Telehubs

Telehubs and Direct Teleport

There are two basic approaches to controlling where visitors to your Estates appear, and they are mutually exclusive. You can choose to use a telehub to force all visitors to appear at a preset location, or you can elect to allow them to directly teleport wherever they wish.

If you choose to use a telehub, you must disable Allow Direct Teleport on the Estate tab of the Region/Estate window, because it circumvents the use of a telehub. In addition, you should clear any Landing Points that might be set for the parcels on your Estate (the About Land window's Options tab), as they can also cause the telehub to malfunction.

If you choose to allow direct teleportation, you should disable or remove any telehub object that you have in your Region. You can, however, use parcel landing points to give parcel-level control over where people appear when they teleport in.

Configuring Telehubs

Telehubs are controlled through the Region/Estate window, on the Region tab.

To connect your telehub:

Right-click on the object and select Edit.
In the Region/Estate window, click the Region tab.
Click Manage Telehub.
Click Add Spawnpoint.
Click your telehub object again, and click Connect telehub.

All set!

Here are some things to consider regarding telehubs:

Format: The Telehub references an object on your Private Region or island. This can be any object, but generally, it should be phantom and raised slightly off the ground (avatars arrive in the center of it). You can use any prim.
Movement: The Telehub is saved as a bookmark to a specific object; it is not saved in the object itself. As a result, you may freely move your telehub object around; the telehub waypoint moves with it. However, if the object ever leaves the Region (for example, you accidentally Return it or Take it to inventory), the telehub waypoint is lost, and you need to create a new telehub.
Spawnpoints: You can create multiple spawnpoints for your telehub. Incoming residents arrive at one of the spawnpoints. To make spawnpoints:
1. Create transparent cubes at each location you wish people to spawn.
2. Place the telehub object in the middle.
3. Save the spawnpoints and connect them to the telehubSpawnpoints are saved as offsets of the telehub (i.e. "two meters west and one meter north of the telehub"). As such, the objects used to create the spawnpoints may be deleted (though the telehub must remain as always).
- Moving the telehub moves all spawnpoints as a group.
- Incoming visitors will be usually routed to the nearest spawnpoint, other times a random spawnpoint (especially when the nearest gets overcrowded), chosen from the points you designated.
Permissions: Telehubs do not work for the Estate owner, Estate managers, or officers of a group to whom the land is deeded. Those people will always be able to teleport around freely.
Multi-Region Estates: Each Region in an Estate can have its own telehub. If you'd prefer to have one telehub that functions for all Regions within an Estate, you can try defining a single telehub in just one Region on the Estate and disabling Allow Direct Teleport at the Estate level.

Covenants

Covenants are often used when you decide you wish to sell land on your Estate or Private Region. You don't need to set a Covenant to enable land sales, but we highly recommend it if you want to set up zoning or other rules on your Estate.

Covenants are viewable by the parcel Owner at all times, in the Covenant tab of the About Land window, or the Region/Estate window.

Setting the Covenant

To set or change the Covenant for an Estate, simply drop a new notecard into the Covenant box in the Covenant tab of the Region/Estate window. A prompt asks you if you are certain. If you are certain, confirm it, and the new Covenant will be set.

Remember:

The Covenant applies across every Region in an Estate.
Estate Managers can set parcels for sale and they can reset the Covenant.
Land parcels can be reclaimed at any time by the Estate Owner.
Deselecting the land sales box does reset parcels already set for sale.

Covenants and reselling land

If you want people to be able to sell the land once they've purchased it, or to be able to deed it to groups after they've purchased it, you should select Enable Land Resell in the Region tab. Whenever there's a Covenant present on an Estate, you must agree to it to purchase a parcel, whether the functionality to resell land is enabled or not.

Covenants and communication

Covenants are intended to easily communicate the terms and conditions of owning property on your Estate, whether it's a single Region or several. As a responsible landlord, don't change the terms of a Covenant without informing your Residents, just like you wouldn't want any service provider you pay to suddenly include rules you didn't consent to. Your Covenant should be clearly-written and include, at a minimum:

Features and benefits - Covenants are used for advertising. What appeals most about your land? Do you boast an exceptionally beautiful beach, or do you pride yourself on top-notch service?
Payment information - Many Estate Owners use rental boxes or other automated means to keep track of payments. Your payment system should be straightforward so your renters aren't frustrated trying to give you money.
Code of conduct - The rules of what a renter CAN and CAN'T do, such as making sure security devices aren't overly aggressive, and being good to neighbors.
Zoning or theming - For example, you can state that no stores are allowed in a residential area. Or if your Region has an ancient Egypt aesthetic, you can disallow futuristic-looking builds.
Best ways to communicate with you as the Estate Owner - If your Instant Messages easily get capped, make sure to include an email or webform where you can be reached. Some Estate Owners also delegate support to their Estate Managers or other staff. Be sure your renters can easily get in touch so you'll have a happy relationship built on a solid foundation.

Estate Owners and Managers are still the final arbiters of the Estate. Individual landowners (renters) on your Estate may not request rollbacks or other technical support (like restarts), but should contact you or your Estate Managers for those needs. This allows you to retain control of Estate management.

Learn from existing Covenants

It's easy to visit Private Regions where Estate Owners already have Covenants — this can provide a wealth of experience and inform how you write your Covenant. There's a huge amount of variation, so use what's applicable to you.

Tip: Many Estates put their Covenants on their websites, which are also used to promote their property. Try searching for phrases like "second life land rent covenant".

