It’s been a long time since I wrote my first Useful Gadgets post (in fact, it was so long ago that it was on the old blog!) but I’m back with another in the series, and this time it’s for something many of us use: teleporters.

This particular teleporter is not only completely free, it’s modifiable and very easy to customise. I use it at my home location, and I can set up each pad in a matter of two minutes. While it’s not as fancy as some of the pricey, networked pad systems you can buy, it’s still great for moving between levels in a store or between your land-based home and skybox(es)!

Hop behind the cut!

You can buy the Eternity Teleporter Pad on Marketplace, here. Once you’ve unpacked it, move to the first location where you want to place a pad, and rez one out. It will look like this:

Don’t worry that it looks very shiny and silvery and modern. The pic before the cut is the same pad, after I’d customised it. And you don’t even need to keep it that shape, size (or even have it on the floor!)

OK, let’s get to work.

If you want the same look for all of your pads, it’s easiest to customise just one of them first, then take a copy to rez at your other locations, which you can then just edit the notecards for.

Here’s what’s inside each pad:

The important bits are the three notecards: _blacklist, _config, and _whitelist. This is what they do:

_blacklist is the notecard into which you put the names (one on each line) of avatars that you don’t want to be able to access and use the pad. If you’re going to set the pad to private access, then you don’t need to worry about this one, as only you can use it (unless you name other avatars in the whitelist – more on that in a minute). Likewise, if you set the pad to group access (and you trust all of your group members!) then you don’t need to worry about the blacklist either. It’s only if your pad is set to public access or group access when you don’t want certain members of your group to be able to use it that you need to add names to the blacklist.

_whitelist is the notecard into which you put the names (one on each line) of avatars that you do want to be able to access and use the pad, when it’s set to private or group use. This may include your partner, friends, or alts. Add their names to the whitelist notecard and they will be able to use the pad. Note that, if you set the pad to owner use, the whitelist won’t work; only you will be able to use the pad.

_config is the notecard where you edit the various parameters of the pad. This includes: the colour and text of the hovertext that displays above it (and whether it displays or not), who can access the pad (owner/private/group/public), a welcome message that will be spoken in chat when someone arrives at the destination the pad is set to go to, a warning message to anyone on the blacklist, and – most importantly! – the co-ordinates of the location you want the pad to send users to.

Here’s the _config notecard, with those sections highlighted:

We’ll set the access permissions first, under the allow= section, so decide whether you want the pad to be used only by you (owner), by a named list of people (private), your group (group – and please note, it’s only possible to set group access to the group that the pad is rezzed under, which is usually your land or rental group), or anyone (public). By default, the pad is set to public, so edit that part of the notecard if you want to. Keep the formatting as it is in the original notecard: no spaces after the equals sign!

Let’s say you’ve set the pad to private use. You, as the owner, will always be able to use the pads, regardless of their access settings. But what if you want your partner and a couple of friends to also be able to use the pad? This is where you need to add their names to the _whitelist notecard, like this:

The _blacklist notecard works in exactly the same way, so if you want to ban certain people from using a group or public pad, add their names to the _blacklist notecard.

Onto the top section of the _config notecard now, and we’ll set the hovertext options. If you want no hovertext, then delete the bit that says Teleporter. Once you save the notecard, the hovertext will vanish. If you do want hovertext, here is where you can edit what it says. For our example, we’re setting the pad to send us to the roof, so Mar will change hers to say Teleport to the roof!

Under hover_text_color= you can set RGB values to change the colour of the hovertext. Note the formatting, which is <0.0,0.0,0.0> To change it to white text the numbers should be <1.0,1.0,1.0>. Pink would be <1.0,0.0,1.0> (one red, no green, one blue). Purple would be <1.0,0.0,1.5> (one red, no green, one and a half blue) etc etc. Play around with those values until you find a shade that you like :)

welcome_message= is where you set the message that will be spoken to the pad’s user once they reach their destination. In this case, it’s the roof, so Mar’s message says Welcome to the roof!

warning_message= is where you set the message to people that can’t use the pad, such as named avatars on the blacklist or people not on the whitelist in the case of a private or group access pad. Set this to whatever you want, or leave it at the default, as Mar has.

Finally, the most important bit: the target_location and here is where you need to do a bit of legwork! Go to the place where you want people to end up when they use the pad, then look at the top of your viewer for the co-ordinates (you might have to click the ‘address bar’ bit in order to see them). There will be three numbers, so note them down. Now head back to where you rezzed the teleporter that we’re currently customising.

Under target_location= you need to input those numbers. Here are Mar’s numbers for the roof:

They are: 238,49,1509 and you need to enter them exactly like that, in carets, with no spaces, so Mar has entered the following:

target_location=<238,49,1509>

That’s the main part of the configuration done, so save the notecard and wait while the pad resets itself. Now we can get to making it look how we want!

Mar’s keeping the circular look for this pad, so she’s chosen one of the textures from the freebie pack at the Elderglen Linden Home Infohub area:

She’s opted for another texture from that set for the sloped sides, and has changed the repeats to: Horizontal = 8 and Vertical = 1

She removed the shine and the slight glow, and hey presto! One nice, rustic (slightly Hobbity!) teleport pad!

Before we head up to the roof to place the pad that’ll bring us back down here again, we need to note down the co-ordinates for where we want the roof teleporter to land us when we get back! So, stand where you want that to be and note down your new co-ordinates. Next, right-click the customised pad and take a copy into your inventory. And then, click the pad to head to the roof!

Whee! It worked! And you should see in local chat your welcome message: “Welcome to the roof!”

Now you need to rez your customised pad up here, so do that, and open up its _config notecard. You’ll need to change just two lines here: the welcome message (that will need to say something like “Welcome back to terra firma!”) and obviously you need to change the co-ordinates to the new ones you noted down. Once that’s done, save the notecard and wait while the pad resets itself.

While you’re up there, give this new pad a more distinctive name:

Click it to check that it works. You should arrive back at your first pad, with “Welcome to terra firma!” in local chat. Now, rename your first pad to whatever you want, and you’re done! You now have a fast and easy access to the roof (or anywhere else in the sim).

You don’t have to keep that shape, though. Here, Mar has changed the prim shape to a cube and used ‘taper’ to form up and down triangles, like those in an elevator:

And here she’s changed the shape to a glowing purple ball:

You don’t even need to place these on the floor where you want to land. The important bit is the co-ordinates inside the _config notecard. The actual teleport pad (or ball or whatever shape you’ve made it) can be anywhere, such as sunk into a wall or tree trunk or anything!

This system does have limitations, the main one being that it’s not networked like many more expensive ones are. In a networked system each newly-rezzed pad is instantly added to the network and – once renamed – can be accessed from a single menu. With the Eternity Teleporter you’ll need to set individual pads instead. So, let’s say you have a central location and you want one pad to go to 500m and another to 1000m. You’ll need either two pads at the central location (one for each height) or you can use the 500m location as a staging post that contains the next 1000m pad.

Also, don’t forget that you will need to customise the _whitelist and _blacklist in each pad if you’ve used those.

However, for a freebie, this pad system is incredibly easy to use and fully-customisable, which is why I’ve written this tutorial. Now, go have fun whizzing all around your homes and sims!