Left: my avatar’s head poking through the prim hair | Right: Wearing a head alpha layer to hide the bit poking through
Vasean Talamasca pointed me to this awesome Trin’s Alpha Layer Set Pro on XStreetSL that includes alpha textures to hide system lashes and various body parts. This set is so useful and awesome, so I promised that I would share it with all of you guys.
Left: my head | Right: Wearing the alpha layer: I know this looks weird… but it works!
The alpha layer set includes 7 different alpha textures for your head, so you can choose to hide a little or a lot! They also include two types of textures: hide just the head area, or hide the head area & system lashes. As someone who wears prim lashes like it’s my religion, I opted to wear the “hide lashes” version.
Top: Wearing alpha layer to hide system lashes | Bottom: Perfection.. <3 prim lashes!
A hair fitting well after stretching is always best, but some hairstyles do need a little bit of help, especially if the creator’s profile is much shorter than your own. This is a great quick-fix solution, and I’m really thankful that it’s available.
The Trin’s Alpha Layer Set Pro 1.0 is sold full perm with permission to re-distribute but I am urging everyone to buy your own set to support Trin Trevellion and thank her for creating such a wonderful set. It’s 10L!
Last year, Hamlet blogged about how to enable shadows in the SL Release Candidate viewer and I was so sad I couldn’t get my PC to do it! I waited almost a year before splurging on a new PC with a better graphics card and more memory so I could turn on shadows, finally.
The picture above is my very first snapshot with shadows enabled that looked halfway decent.
I read tutorials about it, I asked my friends, everyone gave me different advice. Use Kirsten, Use Rainbow, Use Emerald, blah blah. I downloaded Kirsten, but it made my avatar’s eyes turn Orange and also I didn’t like the UI at all (why was it tinted green?). I haven’t ever used a 3rd party viewer before so it threw me off a lot, so I ran back to the Second Life 2.0 viewer and tried again.
(unprocessed photo straight from SL; adjusting the sun/moon position creates different shadows, just like IRL)
While shadows is still not perfect (eyes are invisible so you have to wear prim eyes), I just love it so much. I hope SL is listening! I want my eyes to rez and for alphas to rez better, pretty please?
I’m still getting the hang of it but I really like what I’ve seen so far. Since I really suck at Photoshop, I could never have done shadows like these on my own.
Read this if you want shadows (all you need to know):
Dynamic Shadows Added to SL Release Candidate As “Experimental” Feature
SL 2.0 Beta still running too slowly on your Mac? No worries!
I found these two blog posts very helpful. I didn’t do everything that Gwyneth Llewelyn suggested in her blog post, but it might help some of you guys!
How I turned my shadows on:
Ctrl+Alt+Q to bring up the Develop menu on your SL 2.0 client
Scroll down to Rendering and make sure these things are checked:
- -> Framebuffer Objects
- -> Deferred Rendering
- -> Global Illumination (optional)
Note: Make sure to that your Preferences -> Graphics is set to Ultra before attempting to turn on shadows.
I couldn’t take a snapshot with everything set on High (my screen turned black), so once shadows was enabled, I turned a few things that are not so important to low, like terrain, sky, trees, flexiprims… etc.
If you can’t enable shadows at all, maybe your graphics card is too old.
I am definitely open to suggestions, so if you’ve found a viewer or combination of settings that works, please share! :)
And because you guys always ask me when I don’t credit something, here’s what I’m wearing:
Boom – Infinity Bikini (Hisbiscus Lt Pink)
&
Exile – Gossip Girl (Champagne)
Hays Uriza – Natural Eyes (prim eyes)
eha – 7 Days in Sunny June White Flower top
Malt – Capri Lace Tights (Sugar)
LeLutka – Pow Pumps (Powder Blue)
Two years ago when Windlight was introduced, a lot of people complained that it “broke their face light” because Windlight added a lot ugly shadows to the face that could not be corrected by simply wearing a face light. If you asked me back in 2007/2008 if I would ever leave home without a face light, I would say NO! Face light was my PRIM LASHES. It was necessary! and it worked!
