Activities of residents

Residents engage in many activities, just as people do in real life. Unlike real life, there is no biological need to seek nourishment or shelter. Thus some activities that would be necessary in the real world are purely voluntary leisure pursuits. People still often live in virtual houses, and enjoy virtual food and drink.

Residents explore, interact with one another, and create new "content." Exploration is like travel in the real world. One searches for places which might be interesting, and then goes there, sometimes even at random. Individuals explore alone, but often small groups explore together. Some exploration is spontaneous, but there are also more-or-less organized tours, and there are even travel agents.

Interaction occurs via text chat, text instant messaging

Instant messaging

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...

, or voice, not unlike the popular Internet applications, except that full 3D visuals are usually included. Interaction is also behavioral, such as when friends and strangers assemble at a club to dance or flirt while listening to recorded or live music.

Creation is changing the appearance and behavior of the Second Life virtual world including the avatar itself. Building a house, gardening, creating new clothes, and creating a new dance are all examples of creation. Some advanced examples are publishing a magazine or making a movie or TV show all within Second Life.

Subcultures

Second Life comprises various diverse, user-driven subcultures. There are few pre-determined structures, so what organization that exists has evolved to meet the wants and needs of the residents. Some residents will have an avatar that is clearly human male or female, and some will have an avatar where the gender is less obvious, or entirely androgynous; it is easy for a user to change the appearance of the avatar to either gender. Also, there are many non-human avatars, like "furries", or hybrids, like neko (feline), inu (canine), nezume (mouse/rat), and kitsune (fox) that have more of human shape and features, but distinct skin markings, ears and tail. Robots and fantasy creatures, such as dragons can also be found.

Some residents choose to re-enact some specific world, such as medieval Japan or ancient Rome. They choose to act out this world like real life historical re-creators do. As usual, residents are free to move in and out of these worlds as they see fit. Virtual property rights come into play here, since the property owner can choose to expel residents who don't abide by the property regulations, which in these case might include dress, language, and behavior.
There are also areas that re-create worlds from literature, such as Frank Herbert's Dune

Dune (novel)

Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...

or John Norman's Gor

Gor

Gor , the Counter-Earth, is the alternate-world setting for a series of 30 novels by John Norman that combine philosophy, erotica and science fiction...

or from video games such as the Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy

is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...

or the Star Wars series.

Some of the subcultures in Second Life revolve around events. Events include many activities related to arts, culture, charity, support groups, commerce, discussion, education, games, contests, nightlife, entertainment, pageants, and sports.

There is a built-in mechanism for organizations called the group

Group (online social networking)

A group is a feature in many social network services which allows users to create, post, comment to and read from their own interest- and niche-specific forums, often within the realm of virtual communities...

. A group can be created by a resident for a fee of L$100, who then has three days to recruit an additional member. A group must then maintain a membership of at least 2 members at all times in order to remain active. The groups that each Resident belongs to are displayed in that user's profile. Group membership provides a means of self-identification and self-expression, and facilitates member to member communication in a number of ways. A group comprises officers and members, with titles determined by group leadership. The Owner, Member (referred to by the client as Everyone) or the title for any custom roles may appear superimposed above the name of the Resident's avatar. Residents may participate in up to 42 groups, and may choose which group's title to display at any given time. Group activity is usually centered on a particular interest, so creating groups can give people a common ground for discussion and provide an easy way to break the ice. Some groups maintain websites to bridge the gap between real-life

Real life

Real life is a term usually used to denote actual human life lived by real people in contrast with the lives of fictional or fantasy characters.-Usage online and in fiction:On the Internet, "real life" refers to life in the real world...

 (referred to as "first life", or abbreviated to "RL" for "real-life") and Second Life (commonly abbreviated as SL, but 2L is also used) interests.

Groups are allowed ownership of land and resources, so they comprise the closest thing to a corporation within the Second Life environment.

