How does your avatar look today ?

[Janet Voxel]

In the spirit of Chrimmas!

[Saravendi]

5 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

Wow! 

[LittleMe Jewell]

 

2 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

• Ctrl+0/Ctrl+8/Ctrl+9 will change the view angle
- - these are equivalent to the zoom feature in real camera, i.e. real camera lens length

• Mouse wheel scrolling changes the camera distance from the subject (works exactly the same way as the Alt+cam feature)
- - it does not change any of the DoF settings (view angle, FOV, f-number, Foc Length)

• f-number works like in real camera

• Foc Length tells what lens length to simulate for the depth of field (DoF) effect
- - bigger numbers produce narrower depth of field (NOTE: this is not the same as real camera lens length it's just a simulation for the DoF effect)

Isn't zooming in just logically changing the camera distance, as opposed to physical? If so, why is there a difference between using the Ctrl+n keys and alt+cam / mouse scrolling?  If there is a difference in logically vs physically changing the distance, how & why?

Then things go greek on me again -- the last two statements truly mean nothing to my brain.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Talligurl said:

There has been some talk her e of late about gowns, and wedding dresses, which got me to wondering if I could still fit into mine,  so I got it out tried it on and of course had to go  visit the church I got married in. This isn't exactly how I looked,  since the shape, skin, head and hair are all different than on the day of the event.

My wedding dress cannot be worn unless I go back to a system body or BOM gets here because the bodice and panties are system layers.  The wedding was back in 2009, before mesh bodies and mesh body appliers.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, ForrestChild said:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your look in this one.

Edited December 21, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Coby Foden]

Visiting London City region. It was rather laggy like often is the case there.

• The "Sweater Dress" is Blueberry's gift, a fatpack with lots of various colour options in the HUD.
• Blueberry has also store credit gift, value 250L$. The credit must be used in Blueberry store within five days after getting it.

Both of the above can be found in Blueberry's stand in "The 2018 Shop & Hop event" at:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/74/103/35

[Orwar]

38 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Isn't zooming in just logically changing the camera distance, as opposed to physical? If so, why is there a difference between using the Ctrl+n keys and alt+cam / mouse scrolling?  If there is a difference in logically vs physically changing the distance, how & why?

   Nah, zooming changes your field of vision, moving your camera closer puts your camera closer. The standard FOV in Firestorm (and the SL viewer I think?) is 1.048 rads, which is roughly 60 degrees. At .35 rads your FOV is close to 20 degrees.

[Alyona Su]

49 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Isn't zooming in just logically changing the camera distance, as opposed to physical? If so, why is there a difference between using the Ctrl+n keys and alt+cam / mouse scrolling?  If there is a difference in logically vs physically changing the distance, how & why?

There IS a  difference. The simple answer is that the default viewer "camera" view gives you a bigger nose than usual. I't's like looking at a mirror through a glass globe: it is distorted. When you "zoom" you are removing that distortion and seeing the true shape (it's like flattening the glass sphere - the more you zoom, the flatter the sphere, the less distortion happening).

It's called Lens Distortion, based on how much of the lens is being used (the curvature of the lens) - here is a "lay-persons" explanation: https://expertphotography.com/what-is-lens-distortion/

The technical description is this: you're not really "zooming" - the lens is curved, the picture gets more distorted the farther toward the edges because of this curvature. When you "zoom", what you are really doing is "blowing up" the picture to eliminate the distorted edges. Think of it as "cropping" the picture in-camera. Since the size of the vire cannot change, the picture is "blown-up" to a larger scale. This appears to us as "zooming in".  AND all I've said is vice-versa when "zooming" out  (using more of the lens edge to create exaggerated distortion, when desired).

Edited December 21, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

Whoops - forgot to put the info in the other thread

Hair: TRUTH ~ Aislin

Jacket: Blueberry ~ Kimi

Skin: Colivati Beauty ~ Tanya (LeLutka)

Body: Maitreya Lara

Wow.

[Amanda Dallin]

3 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

There IS a  difference. The simple answer is that the default viewer "camera" view gives you a bigger nose than usual. I't's like looking at a mirror through a glass globe: it is distorted. When you "zoom" you are removing that distortion and seeing the true shape (it's like flattening the glass sphere - the more you zoom, the flatter the sphere, the less distortion happening).

