Looking through my blog you may notice progress in my pictures.
**Please note: This is a Second Life photography tips post for beginners, if you'd like to know what I am wearing in each pic, simply click on the link below the pictures except the last image. If you'd like to know what I'm wearing in Xiang Mo by Zenith image, scroll to the very bottom of this post.**
Over the last week I have found some great tips online that have helped me take better photos in Second Life and I wanted to share them here.
Windlight settings change environmental effects within SL by changing the position of the sun and moon, the density and movement of clouds and the colour of the ambient light. This creates light and shadow for your photos which can be very different from Second Life's default day and night cycles. You can have colourful sunsets and different hues over your Second Life world.
To create your own within Second Life go to World > Environment Editor > Sky Presets > Edit (or new) Preset.
I also came across this video by Foxcity which explains how to create lights for your photos. After creating some lights and choosing a preset windlight setting from the ones I downloaded, I managed to create this picture:
So I thought this was a massive improvement on my first picture but was baffled as to how other people's pictures were so much smoother than mine, mine seemed pixely next to theirs. I ran around in circles trying to figure out how to smooth my edges in gimp and then I realised it's resolution!
When you take a snapshot in SL, then go to save to disk, you can choose which resolution to put it at. So I saved my next images at 4920x2606, play around and see what suits you best. Once out of SL you can crop them and size them down if needed but the quality is much higher.
Above left: Original image straight out of Second Life
Above middle: In Gimp I went to Colors > Brightness-Contrast.. and I played with the levels, moving them up until I was happy with the result.
Above right: In the layers window of gimp I duplicated the image twice. The first (middle) layer I changed to "Addition" and changed it's opacity to 25, the second (top) layer I changed to "Overlay" and changed the opacity to 20.
I recommend playing with different layer modes and opacity levels, different modes will work for different images.
For the final result I added some shadows on my Avi, on the arms from the top, on the top of the legs from the high socks and skirt, on the breasts from the top and on the face from the hair. You can head to my Flickr page to get a better look at my images as Blogger restricts the size here.
Body: ☯ Maitreya ☯ Lara
Skin: ☯ LAQ ☯ 2.5
Hair: ☯ .Olive. ☯ the Wendy hair
Outfit: ☯ =Zenith= ☯ Xiang Mo complete red set
Background: ☯ Backdrop City ☯
**Please note: This is a Second Life photography tips post for beginners, if you'd like to know what I am wearing in each pic, simply click on the link below the pictures except the last image. If you'd like to know what I'm wearing in Xiang Mo by Zenith image, scroll to the very bottom of this post.**
Over the last week I have found some great tips online that have helped me take better photos in Second Life and I wanted to share them here.
 |
| Click here for the list of what I'm wearing above |
Lights and Windlight Settings
When I looked through other people's photo's on Flickr I had no idea how they got such nice looking images. At first I thought they took pictures like my first above and had incredible photoshop skills to make the image look great. Then I learned about windlight settings which you can play around with in Second Life yourself if you like, I downloaded these windlight settings for now until I have the paitience to play with them myself.Windlight settings change environmental effects within SL by changing the position of the sun and moon, the density and movement of clouds and the colour of the ambient light. This creates light and shadow for your photos which can be very different from Second Life's default day and night cycles. You can have colourful sunsets and different hues over your Second Life world.
To create your own within Second Life go to World > Environment Editor > Sky Presets > Edit (or new) Preset.
I also came across this video by Foxcity which explains how to create lights for your photos. After creating some lights and choosing a preset windlight setting from the ones I downloaded, I managed to create this picture:
 |
| Click here for the post about what I'm wearing above |
Resolution
So I thought this was a massive improvement on my first picture but was baffled as to how other people's pictures were so much smoother than mine, mine seemed pixely next to theirs. I ran around in circles trying to figure out how to smooth my edges in gimp and then I realised it's resolution!
When you take a snapshot in SL, then go to save to disk, you can choose which resolution to put it at. So I saved my next images at 4920x2606, play around and see what suits you best. Once out of SL you can crop them and size them down if needed but the quality is much higher.
 |
| Click here for the post about what I'm wearing above |
Brightness, Contrast and Layer Modes
Another tip I want to share with you is one I'm already familiar with as I'm familiar with Gimp. It's brightness/contrast and layer modes.Above left: Original image straight out of Second LifeAbove middle: In Gimp I went to Colors > Brightness-Contrast.. and I played with the levels, moving them up until I was happy with the result.
Above right: In the layers window of gimp I duplicated the image twice. The first (middle) layer I changed to "Addition" and changed it's opacity to 25, the second (top) layer I changed to "Overlay" and changed the opacity to 20.
I recommend playing with different layer modes and opacity levels, different modes will work for different images.
 |
| Click here to view the image larger |
Tropical Xiang Mo
Head: ☯ LAQ ☯ ScarletBody: ☯ Maitreya ☯ Lara
Skin: ☯ LAQ ☯ 2.5
Hair: ☯ .Olive. ☯ the Wendy hair
Outfit: ☯ =Zenith= ☯ Xiang Mo complete red set
Background: ☯ Backdrop City ☯
♥✿♥
Follow me on Flickr
Follow me on Twitter
Comments
Post a Comment