Scratch for Second Life [Level II]

Finding Scratch for Second Life was huge for me. It enabled me to move prims nonphysically, something I had been trying and failing to do.

Scratch does a lot more than move prims, however.

Scratch is a program developed by Eric Rosenbaum at at the MIT Media Lab. In essence, it's a programming language that allows you to build a script by assembling modules which are respresented as blocks. When you're finished, Scratch will generate code which you then paste into a script inside your prim.

To use Scratch, watch the three-minute tutorial, then download and run the small program and start moving blocks about. It will take you only a few minutes to create your first Scratch script.

Scratch doesn't do everything one can do with LSL, but it can do quite a lot. Here are its functions:

Moving Prims

• Move prims forward or backward X meters.
• Turn prims X degrees left or right
• Move up or down X meters
• Roll plus or minus X degrees
• Pitch plus or minus X degrees
• Point toward nearest avatar
• Point toward owner of prim
• Point in direction X

This allows you to turn a prim and move it in any direction. Movement is limited to ten meters, but it's easy to do sequential movements.

Control

• Respond to touch
• Respond to collision
• Respond when rezzed
• Respond to chat
• Wait X seconds
• Repeat an action X times
• Broadcast (Say things)
• Respond differentially using if and else

Looks

• Say
• Set hover text to specified color
• Change color by X amount
• Set color to specified vector
• Set level of transparency
• Change size of linkset by plus or minus X percent

Sound

• Play sound from Script's short list of sounds
• Play your own sound

Sensing

• Determine distance to nearest avatar
• Determine distance to owner
• Determine number of avatars within range X meters

Numerical Calculations

• 
  
• Addition
• Subtraction
• Multiplication
• Division
• Generate random number between 1 and 10
• Less than
• Equal to
• Greater than

Variables

• Create or delete a variable

Pen

• Clear
• Pen down
• Pen up
• Change pen color by X amount

1. Set pen color to X

The pen requires a scripted prim called lineSegment. I don't remember how I acquired mine, but it's full perm and I'll be happy to pass a copy to you. Just IM me in world or drop me a notecard.