How does your avatar look today ?

[Laika Ravikumar]

I don’t post process mine. I upload to Flickr, maybe crop sometimes. Mostly wind lights which takes more time than the pose sometimes. 

[kiramanell]

1 minute ago, Laika Ravikumar said:

I don’t post process mine. I upload to Flickr, maybe crop sometimes. Mostly wind lights which takes more time than the pose sometimes. 

 

Thx. I meant post-processing inside the video-card/driver, though, like AA (anti-aliasing). Somehow screengrabs I make lack this post-processing, and look all zig-zaggy (upon zoom); whereas screenshots I see posted here appear to look exactly like inworld.

[VictoriaGrwd]

I have settings on Ultra and use a couple of photoshop actions.

[VictoriaGrwd]

[Miakis Littlepaws]

[Catrie]

53 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

Well, since I decided to go with blonde again, here's a blonde question, LOL. No, seriously, how come all your screenshots look so perfect? I mean, mine look all edgy (like with no post-processing, like AA, it seems). I just use PrintScreen. Is there a better way?

There is a camera option, in the viewer, that allows you to take pics and save them.  If you use FireStorm, look for the little camera icon. 

[Catrie]

 

[Rhiannon108]

1 hour ago, kiramanell said:

Well, since I decided to go with blonde again, here's a blonde question, LOL. No, seriously, how come all your screenshots look so perfect? I mean, mine look all edgy (like with no post-processing, like AA, it seems). I just use PrintScreen. Is there a better way?

I defer to all the Goddesses (who are also photo Goddesses) on here to address this question well. But, I think using the viewer photo function with settings on your viewer and your photo turned all the way up is better quality than a simple screenshot. (I'm quite envious of the photo quality of most people in this forum though will admit that I do no post as I'm incompetent and lazy. I am staring to play with face lights and other lights.)

[Zeta Vandyke]

[Coby Foden]

B & W experiment

[KaiaWang]

more 'xploring

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 hours ago, kiramanell said:

 

Thank you, Scylla. As usual, you say incredibly wise things, and say them incredibly well. 💛

Changing my identity, as it were, is indeed a biggie for me. While I love the whole 'Surrogates' spiel, part of me really feels uncomfortable having to reinvent myself. New mesh head looks lovely, but I still need to tweak it plenty, to make it my own. I kinda got used to my current avi; it really feel like me: tiny, sweet, and a bit frail. It will be hard to replicate that in my new body. So, looking at your avi, I am all the more (again) in awe over your talent, as I know now, from the last week or so, that the kind of sophisticated tinkering you did is pretty darn hard to do. I am actually astounded by most all avis I see here. On this page alone, I think the avis of Kotelle and BelindaN, for instance, look adorable too. But that's the excellent point you were making: they're not just great looking avis, but really carry their personalities somehow. And that makes them awesome. Same as with you. It's kind of a silly thing to say, as I haven't seen your previous avi, but it truly feels like you.  To paraphrase the German poet, "In der Personifizierung zeigt sich erst der Meister."

It's not every day I get to respond to Goethe in SL!

There are lots of people, of course, who don't feel this way, including some on this thread who really enjoy the freedom to play with, not merely their hair or wardrobe, but their entire look. It represents, I guess, a different sort of relationship with digital identity -- something somewhat akin to the old, and probably rather reductive, distinction between "augmentationist" and "immersionist"?

I'll confess to being an utter slave to my identification with my avatar, to the point where it feels really weird to assume a male shape and outfit for photos (as I sometimes do), and really disturbing when bad things, like deformation, happen to my avi. It also explains how my alt, Laskya, was almost instantly recognized as me when I first introduced her to the forums after a couple of years' hiatus from this place. (Also, maybe, why I can't role play.)

But on the flip side, that is a limitation that i think also enables a different kind of creativity? To switch from Goethe to a paraphrase of a rather similar idea as expressed by Robert Frost, not having a sort of baseline of a sense of self from which to work feels rather too much like playing tennis without a net. How far can I stretch, what new ways can I find, to express the digital me?

[Rhiannon108]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

 (Also, maybe, why I can't role play.)

 

I'm happy you wrote this as it resonates with me. I'm not in sl to rp (though my presentation understandably causes many to assume that's true). Just exploring creating my sl self.

[kiramanell]

1 hour ago, Coby Foden said:

B & W experiment

 

^^ B & W experiment grand success! 🖤

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, kiramanell said:

Well, since I decided to go with blonde again, here's a blonde question, LOL. No, seriously, how come all your screenshots look so perfect? I mean, mine look all edgy (like with no post-processing, like AA, it seems). I just use PrintScreen. Is there a better way?

Using high graphics settings makes a big difference, obviously, such as a high anti-aliasing (I use 16x, which is highest in FS anyway), and LOD. You can also, using the Phototools in FS, make some really striking adjustments to things like depth of field, view angle, and shadow blur and quality. Some of those you can do through the SL viewer, but they're harder to find than in FS. Other viewers I don't know so much about, but Black Dragon is supposed to be very good.

Those are all things that will appear on your screen, and that you can actually capture with a screen grab. What makes the snapshot tool so especially useful (apart from the fact that it will ignore HUDs and other elements of the interface) is that it allows you to take what are probably much higher resolution pics than are likely available through your screen. I regularly take mine at a width resolution of 6000 pixels. And what that means, is there you capture much more detail. As importantly, when you save your pics at a reduced size (the largest I ever use to post here is a width of 3600 pixels), the scaling down tends to really reduce the sharp or jagged edges in the screen shot, and make everything look a bit smoother.