Second Life is also being influenced by many Internet phenomena which include the Moskau Dance

Moskau (Dschinghis Khan song)

"Moskau " is a single by the German pop-act Dschinghis Khan from their 1979 self-titled debut album.-History:The song was released in Australia in 1980, the year of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Australia's Channel 7 used the song as the theme to their television coverage of the Moscow Olympics...

, Ulae, Miko Miko Nurse

Miko Miko Nurse

is a Japanese PC erotic game released on May 23, 2003 by Psycho. The game is most famous for its theme song "Miko Miko Nurse - Theme of Love".-Plot:The story takes place in the Paradise Hospital, the forefront of elderly treatment...

, Yoshio Kojima

Yoshio Kojima

is a Japanese comedian famous for appearing only in a small bathing suit, during both performances and interviews. Among his well-known catchphrases are Sonna no kankei nee and Oppapī , an abbreviation of "Ocean Pacific Peace",...

 and Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...

. Many of these memes are in the form of gestures, which are animations that the avatar uses. These gestures are a cause of Internet culture spread

Cultural diffusion

In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by Alfred L. Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations, is the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies,...

 in Second Life.

Second Life blogs are also appearing where Residents detail their second lives, sometimes more extensively than their first:

Resident-created content

The majority of the content in the Second Life world is Resident-created. Linden Lab actively promotes the concept that Residents retain the intellectual property rights to objects they create (although they are required to offer Linden Lab a limited license for the purposes of promotion and marketing.

Only LSL scripts, wearables, images made from in world snapshots, and the basic 3D objects (called "Primitives" or "Prims") or composites of scripts, images and prims, can be created solely with the client (although a future release promises to be able to create animations, as BVH files, within the client).

Animations can be made with various software, such as Qavimator, Avimator, and Poser

Poser

Poser is a 3D CGI rendering and animation software program optimized for models that depict the human figure in three-dimensional form, mostly used to pose and animate the figures in a similar way as a mannequin...

, or they can be acquired via motion capture

Motion capture

Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...

. Avimator is a simple, open source tool for creating and editing avatar animations just for Second Life. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Animations can be triggered by scripts and used in hot-keyed

Keyboard shortcut

In computing, a keyboard shortcut is a finite set of one or more keys that invoke a software or operating system operation when triggered by the user. A meaning of term "keyboard shortcut" can vary depending on software manufacturer...

 gesture

Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...

s.

Textures can be uploaded as TGA

Truevision TGA

Truevision TGA, often referred to as TARGA, is a raster graphics file format created by Truevision Inc. . It was the native format of TARGA and VISTA boards, which were the first graphic cards for IBM-compatible PCs to support Highcolor/truecolor display...

, Bitmap

Windows bitmap

The BMP File Format, also known as Bitmap Image File or Device Independent Bitmap file format or simply a Bitmap, is a Raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device , especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems.The BMP...

, JPEG

JPEG

In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....

 and PNG, and are made in applications such as Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...

, Corel Paint Shop Pro

Corel Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop Pro is a raster graphics editor and, later in the series, a vector graphics editor for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system that was originally published by Minneapolis-based Jasc Software. In October 2004, Corel Corporation purchased Jasc Software and the...

, or The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

GIMP

GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...

. Textures can be applied to the surface of any 3D object, land, clothing, an avatar's skin (including tattoos) and can be used as scripted particles.

Sounds can be made using any piece of software capable of creating WAV

WAV

Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...

 files, ranging from an Operating System's basic sound recorder, media players such as foobar2000

Foobar2000

foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. It is known for its highly modular design and extensive SDK which allows third-party developers to do such things as completely replace the interface...

, as well as dedicated audio editing packages such as Audacity

Audacity

Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD.Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University...

 and Pro Tools

Pro Tools

Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...

.

