Un-packing

If you obtained the White Room in un-packaged form it will be in a folder named White Room, with the instruction notecard and a landmark for the Vengeance Studio Gadget Store. The gadget store delivers it in un-packaged form, so you don't have to un-pack it. XStreetSL and OnRez deliver the packaged version, and you must un-pack it.

To un-pack the White Room, rez the package in-world by dragging it from your inventory to the ground, and then touch the package to open it. You'll then be given the option to copy the contents to your inventory. Once you've done so you can delete the package that is rezzed in-world by right-clicking it and selecting "More" and then "Delete" from the pie menu. You'll still have a copy in your inventory.

Setup

You will need space for a 25m-diameter sphere before you can rez the White Room, and you'll need 219 prims available. If you will be using the landing pad, it sticks out from the side of the sphere by about 6m. The White Room is intended to be used as a skybox, but you can use it on the ground by partially burying it. If you do so, you may want to hide the landing pad (using the menu, described below) and build a few steps to the door.

The easiest way to get the White Room to the altitude you want it is to rez it on the ground (or on something else) and then edit it (right-click it and select "Edit" from the pie menu), and then change its Z-coordinate to the desired altitide (up to about 4000m). You will then have to fly up to it. If you put it at an altitude greater than about 180m, you'll need a flight assist device to reach it.

Note that although you can place the White Room up to about 4000m, it's best to keep it under 1500m. In Second Life the higher you go the more error there is in calculating prim positions, and the White Room relies on some fairly tight tolerances. If you notice lines flickering, try setting up at a lower altitude.

The root prim is the lower part of the floor on the lower level, so when you set the Z-coordinate you are setting the altitude of the lower floor.

Menu

The interactive menu gives you easy access to the customization options of the White Room and to the door controls, and it provides easy access to the website documentation and other functions. You invoke it either by touching the floor near the door (on the inside or the outside), or by typing '/41 menu', without quotes, into text chat. Only the owner has access to the menu.

Lights

The White Room comes equipped with one light in the crown of the upper level, one beneath the floor of the lower level, and three around the outer edge of the ceiling of the lower level. These are very simple lights. You can not change their color or position, so separate studio lighting may give you better results for photography. The built-in lighting works well for general lighting and for many photographic needs, though, and you can change the brightness of these lights independently. Gain access to all the lighting options by selecting "Light Level" from the menu.

The three built-in light sources are called Floor, Ring and Crown. The Under-floor and the Crown light can be controlled independently (select "Floor" or "Crown" on the menu), and the ring of lights around the ceiling are controlled together (select "Ring" on the menu). You can also control all the lights together ("Control All" on the menu).

Note that in Second Life you are limited to six light sources, plus the moon or sun and the ambient light. With all the White Room lights turned on you will be using five of them (the Ring light contains three light sources). If you try to use too many lights, only those nearest your camera will work.

The White Room lights are very bright. If you have neighbors nearby be sure to turn the lights off when you aren't using them. The on/off switch is located on the main menu.

Upper Level

The upper level provides a second studio environment. Access is through the hole in the ceiling in front of the door, or by the hidden teleport pad. If you touch inside the circle on the floor in front of the door, the teleport pad will appear as a large, red disc. Touch it to teleport to the upper level. To return to the first level, just walk through the hole in the floor.

Access to the upper level can be blocked by closing the hole and disabling the teleport pad. Do this using the "2nd Level" option on the menu.

Doors

The White room has a lockable, double sliding door. You can control the volume of the door sound by selecting "Door Sound" on the menu. The lock control is also on the main menu. For all other access options, select "Access" on the menu.

There are two types of access you can grant: group-level access and a list of individuals who have access. Anyone with either type of access can open the door even when it is locked.

If you had a group title active when you rezzed the White Room (group titles appear above your avatar name), you can grant everyone in that group access to the door by selecting "+ Group" from the Access menu. Take away group access by selecting "- Group". If you aren't sure which group was active when you rezzed the White Room, or if you'd like to change the group associated with the White Room, right-click it and select "Edit" on the pie menu. The group name appears below the owner's name in the General tab of the edit panel. You may have to press the "more >>" button to see the tabs.

In addition to group access, you can also create a list of avatarts that have access. There are two ways to add individuals to the access list. The easiest way is to have them touch the door (have them touch the door, not the floor in front of the door). The door keeps track of the last few visitors who touched it, and you can grant access privilege by selecting them from a list. Press the "Add" button on the Access menu to see a list of recent visitors and select anyone you wish to grant access.

The second way to grant access to an individual is to type their name into chat. Prepend their name with the door's channel number (41) and the command "add", like this:

• /41  add  james  smith

Be sure to type the forward-slash in front of the channel number.

To remove someone from the access list, either select "Remove" from the Access menu and then select a name from the list, or type a command into chat, like this:

• /41  remove  james  smith

You can view the access list by selecting "Show List" from the access menu or by typing this into chat:

• /41  list

In either case, the list is displayed in your chat window. Only you will see the list. Note that each name on the list is numbered, and you can remove someone using their number rather than their name, like this:

• /41  remove  4

To see a summary of commands, type

• /41  help

Landing Pad

The landing pad outside the door can be hidden. To hide it, select "Hide L.Pad" on the menu. Show it again by selecting "Show L.Pad".

Color

The menu provides easy access to four color schemes: black lines on white, white lines on black, white with black walls and white with grey walls. Note that it takes twenty seconds or so to complete a color change.

Anti-Aliasing

The interior of the White Room is intended to look like a line drawing. Line drawings on computer monitors look best when you use anti-aliasing, which smoothes the edges to reduce the "jagginess" of high-contrast images. You'll find the anti-alias control in Second Life in the Graphics tab of the Preferences panel.

• Edit menu > Preferences > Graphics

Press the Hardware Options button to display the Hardware Settings panel. The higher-numbered anti-alias selections do a better job of smoothing the image, but at the cost of frame rate. The images in the website photo gallery were taken using 4x anti-aliasing.

Note that if you've over-ridden application control of anti-aliasing options in an external program, like nVidia's control panel, the Second Life anti-alias control will not function.