Blogs - Newcomer Friendly

Animal lovers get some special kind of fun in Second Life (SL) from owning pets to wild live to farm animals. Many of these animals include natural behaviors, and some are even trainable. But before you go out and spend on lot of Lindens, there are a few tips and tricks you should know. The animals in SL come in several varieties, or types. You should understand the functionalities, benefits and drawbacks of each before purchasing.

Decorative or Stationary Animals

If you own or rent land in SL, decorative or stationary animals can add character and originality to your residence or SIM. Animals can give a region a feeling of the wild or the country, depending on what kind of atmosphere you want to create.

Decorative or stationary animals are for aesthetics, and they tend to be very low on prims. They may be 2D or 3D, so be sure to check which before buying. You’ll be sorely disappointed if you wanted a 3D look but end up with essentially a cardboard cutout.

The drawback to decorative animals is that they don’t do anything. They sit where you place them, and won’t move until you move them.

There is a slight modification to some stationary animals, where they may have a script that causes them to move their ears or tails, or they might blink, giving some sign of life. These usually cost slightly more, and you’ll need to be sure that where you live allows you to run scripts. The raccoons in this screen shot twitch those noses and ears, and bring nibbles to their mouths. Otherwise, they are stationary.

Moving or Active Animals

The next type of SL animals is the moving or active type. These animals have scripts inside them, which create natural behaviors to that type of animals, such as walking around, and also wagging a tail, barking, or purring.

These animals will cost more, use more prims, and you’ll have to keep them where you can run scripts. Active animals serve as fun pets, or again to provide a certain type of atmosphere to your home. The range and varieties of animals you can purchase is vast in SL, and are growing all the time. You can get domestic animals or wile ones. The tiger in the shot to the right is programmed for tiger behaviors, even swimming. He can also be set to attack invaders, but I have him in friendly mode.

Because these animals run scripts, some quite complicated, the drawback is that if you have a lot of animals you can create some real lag problems in that vicinity. It helps to spread them out, and mix them with stationary animals if you want to give the appearance of a lot of animals. Such as in the image below, where my active dog Sam is sitting with stationary lambs:

Most of the active animals have settings that allow you to set how far they can roam, how loud their sounds should be, etc.

Some active animals are even trainable. VKC dogs, for instance, can be trained to do a series of commands that gives them a more realistic feel.

Look and functionality of animals varies widely in SL, so I’ve provided a few vendors below, explaining the types of animals they create and sell:

• Animal Island: Has a wide variety of all animal types and varieties. While you shop here, you will experience the problem of having many scripted animals moving about at once, as you slow down with serious lag. But don’t let that deter you from shopping here. You can buy wild birds, sea animals, pets, and a lot more.

• Zoobys: You’ll find a wonderful variety of active and stationary pets, such as dogs, cats, and exotic. In addition, you can buy a pet to wear. These can be really cute and fun. You can set preferences in these pets to roam a specific distance, adjust their sound volume, to follow you, sit, their home base, and for some to attack. These pets look really nice, but they do use a lot of prims.

• Anima Island: This is similar to Animal Island. In addition to the usual wild animals, you can also buy butterflies or fairies, and an assortment of other garden animals and wildlife.

• VKC Dogs: VKC dogs are not purchased in regular stores, but instead you adopt them in adoption centers, dog parks, such as Canis Park, Turning Isle, and The Rescue Park. These dogs are also true SL animals in that they can roam about on any SIM. These wonderful pooches are sculpties, and come not only programmed with instinctive behaviors such as sit, bark, bellyup, and come, but you can train these pets. Each park also has trainers on site in case you need help training your pet or have some other problem. In addition, each park has a dog clinic where you can update your dog in case his programming is not working right. These dogs are expensive, but worth the Lindens.

• Sculpty Creations Animals: These impressive looking animals are made with sculpties. Many are fewer prims than you’ll find in other animals, and they carry a wonderful variety of wildlife, including Australian and African. The drawback is that if people don’t have a high resolution computer, these animals can look blobby and weird. But for those who do have good video cards, these animals can be quite detailed and fun.

The places I mention above can be pricey, but I made the mistake of purchasing animals from other vendors and was disappointed. There are other good vendors besides the ones I mention, but I wanted to give you word of warning, and a list of some dependable vendors. Animals that are not made well, especially those that include programming, can easily malfunction, behave strangely, or just not work at all. Enjoy your animals!