Experience Tools – Ciaran Laval

Yesterday I was highlighting how Loki Eliot has been making good use of Experience Tools in Second Life and today Linden Lab blog Experience Tools Available Now For Premium Members! Coincidence? Most definitely, but that’s not the point!

First things first, what are experience tools? There’s a good knowledge base article but basically it’s a means by which a lot of the interaction notifications for a location can be agreed to in one foul swoop. So for example if you’re on a sim where scripted objects want to teleport you, take control of your camera, animate your avatar, attach a hud to you etc. this can be done in one step. For example I visited Electrobit City this evening, as I hadn’t been there before and I was greeted with this :

So basically, if I say yes to this, I’m agreeing that whilst in ElectroBit City scripted objects can :

Act on my control inputs
Animate my avatar
Attach to my avatar
Track my camera
Control my camera
Teleport me

As you can hopefully see, I have a choice in this matter. Another thing to note, is that if I change my mind, I can revoke these permissions. Now to make sure I have full access to all these options, I’m using the latest version of the official Second Life viewer, which is available from the downloads page. The current version is 3.8.0.302622.

Continue reading “Experience Tools Now Available For Premium Members”

Whereas the performance schedule at SL12B is over, the exhibits are still open and one exhibit that is really worth a look at is Loki Eliot’s Childhood Dreams. The reason it’s worth a look is because this exhibit makes really good use of experience tools to tell a story and move you in the right direction.

Traditionally in Second Life, when you want to interact with an object, you click it. Whereas Loki’s build does still include some clicking, it’s largely related to the HUD that automatically attaches itself to you when you accept the experience tools.

To put this simply, you click the hand to progress. This makes for a pretty seamless experience.

Continue reading “SL12B – Loki Eliot’s Exhibit Demonstrates Good Use Of Experience Tools”