Merry Christmas Eve Second Life!!!!! If Santa didn’t bring you exactly what you wanted, did you buy it for yourself?
I planned on getting a netbook but my monitor died so I had to purchase a new monitor instead. This is something for RL me but I guess I need it to run SL me.. so SL Gogo is sharing the gift with RL Gogo, Lol!!
Anyways, take the poll……. did you SPLURGE?
[poll id=”12″]
Wheeeeeeeee! COFFEE!
Tuli has just released the new Sara skins and in my opinion, these are my the best Tuli skins to date. I love the skin tones and textures now, and the options available are amazing.
Sara comes in two series of skin tones, according to the release notecard, these new tones – Pearl, Powder, Petal and Peach have “enhanced Pink hues” and they look amazing. I love skin tones with Pinker hues, they work better on Blondes and lighter hair colors.
Each skin tone includes: 6 Skins (with different eye-makeup)
4 Different Brows color: Light Blonde (on tattoo) | Dark Blonde (on tattoo) | Medium Brown (on tattoo) | and Dark brows (on the skin)
And 12 lipstick tattoos!! Pretty much everything natural lipstick color option is covered here. I would love to see some more “fantasy” colors too.
My only “issue” with this skin is the highlights are a bit too strong. I’m wearing this in Powder tone, and I thought they were too shiny on the legs, but overall the body is nice.
Annnnnnd, last but not least! Elikatira released 3 new hairstyles. I’m wearing them all in this post:
Elikatira – Paper | Rythm | Theory
What I’m Wearing:
to one lounge – Godetia (rose) kinariiro
Reek – Patteson Flip Flop (Girls)
Two years ago, I blogged about the Genus 2.0 update and then never wore the head again. It was easily forgettable, especially since the brands I actually wear don’t make skins for Genus, whether that’s regular BoM or 2k or 4k. I’ve always found Genus confusing because if you’re wearing regular BoM, you can’t mix makeup from that with a 4k skin. It creates unnecessary compatibility barriers that can get complicated and expensive very quickly.
When Genus sent me the 3.0 update, I decided to give it another look. They promised PBR support, a 2k skin, improved anatomy and expressions, and more. I really think Genus should have included a 4k skin with this update. Almost all of the makeup in my inventory is made for Genus 4k, so I couldn’t even properly wear the head here with the included 2k skin. I’m also not sure I care about PBR on a mesh head yet, at least not until my body, Maitreya, also releases an update. Right now it just means a glowing head with a flat looking body.
Two years later, the skin brands I wear still aren’t making Genus skins. Their focus is clearly on LeLutka EvoX, and there’s no real effort to diversify. So while I do appreciate a free update from Genus, and I always like when brands continue to support their products, I don’t see myself wearing this head again any time soon.
If you want a different look and you already own a Genus head, it’s definitely worth trying. One thing I’ve always loved about Genus is how beautiful the side profile is. But when it comes to features and overall ease, I moved on to LeLutka EvoX years ago, and I have no interest in complicating my life by switching back to Genus.
Read More “Genus Update”Hair Fair is open! From July 1st-16th, a percentage of every hair that you buy at the event will benefit the Wigs for Kids organization. I look forward to Hair Fair annually, cos I have so many fond memories of shopping here through the years.
Check out the official Hair Fair blog for a preview of all the hairstyles and direct SLurls. When I went to the preview last night, this post was not up yet, which is actually a good thing cos I got to see all the booths and discover some new-to-me brands. I recommend going to the sims and buying the demos that you want to try directly, instead of relying on the Hair Fair Demo group cos that can get overwhelming.
I’m so impressed that hair designers got together and brought their best efforts to this event. In addition to bento hair, I’ve discovered that a handful of brands are now offering Style options, often built into the texture HUD or as a separate HUD.
Here are 5 hairstyles I love from Hair Fair:
RunAway Hair – Cherry Hair | include Style options
I didn’t forget about Bubblegum Weekends! We have 144 members on the Flickr group, and that’s pretty awesome.