Every resident has access to a library of textures, animations, sounds and objects provided by Linden Lab, found in the Library folder. Textures, animations and sounds cost L$10 each to upload. JPEGs, although smaller in file size, are not recommended since they will be converted to JPEG2000 file format on upload regardless of original file format. TGA files have the added advantage of alpha channel transparency

Transparency (graphic)

Transparency is possible in a number of graphics file formats. The term transparency is used in various ways by different people, but at its simplest there is "full transparency" i.e. something that is completely invisible. Of course, only part of a graphic should be fully transparent, or there...

. Images are sized to the next smallest of a series of defaults, with the largest being 1024x1024.

Avatars

Residents of Second Life are represented in the environment by an avatar

Avatar (virtual reality)

In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...

. The basic avatar is humanoid

Humanoid

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...

 in shape which may be customized in a variety of ways:

• A series of GUI
  Gui
  Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
  
   controls, modifying every aspect of the basic mesh
  Polygon mesh
  A polygon mesh or unstructured grid is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling...
  
   (body shape, skin, hair style etc.)
• Creating clothing or buying clothes made by other Residents
• Attachments — 3D objects intended to supplement or replace body structure, clothes or hair
• Animation Overriders (intended to supplement or replace the stock set of animations) using LSL
  Linden Scripting Language
  Linden Scripting Language, or LSL, is the programming language used by residents of Second Life, a virtual world by Linden Lab.LSL has a syntax similar to C and allows objects to control the behavior of in-world objects of Second Life from the Internet via email, XML-RPC, and most recently, HTTP...
  
   to trigger BVH
  Biovision Hierarchy
  The Biovision Hierarchy character animation file format was developed by Biovision, a defunct motion capture services company, to give motion capture data to customers...
  
   format animations.
• Sonic Overriders — using LSL to trigger sounds such as footsteps, or emotive cues such as laughing, crying and orgasms.

The result can either be faithful to the original humanoid avatar, or can result in a completely non-humanoid representation of the character. These customizations can be packaged up into a single outfit, with common applications of outfits including animals, robots, mechs

Mecha

A mech , is a science fiction term for a large walking bipedal tank or robot, including ones on treads and animal shapes.-Characteristics:...

, furries

Furry fandom

Furry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes...

, Clone Troopers and "tinies", which are just "folded up" (via a static animation — a "pose

Pose (computer vision)

In computer vision and in robotics, a typical task is to identify specific objects in an image and to determine each object's position and orientation relative to some coordinate system. This information can then be used, for example, to allow a robot to manipulate an object or to avoid moving...

") regular avatars.

Objects

Second Life includes a built-in 3D Modeler that allows Residents to create complex objects out of a set of basic building blocks known as prims (short for "primitives") - parametric

Parametric

Parametric may refer to:*Parametric equation*Parametric statistics*Parametric derivative*Parametric plot*Parametric model*Parametric oscillator *Parametric contract*Parametric insurance*Parametric feature based modeler...

 models supporting dynamic scalar level of detail. Second Life uses Havok

Havok (software)

Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies , and has a highly optimized...

 for simulated physics, though not all objects in the world respond to physics. A future update will include Havok 4

Havok (software)

Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies , and has a highly optimized...

 support, an improvement that Second Life residents have awaited since it was first announced by Linden Lab before June, 2002. All objects and 3D information are streamed in real-time to all clients. This allows for real-time editing of 3D objects so any Resident can view what is being created as it is being created.

The 3D objects can be used to make avatar attachments, vehicles, buildings, furniture, sculpture or anything else the user can think of. Attachments can be something as simple as a pair of glasses, or a complex series of objects in order to make the avatar look like something else entirely. Vehicles can range from a small pair of roller skates to a car, to large and full scale replica of fictional vehicles from Sci-Fi

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and Anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

In the first half of 2007 Linden Lab added a new feature to Second Life: the possibility to create sculpted prim

Sculpted prim

A sculpted prim is a Second Life 3D parametric object whose 3D shape is determined by a texture. These textures are UV maps that form the rendered 3D sculpted prim...

s. Whereas prims are based on simple geometrical shapes, as cylinders, cubes, or spheres, sculpted prims are based on an special type of displacement maps, where the red, green and blue components indicate how to position the vertexes of one of the 4 base shape topologies (sphere, cylinder, torus and plane).