 

It's called Lens Distortion, based on how much of the lens is being used (the curvature of the lens) - here is a "lay=persons" explanation: https://expertphotography.com/what-is-lens-distortion/

I had some photography classes long enough ago that we used film and developed it in a darkroom.  I think it helps to understand this to have physically changed the lenses and filters for different effects and to have worked with film in a darkroom.  It's been a long time but discussions here are bringing things back to me.

[Alyona Su]

1 minute ago, Amanda Dallin said:

I had some photography classes long enough ago that we used film and developed it in a darkroom.  I think it helps to understand this to have physically changed the lenses and filters for different effects and to have worked with film in a darkroom.  It's been a long time but discussions here are bringing things back to me.

Yes, yes! The wonderful thing about Second Life viewer (all of them) is that the Lindens created it to literally mimic true camera and lens physical properties.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

Then I crank graphics up to ultra and go into phototools > DoF/Glow tab, tick 'Enable Depth of Field (DoF), then tick 'Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen' (then look down to the very bottom right of your screen to note the number it's showing you - make sure to untick the 'Show current FOV' box up top again so you don't go to all the hard work of setting up a shot only to have the FOV number displaying in the snapshot, ruining your pic).

Type that number in the FOV box below, then simply click your cursor inside the number field of the 'f-number' box for it to take effect.

Thanks Anya, lots of useful stuff here!

This tip about adding the FOV info is a really good one! I'm definitely going to try this!

3 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

it helps to exaggerate what you see through the camera because then it usually comes out just right in the final photo, even though it will look horribly overdone through the lens

Yes! I've got adept at doing this, actually, because I found that shadow blur that was showing on my screen and in preview wasn't appearing the same way in the actual pic. I generally crank the blur up to 12 now (which means manually entering the number: the arrow buttons won't go beyond 4). I need to start doing this with the depth of field settings too.

3 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

As mentioned, just have a play with the controls. It's the best way to learn what things do and the effects they create.

I've been mostly setting the view angle and other stuff, as per Wildmist's suggestions, and then eyeballing adjustments. And playing with the controls to see what they do. And mostly, I think, I'm starting to get a feel for it.

3 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

I've shared what I do - it's pretty simple and basic - and please believe me when I tell you I'm no distant relative of Einstein's.

You're sure? Second cousin once removed to Richard Feynman, perhaps?

Thanks!!!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

Mouse wheel scrolling changes the camera distance from the subject (works exactly the same way as the Alt+cam feature)
- - it does not change any of the DoF settings (view angle, FOV, f-number, Foc Length)

OMG. Of course. WHY DID THIS NOT OCCUR TO ME BEFORE????? That totally makes sense!!! THANK YOU.

 

3 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

Foc Length tells what lens length to simulate for the depth of field (DoF) effect
- - bigger numbers produce narrower depth of field (NOTE: this is not the same as real camera lens length it's just a simulation for the DoF effect)

Yes, but here's what is confusing me. This is what Wildmist says about focal length:

Quote

The Firestorm Phototools tooltip says this about the focal length: “This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.”

That’s not what focal length does (I think whoever wrote that tip got it confused with f-number.). In real life photography, a higher focal length produces a narrower angle of view (View angle in Phototools.). And a smaller focal length produces a wider angle of view.

https://kultivatemagazine.com/2016/06/27/sl-photography-focal-length/

In practice, I'm still confused about the actual difference between the effects produced by field of view and focal length in FS.

[Talligurl]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Isn't zooming in just logically changing the camera distance, as opposed to physical? If so, why is there a difference between using the Ctrl+n keys and alt+cam / mouse scrolling

You got several somewhat technical explanations, some of them I don't really understand myself. I do know there are two things you can do, and they correspond to the two things you can do with a real camera. One is to move the camera closer or farther away from the subject. The other is to change the focal length of the lens. Suppose you are taking a picture of an object and you are ten feet away, and it fills your viewfinder. Now suppose you move 100 feet away, that same object will be much smaller in the viewfinder, but you could get a telephoto lense to make the object look the same size. Now the two images will not look exactly alike, because the light enters the camera at different angles, which is what people are talking about when they mention distortion, but there is another aspect of this. Suppose you have two objects, and in the first case one is ten feet away and the other twenty, the one that is twice as far away will look half the size. But if you move back 100 feet, and get that telephoto lens, the close one is 100 feet away, the second 110 feet, just ten percent farther, so it will only look 10 percent smaller. This can be used to adjust the relative size of the foreground objects to the background objects.

