Reflections

A couple of people have asked me for lighting tips, so here goes! My tutorial is simple, you only need to adjust two things in your Environment Editor. This is best for snapping pictures of your avatar for blog entries, or vendors because it removes shadows from your avatar’s face and brightens the image.

How do you go from the left image to the right image in 2 steps? OK. Pay attention!

In your SL client menu, go to World -> Environment Settings -> Environment Editor

The Advanced Sky Editor menu should pop up on your screen. For Sky Presets select -> A-12PM (this is default noon).

Then click on the Lighting Tab, it should look just like this.

[ Click here to view larger image – Default 12PM ]

At noon, your avatar’s face is full of shadows, but with the next adjustment, all the shadows will be gone.

Step 1. Remove shadows

[ Click here for larger image – Sun/Moon Position at 0 ]

Find the Sun/Moon position bar, and drag it towards the left to make it 0.

Your avatar will now look like this…

The shadows are gone, but it’s quite dark! Let’s make it light and pretty!

Step 2. Let there be light!

[ Click here for larger image – Bump up scene Gamma to your liking ]

Pretty lighting…….!! YAY!! That’s it, it’s very easy to snap reasonably well-lit photos without using a face light or rezzing 10 different light balls.

If you want to be really fancy, play with the Scene Gamma and Ambiance tab to get some cool effects like the ones below:

1. 2 steps tutorial

2. my favorite setting with a bit of Ambiance tweaking

3. For the love of God, don’t pull up the gamma so high in your blog pics if you’re doing reviews

4. I like this Blue, it’s Wintery. You can get all kinsd of colors playing with the Ambiance tab.

I hope this helps people who want better lighting for photos in 2 easy steps. There are a few other tutorials out there done by different people, but I don’t know the links right now. I hope mine at least encourages you to play with the Environment Editor cos its not so scary if you know what you want to do with it. Remember to save your favorite settings! 🙂

Also, facelights are OK if they’re not lighting up the entire block, but you really don’t need them. If you must have one, pick up the free face light at Mela’s – it has a menu to control color and how subtle or bright you want the light to be.

It’s winter in Australia for all my Aussie friends, I’m wearing this awesome Winter outfit!

What I’m Wearing:

Mirai Style – Fuka hair (with texture changing beanie)

sey – snow Cowichan Sweater

Skin by Dutch Touch