Second life newbie - avatar help?

I just joined the online 'second life' game and my avatar is all distorted with my head somwhere at knee level and arms straight out to either side and lots of spikes hanging down from the arms so I don't look like a person at all.

The sims works fine on my computer (i have a dell 5150C) so can you suggest how I fix thix?Second life newbie - avatar help?
It seems like you have a bad shape for your avatar. Your best bet may be to go back to your original shape and start again. Much of this depends on what you did to your avatar shape and if you just saved the new shape each time or used the 'save as' function.



Open your inventory and go to the Clothes folder. In there you should find the folder that contains the basic avatar you chose when you signed up for second life. That includes all the starting clothes you had, but also your starting skin, eyes, hair and (the most important thing in your case) your starting shape. Right click on this and choose the 'wear' option from the drop down menu.



If it still looks all crazy, don't worry. Further down your inventory you will see a folder called 'Library'.



Open this and - again - look for the clothes folder. In here you will find folders containing all of the basic avatars you could choose when you joined SL. All of the shapes are here as well, so you can find the one of you from when you started SL in there.



The good thing is that everything you find in your Library cannot be deleted, but can be coppied to the main part of your inventory. So wear the copy of your starting shape from there. You can mess about with it as much as you like, but there will always be an original in the Library folder.



Next thing to do is this.



After you make changes to your shape, click on the 'Save as' button in 'Change Appearance'. Then give the shape a really unique name that will not appear anywhere else in your inventory. Something like XYZmyshape.



After you have saved it, open your inventory. Click on the Body Parts folder to open it. Now right click on the Body Parts folder again. From the drop down menu, select 'New Folder'. You then get the option to name the new folder. Call it 'Shapes' or 'Body Shapes' - your choice.



After this, look at the top of the Inventory window and you will see a very thin window with the word 'Search' written in it. click in it and type: XYZmyshape, or whatever you called the shape. That will locate the saved shape in your inventory. Remember where the shape is located. Click in the search window and delete the name you typed in. This returns your inventory to normal. With luck, it should leave the location of the shape you made so you can see it.



Left click on the shape you found using search and hold the mouse button down. Now drag the shape to the Body Parts folder - keep holding the mouse button. The body Parts folder will open if it isn't already open. Now keep dragging the shape you are moving to the Shapes sub-folder and let it go. If you use iTunes and make up play lists for songs, then this is a simillar sort of thing. all you are doing here is organising various things so they are easier to find. The other good thing here is that if you alter your shape again and give it a new name, it will now automatically save it to this new location.



OK, so if this doesn't work, then you have a problem. Maybe something someone gave you is doing it. Has anyone given you anything to wear latetly? Clothes in the normal sense are OK, but if it's something made with a prim (it appears with a little yellow box icon next to it in your inventory) it could be a prank item. If this appears to be the case, then you need more help than I can cover in a Yahoo Answer and just not wearing it may not be enough. You need to positively identify the prank item and get rid of it. Send me an IM in SL. My SL name is River Kyomoon. Some days I get a lot of mail in SL and my IMs get capped, so if I don't reply after 24 hours, it means that SL decided to cut all the IMs sent to me and you will need to IM me again.Second life newbie - avatar help?
http://www.secondlife.comSecond life newbie - avatar help?
Try wearing a different shape. You can find some standard shapes in your inventory Library Folder. If your avatar still looks like this then it could be a couple of things. First things first check that your requirements meet the minimums for SL on the webpage http://secondlife.com. Next check out your Graphics tab in your preferences. Try checking or unchecking the box under avatar rendering called hardware skinning. If those don't work you may try to get in touch with a Second Life Mentor in the game.