So when Windlight “broke” everyone’s face light, some people embraced it and made nicer Windlight settings for their viewing pleasure, but lots of other people just wore even bigger and brighter lights, and in some extreme cases, full-body lights that lit up the entire sim. We’ve all seen it, and it is a complete eyesore!
My friend is a CSR at a well-known skin brand in SL and one of the biggest complaints that “newbies” have is that their skin does not look *exactly* like the pretty picture on the wall. Well, duh. A lot of new players haven’t grasp the concept of tweaking their Windlight setting, and some are defensive when you even suggest it! They think that the product should look *exactly* like the vendor’s image, and most times I would agree, but we all know that how you see a skin is dependent upon your hardware, graphics settings, and Windlight setting. It makes a HUGE difference.
I’m re-writing about Windlight because I received an email a couple of days ago, and a reader said that the skins she purchases (from seeing them on my site) does not look the same on her avatar. It makes me wonder if she’s viewing the skins on Midday setting, so I thought I would mention how to use Windlight settings again for anybody that might find it useful.
Left: Midday 1 (Default setting) | Right: Small tweak to remove shadows and brighten the image
(Windlight Midday: click to view full-size)
The Midday 1 setting is a default setting that can be found on everyone’s SL client. If you can’t find it, start with NOON — I think that’s the same thing. It looks pretty ugly, doesn’t it?
(Windlight tweaks 1: click to view full-size)
By tweaking a little bit, I was able to brighten the image. If you want to duplicate the result, just change your settings similar to the image above. I have only tweaked the Atmosphere and Lighting tab, and nothing else.
*note: my graphics preference settings are set on high with everything checked (bump mapping and shiny, basic shaders, atomospheric shaders, water reflections, etc.)
Left: more tweaks to get nicer sky & water | Right: Windlight – Pink sky and water
If you wanted to play with it a bit more, you can get really cool effects in SL without ever using Photoshop. I typically don’t PS any of my images, cos it’s way too time consuming.
(Windlight tweaks nicer sky & water: click to view full-size)
(Windlight tweaks pink sky & water: click to view full-size)
I hope this brief tutorial is easy to follow and helps you look better in-world :)
More information about Windlight can be found at the official Second Life Wiki.
You can also download tons of Windlight settings created by other residents here.
"Hi. I came across this post and thought.. WOW.. fabulous skin. So much
so that I ran to the store to check it out. I tried on the exact tone
and faces, too. They looked nothing like these pictures. I tried them
with and without facelights, different day settings. My av shape is
great, too, so it’s not that. Then I looked at your pictures again and
realized how touched up your images are, that not even your white hair
is pixelated — white hair in sl is notorious for obvious pixelated
edges. While I think it’s nice people supply shopping info for others
who may be interested, I think it is best not to worry about how your
avatar looks in your post but to give an honest rendering of the
material you are propagating to the masses — that way we, the readers,
can see what the skins and so forth actually look like to save us time.
Touched up images don’t sell others products, they waste the buyer’s
time." – SherriI
I saw this comment about my Cupcakes skin reviews on iheartsl.com and it really bothered me because I am not here to deceive people who read my blog. I don't EVER Photoshop photos on my skin reviews to fix flaws or blemishes. What you see is what you get, no post-processing whatsoever except for a simple crop (and I use picnik.com).
Here are reasons why I don't retouch images:
1. There are skin demos, what's the point of trying to fix/hide flaws?
2. I don't have time to spend fixing up images since I blog A LOT.
3. I don't care if a skin designer sells 1 skin or 1000 skins as a result of my blog entry (though I am happy for them if they get sales from being featured).
4. My aim is to show the item as-is, so people keep coming back to my blog because they have a reasonable expectation that what is seen in my photos is what the product REALLY looks like in-world.
5. I'm too lazy to PS every image to death.
There are more reasons why I don't PS, but those are the main ones.
( click the image to view full size )
The image above was taken in-world with absolutely NO post-processing. The light settings are – default noon | my own personal outdoor sunlight setting | my blog photos settting. As you can see, noon is pretty craptastic compared to the blog setting, which removes most shadows & brightens up the image a lot. I don't need to PS, I can't even imagine how I could make the image "better" and I don't know how.
"Then I looked at your pictures again and realized how touched up your
images are, that not even your white hair is pixelated — white hair in
sl is notorious for obvious pixelated edges."