In the Viewer, click Search button.
Click Land Sales tab.
Change the All Types dropdown to For Sale - Estate.
Customize the Price and Area fields as-desired (remember that Price is often not the real price you pay), then click Search.
Many results come up. Click through to browse descriptions (which are typically a very-condensed version of Covenants), then when one that interests you appears, click Teleport.
Once you arrive at the Region, click the land info in the middle of the menu bar and click Covenant tab.
Read the Covenant to see if there's anything useful. If yes, take notes. If not, go to the next place.
Repeat this as you continue to craft your Covenant.

Warning: Obviously, don't plagiarize other Estate Owners' Covenants. Be inspired, not lazy.

Private region transfer FAQ

Can I transfer my Private Region to someone else?

Yes, Linden Lab can perform Resident-to-Resident transfers of Private Regions (Islands), but both buyer and seller need to agree on a price. Keep reading to get answers to your questions.

Important: If the buyer's payment fails for any reason, then the transfer is cancelled and no action is taken. Both Second Life accounts must be in good standing (not delinquent/in debt) for the transfer to take place.

How do Private Region transfers work?

Both buyer and seller must submit support tickets, via the Support Portal, that name the Region to be transferred and the transaction amount they've agreed upon. This amount can be in either U.S. dollars (USD) or Linden dollars (L$). Both sides also have to confirm other details about the Region being transferred.

Here's how to submit a ticket:

Go to the Support Portal and login with your Second Life account.
Click New Ticket Submission.
Select Ticket Type: Land and Region Issues with these details:
- Region Request: Region Change
- Region Change: Transfer
- Transfer type: Select "I am buying..." or "I am selling..." as-appropriate.
Complete the other required fields; the information must be consistent for both the buyer and seller tickets.
When all the details have been entered, scroll to the bottom and click Finish >>.

If both tickets match (that is, they state the same details and value), we charge the buyer through their Second Life account, either in USD or L$ as specified in the tickets. Once the charge has been successful, we credit the seller the same amount minus the transfer fee that we normally charge. The transfer of the Region then goes ahead as usual.

If buyers use PayPal as their payment method, they need to have their PayPal agreement set to a high enough spending limit (by default PayPal limits are relatively low).

Is there a transfer fee?

Yes. The USD$100 (or L$28,000 for L$ transfers) Region Transfer fee, which is always debited from the seller's account, is for the backend work by Linden Lab, which includes:

Changing Estate ownership settings
Billing transfer
Region name change
Moving the Region

This means buyers need valid payment information on file with Linden Lab (or have the necessary account credit in USD or L$). The Increase Credit link on your Dashboard (shown when you click the Manage link under the Linden Exchange heading on the left) can be used to add USD credit to an account.

How long does a transfer take?

After both the buyer and seller have submitted their tickets to Support, you can normally expect your Private Region transfer to take 5-10 business days. Depending on the size of our current Region transfer queue, your transfer may occasionally take longer than 10 business days.

Can I sell part of a Private Region?

Yes. Parcels can be sold to other Residents, but you remain responsible for the monthly payments. You can make arrangements for these new parcel owners to pay you for use of the Private Region, but that's between you and the other Residents. Many Private Region owners use the Private Region's Covenant to explain their payment structure.

What changes can be made to a Private Region for the new owner?

We can rename the Private Region and move it from its original location at the time of the transfer for no additional cost. Please include these requests in the buyer's transfer ticket.

What happens to the monthly billing?

The new owner assumes the monthly billing, which is charged on the same day of the month as it always was. Private Regions, unlike the mainland, bill for the coming month. If the Private Region bills on, say, the 12th of the month, it will continue to bill on the 12th of the month. This means that if the Private Region is transferred on the 14th, the current owner pays for that month (as the current owner had the Private Region when it billed). Consequently, if the Private Region is transferred on the 10th, the new owner pays the fee for the month (as the new owner had the Private Region when it billed).

What if it's an educational/not for profit Private Region?

Educational or non-profit Regions (those that are billed at the discounted rate) can only be transferred to someone who already has educational/non-profit islands, or who is eligible for that level of discount.

What if we change our minds?

Either party can cancel the transfer by closing out their ticket prior to the transfer being performed.

Private region moving and renaming FAQ

This article talks about the services provided by the Concierge team for your Estate or Private Region related to renaming or moving your Private Region around inworld.

Can I rename my Private Region?

Yes. There is a US$50 charge to rename your island. The new name must fall under the Guidelines for Private Region Naming.

To get the process started, submit a support ticket stating that you would like to change the name, and that you accept the fee.

Private Region names are granted at the sole discretion of Linden Lab.

Can I move my Private Region?

Yes. We won't be able to move your Private Regionto a specific location; however, we do offer Private Region moves in order to attach your Private Region to another Private Region you own, or someone else's Private Region.

To move your Private Region in order to attach it to another, both you and the other Private Region owner must submit a support ticket confirming that you wish for your Estates to be attached, and which sides (i.e. "I want my Private Region attached to the west side of Torley's Island."). Note that your Private Region cannot be rotated, so what is currently north will always be north. There is a $150 charge to move a Private Region. This fee is charged per Private Region, for any movement.

Note: Moving your Private Region will cause links made from the Picks tab of the Profile window to break.

Landmarks will continue to function after a move, but home locations may need to be reset. The map may take several hours to update with the new Private Region location.

Can I transfer my Estate to someone else?

Yes; see our Guide to Estate Transfers.

What's a "rollback"? Someone mentioned this to me.

Find out what a "rollback" is actually about in our Estate Autosaves and Restores guide.

Who should I contact if I have any questions or additional request for my Estate?

Submit a support ticket of the Region Issues type.

Can I rotate my private region?

