Photography for MP

[xIITaylorIIx]

Can anyone tell me best practice for making snapshots of clothes without the actual body parts inside? I tried to just make the body parts disappear with my hud but unfortunately it also makes certain parts of the clothing invisible, like the back of the pants.

[Lutricia Roux]

For both of the suggestions below, I assume you are using some kind of graphic software as well to edit your snapshots.

1. If you are using system clothes or clothes layer on a mesh body, only wear the actual clothes and nothing else.
2. If you are using mesh clothes, only wear the mesh clothes and put on a full body alpha OR rez the mesh clothes.

Take snapshots against a green, blue or white background, delete/mask everything but the clothing.
Set the background as transparent and save as .png or use alpha layers if you are familiar with the use of them, save as .tga.
Upload the images back to Second Life.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Lutricia Roux

[Talligurl]

Why do you want to do this? As a shopper in the MP I prefer seeing how the clothes look on someone. I would be more likely to but if I see the clothing on a model.

[Tamara Artis]

From my experience it is best to hire someone to do this for you  

[Yannick568 Sands]

Some mesh clothes doesn't have have textures inside, so the inside part of the pants will appear transparent. You can quickly check this by simply rezzing the mesh on the floor and see if the inside of the pants appears transparent or not. It's up to you to use a graphic software to fill back the areas. 

If you're talking about system clothing, the suggestion of Lutricia is the one I'll go to. And also, as Tamara said, it might save you time to hire a professional to do it ;-)

[DragonLady Merlin]

I just build a plain white box, put the item inside, put in a hanger if desired, zoom in close and snap the photo.

The white "infinity" background tends to be the best for selling most items that aren't on a model.

[Klytyna]

1. Get a model, either your self or a friend or hire somebody, use the same model for all shots.

2. Try and keep the pose similar in each shot, the use of the same model and pose means people can clearly make comparisons between how different items look on the model.

3. When taking your shots, do NOT use some fancy 'creative' windlight setting, too many product shots are ruined because the vendor chose to photograph using "CluelessAsshat's Too Damn Dark And Moody" windlight because it's "so artistic". You are NOT making art here, you are showin g potential customers what the product looks like.

4 Never ever hire a "Professional SL Photographer" to take your shots, the few who are worth a damn are too expensive for product shots, the many who are affordable are no damn use, because of a combination of point 3 and point 5...

5. Do NOT subject your product shots to excessive amounts of gratuitous layer abuse in Adumby Photosnob or other 2d image butchery apps. Again people want to SEE the product, not how good you or your photographer are at postworking bad pics to make them worse.

 

If you walked into a FirstLife shop, and there were NO windows, and NO lights, and every piece of product was displayed in a dark corner, on a different shaped dummy, and there was a sign by the door on the check-out counter that read...

"See our stuff... Candles $1 Matches $9 Drip wax on or set fire to it, and you bought it"

Would you shop there?

So, a Brand Model, a Store Product Pose, well lit against a neutral background, and no fancy shmancy arty farty postwork layer abuse.

Simple.

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Klytyna

[Talligurl]

Oh and if you can't find anyone else. I will model for you, I will work cheep, just the bragging right is enough for me.