[TatianaNikolay]

When one of the Linden Moles traps you in their UFO light and it makes fantastic lighting...you snap pics fast!

[xriyax]

♥

[MirandaBowers]

Took a selfie to commemorate my RL birthday today   : )

[Angelina String]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

That’s not what focal length does (I think whoever wrote that tip got it confused with f-number.). In real life photography, a higher focal length produces a narrower angle of view (View angle in Phototools.). And a smaller focal length produces a wider angle of view.

 

That's another thing that reveals that Myra does not have a complete understanding of optical theories and how they work out in practical use... Focal length does indeed have an effect on the DoF, as well as aperture (f-number). Using a longer focal length at the same f-stop and same focus distance gives you a narrower field in focus.

(and here I started a long and boring explanation on how this works in theory and practical use since I need to know this for my day job, but this is a place for beautiful pictures of lovely avatars, not long and winding stuff about optics, 3D rendering and all that jazz :D - those who against all probabilities should be interested in discussing these and other things regarding photo and 3D-stuff are more than welcome to jump over to my place and have a chat inworld some day )

And another thing - when you need to overdo the settings to get the same DoF in the rendered file as on the screen, that's because your screen resolution and the file resolution does not match, and thereby acts as having two different CoC's

 

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by Angelina String
Getting rid of all that boring offtopic stuff

[Coby Foden]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes, but here's what is confusing me. This is what Wildmist says about focal length:

Quote

The Firestorm Phototools tooltip says this about the focal length: “This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.”

That’s not what focal length does (I think whoever wrote that tip got it confused with f-number.). In real life photography, a higher focal length produces a narrower angle of view (View angle in Phototools.). And a smaller focal length produces a wider angle of view.

In practice, I'm still confused about the actual difference between the effects produced by field of view and focal length in FS.

Wildmist is telling what focal length is in real life photography. Yes, longer lens length produces narrower angle of view, shorter lens length produces wider angle of view. What she forgets is that longer lens also produces narrower depth of field (DOF) and shorter lens produces wider depth of field (DOF) in real life photography.

So, what comes to SL snapshots the Firestorm statement: “This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field” is exactly right. The lens length setting is indeed simulating the DOF effects what different length lenses in RL produce. It does not actually change the lens length in SL snapshots.

So there are two things which affect the depth of field (DOF) in SL snapshots:
• f-number
• Foc length

(In real life those two affect the DOF too. f-number is obvious naturally, but longer lens length means that the DOF is narrower than in shorter length lens with the same f-number setting.)

[Angelina String]

45 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

So there are two things which affect the depth of field (DOF) in SL snapshots:
• f-number
• Foc length

1

Well, there's more I guess, as in real life

Focus distance and CoC (size of film/sensor/rendering resolution) also affect the DoF.

Actually what I do to get approx the same DoF in my files as initially on screen is to do all the focus settings and get this how I want the pic to look.

I then adjust the CoC in Phototools according to the difference between the screen resolution and the resolution of the file I'm saving to. The screen now gets blurrier, but the file will be as the screen looked before I altered the CoC.  By doing it this way I'm keeping the properties of the simulated lens in the rendered version, I get the same focus depth as on the screen (same focus distance in front of and behind the set focus point etc)  and the end result is more predictable than adjusting f-stops, focal length etc just to get more (random) blur in the end result...

(Oh ****, there I started on the  bit I left out in my last post - the reason I get so excited about this is because i love my job and part of my daily doings is to combine photos/film with computer generated graphics, and I obviously need them to match perfectly in focus depth etc.. What frustrate me and makes me fumble around to get some decent results are the off-standard units Second Life is using, ie. I'am used to a CoC of  0.03mm for 35mm film, what the h*ck is 10? And is SL FOV horizontal, vertical or diagonal (most prob diagonal, but still not sure 🤔) - why can't they do standard units 😠 )

But what-the-h**k, guess I'll better be roaming around enjoying/exploring SL instead of trying to get a free viewer to behave like expensive cameras and software  - I'll promise to never again pollute this thread with this tech/theory sh*t

Edited to get the focus off of my self-centred pretentious rant, and better focus on the actually useable tip...

