YouTube
Linden Lab has an official Second Life YouTube channel at youtube.com/secondlife. It includes educational and entertaining videos such as feature tours of Viewer 2 and various video tutorials. Content continues to expand as the channel grows, as it's relatively new.
Torley Linden, master video tutorial maker, answers some hot questions:
How do I subscribe?
On youtube.com/secondlife, scroll down and look at the left-hand side for the yellow Subscribe button.
Then, click it! You know you want to!
Where do I learn more about using YouTube?
Via YouTube's own official help.
How's this different from secondlife.com/video ?
secondlife.com/video is a shortlink to the video tutorials we've been using for awhile.
Going forward, the YouTube channel and secondlife.com/video will have the same video tutorial content (which is fed from VodPod), but the latter is specifically designed and integrated with secondlife.com. (Alas, that also means you need to be logged into our website.) It may be easier to find things using the tags on secondlife.com/video, at least for now.
So, basically: same tutorials going forward, but appearance and some functionality is different. Use whichever you prefer.
WTF, the video looks so blurry
Wait, that isn't a question.
But I can still help: YouTube quality lags behind Vimeo (which we were using in some capacity pre-official YouTube channel, but YT has far greater reach) and others in some regards.
On many videos, there's a quality selector on the player control bar beneath the video: change it from "360p" to "480p" or better yet if available, "720p" which is considered "High-Definition".
There, sharp!
I was expecting to find a tutorial when I used the YouTube channel but it didn't show up!
First, this channel only has the new-ish tutorials starting with Viewer 2. Old ones are still shown on secondlife/video.
All new videos state what Viewer version they were filmed in near the beginning. This makes it easier to discern if something may be out-of-date.
Think of this channel as a "reimagining", not unlike Battlestar Galactica, and a fresh start as we usher in the Viewer 2 era.
Also feel free to request new search terms to Torley, who can add them so they DO show up in future searches for yourself and others. This has proven most beneficial before.
I have a video tutorial request!
The best topics for video tutorials tend to be stuff that's:
- Hard to explain in words but easy to understand by showing and
- Broadly useful for many Residents — this includes obscure features many people can benefit from... if only they knew.
So consider you and your friends' experiences. Examples can of course be gleaned from existing vidtuts ("video tutorials" for short when Torley gets tired of typing the full thing out).
Torley welcomes vidtut suggestions! Contact him directly.
Hey! What gives? This vidtut is only a workaround... I want a fix
In many cases, it's better to have a bandaid than a gaping wound. OK, that's a little graphic, but there are times when coding, testing, and then releasing a more elegant fix for a bug or usability problem takes, well, time.
In the meantime, if there are several weeks or months until a better solution, various Resis and Lindens ask Torley to do a stopgap measure so the information is out there. Which is far better than providing nothing at all.
Like Torley (ever the fan of the Pareto principle) sez, "If I can spend a few minutes that saves many hours down the road, it's worth it!"
Sure, and thanks for being awesome about getting the word out. For example, vidtuts have been a great help on Second Life Answers!
Just don't do anything that breaks the Terms of Service. That makes us sad.
How do I make my own videos?
Feeling inspired, eh? A good place to start is the Machinima page. A lot of it, including Torley's moviemaking guide, need to be updated for Viewer 2.