Thursday, October 9, 2008

Second Life Books Now Available

Have you ever wished that Second Life came with a manual? Now Kirkwood has the next best thing. Two books are available to check out from the Kirkwood Library and KCELT. I own both of these books and recommend them highly!

Second Life: The Official Guide
ISBN 0-470-09608 | Wiley Publishing, Inc.
This book is a good overview for beginners with information that even advanced users will find helpful. You can read about the history of SL, find links to many interesting places to visit, find tips for changing your avatar, how to get started building and scripting, and find profiles of some of the people who have made their mark on this virtual world. Of special interest to our group is Appendix A which has resources for real life education in Second Life. This section is written by Pathfinder Linden, a Linden Labs employee who's primary focus is "how to use Second Life as a platform for real-life education." A kindred spirit.

Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life
ISBN 978-0-470-171141-1 | Wiley Pubishing, Inc.
If you're interested in building or scripting, this is the book for you. All the basic building shapes (prims) and how they respond when you cut them in half or hollow them out are described great visual detail. How to link prims together to create objects is covered with tutorials that start with the basics and move on to more advanced builds. How to create unique textures for your build, create your own clothing, and an overview of the Linden Scripting Language (LSL) is also covered. A step-by-step tutorial at the end of the book will combine all you have learned to create an airplane! I'm currently reading (and building with) this book and haven't tried this tutorial yet, but it looks like a good one. Many of the building tutorials in this book are written by Aimee Weber who is famous in-world as a builder. You can find examples of her skills at www.AimeeWeber.com ...and yes, I'm a fan. ; ) I think you will be too if you check out her work. Remember the Stocker Building from the Ohio University's SL campus tour? That's Aimee's work.

The following book suggestion comes from Elizabeth McCarthy, Kirkwood Business & IT Department but is not available in the Kirkwood Library or KCELT, so a link is provided. I haven't seen this book in order to comment on it, but Elizabeth mentioned she found it to be a good resource. Thanks for this suggestion Elizabeth!

Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World, 1/e | http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0321501667,00.html ©2008 | ISBN-10: 0321501667 | ISBN-13: 9780321501660


Need help outside of regular group meetings?
Remember if you can't make it to a meeting you can always meet with group members on your own. To find out if there is anyone from the Kirkwood group logged into Second Life, just follow these simple steps:

* Right-click on your avatar (Command-click if you have a Mac).
* Select "Groups."
* From the list of the groups you are a member of, select Kirkwood Community College.
* Click the "Call" button. This will start a text chat with our Kirkwood SL Group.
* Just type a question or start a conversation with our group members anywhere in SL.

See you in-world!
Kit

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This book is really very interesting!! I got this one from Wiley...