environment – Charming Ellie

I feel like my blog has been out long enough now to go into some more advanced How-To’s. I wanted to do one specifically on room creation in IMVU since interior design is my favorite thing to do in any virtual world platform. So, as you may have guessed I drop some of my real-life money into virtual worlds to make that happen you can’t buy nice and interactive furniture without virtual currency. It’s not a super expensive hobby but it is an addiction and can get expensive if you start becoming like me and always shopping for the newest and greatest furniture you can find. Ahead of time, this is a beginner post to creating rooms in IMVU so if you’re new to IMVU this is for you. If you’re just getting into room creation in IMVU but are a user that has been around for a while this post is also for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below but I did try to make this post as simplistic and as direction oriented as I possibly could. I hope this is helpful for all of you out there trying to get into room creation.

From the front of your viewer press the “My Room Icon”

Since I don’t have the default room anymore you will get a page like the one below.

At the bottom of your screen, there are different icons the ones we’re going to be looking at specifically are the chair and house icon. The chair icon is the furniture that you currently own and your house icon are the different rooms you own.

These are the icons you will see the house is the rooms you have and the chair is the furniture you own

This is what you will see when you click either button but this is what I have when I hit my furniture button. On the side you can search furniture by category by the buttons. There is a chair for seating, a table button, misc, and poses. You can also sort it all by your most recent pieces which is nice if you buy something new from the IMVU shop and are trying to find it real quickly for placing.

On the side are your categories for rooms and furniture which will look like the photo below.

Categories when I press the button that looks like a house for the “My Rooms.”

In the upper left-hand corner, you will see an icon with a hammer and a music note press the hammer.

Press the Hammer! this brings up the bottom image.

Furniture Tools you can also bring this up by pressing (Ctrl + f)

From there you’ll get a whole other set of icons these are going to be your room editing icons. Each one performs a different function. These functions are; explore (Ctrl + E) , move (Ctrl +M) , rotate (Ctrl + r) , scale (Ctrl + s) , copy (Ctrl + P) , reset (Ctrl + t) , lock (Ctrl + l) , delete (Ctrl + d) , undo (Ctrl + u) , redo (Ctrl + m) , and a help button. The keyboard shortcuts are as you can see in parenthesis just in case you want to learn them it makes editing and creating rooms so much easier with the keyboard shortcuts. You can also pull up the furniture tools by pressing (Ctrl + f).

Empty room to start out with I’m going for a chic city style for this example.

Now that we know what all the icons are, how they work, and what to do let’s make a new room. Go ahead and click a room from you’re “My rooms” list. I picked “To Trust me Danny” by the creator “Typical” since it’s my only empty room. You’ll start with an empty room like the one above.

Then you will click the chair icon I told you about to go to your furniture tab where all your furniture is. To add a piece into your room just click one of the furniture icons and it will show up in your room.

This is how the icons will look whether you choose a room or a furniture item.

Since this is just the basics were just positioning the furniture with the readily available pose balls. Depending on the room you might only get specific places to place furniture you can click the move icon or use the keyboard shortcut and move that furniture piece to where you want it within reason. You’re limited at this point until I teach you a little trick in the next post for IMVU room creation number 2.

This icon will come up with whatever you chose from the furniture tools. From here you can click and drag to move or click and rotate your mouse when on the rotate icon to rotate the piece of furniture.

From this point, you can use any of the functions in your room tools to make your room yours! It takes a little practice, but I was able to learn how to create rooms after I knew you could do it yourself within an hour at most. It’s a pretty simple process with the IMVU platform client.

This is my end result example of how I decorated the space.

Hopefully, this helped you get started on your room creation as I noted from before this is for beginners and this is just the main basics, I’ll post more advanced How-To’s once you get this down. There are many tricks and things you can do from this point, but this was just to give you an idea on how everything worked and how to get started especially if your new and only learned how to do avatar creation or have only been in the chatroom’s or the chat now area of IMVU. Some people don’t even know that you can create unique rooms from an empty room and furniture you can buy through IMVU’s shop. Which to give you an idea looks like the photo to your right you know just in case you’re like me and enjoy shopping and wasting your money on virtual items as I do. It’s almost like in-app purchases if you’re more of a mobile user. To be fair buying things virtually is cheaper than reality and gives you the same instant gratification, however, sometimes it can get out of hand. I’ll be creating a post soon on virtual world currency and my experiences relating around that so stay tuned. Any questions about this post please feel free to type them below in the comments and I’ll respond within 48 hours of you posting the comment.