There may come a time when you wish to rotate your Private Region (also called a Private Island, or a "sim"). For instance, you may wish to have the North side of your island face West, so that you can connect to a friend or business partner's Region. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to rotate your Private Regions, so make sure to plan your layout carefully!

Backing up and restoring private region terrain

If you own a Private Region, you can back up your Region's terraformed terrain to a texture file on your computer. Subsequently, you can use that saved file to restore your Region's terrain to its saved shape. This can be a great "safety net" if you experience a terraforming accident, and it is also useful if you want to apply the same terrain to multiple Regions you own.

To access the terrain backup and restore controls, choose World > Region/Estate in the Second Life Viewer®, and click the Terrain tab. Then:

To backup your terrain:

Click Download RAW terrain.
A file browser dialog appears. Choose a location to save to, give your terrain file a specific name so it's easier to find. For example, you could give it the name of your Region.
Click Save.
Next, you see: "Terrain file written, starting download". It disappears in a few seconds, but the download process may take several minutes. Do not leave the Region and don't make any other terraforming changes until the download completes!
When the download completes, you see: "Finished download of raw terrain file" and the directory it was saved to.
Click Close.

To restore your terrain:

Click Upload RAW terrain.
Select a .raw terrain file on your hard drive that you or someone else saved earlier.
Click Open (or Choose on Mac).
You see: "Upload started. It may take up to two minutes, depending on your connection speed."
When the upload is complete, you see: "Terrain upload done". The terrain changes to the contents of the raw file.

If you'd rather not terraform the Region yourself, there are numerous terrains for sale on Xstreet in the Landscaping category. Search for "raw" and other keywords to refine your results. You can upload these as described above to get great results fast.

How to allow someone else to buy an adjacent private region

If you own an Estate in the Second Life® world, you can allow others to buy land in spaces that are directly next to the land you own. You can specify Residents in the Allowed Neighbors list for each Region in your Estates. For example: Joe Resident and Helen Resident are friends who own their own Estates and want to be able to buy land in the Land Portal next to each other. Joe's Estate, Joegalaxy, contains a Private Region called Joetopolis. In the Land Portal's Estate Management tab, Joe can specify that Helen is an allowed neighbor for Joetopolis. Helen can now use the Land Portal to buy Private Regions that are next to Joetopolis, including spaces that only share a corner with Joetopolis. To specify a Resident you want to be able to buy land next to yours:

Log into the Land Portal.
Click the Estate Management tab.
Click on the Estate Name of the Estate for which you want to specify allowed neighbors.
In the Allowed Neighbors column, click the edit link for a specific Region.
Type the name of the Resident you want to allow as a neighbor into the text field and click add.
Click close. The Resident you specified can now buy land next to that Region.

To remove a Resident from the Allowed Neighbors list for a Region:

Log into the Land Portal.
Click the Estate Management tab.
Click on the Estate Name of the Estate for which you want to specify allowed neighbors.
In the Allowed Neighbors column, click the edit link for a specific Region.
Click the X next to the name of the Resident you want to remove.
Click close. The Resident you specified can no longer buy land next to that Region.

Things to keep in mind about allowed neighbors

Adding and removing other Residents to your Allowed Neighbors list can result in some interesting circumstances. Let's start with the following conditions:

Joe Resident adds Helen Resident to the Allowed Neighbors list for his Private Region Joetopolis.
Helen Resident buys a Private Region next to Joetopolis and names it Helen City.

Now, suppose ...

Joe wants to buy a Private Region next to Joetopolis that also shares a corner or side with Helen City.
- Joe can't actually do this unless Helen adds Joe to the Allowed Neighbors list for Helen City.
Joe removes Helen from the Allowed Neighbors list for Joetopolis.
- Now neither Joe nor Helen can buy a Private Region that shares a corner or side with Joetopolis or Helen City.
Joe removes Helen from the Allowed Neighbors list for Joetopolis, and Helen adds Joe to the Allowed Neighbors list for Helen City.
- Now only Joe can buy a Private Region that shares a corner or side with Helen City.

How do land sales in private regions work?

The mechanics of buying and selling land in a Private Region is very similar to the process used on the Mainland. However, there are a few key differences that buyers and sellers should take into account when considering making a land transaction in a Private Region.

Similarities

As the seller, the Private Region owner can split parcels of the region and set them for sale.
The mechanical act of buying the land remains unchanged.

Differences

Parcels in Private Regions are governed by Covenants. A Covenant is similar to a contract defined by the owner of the Private Region; you must agree to it before buying the land. It may outline such details as local theme, rental fees, architectural regulations, and rules of behavior in the Private Region.
If you buy land in a Private Region, it does not count against your Land Use Tier. However, the owner of the Private Region may charge you a similar fee for continuing use of the land.
The Private Region owner may evict you from your parcel in a Private Region at any time. Private Region owners have absolute power over their Estates, and are within their rights to reclaim land as they see fit. Make sure to read your Region's Covenant closely for terms of use before you buy your parcel.
Private Region owners have use of the Region/Estate window>which includes such Region access options as:
- Access restricted to Residents based on payment status
- Region maturity can be set to PG, Mature,or Adult

Tip: If a Region owner changes the maturity setting for their Region, it may have an affect on who can access your parcel and view search listings made from it. Read the Region Covenant and communicate with the Region owner (or Estate Manager where applicable) to avoid any disruptions to your parcel settings or access.

How to reclaim land parcels from tenants in a private region

If one of your tenants has violated the terms of your Covenant and you wish to evict him and reclaim his land in your Private Region, you can choose the Reclaim Land... button from the About Land window:

Reclaiming land switches ownership of the parcel, but not the objects on it, back to the Estate owner.