Edited December 22, 2018 by Angelina String
*see above

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Talligurl said:

You got several somewhat technical explanations, some of them I don't really understand myself. I do know there are two things you can do, and they correspond to the two things you can do with a real camera. One is to move the camera closer or farther away from the subject. The other is to change the focal length of the lens. Suppose you are taking a picture of an object and you are ten feet away, and it fills your viewfinder. Now suppose you move 100 feet away, that same object will be much smaller in the viewfinder, but you could get a telephoto lense to make the object look the same size. Now the two images will not look exactly alike, because the light enters the camera at different angles, which is what people are talking about when they mention distortion, but there is another aspect of this. Suppose you have two objects, and in the first case one is ten feet away and the other twenty, the one that is twice as far away will look half the size. But if you move back 100 feet, and get that telephoto lens, the close one is 100 feet away, the second 110 feet, just ten percent farther, so it will only look 10 percent smaller. This can be used to adjust the relative size of the foreground objects to the background objects.

Thank you - this description seemed to make more sense to me.  I then got my old point and shoot camera out, measured out 10 feet and took a picture. I then moved back another ten feet and used the zoom until it looked like the picture was roughly the same size as the previous picture and snapped again.  I then pulled them both up on the computer and better understood.  In many ways I am a visual person and need to either actually see something or have it described in such a way that I actually can manage to visualize it in my head - and I am not good with visualizing things in my head.

I did previously comment that I pretty much failed high school photography because I just couldn't *get it* - just about the only class I ever took that got the better of me.  It was frustrating, to say the least.

Edited December 22, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Coby Foden]

17 minutes ago, Angelina String said:

Well, there's more I guess, as in real life

Focus distance and CoC (size of film/sensor/rendering resolution) also affect the DoF.

🤔Actually what I do to get approx the same DoF in my files as initially on screen is to do all the focus settings and get this how I want the pic to look.😠

Oh yes indeed. CoC is really handy when taking high rez snapshots. Thanks. 🙂

[Nalates Urriah]

On 12/16/2018 at 1:17 AM, Saravendi said:

Sooooo,  I picked up this bouncer dude, Big Mike at a club somewhere. Nice guy, big hands, but doesn't say much...hummm   

 

Doesn't say much.... that's a good thing. Right?

[Nalates Urriah]

Shop and Hop was/is fun. I spent the rest of today getting outfits together. And in the process got some Bento tail... ummm... got a Bento tail.

 

Edited December 22, 2018 by Nalates Urriah
replace image

[Angelina String]

Contemplating life - in the new parts of Dox' Tokyo

[Kia Kiyori]

5 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Wow.

Why, thank you very much Ms Rhiadra

[Kia Kiyori]

5 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

There IS a  difference. The simple answer is that the default viewer "camera" view gives you a bigger nose than usual. I't's like looking at a mirror through a glass globe: it is distorted. When you "zoom" you are removing that distortion and seeing the true shape (it's like flattening the glass sphere - the more you zoom, the flatter the sphere, the less distortion happening).

It's called Lens Distortion, based on how much of the lens is being used (the curvature of the lens) - here is a "lay-persons" explanation: https://expertphotography.com/what-is-lens-distortion/

The technical description is this: you're not really "zooming" - the lens is curved, the picture gets more distorted the farther toward the edges because of this curvature. When you "zoom", what you are really doing is "blowing up" the picture to eliminate the distorted edges. Think of it as "cropping" the picture in-camera. Since the size of the vire cannot change, the picture is "blown-up" to a larger scale. This appears to us as "zooming in".  AND all I've said is vice-versa when "zooming" out  (using more of the lens edge to create exaggerated distortion, when desired).

Yes - exactly right, Alyona Su - it's the 'big-nosed-fish-eyed effect' without ctrl + 0 and 8.