It sounds to me like, your graphics settings for SL needs anti-alias turned on. I can't give the info how, but you should be able to Google the answer for your specific graphics card/computer. Optimizing your graphics settings and playing with Windlight will
produce some pretty fantastic images without needing to touch-up.
"Touched up images don’t sell others products, they waste the buyer’s time."
I totally agree, this is why I keep my photos simple. If I ever edit an image, its because it's more of an artsy photo than a product review.
I hope that clears that up….
I'm wearing the Cupcakes Lovespell (Honey) Golddust skin, since I wore this skin in the original post that this comment was directed at. I've made new Windlight settings for blogging, since I no longer liked the old ones that I've used before (they were too red) ~ so the skin doesn't photograph *exactly* the same as the original post that I've linked to, but it's the same skin and no PS then OR now.
Many skins in SL have a great cleavage but if your favorite skin needs a little more, what can you do? Wear boobs shaders!! I am wearing the Imagen BewbShader3000 on undershirt layer to achieve a subtle "push-up" effect.
My issue with boobs shaders that are not custom made for the skin is that they tend to look more grayish, and not very natural. A lot of my fav skin designers are offering push-up or more cleavage-y versions of their skins now though, so I'm so happy about that <33333!!!!!
Pick up a free copy of the Imagen BewbShader3000 @ Imagen's main store, if you want to try this :D
Raise your hand if you still peek at Fashion Planet from time to time? Or daily? Even though the Fashion Planet blogroll has not been updated for ages, many designers & blog readers still go there out of habit. Through iheartsl.com, many people are able to send their posts to Fashion Planet, myself included.
I will admit that it drove me kind of nuts having to repeat my blog posts all the time, and sometimes forgetting to do it altogether. So this morning I had an idea that would solve my problem. I needed to find a syndicated url that was 1) on a domain by itself, 2) not in use & available for registration, and 3) has a rss url that was simple to duplicate. Even though many domains are inactive, they have been snatched up by those annoying domain parking things. But I got lucky, and found one that wasn't!!
So…. I found Saucy. The Saucy link on Fashion Planet met the three criteria I needed to make my idea work. So I registered the domain, http://www.ensemblychallenged.com/, installed WordPress under the /saucy directory, and turned it into my own feed site, that feeds directly into Fashion Planet. I crossed my fingers, waited 10 minutes and viola! I'm back on Fashion Planet.
Saucy will not be a public feed, since I already have too many websites to maintain, but I just wanted to share. I will be feeding my site to Saucy as long as Fashion Planet is still active.
A couple of people have asked me if setting up a syndicated feed is "easy" and I will say that it's not easy if you're not familiar with setting up your own WordPress blog but it's easy enough that I can do it!! This tutorial is a brief overview of how I do it, this is not the only way to set up a feed, but it works.
What you need to set up a feed:
1. A domain name.
You can buy a domain name at any reputable domain name registrar or register one as part of a hosting package deal. Many hosts now offers a "free domain name" with some type of hosting plan.
2. Select a hosting company (for your domain).
I went with BlueHost because they offer unlimited disk storage, gigs of site transfer (really important if you're running a feed), and a lot of other scripts that you'll need to set up the site. The cost of running a feed is minimal compared to the time that you will be dedicating to maintaining it. If you can afford hosting for 1 blog site, you can afford hosting for a 'feed' site.
3. Install WordPress.
WordPress installation is very easy. Most hosting companies now make it easier than ever to install WordPress, and other popular scripts to make your life easier! With BlueHost, I was able to set it all up without ever needing to upload the files on my own.
One thing that I think might be tricky for people who haven't done this before is setting up the MySQL database. But, anything you don't know how to do, you should refer to the Help section of hosting company or use google!!
4. Install the FeedWordPress plug-in by RadGeek.
Everyone that is running a feed on WordPress uses this plug-in to syndicate other websites.
How long will this take?
Assuming that you already have the domain + hosting all set up, it will take less than an hour to set up the feed.
Helpful hints….
- Find a WordPress theme with a wide blog column.
- Make sure your links are pointing back to the original source of the post and turn off comments on syndicated posts.