Private region auto-saves and restores (rollbacks)

This article discusses Estate and Private Region autosaves and restores, commonly referred to as rollbacks.

Note: We don't perform rollbacks on mainland regions.

What are rollbacks?

All Regions, including your Estate, are automatically backed up at regular intervals throughout the day; we hold several days' worth of these backup states. This saves everything about your Estate:

The terrain
The land parcels
The builds
Textures and settings

The only things not saved are avatars themselves.

This means that under certain circumstances, your Region can be rolled back to a previous state. In the event of a large and significant emergency, you can request a rollback via the Concierge service. Performing a rollback can have serious consequences and should therefore not be thought of as an "Undo" feature on your Estate; rather, it's a safety mechanism to be used only when something goes very badly wrong.

Rollbacks are performed at our discretion.

How do I request a rollback?

Only the Estate owner or Estate manager can request a rollback. You need to submit a support ticket in order to request a rollback.

Please explain:

What has happened
Why you need the rollback
Which Region it is
Precisely how far back in time you would need to go to repair the situation
It helps if you provide the time in 24 hour format, and always Pacific Time rather than your local time

If you have a Basic account and are an Estate Manager, you can still submit a ticket through the Support Portal. Choose the Special Questions - Basic account or Guest Login ticket type. Then, fill out the information. Any other support ticket submitted by the "guest/guest" login will be ignored.

We are not responsible for problems caused by Estate managers requesting rollbacks against the Estate owners' wishes. If they are trusted by you as Estate managers, we will trust them for rollback requests.

Generally, rollbacks can not be processed for a time frame longer than 72 hours from the original event. Please be aware that we cannot roll back indefinitely. The longer you wait before requesting the rollback, the more chance that we will not be able to do this for you, so do make the request as soon as the problem occurs.

How long does a rollback take?

Rollback requests are processed in the order that they are received, with emergency requests taking precedent. Please note that rollbacks that are not time sensitive may take up to 2 business days to process.

What does a rollback do, and why can it be bad?

The backups taken are exact copies of the state of the Region at the exact moment it was saved. That is to say, everything about your Estate and the objects in it, as a snapshot in time, is saved.

We cannot roll back inventory or avatars - rollbacks only affect what's out in the region.

When we rollback, we essentially replace the Now with the Then. We set the Estate back to the exact state it was in when the backup was made and all changes -- everything that has happened between the moment the save happened and now -- will be lost, undone or reset.

It is very important to understand what this means before you request a rollback. Some examples of unexpected consequences of a rollback include:

People who were banned becoming unbanned, for all parcels and the Estate itself.
People granted access suddenly finding they are banned.
If there have been any land parcel changes, these will be undone.
If someone sold/gave up land to tier down, that land will suddenly belong to them again -- potentially pushing them over their new tier once more.
If someone had tiered up and taken a parcel of land, they will suddenly find their land no longer theirs and their content gone. Their tier will remain the same, but they will have lost the land -- leaving them out of pocket. If you have edited the parcel layouts, these will snap back and be undone, causing you to have to repeat that work.
Objects that were placed (rezzed) inworld after the backup was taken will be lost. This is particularly bad if they're No Copy objects, as you will lose your only copy (they literally didn't exist when the backup was done).
Conversely, No Copy objects that were rezzed at the time of the backup but then subsequently taken back into your inventory will reappear where they were at that point in time. Deliberate use of rollbacks to obtain additional copies of No Copy content can be considered abuse, and are dealt with accordingly.
Any changes to builds themselves will be undone: Textures are reverted and prims reset to the state they were in at the point the backup was taken. This may mean that recent tenants lose their prefab, or their furniture. It may mean that new sale items will disappear.
Any terraforming that has been done will be undone and any recent changes to land textures will be lost.
Script changes to objects performed after the backup point will be lost. Scripted vendors that were updated with new content since the backup was taken will have those changes removed.

As you can see, rollbacks have significant issues associated with them and should only be requested when absolutely necessary.

The Region/Estate window

This article explains the tools in the Region/Estate window, which you may access by selecting World > Region/Estate from the menus at the top of the Second Life window.

There are six tabs in the Region/Estate window:

Region
Debug
Ground Textures
Terrain
Estate
Covenant

All of them except Estate deal with Region-specific options. The Estate tab contains options that affect your whole Estate, which may include many Regions.

Throughout this window, there are small ? buttons that provide additional guidance.

Region Tab

Region: This field describes the name of the Region.

Version: This field describes the version of the server software this Region is currently using. For more information about why you might want to check your Region's server version, see About Heterogenous Grid.

Type: This field describes the Region's type. It may be a Full Region, a Homestead Region, or an Openspace Region. For more information about the types of Regions available, see Private Region Types.

Block Terraform: Determines whether the land in the Region can be edited by parcel owners.

Block Fly: Turns off flight across this Region, even for parcels that have flight enabled.

Allow Damage: Checking this option enables combat damage for the entire Region, regardless of parcel settings. If unchecked, parcel owners can still set their parcel as unsafe.

Restrict Pushing: This option limits the degree to which avatars can be pushed with scripted objects, thereby making the avatars in the Region safer from malicious scripts.

Allow Land Resell: Specifies whether Residents who purchase land on your Estate can resell it to others or deed the land to a group.

Allow Parcel Join/Divide: Specifies whether Residents who purchase land on your Estate can subdivide their parcels or join separated parcels together.

