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
I don’t play Gatchas often, but this little event tugged at my inner shop-o-holic after seeing the previews on flickr, so i went. There were some REALLY cute items, and i like to think of myself as tenacious, so i play and play until i get the colour or specific item i want…which can be really expensive..but it feels like an addiction…damn you Gatchas!!
I am like you. I totally want only the one color and if I don’t get it, I will go for broke! However, I always manage to find friends and other people to give away the duplicates or colors that I’m not crazy about–so I guess it’s not so bad. If the gacha machine is cheap, I find I can probably get the right color with 5 or so tries. If it takes more than that, well hold on to your panties, cause I’m going in.
Lol. Hope you had a good weekend, Miss Gogo.
Thank you! I hope yours is good too.
Gatcha = madness!!!!!! I always focus on the color i want… meanwhile i collect all the colors, less the one i want. (usually comes as last) lol
With the arcade you can use the group chat to trade or even just buy the one you want off someone. I ended up getting all the stuff I wanted just by trading what I had :]
I went along with only a few hundred Lindens which was probably good cos if I’d had more I’d have spent a tonne, lol.
I got some cute little pieces, was hoping for an ‘O’ marquee light, but no such luck, I love what you’ve done with your light, btw, very creative!
I snag one item from a gatcha and most times I will take what I get….because it helps pull me out of my color funks. I tend towards darker colors and sometimes a good gatcha item will expand the horizons! Besides, it is very cost effective to just buy one..x.x;;
I loved The Arcade’s entire set up, because I can see all of the items for sale on the shopping guide, and how much per play. So this time, I was able to figure out how much to spend, even though I went over anyway. And of course, being able to visit yard sales to buy extras of what I want, is also pretty awesome to me.