SL's classifieds and forums
Creative jobs: design, construction, modeling, DJing
Public service jobs: escorts, bodyguards, bartenders, retail sales
Real estate: buying, selling, renting, flipping, and managing SL property
The Second Life entrepreneur: starting your own Second Life business

Chapter 6: Designing Your Lifestyle

Just plain Dick and Jane: living "normal" in SL
Costume culture: goths, punks, and bikers
Armoire culture: Masters, Mistresses, Dom(me)s, submissives, and slaves
Total transformation: furries, tinies, dragons, robots, etc.
Light roleplaying communities: vampires, elves, the Wild West, etc.
Heavy roleplaying communites: Gor, Star Trek, Napoleon's navy, etc.


Chapter 7: Designing Your Home

Some general yet good advice about designing buildings in SL
Apartments, townhouses, and condos
An example build: the Gorean-Roman villa
An example build: the Lion's Gate castle
An example build: the skybox
An example build: the chrysanthemum house

Chapter 8: Designing Your Land

Real Life vs. Second Life property
Residential, commercial, and mixed zone spaces
An introduction to terraforming and landscaping in SL
First-Land property: starting small and simple
Mainland property: getting the most for your money
Small island property: when to leave the mainland
Buying, owning, and developing your own small island

Appendix A: Useful In-World Resources
Appendix B: Useful Real-World Resources
Appendix C: SecondLifeSpeak: A dictionary of commonly used in-world terms
Appendix D: A Quick Reference Guide to Clothing Templates