I have been thinking of maybe coming up with some more weekly “theme” things to do, so if there’s anything you’d like to “see more of” in SL, leave me some suggestions!
What I’m Wearing
Truth – Tasmine (Fairyfloss)
Severed Garden – Efia (Vibrant)
Stiletto Moody gave group members a free pair of Stiletto Moody Bare Lana in Red to celebrate the brand’s anniversary. For various reasons, I haven’t ever bought a pair of SM shoes (with or without feet). I am usually pretty good with tinting feet — and I own a lot of shoes from different brands in SL with them. I don’t understand why a pair of shoes that costs well over $2,000L does not include a HUD but a rather primitive drop-down menu. Really SM, you can’t make a HUD? It would make the tinting process SO much more pleasant. Other brands have them… Maitreya, SLink, even N-Core!
Anyways.. these shoes are FREE, so you know, like everybody else I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about.
All the photos taken below have NOT been post-processed — this is what a pair of Stiletto Moody Bare looks like to me:
1. Straight out of the box — my skin doesn’t match and the ankle strap doesn’t fit into the shoe.
2. I tried fixing my skin color via the ‘ControlFreak’ option and inputting my RGB — uh-oh my feet are PURPLE. So obviously I’ll have do it using the R,G,B drop-down menu which I hate. How am I suppose to know if I need to plus or minus more Green, Red or Blue? I’m a visual person, give me a HUD!
3. 10 minutes later, I’ve matched my skin as best as I could and fixed the fitting issue on the ankle strap.
4. Worn with my AO
Now that I’m satisfied with this, I hop off my pose stand and test the shoes out in-world with my AO. And it looks like crap….. hello hot mess. Looks good if you are posing but not so great when you want to wear it in-world.
5. Is this what you paid $2,000L for? (or however much these costs, I don’t know the exact price)
Would I buy a pair of Stiletto Moody? NO — not with the ankle strap issue. The foot isn’t that nice either with all those heavy shadows but it’s probably something I could live with.. but not for the price tag or the ill-fitted prims.
I know there are die-hard Moody fans out there, so enjoy your shoes! 🙂
Thanks to Hamlet at New World Notes for the mention! Be sure to take the DLSS 5 Survey and share what you think.
DLSS 5 is so much fun to experiment with, but it’s not magic. It’s not going to suddenly make your avatar look drastically different, and it’s definitely not like AI editing that can sometimes turn a cartoon avatar into a realistic human. My Second Life avatar still looks completely recognizable. The textures may look a little better, details may stand out more, and there’s additional shading around the face, hair, clothing, and environment that gives everything a little more depth. Sometimes the difference isn’t even that dramatic, but there’s just enough added dimension that I really like the overall look.
Of course, there are going to be critics and purists, especially people who are against anything involving AI, but I don’t understand the need to loudly discourage other residents from experimenting with it. Whatever happened to Your World, Your Imagination? In real life, people put filters over their photos every day using phone apps, Photoshop, and a million other things. Second Life photography has always involved experimenting with lighting, advanced Third Party viewers, graphics settings, post-processing, etc. DLSS 5 is just another thing to play with.
I’ve posted thousands of raw Second Life photos across my social media over the years, so I don’t think using DLSS 5 suddenly means someone lacks photography skills. Sometimes I want a raw SL photo, sometimes I want to edit, and sometimes I want to press F6 and see what DLSS 5 does. If you want to try it, try it! You might love it, you might hate it, or you might decide the difference isn’t worth the trouble.
As I sit there pressing F6 to turn DLSS 5 on and off, though, I can’t help thinking that I’m getting a tiny glimpse into what Second Life might eventually look like. I can imagine creators continuing to push textures and materials in this direction, especially with hair and face skins, where more detailed shading can add so much depth. Maybe someday we won’t need an experimental filter to get this look at all.
Read my tutorial: How to Install DLSS 5 in Second Life
Read More “Is DLSS 5 a Glimpse Into Second Life’s Future?”
I got the same amount of gifts I received last year. But I always expect that. LOL But this year, I went crazy on myself and invested in an out of town trip for New Year’s Eve.