How to use voice

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If you're reading this, chances are pretty good that you're using voice in Second Life®, or are simply curious about what it does. This article discusses the voice-related features of Second Life, and how to use them.

Voice-Enabled Parcels and Residents

You'll find that you're only able to use voice on land that's marked as voice-enabled, and then only with Residents who have voice enabled.

• When you're on a voice-enabled parcel, you'll see an icon at the top of the Second Life window: If this icon has a line through it, voice has not been enabled for that parcel.
• When you're looking at a voice-enabled Resident, you'll see a white dot floating above his head. We call this the voice intensity indicator, and it'll let you know when someone is talking and how loud they are.

Spatial Voice Chat

Spatial voice chat is what we call talking to someone you can see near you. Here's how it works:

If you're on voice-enabled land, walk up to another voice-enabled Resident and talk to them.

If your headset is correctly configured, the voice intensity indicator above your head will change color slightly, and will grow and shrink along with the natural volume patterns and fluctuations of your voice.

Important: If the indicator turns red, you're either speaking too loudly, the microphone is too close to your mouth, or the volume control on your microphone is turned up a little too far. Please make adjustments until the voice indicator stays in the bright green range and only seldom flickers to red.

When others speak, you'll see their intensity indicators and hear their voices as they hear yours. Walk around someone who's speaking to you to hear the voice move around in 3D based on where you are relative to their avatar. If you turn toward someone and move closer, for example, their voice will be louder. If you speak while walking around someone else, they'll hear your voice tracking your position.

Volume and Camera Position

By default, each speaker's volume can be determined by their distance from your camera's position. For example, if you're in mouselook mode and walk up to someone who's speaking, you'll hear their voice become louder the closer you are. As you move away, their voices will become softer until you won't be able to hear them at all.

You can use the camera controls (Alt-mouse zooming, for example) to create a momentary "audio focus" on a given speaker. This makes it easy to pick a voice out of a crowd of talking avatars while remaining in one location.

In the Voice Chat tab of the Preferences window, you can choose what determines voice volume intensity:

• Camera position and camera direction
• Avatar position and avatar direction
• Avatar position and camera direction

Push-to-Talk Mode

Have you ever used a walkie-talkie or an apartment building intercom? Remember how you have to hold a button down in order to talk? Voice chat can be configured to work this way too; it's called Push-to-Talk mode. Push-to-Talk mode can be used to give you varying degrees of control over when your speech is actually heard:

• You have to hold down whatever button you specify (or the Talk button at the bottom of the Second Life window) in order for your microphone to be active. OR
• You press whatever button you specify (or the Talk button) to turn your microphone on and off. This is controlled by the Push-to-Talk acts as a toggle checkbox.

Important: If you turn Push-to-Talk mode off, your microphone is always on.

You can turn Push-to-Talk mode on or off using either of the following methods:

• In the Preferences window, use the Use Push-to-Talk mode checkbox.
• At the bottom of the Second Life window, click the lock icon in the Talk button.

Push-to-Talk mode is on by default.

Controlling Volume

You can get a pretty good idea of how loud you sound by watching your voice intensity indicator. If it turns red, you're too loud. The Talk button also contains a personal volume indicator that will turn red if you're too loud.

You can control your perceived volume of other Residents in the Active Speakers window.

1. Click the Speakers button at the bottom of the Second Life window. The Active Speakers window opens.
2. Click the name of the person speaking whose volume you want to adjust.
3. Adjust the slider at the bottom of the window.

The Active Speakers Window

The Active Speakers window, pictured above, shows you a list of the Residents around you with voice enabled who are speaking in a particular channel (the speakers near you is the default one). Open it by clicking the Speakers button at the bottom of the Second Life window, left of the Talk button.

A dot appears beside each speaker's name in the list, indicating who's speaking. The dot mimics the speaker's voice intensity indicator: A green dot shows active speakers within normal volume range, while a red dot shows an active speaker who's speaking a little too loudly.

In addition, the name of the Resident who spoke most recently appears at the top of the Active Speakers list. As the time since a speaker's last utterance increases, the speaker's name moves down the list and the dot next to the speaker's name fades to increasingly lighter shades of gray.

Resident names can also be sorted alphabetically in the Active Speakers window. This can be useful in large groups, when the list would otherwise be shifting constantly.

To control the volume and mute settings for a particular speaker, just click on the speaker's name in the list and then use the volume control at the bottom of the window to make adjustments.

The Communicate Window

The Communicate window opens when you click the Communicate button at the bottom of the Second Life window. It can be used for the group and individual voice calls discussed below, but it's also useful for spatial chat:

• The Communicate window lists the active speakers just like the Active Speakers window as well as showing the text chat history. People who are typing move to the top of the active speakers list in the Communicate window, but the dot next to their names won't change color. Click the << button to open the active speakers list in the Local Chat tab of the Communicate window.
• You can control the volume of individuals with the Communicate window just as you can in the Active Speakers window.
• You can also selectively mute the voice or text chat of individual Residents near you.

Click the << button in the Local Chat tab of the Communicate window to see who's talking and chatting around you.

Muting People

Somebody talking too loud? Don't really feel like hearing anything they have to say, for that matter? Right-click them and select Mute. This will silence not only their speech, but also their Instant Message (IM) and text chatter.

Alternatively, you can selectively mute either voice or text chat from within the Communicate window.

Speech Gestures

In real life, very few people stand still while they talk. Second Life gives you the ability to wear an initial set of "speech gestures". These speech gestures are randomly selected from nine different animations based on the intensity of your voice. These gestures are located in your Library's Gesture folder (under "Speech Gestures"). There are three gesture sets containing three gestures each for low, medium, and high-intensity volumes.

• To enable speech gestures, simply drag the folder labeled "Speech Gestures" from your Library on to your avatar.
• To disable them, right-click the Speech Gestures folder and select Take Off Items.

Individual and Group Voice Calls

You're not limited to spatial voice chat in Second Life: You can talk to another person or a group directly, no matter where you are on the grid.

Important: You can only participate in one voice channel at a time. For example: If you're talking to a group of avatars around you and then decide to talk to someone else one-on-one, you won't be able to hear the Residents around you anymore in spatial chat, nor will they hear you. This is also true for direct calls: Talking to someone one-on-one means you won't be a participant in group voice chats.

Talking to an Individual

In general, if you're using IM to talk to someone and they have voice enabled, you can click Call to initiate a direct voice chat session.

To start a voice chat session with a friend:

1. Click the Communicate button at the bottom of the Second Life window. The Communicate window opens.
2. Click the Contacts tab.
3. Click the name of a friend and click IM/Call. A separate tab opens in the Communicate window.
4. At the top of the new tab, click Call.

Talking to a Group

In general, when you're talking to a group, the Communicate window works exactly like it does for speakers near you:

• It displays a list of everyone in the group who's talking or typing
• It tracks the volume of individual speakers
• It displays the group text chat history
• It offers individual volume and mute controls

To start a voice chat session with a group:

1. Click the Communicate button at the bottom of the Second Life window. The Communicate window opens.
2. Click the Groups tab.
3. Click the name of a group and click IM/Call. A separate tab opens in the Communicate window.
4. At the top of the new tab, click Call.