I’m sure you’re all familiar with The Mermaid Problem, and for all its liberties of imagination, Second Life does present us sea-folk with a few “mermaid problems” of our own (one of which being The Problem proper, but we’ll discuss that another time). Any new mermaid will quickly observe that not many of SL’s waterways are merfolk friendly, and sometimes you want to swim near the surface of the water rather than comb the bottom of a sim. Obviously, the only way to do this is by flying (Dear Linden Lab: Why can’t there be an option for swimming? You’ve got animation states for it—animation states which I’ve never seen, because we can’t swim, mind you). But flying is exactly what one does, right out of the water on any extended stretch of swimming. Thus, the process of swimming is constant tedium; move, adjust depth (altitude), repeat.

To solve this SLMP™ (Second Life Mermaid Problem™), one needs to employ the use of a Swim Assist. The idea of the swim assist is simple: keep the mermaid in the water. The implementation itself is a bit trickier, though. In this article I’ll explain a few of the commercial solutions out there, and let you make the choice of which is best for you.

(more…)