This page is for the "static" birds. The birds that you cannot wear on your shoulder and that do not move around such as the Blue Tit drinking from the Milk Bottle. If you have one of the other birds, you might find that the Main Birds Manual better suits your needs.
Manual Version 1.0
Getting started
Rez your bird. After a few seconds, he will start to sing, look around, and play his other animations. This is his default behaviour and it is called perched mode. In perched mode, your bird can move sing, peck and look around. If you want him just to stand still and be quiet, you can say:
birdname passive
To make him go back to singing and looking around tell him to perch, like this:
birdname perch
Naming Your Bird
Name your bird by saying: <oldname> name <newname>
Where <oldname> is his current name and <newname> is the name that you want him/her to have. Don't type the pointed brackets. They're just there to show you that you have to fill in something suitable for your bird.
For example:
blue name Bobby
or
robin name Robyn
From here on we're going to use Wilson as our example bird. You can replace Wilson with your bird's name in any of the following examples.
By default, your bird will not display his name, but you can tell him to show or hide it like this:
wilson name on
which will cause him to display his name over his head, and:
wilson name off
which will make him hide it again.
You can use any alphabetical characters, upper or lowercase, for your bird's name and you can also use a hyphen.
Commands and Controls
The bird has no touch-controlled menu and no HUD. All of the controls are typed commands like those that I've just been describing. The important commands and controls are described and illustrated below and all of the commands are listed and described later in the document.
When you touch (click on) the bird, he will choose a random action and perform it. It might be that he just makes a small move, like tilting his head to one side or it might be that he chooses one of the longer actions or songs.
Your bird will recognise as little as the first two characters of his name, so you can say:
wi active
and he will know that you are speaking to him.
You can also use pets or birds instead of the bird's name and all of your birds (and later other animals made by Sandry) will hear and act upon the command at the same time. For example:
pets passive
or
birds volume 5
Your bird will hear you speak in regular chat (channel 0) and also on channel 1. So you could say, for example:
/1 wilson volume 6 sing1
and your bird will hear you, but the avatars around you won't.
Whenever you speak to your bird and he hears your command, he will respond with a single dot in owner-only chat. If you say something that he doesn't understand, he will attempt to tell you what it was.
The Volume Command
You can adjust the volume of your bird's song using the volume command.
You say wilson volume <setting> where setting is a value from 0 to 10.
For example:
wilson volume 5
0 is silent and 10 is full volume.
You can also use the quiet and vocal commands.
wilson quietsets the volume to 0 and
wilson vocalrestores it to whatever the previous volume was.
Sleep and Awake
You can tell your bird to go to sleep by saying
wilson sleep. He will then stand or will close his eyes, hunch over slightly, and tuck one leg up underneath him. The bird is set to passive when you give this command so he will not do anything until you give a command such as
awakeor
activeto wake him up again.
Getting Help
Say
wilson helpto get a list of commands that your bird knows. The commands are described later in this document.
Say
wilson modeto get him to tell you his current mode settings.
Say
wilson manualto see the full manual on the web site.
Command Reference
This is a list of the commands that your bird will recognise and a brief description of what they do. The commands marked as [Owner Only] may only be used by the owner and are ignored if someone else gives them.
active- Sets active mode. The bird can hop around, sing, peck the ground, look around. [Owner Only]
awake - Wakes the bird from sleep, making him stand again. If the bird was previously in active or static mode, the mode is restored. [Owner Only]
headleft - Tells the bird to stand with his head tilted slightly to the left.
headright - Tells the bird to stand with his head tilted slightly to the right.
help - Tells the bird to say the command list in chat.
lookleft - Tells the bird to stand and look to the left.
lookright - Tells the bird to stand and look to the right.
manual The bird opens the web page with the current version of the Owner's Manual.
mode - Tells the bird to say the current activity and stay settings in chat.
name <newname> - tells the bird to set his name to <newname> [Owner Only]
name < on | off > - Tells the bird to show/hide his name above his body. [Owner Only]
passive - Sets passive mode. The bird will stand still in the last pose that he was in and will not move except to blink. [Owner Only]
peck1, peck2, peck3, peck4 - Tells the bird to do one of the four pecking animations.
ping - Tells the bird to shout out his grid reference.
quiet - Sets the volume level for the bird's songs to 0, so that they are not heard. If the bird is in active or static mode, the bird will still choose the songs, but will only do the animations. [Owner Only]
search1, search2, search3, search4 - Tells the bird to do one of the searching (looking around on the ground) animations.
sing1, sing2, sing3, sing4, sing5, sing6, sing7, sing8, sing9, sing10 - tells the bird to sing one of his songs*.
sleep Puts the bird into sleep mode. He closes his eyes, hunches over slightly and tucks one leg up underneath him. The bird is set to passive when you give this command. [Owner Only]
sleep2 Puts the bird into sleep mode. He closes his eyes and nestles down so that his body is close over his feet. The bird is set to passive when you give this command. [Owner Only]
stand - Tells the bird to stand up and look straight ahead.
static - Sets static mode. The bird will sing, search and peck, but he will not hop around. [Owner Only]
volume <volume> - Sets the volume for the bird's songs. Values for volume may be between 0 and 10. [Owner Only]
vocal - Restores original volume for birdsong after the quiet command has been used. [Owner Only]
* The number of distinct songs may vary from bird to bird. For example, the Robin has 10 different songs/calls as does the Canary, but the Blue Tit only has 5 distinct calls.
Other Commands
These are not intended for everyday use, but they are included here for completeness and so that third party developers can build houses, nests, or perches that could interact with the birds.
pose <pose name> Tells the bird to adopt the pose named.
sound <key> Tells the bird to play the sound identified by <key>
wait <period> Tells the bird to wait for the number of seconds defined by period.
List of poses
stand
headleft
headright
lookleft
lookright
sing
singleft
singright
peck
peckopen
peckleft
peckright
peckopenleft
peckopenright
lean
leanleft
leanright
leanleft2
leanright2
leanopen
leanopenleft
leanopenright
sleep
sleep2
F.A.Q.
Q. Can I give the bird a list of commands?
A. Yes, you can! I use a simple example of this all the time. One of the most common things I say to the bird when I rez him is:
wilson perched volume 6
Q. How many moves and songs does the bird have?
A. The number of distinct songs varies from bird to bird. For example the Robin and Canary have 10 distinct songs/calls , but the Blue Tit only has 5. All birds will recognise the sing1 to sing10 commands, but in some birds they are duplicated.
Each bird also has4 pecking actions and 4 looking around actions. In static mode, the bird can choose between these and each of his 22 regular poses and up to three at a time. So that makes thousands of possible combinations. When you set him to active mode and he is hopping around and turning here and there, there seem to be even more combinations.
Q. Why is it that sometimes when I tell my bird to do something, he does a bunch of other things before he responds to me?
A. When he is in active or static mode, he chooses things to do himself. The things he chooses are put into a queue. He has to finish the queue before he can respond to you.
Known Issues
1. If you shift-drag the bird in edit to make a copy of him, the copy will not be able to pose/animate. This is a feature of how SL/LSL works and for the current implementation of these birds, it is not something that I can control. If you wish to rez a second copy of the bird please rez it from inventory. If you wish to wear a second copy, please detach the one that you are wearing and make a copy in inventory.