Scripting

Residents can apply script

Scripting language

A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...

s to created objects, thereby controlling the behavior of the objects within the environment. Second Life uses its own scripting language, called Linden Scripting Language

Linden Scripting Language

Linden Scripting Language, or LSL, is the programming language used by residents of Second Life, a virtual world by Linden Lab.LSL has a syntax similar to C and allows objects to control the behavior of in-world objects of Second Life from the Internet via email, XML-RPC, and most recently, HTTP...

 (LSL). LSL has a syntax similar to C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 or Javascript

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

, and allows objects to interact with the Second Life world, as well as the Internet via email, XML-RPC and HTTP.

LSL is used to drive all interactivity in Second Life that isn't provided by the interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

. For instance, while it is possible to sell an object by leaving the object out with the correct attributes set via the interface, it becomes increasingly difficult the larger a single object is, the more numerous a collection of objects are, or for objects that are updated on a regular basis. Textures, scripts, animations, gestures and notecards cannot be sold by themselves (although they can be transferred between Residents in such a manner), requiring them to be held within a containing object. Games, doors, flashing lights, and basically anything that is seen in Second Life that is interactive is scripted.

External influences

The largest external influence is Linden Lab itself, which ultimately controls the virtual rule. Thus, it has been argued that one way to improve ones chances of success in a Second Life endeavor is to gain the ear of Linden lab. Linden Lab runs the "economy" of second life, and has Ginsu Linden in charge of economic policy. Linden Lab also has business ties with other companies, and these are sometimes seen as having disproportionate influence by Second Life residents.

Another external influence on second life is the self-selecting nature of Second Life residents. What influence this has been a matter of debate in the Second Life Community.

However, in Second Life itself, the most controversial external influence is "Real Life" or "First Life." This is often abbreviated as "RL" or "FL" by Second Life residents, just as the "SL" abbreviation is nearly ubiquitous. RL's influence means that activities are interrupted, schedules changed and projects are delayed to accommodate the demands of "RL," particularly in reference to work and relationships that have to be done RL. Many Second Life residents refuse to connect their "RL" with their "SL," and argue that their Second Life existence stands or falls on its own merits. Others make hardly any difference between RL en SL as can be read in Second Life Love . One way that this influence shows up is in the contact points between a Second Life identity and a Real Life identity, including, but not limited to, the use of voice in second life, the payment of taxes and the various moves to "verify" that a particular avatar is associated with a particular real world individual.

Linden Labs and Real Life often combine to produce pressures on residents to pay the usage fees on Second Life virtual land, which requires earning money through selling of goods, virtual land itself, or services, or other activities which are intended to accrue Linden Dollars.

A growing external influence is the list of real world corporations, including IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

, Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

 and Cisco

Cisco

Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...

. These corporations hire builders, recruit residents and have a presence in Second Life for a variety of goals and objectives. In addition to the money they spend on second life, their employees have varying degrees of commitment to VR as a whole, for example IBM has an evangelist named Ian Hughes (aka epredator) whose in world name is "ePredator Potato." What this presence means for Second Life as a whole is also a matter of discussion among residents.

Finally, the international nature of Second Life, and its generally individualist bent, means that fear of government meddling or interference in activities in Second Life, including bans on gambling, sale of equities, enforcement of differing laws on obscenity and pornography, particularly age play, as well as imposition of taxes such as the Value Added Tax

Value added tax

A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...

, is a very present concern as an external influence. While there have been some court cases involving Second Life, in general, it has not been established how much actual influence has been exerted in Second Life by RL governments, though the gambling ban by Linden Labs and the imposition of the VAT are widely blamed by residents on government interference.

One of the particular fears is the loss of the anonymity which many residents use to conduct activities that they do not wish to have associated with their real life identity, which means that moves to verify identity are often met with stiff resistance.