Golden Hour Portraiture

[Charalyne Blackwood]

That gorgeous backlit at dawn light effect. Has anyone learned/discovered the trick to doing it in SL?

Samples:

https://soitsrose.nl/challenge-accepted-golden-hour-here-i-come/

 

[Nalates Urriah]

Yes and no...

Virtual worlds lack the detail and physics needed for outstanding backlit images. In RL much of the light is reflected/refracted by tiny hairs, head or on the skin or threads in the fabric. Those don't exist in SL. Light in SL is not real. It is a mathematical rendering of what light would look like in any given scenario. There is no way to get the look you see in RL images with real light. The viewer and system lack the information needed to calculate  that render.

Above you can see the slight highlight from the sun on my hair and shoulders. While one can emphasize that and add more of it, that is all there is to work with in-world.

Backlit SL images are made in Photoshop, or another editor. The striking backlit effects are added in... painted on.