SL beginners: highlight transparent

A question from a friend who has been in SL some months reminded me how many little things are hidden away in the menues along the top of your screen. one of these is very useful when you seem to have invisible prims around, or have lost a pose ball because you made it transparent.

Go to the top of your screen, choose view, and then choose highlight transparent in the drop down list. This makes all transparent prims show up blood red, and allows you to select items like pose balls which you may have thought were lost forever.

The downside is that everyone’s transparent attachments turn up red, sometimes multiple penises in various states of erection, which gives an odd appearance. So I’d advise you to switch it off if you don’t want to be looking at everyone in a new way.

I will never forget the day I learned to use highligh transparent. I was working on a team build and was taught how to switch on highlight transparent, as we were using transparent prims to help people avoid falling off the build. We actually used remarkably few transparent textures in that build though, and so when I moved around for the rest of the day, I forgot I had highlight transparent turned on.  I teleported home, at that time to Dore, and thought I had been the subject of some sort of griefing attack. My particle fire jars next to the door had turned blood red… the windows were red… the trees and plants were red. I IMd a friend to come quick, believing I had been the subject of a virtual paintball attack, puzzled as to how they could have done it. Of course, everyone laughed like a drain when I realised that I had highlight transparent turned on, and turning it off set everything back to normal.

I have found this trick particularly useful if you want to move poseballs around while seated on them… highlight transparent enables you to click on the poseball and edit and reposition it, even though transparent while being sat upon.

Hope it helps!