Agent Limit: Specifies how many avatars can be in your Region at once. Any avatars beyond this limit that try to enter are informed that the Region is full. You can raise this value above its default of 40 (for Full Regions), but a high number of avatars on a Region can significantly reduce the Region's performance. Alternatively, you can reduce the Agent Limit to prevent incoming avatars from causing undue load on your Region.

Object Bonus: This number multiplies the number of prims allowed on parcels in this Region. However, this option is not a way to increase the number of prims the whole Region supports; if the number of objects in the Region hits the Region's maximum capacity, no new objects can be created there, regardless of parcel limits. You may wish to use this option if you have a very dense area of objects in one small part of a Region (such as a cluster of buildings or a skyscraper) and relatively few objects elsewhere in the Region.

Rating: This dropdown box allows you to select the maturity level of a Region. You may choose from General, Moderate, or Adult. For more information about maturity ratings, see Maturity Ratings: An Overview.

Teleport Home One User: This button teleports a specific Resident back to their home location.

Teleport Home All Users: Allows you to send everyone back to their home location.

Send Message to Region: Allows you to send a notification message to everyone in that Region as a blue popup dialog in the corner of their Second Life windows.

Manage Telehub: See Telehubs and Direct Teleport.

Debug Tab

Disable Scripts: Turns off all scripts in the Region.

Disable Collisions: Stops objects from causing collisions on the Region. Where there is a rogue physical object causing problems, this can allow you to reach the object and remove it.

Disable Physics: Turns off physics on the Region. This has the side affect of stopping avatars from moving around.

Object Return: Allows Region Owners and Estate Managers to return all objects in a Region (or multiple Regions in an Estate) that are owned by a single Resident. For more information about this feature, see How do I return other peoples' objects?

Get Top Colliders and Get Top Scripts: Both options produce a list of the physics or scripted objects and a measure of their load on the Region. You can then see which items are causing the most load and, if necessary, return them or set a beacon to go investigate.

Restart Region and Delay Restart: Allow you to force the Region to save and restart. Any Residents still in the Region after the two-minute countdown will be disconnected. While the countdown is ongoing, the Delay Restart button can delay the restart.

Ground Textures Tab

These controls are used to change the ground textures for different elevations on your Estate. For more information and tips on how to create and modify your own ground textures, see Creating Terrain Textures.

Terrain Tab

Water Height: Lets you set the height at which water is shown. Keep in mind that the sea you can see outside of your Estate is at 20m, so if you set your water level differently you will see a gap when you swing the camera outside of the Estate and look back towards it. All mainland water is at 20m also.

Terrain Raise/Lower Limits: Sets the distance above or below the baked terrain level that you can terraform to in this Region.

Bake Terrain: This sets the current terrain as the default, such that the Revert Land tool will revert to this state when used.

Use Estate Sun: Selecting this checkbox means the Region uses the Estate-wide settings for its day/night phases.

Fixed Sun: This sets the sun to a fixed position in the sky with the Phase slider.

Phase slider: Coupled with the Fixed Sun checkbox, this lets you set a specific phase for the sun this Region alone.

Download RAW terrain and Upload RAW terrain: You can use these buttons to upload and download RAW formatted image files that represent the layout of the terrain in your Region. For more information about using RAW files to set your terrain, see How do I backup & restore Private Region terrain?

Estate Tab

Estate: The Estate name is listed here. This may be very different to than Estate/Region name itself: This is normal.

Estate Managers list: Any Residents you assign as Estate Managers for you in this list are able to access most of the same Region/Estate tools that you can. They are not able to deed land or access the About Land window, as these are parcel-level controls. They are trusted by Linden Lab for rollback requests, so be certain to chose Residents you trust.

Allowed Residents list: If Public Access is not checked, this list specifies which people are permitted to see and enter the Estate. If Public Access is checked, this list is used to specify Residents who have permission to post events on your Estate.

Allowed Groups list: Members of the specific groups listed have access to the Estate.

Banned Residents list: Residents added to this list are not able to access your Estate.

Use Global Time: This control keeps the Estate in synch with global time.

Fixed Sun: This sets the sun to a fixed position in the sky with the Phase slider.

Phase slider: Coupled with the Fixed Sun checkbox, this lets you set a specific phase for the sun the Estate.

Allow Public Access: When checked, this setting allows access to the Estate without being specifically on the Allowed Residents list.

Restrict Access To: Allows you to restrict access based on two parameters:

Residents with payment info on file: If this box is checked, only Residents who have payment information on file with Linden Lab are allowed access to Regions in your Estate.
Age-verified adults: If this box is checked, the only Residents who can get into Regions in your Estate are adults who have been age-verified by Linden Lab. For more information about age verification, see How to become verified as an adult.

Allow Voice Chat: Checking this box allows Residents to use spatial voice chat on your Estate. This box does not affect private IM voice chat or group voice chat.

Allow Direct Teleport: Allows people to teleport directly to the Estate by clicking on it on the map. If you set a landing point on the parcel, that determines where exactly they end up. You can also disable this (the default behaviour) and use the traditional telehub method.

Deny Access on Payment Status: Allows you to restrict access based on whether Linden Lab has payment info on file and/or has used it.

Send Message to Estate: Allows you to send a notification message to everyone in the Estate as a blue pop up dialog in the corner of their Second Life window.

Kick User from Estate: Allows you to remove a Resident from your Estate. This button allows you to send them back to their home location.

Note: A Region's maturity rating takes precedence over all other forms of access; Residents who do not have their preferences set to the appropriate maturity level are not allowed access to more mature Regions, regardless of access lists, groups, or other land access privileges. To learn how to set your own maturity level in your preferences, see Setting your maturity preferences.

