Skell Dagger

Izzie has a lot of great fixes for issues like that: removing unwanted highlights and contouring/blush, fixing shadows and painted on lashes above and below the eyes, etc. Definitely worth checking out if you're using an older classic skin on a mesh avatar. I have a notecard listing them all, so when I log in later I'll send it to you.

This look was one I put together for a long and detailed blog post guiding men through how to use an old classic skin gift on the Freya gift head and the L$1 Legacy 'Classic' body. Unfortunately - after spending hours on writing that post and publishing it - the very next day that skin gift was taken down by the store owner. Ah well; the principles are still the same... This entire avatar came in at a total of L$519.

Your powder compact awaits

Not sure on that, Scylla, but I've always had my settings at that level and never changed them. I suspect - from what kiramanell is saying about antialiasing not appearing in eventual screenshots - that their NVIDIA control panel may not be set to allow application-controlled antialiasing.

@kiramanell: My immediate suggestion would be to drastically reduce your draw distance. With it set that high (624m) you're rendering things that are up to three regions away. If you're not going for extreme distance shots, you can pull that way down for avatar photography. I very rarely go above 96m for mine, but 128m would safely show anything reasonably distant in a background. In addition: I assume you have High-res Snapshots selected in your viewer's Advanced menu? Addendum: I've just noticed that you mention antialiasing does not appear in the eventual screenshot. Have a dig around in the NVIDIA Control Panel to ensure you have your antialiasing set to use advanced 3D settings (image here) then click that 'take me there' link, select Firestorm in the list on the Program Settings tab, and make sure that 'Antialiasing - Mode' is set to 'Use global setting (Application-controlled)' as in this image.

I primarily use an image editor called ON1 Photo 10 (now sadly no longer available in that format, although you can still buy the Effects section of the program, which is the bit that I mostly use). It allows me to layer tons of different filters, edit and tweak each filter to the enth degree (like @momomoonusagi, I enjoy doing that kind of post-processing work; it's another part of the creative process for me, and I treat it as an extension to my inworld photography in the same way as setting up the pose, background, and lighting/Windlight), and then I save each new/tweaked combination of filters as a preset. I have a large collection of self-made presets that I (somewhat lazily!) keep going back to - the one named 'Heavy Fire' now has multiple tweaked variants and is my most frequently used preset - but I still create new ones now and then. Here's a quick video showing a scroll through some of my saved presets to show how each one affects a single image. I edit according to the mood I want to set for the image, be that a bright and almost blinding high-key effect when I want sharp focus, or something more shadowed and nuanced. Always I have to bear in mind that for many of my shots I'm promoting creators' products, so my images need to be clear and show those products without too much over-editing. Some examples of how filters affect one recent image, with descriptions beneath: This is the raw inworld shot, taken using projected lighting and whichever Windlight suited the mood best (I honestly don't remember which one!) This one uses one of the 'Heavy Fire' presets. Heavy Fire comprises: glow, HDR, bleach bypass, and vignette filters This one is more stylised and complex and uses the 'Syd Deep 01' preset, which comprises: glow, HDR, colour enhancer, two lens flares, another colour enhancer, tone enhancer, bleach bypass, and vignette. Video here showing before and after. This one is again stylised and uses the 'Vaporwave' preset, which is overblown and highly-lit. This preset comprises: glow, HDR, cross process, adjustable gradient, polarizer, 'sunshine', and gradient. For posting above I edited the filter a bit, reducing the cross process opacity by half. Video here showing before adjustment, after it, plus the original. If I were re-editing that shot to post it again I would probaby opt for some tweaks to No.3 because I love the way that one has some hints of red and yellow tones to it that really counter the pastel pink in the image. It's slightly surreal and really catches the eye, so that makes it a winner. Below - for better comparison (and behind a spoiler tag, so I don't take up half the thread!) - are larger versions of the original and that No.3 shot:

How high a resolution are you using, and what is your antialiasing set to in the viewer's graphics prefs? With a 1080Ti you should have no problem getting crisp edges (my GPU is a GTX 1060, so it's a lower spec than yours and I always get crisp results). Set your viewer's antialiasing to a minimum of 4x but with that GPU you should easily be able to push it to 16x, which is what I use. Aim to save to disk in PNG format at approximately 5000px width, which - when scaling down in your graphics editor of choice - you can subsequently save as a high quality JPG (quality of approx 11 or 12) using an optimised 'baseline' quality format if your editor gives you multiple scaling options. I always run Firestorm's graphics prefs on the setting between High and Ultra, with all avatar-related settings maxed (avatar cloth is always off, as it only affects system pants). Here are screenshots of my graphics prefs and hardware prefs, to use as examples.

I get that if someone @ replies me, yes. But not if they just type my name, as Seicher did. I've still not figured out why Clover's post asking us all to show off our footwear was moved to the Creation sub-forum. That one had me scratching my head for ages, since it was all about this forum's subtitle: "Discuss how to individualize your avatar and exchange tips," so why on earth it was moved to the Creation sub-forum was completely beyond me. That thread - previously very active while in Your Avatar - also died a death once it had been moved. Creation > Avatar is the graveyard for quite a few wonderful threads that once flourished up here in the heady heights of Your Avatar.