- When things break, use Google (the answer is out there, really!!)
- Don't use your feed to punish others.
If you haven't been to Avanista.com, it is a syndicated feed that I've set up using all the scripts mentioned above.
I hope this helps point you to the right direction, if you're planning on setting up a feed using WordPress. There are other, more powerful scripts out there (such as PlanetPlanet) but I can't help you with those since I don't have a clue how to install them :D
Feel free to send me questions if you need help! I'll answer them if I know what you're talking about.
(The picture above has nothing to do with this tutorial, but I'm in a beachy mood today.)
There have been a lot of discussions on the do's and dont's for SL fashion bloggers lately. I've been blogging without a rule book for 2 years now and so far I think I'm doing OK. So here's MY own list of things you should keep in mind, not necessarily have to do, but it will be helpful:
Helpful hints for fashion bloggers:
1. Blog what you love
It's ok to blog just items that you love and gush about them. Even if your taste is not the same as everybody else, if YOU love it, it shows and somebody out there might have been looking for that exact item.
2. Be honest but not mean
Point out flaws but don't go out of your way to criticize. Whenever I see seams or other flaws, I will point them out. Now, if a designer was newer and their seams don't quite line up but the design is cute and was worth the $, I would let it slide! Does that make me a terrible blogger? I always consider the item overall, but there are some things that are unforgivable (like seams on a skin!).
3. Learn to take good pictures
A picture says a thousand words… bad lighting and a bad pose will
discourage others from buying the items you want to showcase. And you
do want people to buy it right? That's why you're blogging it in the
first place? So read tutorials, ask others for tips, and figure out how
to take nice photos! You don't have to be a Photoshop genius (I'm not),
I just take pictures in-world and crop them using Picnik (the online photo editing service).
4. Don't start a blog for the "free stuff"
Whatever you do, don't start a blog because you think it will get you
"free stuff", that won't happen. Designers have a sea of bloggers to
choose from, they will most likely send review copies to bloggers they
know will do a good job featuring their products, not just someone who
wants the "free stuff" and disappears in a month or two.
5. Consider a blogging budget
Even though bloggers are known to receive "review copies", we still have to purchase a lot of items. Many designers do not send out review copies at all, and if you love something and want to feature it, you have to buy it. Consider making a blogging budget (anywhere between $5,000 and $20,000 weekly) and stick to it! Don't feel pressured to buy all the latest, and also make use of good freebies if you want to blog daily but not go into debt! :P
6. Be ready for criticism
People who don't blog themselves will tell you that you're not blogging right or how to blog. In most cases, I would say ignore them, but I think that anybody who publishes anything on the internet should be ready to accept both positive and negative feedback. Some of it might be valid, even if it's negative. I find that most of the comments on my website are positive but there are negative comments and I consider them without letting it ruin my day.
7. Blog for yourself
I can't think of anything else right now but I will end with this really important tip. When you blog for yourself, you'll be a lot happier than keeping up with all the latest trends or letting others dictate how you should blog.
That's all for now! These tips are just basic ones for newer bloggers but they're not set in stone or anything.
[ pic credit: lifted from Melanie's flickr :D ]
My friend Melanie has posted a great tutorial on how to create subtle facial expressions by modifying your shape slightly and playing around with voice lip sync. Read more about it on her website! :)
(pic provided by Jenny since I don't have nVidia 8)
The awesome Jenny Thielt wrote instructions on how to enable dynamic shadows on the Second Life 1.23 Release Viewer (re-posted here with permission):
Enabling Dynamic Shadows on the 1.23 Release Viewer and any viewer based on the 1.23 version.
Make sure you have a DirectX 10 compatible card (eg. nVidia 8 series or newer)
1. Make sure Atmospheric Shaders is on (windlight pretty skies and clouds)
2. Open the Advanced menu (if you dont have it yet press ctrl+alt+d)
3. Go to Debug Settings…
4. type renderuseFBO
5. Change value to TRUE
6. type renderdeferred
7. change value to true
8. Welcome to the world of dynamic shadows.
To disable dynamic shadows all you need to do is change the renderdeferred value back to false. (you can also change the renderuseFBO value to false too if you want)
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