Creating terrain textures

This article talks about creating terrain (ground) textures for your land within the Second Life® virtual world. You may have noticed that some regions are covered in snow, sand, or stranger materials. With your own private Region and a little image editing finesse, you can change your terrain textures, too!

Before You Begin: Environment Considerations

What type of environment are you making?

Simplify the process of creating a terrain by planning properly in advance. Creating and loading textures will be much easier and faster, and you'll have greater continuity and visual appeal.

What are the slope extremes?

Steep slopes can have undesirable effects on terrain textures, depending on their complexity, contrast, and saturation. A texture might look great on subtle, rolling hills, but look terrible on more extreme slopes. Be aware that textures will "stretch" or "smear" on steep slopes, and more experimentation may be necessary to make them look good.

Are there adjacent Regions?

Crossing Region boundaries can be a tricky situation, so it's always best to develop adjacent Regions in tandem. If you own adjacent Regions the job of matching texture sets is straight forward, but if someone else owns an adjacent Region it's beneficial to contact them to get copies of the textures they're using.

Creating Terrain Textures

Texture format requirements

Land in the Second Life world has four elevation ranges, and requires a texture map for each of them. They must be 512x512, 24-bit Targa (.tga) files with no alpha channel.

Tiling textures

For obvious reasons it is important to make sure your textures tile correctly. There are a number of tutorials and instructional pages on the Internet that show how to tile textures. There are also a number of books available on this subject, as well as many other image editing techniques that are useful when creating textures for use inworld in Second Life.

Tip: In Photoshop you can set the clone tool to "lighten," "darken," or any number of transfer types. These will help you greatly when trying to eliminate light or dark areas that cause undesired tiling effects.

Brightness and Contrast

Adjusting the Levels histogram (in Photoshop: Image > Adjustments > Levels) helps you achieve proper balance in brightness, contrast, and gamma. Frequently, maps with less contrast will look the best in every lighting scenario.

Tip: Reduce the effects of tiling (visual repeats) in your terrain textures by adjusting the "Levels" of the texture (In PhotoShop: Image > Adjustments > Levels). While the panel is open, raise the black level slightly, and lower the white level slightly. Also consider changing saturation (In PhotoShop: Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation).

Photoshop's Levels panel, displaying the histogram of a grass texture. The controls at the bottom allow you to adjust both the black level output and white level output.

Color value and saturation

Depending on your environmental goals, color may be an important element for you. If the elevation ranges will be broad, consider making the value of each map somewhat similar; they'll blend much better with each other. If the elevation ranges will be small, you might allow them to have very different values -- which can yield very interesting results.

Tip: In general, the more saturated a texture, the more "computer generated" it will look. For more realistic terrains, consider lowering the amount of saturation in your textures.

Using the Estate Tool

To access the Region/Estate window, select World > Region/Estate from the menus at the top of the Second Life viewer. Click the Ground Textures tab.

Upload any or all of the textures, and simply drag-and-drop them from the texture directory in your inventory onto the appropriate thumbnail in the Texture panel.

The thumbnails are labeled 1 (Low), for the lowest elevations, to 4 (High), the highest elevations. These numbers reflect each texture's position in the elevation hierarchy.

Texture Elevation Ranges

Texture elevation range values can be adjusted for each corner of the simulator and are labeled accordingly. The low and high values in each corner affect detail and base textures alike.

Measured in meters, the Low value represents the maximum elevation for texture 1 (Low). The High value represents the minimum elevation for texture 4 (High). Textures 2 and 3 are spread equally between these values. In other words, you will see texture 1 (Low) from the Low value down (to zero), and texture 4 (High) from the High value up (to infinity). Textures 2 and 3 are painted equally between the two.

Example:

If the Low value is 20.0, texture 1 (Low) will begin at 20 meters and cover everything lower. If the High value is 60, texture 4 (High) will begin at 60 meters and cover everything higher.

Using the above values, the elevation change between them is 40 meters. Textures 2 and 3 split that range, so:

Texture 1 (Low) = 0-20
Texture 2 = 20-40
Texture 3 = 40-60
Texture 4 (High) = 60-...

Simulator-to-simulator range settings

If you plan on texturing neighboring simulators, it's important to make sure that the elevation range settings in adjacent corners are exactly the same. Also, it's best to use the same textures to make the simulator borders seamless. Having differing elevation range settings and textures will reveal discontinuity along the borders, making the seam obvious.

It's beneficial to ask the owners of adjacent simulators to get full-permissible copies of the textures they're using. If this can't be done, mimic them as well as you can (or find similar-looking textures in the Library of your Inventory) to minimize border discontinuity. Also, make note of the elevation settings for neighboring simulators, and apply these to your new simulator.

This illustration shows where terrain textures and elevation ranges should be identical when attempting to span simulator borders. By creatively manipulating elevation ranges, you can swap terrain textures with little or no visual impact inworld.

By creatively manipulating elevation ranges, you can swap terrain textures with little or no visual impact inworld.

Even though each simulator has the exact same texture scheme, the mismatch of elevation ranges creates undesirable effects along simulator borders.

Matching texture schemes and elevation ranges.

Generating terrain using RAW image files

Second Life uses gray-scale height field information to generate terrain. Each simulator uses a 256x256 pixel height map (or elevation map), consisting of a range of 256 different values of gray. Black (with a value of 0) represents the lowest elevations, and white (255) represents the highest elevations. Each pixel's value tells the simulator exactly what its elevation is in relationship to the surrounding pixels. Extreme differences between neighboring pixels causes undesirable results; whereas subtle differences create smooth, clean changes in slope and elevation. For more information on generating terrain in Second Life, see Tips for Creating Heightfields and Details on Terrain RAW Files.