We did have that. Orwar started the thread, but it was in the Photography sub-forum, so it just got buried and nobody used it. If such a thread was started in the Your Avatar forum - to post images and discuss techniques and whatnot - I'm not sure it would stay there

Not sure how I'd even do that Nah, I was just browsing and saw your post. On the subject of 'thread rules' I do recall one of the Linden mods here (can't remember who now) mentioning sometime last year that - if that thread didn't stay reasonably on-topic (i.e. pictures of your avatar) - then it might be closed. That was most likely after a bit too much text was posted there, so - while I'm not making excuses for some of what's gone on there of late - that may be behind some of the concerns about keeping the thread to mostly images. And yes, I'd be happy to share before and after images. I was just now messing around in Photoscape (free program with a great 'page' function to tile multiple images into a single sheet) to do exactly that, after reading your ponderings. I'd just stick them both in the same image rather than linking to Flickr for the 'after'. It would make the changes more visible (and would - in many cases when it comes to my own images - show that I don't actually do all that much in post; I just layer on some filters!)

That would be a great idea for a separate thread on its own: before and after shots showing the difference. I'd be happy to participate in something like that.

I should probably shoulder most of the blame for the 'How Does Your Avatar Look Today' thread changing It began to change soon after Scylla asked for feedback on one of her images and I gave some tips on lighting that I eventually felt went on for far too long and deviated from what the thread was intended for (and for which I recall apologising). The Vanity Thread has - for quite some time now - been the domain of a couple of bloggers plus the promotion of one store's products. I stopped posting there ages ago.

"'tis a new type of photography, sir. Only thruppence for a quarter plate, or a shillin' for two." "Just the one will suffice." "Right you are, sir. Now hold still, please."

/me raises an eyebrow. Like a what?

Man of Colours... VICE X #ADORED for Cyber/Punk Fair, opening May 10th. Full credits here.

No need to ask him for that, but I'm happy to get some extra kisses from him anyway

They are BoM. I''ve been wearing them for two days now and I have system eyes showing on them. You may need to hit the BoM button twice, but the Freya rigged eyes most definitely are BoM. Additionally: Don't use the gift BoM relay! That's only for the non-Bento heads. All of Catwa's Bento heads now have that BoM button on the skins tab - assuming you have the v4.5 update (which Freya's release version is anyway). If you have an older Catwa Bento head, just redeliver your original purchase, unpack it, and the update will be inside. If your older version is v3.0 or above you can follow this video to transfer your look across from the old head to the new (including all appliers and tints) in just two simple clicks.

The head has BoM capability. No need for the additional BoM relay, though. Just remove your alpha layer and then look in the skins tab of your Master HUD, at the top right: You do need to click that button in order to activate BoM. The head is not BoM out of the box, as it were. In addition: in an earlier post on this thread you mentioned you couldn't wear the included rigged eyes. Make sure that you ADD and don't WEAR.

Yes, I'm aware that's what you were discussing. I just noticed that Tarina's eyeball textures seemed quite high and rolled up a little behind her upper eyelids, so I offered a quick tip on how to lower them. It's just something that now comes as second nature regarding my inworld work: if I see a potential issue I try to offer a solution to it.

@Tarina Sewell Quick tip: you can use the included Eye HUD in the Freya folder to move the eye textures down on your rigged eyes if you don't want them to be that high. It works on both eye appliers and BoM eyes, assuming that you're using the included Freya rigged mesh eyes. Quick video tutorial here. (The HUD can also be used to resize the textures.)

I believe this error can also happen if your IP is dynamic and you're assigned an IP address that has been banned from accessing Second Life.

A quick unedited shot, taken while I started prepping up a how-to for the Catwa 'Freya' unisex head gift and L$1 Legacy 'Classic' male body. Blog post hopefully up in the next couple of days.

Apology accepted, Sam, and no hard feelings. What you said was nowhere near as bad as what was said in the situation I described up there. It's water under the bridge now, mate, so don't worry about it

I'm calm now but I was well beyond angry and into the realms of absolutely boiling livid this morning. I woke up to offline IMs from my partner telling me that he had received mouthfuls of abuse from a troll who had been utterly vile in the Catwa chat, and who had then - once I'd kicked and banned him - been vile in my IMs (followed by three of his 'friends' who told me they 'knew' that 'Catwa b!tch' has sent the Genus DMCA). He and his cronies have now been AR'd for harrassment. I don't give a damn if you decide to target me for something you incorrectly assume my employer did, but you LEAVE MY PARTNER THE HELL ALONE. He has nothing to do with Catwa. I know I sound like those "mess with my partner and you mess with me" profile idiots, but dear god I haven't felt rage like that in a long time. As if that wasn't bad enough, when my partner then went into the Catwa support group to ask what was going on and to ask if anyone else had received abuse like that (because I was offline and asleep and he couldn't ask me, but he guessed it was something to do with Catwa) some woman who has been needling the group with constant complaints for three days proceeded to keep repeating that he was a creep, he was creepy, omg you're a creep and I'm blocking you NOW. Insinuating that - because he was asking for help in a support group - he was some kind of pervert. Since we unfortunately had no CSRs online at that moment nobody could nip her nasty accusations in the bud by muting her chat. I drafted up a response to her but never sent it. I just needed to get it out of my system, I guess. I'm still silently fuming, but there's no point sending that IM to her, since she appears to be the kind who thrives on creating drama. Every time she popped up to start with her litany of little whinges she encouraged others to crawl out of lurking, like a Pied Piper of Misery and Complaint. She is firmly on my radar now. One more bit of unpleasantness from her, and I swear the banhammer will hit her arse so hard she'll wake up on Pluto...

Putting this here, since I don't want to draw attention elsewhere: @Akasha Sternberg and @Josephine Carissa - Thank you both so very much. You made me smile after what has been an incredibly stressful couple of days. It means a lot ❤️ And of course this tops the page. Of course it does...