The other day I went to some of the starting areas which is why I haven’t posted in a few days. I wanted to compile enough information before getting into a new post as you can tell my investigative roles are used quite often on my blog. I try to do everything that I post about to give an accurate review or understanding of something. One important thing I wanted to discuss on this blog is what new players fear the most when starting in a virtual world setting or a video game in general. I’ve compiled it all into one word…acceptance. New players long to be accepted in the environment they’re in not cast away. We all start somewhere this includes reality when trying to enter a new job, going from one school to another, or moving to a whole new area and not knowing anyone. It’s the concept of fear that blocks our intelligence to continue forward knowing that things will get better. Noobs as they’re referred to on most platforms, they want to be accepted just like all of us try to be. In the end, we might seem as if we don’t care about the word acceptance but in all actuality at one point or another we do.

As a new player myself many times in various situations it was hard for me to be accepted it wasn’t anything to do with my personality, but it had more to do with the fact I didn’t fit into the concept of a “seasoned” player. Why? Normally it had to do with the look of my avatar noobs can be identified through their avatar appearance which sucks because it’s like being one gigantic sign that says, “I’m new here!” as much as I would’ve hoped individuals would be accepting of noobs they tend to cast them away to the side until you hit around you’re one month level of being in that specific world environment. For me things came with time, when I realized how hard it was to be accepted, I took matters into my own hands and I became the first one to start the conversations. I went from introvert to extrovert quicker than a snap of my fingers. Believe it or not, even “seasoned” players want friends, they want acceptance just as much as noobs do and this got me thinking… why am I so afraid to talk to the “seasoned” players when I will be one in the future? They’re just people, right? This mindset got me out of the noob category and into the “seasoned” of course this all takes time, talking, and communicating with other players. But even noobs can be accepted. When I got myself out of that noob funk, I was the one helping them out. At the time at the beginning when I started playing (using Second Life as a reference for this experience) I went to new player sims and when things were transferable (which nowadays with mesh things are not unless their freebies) I would send them over to the players I’d start talking to and get them started so their appearance didn’t come off as new so they could be accepted by others. There’s no reason for noobs to be cast to the side if you can help or even just be their first friend, they’re just like anyone else and with time they will get to a point where you are now. At the end of the day we’re all just looking for a friend, someone to talk to, and overall acceptance from the community we place ourselves in. Everyone is different.

For those unaware of how people can identify you as a noob here are a male and female example. These are the default Second Life avatars that are available when you first start. Trust me they’re a huge step up from their last ones which were still the year 2000 models. They looked a lot worse but they were popular for the time. They recently upgraded to these mesh ones, they’re super nice and I enjoy them but if I wear them people assume I’m going to troll them or I’m new and it’s like bug repellent. However, don’t let this scare you from staying in a virtual world or video game. This is just a starting point you will look better in time avatar wise it just takes time learning your environment and the people who surround you.

For those of you who are new and reading this post don’t quit because you feel you’re not being accepted. As I’ve already said we all start somewhere, and it takes time to create a following for yourself. Friends and chatting with others will come with time but what I suggest for the first month is get a feel for the environment that you’re in. Explore areas, learn controls, save up a little bit of money to redo your avatar. You know to get yourself settled. I promise you if you do the things you want and just have fun and don’t consistently think that you’re not liked or cast away everything else will come with. Your gaming and online experiences are supposed to be fun and, in some sense, relaxing for certain individuals don’t let it stress you out. If it stresses you out a lot, you’re doing something wrong and I’d suggest changing your mindset and viewing situations from another angle.

This week I went to some of these starter sims and talked to some of the newer members trying to use the Second Life platform and the one thing they told me was they wanted people to like them. The thing is if people don’t talk to you how will they know if they like you or not? And that is something I wish many individuals would be more open-minded about is talking to newer players because sometimes these are the players that will become your closest friends because you were the first person to accept them into your circle. Now in some cases, this could go south quickly but, in those situations, there is a reason why there is a block and delete button. Also, I’m friends with a lot of these newer members now and sometimes noobs are just looking for a mentor to help them get started and show them some places. They’re all people just like you and me just because were hidden behind a computer screen doesn’t mean that we’re not human.

Overall, acceptance in the keyword when it comes to what noobs fear the most when starting in a new environment. As I’ve explained above these newer players just want someone to talk to or a mentor to help them on their journey just to learn what to do so they can live their own virtual lives. We all start somewhere, and I know I sound like a broken record but it’s so true we all start from the bottom in most situations and work our way off. Be that one person who makes a difference don’t just cast someone to the side if they’re new there was a point in time when you were in the same situation don’t create the same experience for them if you were cast away instead change their fate. Be their start to living their virtual world or experiencing their game to the fullest.

Charming Ellie

Living Your Virtual Life to The Fullest

Tag: environment

How-To Decorate a Room on IMVU

What Noobs Fear the Most