Improving region performance

This article explains how to check your Second Life region's performance and some steps you can take to improve it. This article has been written with owners of Estates (sometimes referred to as islands) in mind, but mainland owners may find parts of it helpful.

Checking Your Region's Performance

To see the performance of your region you'll want to check the region's Frames Per Second (FPS). To do this you can use the Statistics Bar. While standing on your land, select View > Statistics Bar. This can be a bit overwhelming, so we'll guide you through the relevant parts here.

Statistics Bar with Sim FPS (a measure of your region's Frames Per Second) highlighted.

Note: Sim stands for "simulator" and, for the purposes of this article, is another name for "region."

To interpret the Sim FPS performance of your region:

45 FPS: The highest possible value. No action necessary.
35 - 44 FPS: This is quite good; you don't need to tune if it never goes below 35 FPS.
10 - 35 FPS: This is slow, and should be noticeable. Adjustment is needed to improve your region's performance.
0 - 10 FPS: This is pretty much terrible. You may have trouble moving or performing simple tasks. See above.

If your performance of your region is consistently over 35 FPS at its busiest time, you can stop reading here. Fortunately, most regions are above 35 FPS most of the time. For example, during the month of October 2007, all the Second Life regions were below 35 FPS an average of less than 2% of the time.

In the screenshot above, you'll notice the Sim FPS is 21, which means the region is very slow. The Main Agents line shows 96, which is the number of agents (avatars) currently in your region. This is exceptionally high, and is likely the prime cause of this region's slow FPS. The Child Agents line displays the number of avatars outside your region that can see into it, which can also slow your region down if it's a significant number.

To see more detail on what's slowing down your region, expand the Statistics Bar by clicking on the Time (ms) line; additional region statistics will appear:

The Total Frame Time displays the number of milliseconds needed (ms) to display a single frame. Total Frame Time greater than 22.2 ms means your Sim FPS will be below 45 FPS. For a detailed explanation of the values beneath Total Frame Time, see the Statistics Bar article's Time section. However, we'll explain some of these measurements below as we walk through the ways to improve your region's performance.

Improving Your Region's Performance

There are a number of steps that you can take to improve your region's performance. We've listed the steps in approximate order of the biggest impact and least effort. It's worth noting, however, that each region is unique.

Reduce the Maximum Number of Avatars in Your Estate

The number of avatars in a region is the most common cause and usually the biggest contributor to low region FPS. This number has often been increased above the default setting of 40, resulting in lower region performance. Lowering the number of avatars in your region can usually increase your region's FPS. This can be done in the Region tab of the Region/Estate window (World > Region/Estate); adjust the Agent Limit field to specify the number of avatars allowed in your region at any one time.

The default Agent Limit setting is 40. As an estate owner, you can adjust this setting. We recommend looking at the Agent Time in the Statistics Bar to see how well your region is performing during your busiest time. Keeping your Agent Time below 9ms during its busiest time is a good idea.

Remove Top Scripts

Inefficient or very busy scripts in your region can slow it down. In the Statistics Bar, the Script Time line shows how many milliseconds each of the scripts in your region is taking to run. If this value is over 5 milliseconds, then it may be worth checking to see if it can be reduced. To see which scripts are the busiest in your region, open the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and click Get Top Scripts, which will open the Top Scripts window.

Clicking twice on the Time column heading sorts the busiest scripts at the top.
Since this list is based on a small slice of time, it's a good idea to click Refresh a few times to get a more accurate picture.
Selecting a line and clicking Show Beacon activates a beacon inworld highlighting the object running the selected script.

Once you know which scripts are consuming your region's resources, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also, note that reducing the total number of scripts in your region can improve performance.

Examples of problematic scripts include:

Scripts that are constantly active without sleeping; for example: Sensor scripts with less than a few-second sleep interval.
Temp-rezzer scripts that allow a slightly larger number of prims at the expense of region performance.

Remove Top Colliders

Physical objects can potentially slow your region down. Specifically, physical objects that are often moving and collide with each other can contribute significantly to the time your region takes to perform the physics calculations. In the Statistics Bar, the Sim Time (Physics) line shows how many milliseconds your physics calculations are taking. If this value is over 4 milliseconds, then it may be worth check to see if this can be reduced. To see which colliders are the most active, open the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and click Get Top Colliders, which will open the Top Colliders window.

Clicking twice on the Time column heading sorts the most active colliders at the top.
Since the top colliders list is based on a small time slice, it's a good idea to click Refresh a few times to get a more accurate picture.
Selecting a line and clicking Show Beacon will activate a beacon inworld highlighting the selected object.

Once you know which objects are your top colliders, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also note that lowering the total number of moving objects in your region can improve performance.

Remove Large Textures

Excessive use of large textures can slow down a region. In general, it's a good idea to avoid using textures greater than 512x512 pixels. In the Statistics Bar, the Images Time line tells you how many milliseconds the handling of your region's images is taking. If this value is over 2 milliseconds, it may be worth checking to see if it can be reduced: When a person's avatar views a large image or numerous smaller images for the first time since entering the region, they'll automatically download the image to their Second Life viewer. If a number of avatars are doing this simultaneously, a significant load is created on your region, slowing down its FPS. If you can't remove these large textures, the following strategies might be useful for increasing your region's performance:

Reducing the number of unique textures
Reducing the size of textures
Reducing the resolution of textures

Note: The textures share the same UUID will be downloaded at once. The "similar" (or looks as the quite same) textures with different UUID, which will cause downloading of each texture, will cost more. i.e, if there are many 1024x1024 textures which has the same UUID, it will make absolutely no sense to upload 512x512 texture and replace some, not all, textures to it. It means any viewer which render the place will need to download the two texture datum - 1024x1024 and 512x512.

