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How does your avatar look today ?


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1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I owe huge thanks to @Orwar, who clued me in, via his explanation of how to produce a mirror reflection, on the means by which to do this!

Was that done in sl or in a program? It's been a good while since I really got into photoshop..It's probably totally different now compared to when I used to do it..

It looks really good no matter how you did it..It looks natural..

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Just now, Ceka Cianci said:

Was that done in sl or in a program? It's been a good while since I really got into photoshop..It's probably totally different now compared to when I used to do it..

It looks really good no matter how you did it..It looks natural..

A combination of both, actually. Basically, you set the pose in front of a mirror (or in my case window), and take the pic from behind. (I think Orwar used green screen for his mirror?). And then, without changing the pose, you swing the camera around to the front, having either de-rendered or applied a transparent texture to the opposite side of the mirror/window/wall, and take a second pic, this time from the front showing what will appear in the reflection.

Then, using image editing software, you flip the reflection shot horizontally, resize and crop, and layer it over top of the first image. In my case, I added a lot of transparency to the reflected image so that you can see what was behind it. I also had to erase those parts of the reflection that should be hidden behind my avi.

It's a bit of work, but the biggest problem (I found) was getting the angle of the reflection shot right. I'm not sure I quite succeeded, but it looks good enough.

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4 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

A combination of both, actually. Basically, you set the pose in front of a mirror (or in my case window), and take the pic from behind. (I think Orwar used green screen for his mirror?). And then, without changing the pose, you swing the camera around to the front, having either de-rendered or applied a transparent texture to the opposite side of the mirror/window/wall, and take a second pic, this time from the front showing what will appear in the reflection.

Then, using image editing software, you flip the reflection shot horizontally, resize and crop, and layer it over top of the first image. In my case, I added a lot of transparency to the reflected image so that you can see what was behind it. I also had to erase those parts of the reflection that should be hidden behind my avi.

It's a bit of work, but the biggest problem (I found) was getting the angle of the reflection shot right. I'm not sure I quite succeeded, but it looks good enough.

   What I did in my first (and so far, only) mirror shot was to set myself up in front of a picture frame, making a green screen on the panel of it and took the shot from behind, then moved my camera position to the opposite side (or well, more like a 120-ish degree swivel since I came in from the side) and took a shot through the wall (just turning the outside face of my skybox transparent - which, lazily remains transparent to this day). I then simply made a cut-out of the panel and made it transparent, and moved the other shot in behind it until it felt like it was in the right position. 

   I think it was from a blog by @Tamara Artis where she explained how to use a mirror prop from her store that brought my attention to the technique. Other than that, there's a method where you use a Windlight to get a reflective, blank surface on SL water; however, that means that whichever plane your mirror is supposed to be on must be facing down - and whilst giving a backdrop a 90 degree flip is well and good, the camera in Firestorm doesn't move freely enough for it to be viable for me. I'd have to do the shot upside down if I wanted anything past a head-on angle from a straight top-down.

   ... Though, now I'm pretty curious to try that. Painters tend to do practice assignments of painting portraits and objects upside down to learn to ignore what they 'think' they see and focus on what the actually do see - not sure if there's any benefit of shooting pictures upside down. Sounds a bit like Pollocks to me. <- pun.

   Anyway, for reference I'll drop the picture again.

 

The Catoptromancer

   Probably should re-visit it, and perhaps add a bit more lighting in the background to see the rest of the room behind me, it's very much just black in this one ... Then again, it kind of fits the subject in the shot as it's inspired by captromancy - an ancient form of divination used in Greece and the Roman Empire to 'find out' whether sick people would survive their disease or not. It was later brought into the fold of Western occultism as a means of scrying. 

   ... So obviously, when someone brings up shooting mirrored shots, ghosts was the first thing that came to mind for me.

Edited by Orwar
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16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Really? Cool.

I had assumed the point was just to demonstrate that your reflection can, contrary to all expectation, be seen in a mirror.

   Or maybe it's a ruse, and I'm sitting in front of one of the worst made portraits in history. 😈

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1 minute ago, Orwar said:

Or maybe it's a ruse, and I'm sitting in front of one of the worst made portraits in history. 😈

. . . which is becoming progressively more repulsive with each passing day, while you remain young, dark, and beautiful?

Now, that I can believe.

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Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

. . . which is becoming progressively more repulsive with each passing day, while you remain young, dark, and beautiful?

Now, that I can believe.

   ... And now I know what movie to watch tonight. Thanks!

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22 minutes ago, Angelina String said:

As a scandinavian, I assuming you go for the danish silent movie version from 1910 ;) ?

   ... Danish? The arch-enemy?! Never!

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1 hour ago, Kotelle said:

suddenly there are a lot of scandinavians, I've thought I've been alone!

Well, mostly Swedes at the moment it seems :D

54 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   ... Danish? The arch-enemy?! Never!

Oh, thank you - glad you have no bad feelings towards Norwegians :P

- - -

And to bring this on topic, here I am checking with the mirror how my avatar looks today :D

Snapshot_1018c.thumb.jpg.f3b722c90e2d33e48965da9e2725a89f.jpg

 

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1 minute ago, Angelina String said:

Oh, thank you - glad you have no bad feelings towards Norwegians :P

   The west coast provincials? They're all right. 😀

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33 minutes ago, Eva Knoller said:

This head is the Catwa Lona. I have the Genus Baby Face as well.

Ah, ok! I'm not very good at the "identify the mesh head" game, because I only have two mesh heads, both Genus. So, I naturally assume that every mesh head is a Genus.

It's sort of a case of "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a junk drawer where you can lose it."

Because, really, who in the name of God wants to use a hammer anyway?

Edited by Scylla Rhiadra
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