[Zeta Vandyke]

3 hours ago, Rhiannon108 said:

I defer to all the Goddesses (who are also photo Goddesses) on here to address this question well. But, I think using the viewer photo function with settings on your viewer and your photo turned all the way up is better quality than a simple screenshot. (I'm quite envious of the photo quality of most people in this forum though will admit that I do no post as I'm incompetent and lazy. I am staring to play with face lights and other lights.)

Cranking up the graphics to max, with shadows, and using Depth of Field is what makes a ton of difference. And the resolution of the picture is important. Higher is better, though myself I stick to current window so they stay around 3 to 4 MB in size. 

So basically, I'm parroting Scylla, but shes right

Edited August 8, 2019 by Zeta Vandyke

[Scylla Rhiadra]

15 minutes ago, Rhiannon108 said:

I'm happy you wrote this as it resonates with me. I'm not in sl to rp (though my presentation understandably causes many to assume that's true). Just exploring creating my sl self.

Yes, totally. Closest I've ever come to RP was back in the old days of forum when I'd occasionally assume just for local effect a comic persona (Gorean Manly Man, for my alt Richard, or occasionally Clueless Blonde for me -- that one's less of a stretch . . .). I suppose that putting my avi into narrative situations for photos sort of counts, but again, that's very "local." (And even that does sometimes feel weird -- don't get me started on the impact that taking pics of myself naked on a whole lot of sexual torture devices had when I was building an exhibit years ago on that subject. It was a little traumatizing, tbh.)

I think the world of RP should be grateful that it is being spared a first-hand acquaintance with my utter incompetence.

 

[kiramanell]

12 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Using high graphics settings makes a big difference, obviously, such as a high anti-aliasing (I use 16x, which is highest in FS anyway), and LOD. You can also, using the Phototools in FS, make some really striking adjustments to things like depth of field, view angle, and shadow blur and quality. Some of those you can do through the SL viewer, but they're harder to find than in FS. Other viewers I don't know so much about, but Black Dragon is supposed to be very good.

Those are all things that will appear on your screen, and that you can actually capture with a screen grab. What makes the snapshot tool so especially useful (apart from the fact that it will ignore HUDs and other elements of the interface) is that it allows you to take what are probably much higher resolution pics than are likely available through your screen. I regularly take mine at a width resolution of 6000 pixels. And what that means, is there you capture much more detail. As importantly, when you save your pics at a reduced size (the largest I ever use to post here is a width of 3600 pixels), the scaling down tends to really reduce the sharp or jagged edges in the screen shot, and make everything look a bit smoother.

 

Thank you, Scylla! 👍 This is extremely useful information! I'm going to try that out, tout de suite. l have a GTX 1080 Ti, with everything set to max, 16x AA, and a 3.2 shadow quality. Inworld, things really look very good; but with a PrintScreen, not so much.  

[Rhiannon108]

4 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think the world of RP should be grateful that it is being spared a first-hand acquaintance with my utter incompetence. 

lol...same here!!!

[Zeta Vandyke]

4 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Thank you, Scylla! 👍 This is extremely useful information! I'm going to try that out, tout de suite. l have a GTX 1080 Ti, with everything set to max, 16x AA, and a 3.2 shadow quality. Inworld, things really look very good; but with a PrintScreen, not so much.  

Thats the same card I have, should give you awesome quality pics.

But with print screen, you mean actual Windows Printsrceen? Instead of the viewers photo snap tool? Because that would kinda explain a bit

[Skell Dagger]

I'm not a photo goddess (or even a goddess, damn it) so I guess I shouldn't be answering Kira's question, but hey-ho.

I have an  SL Photography for Beginners tutorial on my blog if you fancy a read of it, Kira. In section 1 I explain how to get those high-resolution screenshots. The tutorial was written partly with fashion photography in mind, but I do at least cover some of the basics of what can be done.

[kiramanell]

4 minutes ago, Zeta Vandyke said:

Thats the same card I have, should give you awesome quality pics.

But with print screen, you mean actual Windows Printsrceen? Instead of the viewers photo snap tool? Because that would kinda explain a bit

 

LOL, yeah, I've been doing it the actual actual 'Windows Printsrceen' way. 😳 I think I'm familiar with the snapshot tool (in FS), but I thought that was just for taking low-res snapshots to inventory (with the wrong aspect ratio to boot).

Thx!

[kiramanell]

7 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

I'm not a photo goddess (or even a goddess, damn it) so I guess I shouldn't be answering Kira's question, but hey-ho.

I have an  SL Photography for Beginners tutorial on my blog if you fancy a read of it, Kira. In section 1 I explain how to get those high-resolution screenshots. The tutorial was written partly with fashion photography in mind, but I do at least cover some of the basics of what can be done.

 

Thank you! Will look into that too!  

[Saravendi]

the beach in heels 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

17 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Thank you, Scylla! 👍 This is extremely useful information! I'm going to try that out, tout de suite. l have a GTX 1080 Ti, with everything set to max, 16x AA, and a 3.2 shadow quality. Inworld, things really look very good; but with a PrintScreen, not so much.  

Yeah, with a card like that, definitely use high res snapshot pics. You'll notice the difference.

And take a look at Skell's blog for sure. Skell (who is an honourary Photo Goddess) is not only an amazing photographer (as witness his pics here), but also a superb teacher. It was he who shoved me headlong down the slippery slope of "serious" SL photography with a short but incredibly helpful tutorial on lighting.

I still haven't recovered my footing.

Thanks Skell!