Optimize Scripted Texture-Changing Objects

Scripted objects that change textures can also slow down a region. Each time a new texture is displayed, it must be downloaded to each avatar looking at the object. If you can't remove these objects, then reducing the number and size of unique textures in these objects can increase your region's performance.

Reduce the Number of Prims Used

Reducing the number of prims your region uses will increase your region's performance. Regions are currently limited to 15,000 prims, but if you stay significantly below this number, your region performs noticeably better.

Reduce Number of Objects

Large numbers of objects will slow your region down, especially if they're of any of the following types:

Moving
Rotating
Scripted
Shape-changing sculpties

Reduce Visitor Attachments

While this is harder to do, some regions have seen improvement by having visitors remove attachments, especially high-prim or heavily scripted ones.

Region Optimizations for Improved Viewer Performance

The following region items can slow down viewer performance:

Big prims greater than 10 m x 10 m can slow down viewer FPS. These kind of objects cannot be created under normal circumstances.
Large or numerous textures, when an avatar first comes within sight of them
Overuse of sculpted prims, twisted tori, and other geometrically complex objects.
Particle effects (which includes bling and poofers).

Keep in mind some of your visitors may have slow graphics cards or PCs. This article discusses frame rate performance per graphics processing unit (GPU).

More Info on the Region/Estate Window

You can perform numerous other estate management tasks using the Region/Estate Window.

A Frequently-Asked Question About Frames Per Second

"You know, I have a videogame that runs at a framerate much, much higher than Second Life's. Why is that?"

The quick answer: User-generated content.

The reason why your videogame has such a luxurious, silken-smooth framerate is because its content is pre-rendered, and either installs to your hard drive before you've even begun playing, or streams to your computer from your CD or DVD-ROM drive faster than a contemporary internet connection could hope to be.

Content in Second Life isn't pre-rendered. It's created on the fly and updated constantly by countless individual users every second of every day while being fed to your computer through the internet. All of these factors make Second Life a much more dynamic, complicated world to render, which results in a framerate that's nominally lower than a top-of-the-line first-person shooter. This isn't to say Second Life's maximum framerate might not improve later -- the future is ever unknowable -- but those of you wondering why your region doesn't compare to your favorite next-generation shooter now have your answer.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that on average, regions are only below 35 FPS a small percentage of the time, we understand that slow region performance can be aggravating (to say the least). For those region and estate owners, we've described how to achieve good performance by monitoring the Statistics Bar during your busiest times and using the Region/Estate window's tools to adjust the number of avatars, scripts, textures, objects and moving physical objects in your region. We hope this article helps you find the right balance between making your region impressive and fast.

How many avatars can be on a region at once before lag becomes an issue?

Are you looking to host a large event on a private region? This article provides some general recommendations on the maximum number of avatars you can have in such a region at once and still have a reasonable Second Life experience, as well as some background on the factors that go into determining this number.

The Short Answer

For a typical region, about 40.

If you're careful about the number of textures, scripted objects, and moving objects that are on the region, around 50.

If you take out as many of these as you can, make sure everyone's had time to settle in and get a look at everything, and then try to limit the number of new visitors, you might be able to push it as high as 60 or 70.

The Long Answer

Here are the basic facts:

Every time you move around or see something new in Second Life, data is being passed from a Second Life server to your computer at home.
When an object is scripted, emits particles, or moves around, the server has to do some work (running the scripts, calculating particle vectors, figuring out where the object is).

Therefore:

The more Residents there are in a particular area moving around and looking at things, the more work the server has to do, especially when the things themselves move, or have lots of fancy textures, or run a lot of scripts.

Consider these two Residents who are both looking at the same object:

The server is sending data to these two Residents' computers about the object and its particles.

Now imagine what happens if:

The object is running a script that swaps its textures every .5 seconds.
There are ten thousand of these objects in the same region.
Half of those objects are moving around.
There are 40 more Residents in there.
The Residents aren't standing still, but running around looking at everything else on the region.
Three-quarters of the Residents are wearing blinking jewelry and other attachments on every part of their bodies.

That's a lot of data for the server to send to everybody!

In no particular order, here are the top causes of server-side lag for a given region:

Number of textures. Every time someone new shows up to a region, the textures for that region are download into their cache. That's work that the server has to do.
Number of scripted objects. Every time a script runs, it runs on the server. This includes particle effects, which include body attachments that emit particles, like "bling".
Number of moving objects. Every time an object moves, the server has to calculate where it is relative to everyone looking at it. This includes scripted texture changes -- if a texture changes, it has to change for everyone looking at it.

Some lesser causes of server-side lag include:

Physical objects. When objects that obey physical laws collide with each other, the server has to calculate what happens.
Total number of objects. An enormous number of objects may have an effect on server load.

If you and your friends are careful about not having too many of the above factors active in your region, you can probably get away with having up to 50 avatars on it and be reasonably certain everyone's having a comfortable time.

What's interesting about the texture problem is this: It's only an issue for people who are new to the region, because the server has to download all of those textures into their cache. If you've been hanging around for a while, all the textures are already in your cache and you don't need to worry. This means that if you have a gathering that's been optimized as described above, and everyone's had some time to settle in and look around, you might be able to have up to something like 60 or 70 avatars on your region, provided you restrict access after 70 or so.

Tip: Starting with Second Life viewer version 1.21, you can only see about 35 to 40 avatars at a time. The rest fade in and out of visibility as you move your viewpoint.

KB2/Managing private regions