Glossary

Second Life users (and especially Second Life designers) use a lot of lingo and short-hand to discuss things. When I use a term or abbreviation in one of my blog posts, I will add it here with a brief definition/explanation.

Animations: every movement or sequence of movements of any kind that an avatar does is an "animation"—and they are required additions to objects such as furniture. There are literally tens of thousands of animations available for free or for purchase within the Second Life economy.

Appliers: texturing tools that allow the application of textures to the avatar itself, in the form of skins, tattoos, clothing, makeup, etc.

AvSitter: a complex set of scripts and tools designed to allow animations to be used with furniture and other objects. Originally the brainchild of user Code Violet, AvSitter was rendered open-source a few years ago and is in ongoing development by an active group. AvSitter requires extensive configuration for animations to work properly.

Event: a sales event in SL is like a convention or tradeshow that is open to the public. Stores/designers rent booths for a fixed registration fee, and they are granted a certain number of prims in allowance. They can fill their booths with items for sale; normally, an "exclusive" item is required that must be new and cannot be for sale elsewhere in SL during the event.

Full-Perm: short for "full permissions" and indicates that the receiving user has permissions to copy, modify, and transfer the object. Sometimes it is further abbreviated to "FP." (See also "Permissions")

Gesture: a scripted event where certain actions are triggered by a word or a phrase; the actions can be audio, animations, or pre-scripted local chat.

Linden Lab: the parent company that owns and operates the virtual world Second Life

L$: The currency marker for the "Linden Dollar"—the in-world currency for Second Life. Sometimes it is indicated simply by "L" preceding an amount.

Mesh: a 3D virtual object that is created using 3D software is called a "mesh"—these can be uploaded into Second Life and used as regular objects. (See also "Objects")

MP: abbreviation for "Marketplace" which itself stands for the Second Life Marketplace, an online store available to every user for buying and selling of, well, just about anything you can imagine.

Object: really, any user-generated item in Second Life can be considered an "object" because almost everything user-generated in SL can have permissions set and can be transferred to another user. This includes mesh or prim-based creations, avatar skins and shapes, HUD attachments, audio files, textures, and even notecards. But an "object" also generally refers to a single thing that can be clicked and interacted with—thus, it might actually be multiple objects linked together to form a new object.

Permissions: everything that can be bought, sold, or given away in SL has permissions. These specify whether someone other than the creator can make copies of that object, modify it, and/or transfer it to another user. These are usually abbreviated using the words "copy," "mod," and "trans" and might look like this: "copy/mod/no-trans" or "no-copy/no-mod/trans."

Photo Prop: any object that contains static poses (not animations) for the purpose of photos in SL. These can be furniture, but often they are decor items or even backgrounds.

Prim: short for "primative," this is the most basic building unit in Second Life. Prims can be sculpted and transformed in different ways to become objects and parts of objects. "Prim" can also refer to a measurement of virtual mass, by which one can understand how much "space" an object requires when it is rezzed. (See also "Objects")

Rez/Rezzing: in Second Life this refers to making an object appear, either by dragging it from inventory or by creating a new one from the Edit menu. (Some gamers refer to this as "spawning.")

RL: commonly used abbreviation for "Real Life" which is in contrast to one's "second life"

Shopping District: technically, any collection of stores is a shopping district—but traditionally in SL many/most shopping districts work to promote themselves and their stores actively. Some shopping districts are quite prestigious, and can still actually bring some cachet and store traffic just by their presence; most, however, have lost this ability and appeal, as shoppers have found other ways to search out new stores.

SL: commonly used abbreviation for "Second Life" (see also "RL")

UV Maps: these are the "unwrapped" versions of 3D mesh, represented on 2D images. It can be very difficult to get your head around how this works, but if you've ever unwrapped the foil from an Easter bunny and laid it out flat, you will have a sense of a UV image. It's not 3D itself, but it shows what goes where on a 3D image.

Vendor System: a collection of scripts that are set up for selling items is called a "vendor system." They can be simple or complex, but anything more than the built-in selling tool that SL includes qualifies as a vendor system. Currently there are two major players in the vendor system world: CasperVend and MD Labs.