AyelaNewLife

This looks great! And yay for another convert! I find the Black Dragon solution to alpha channel overlap to be a little overzealous, and the blur can be a little too much for pics like this. What I started doing is taking two identical snaps (ctrl+alt+F to freeze the world), one with "alphas into depth" (one of the DoF checkbox options) on and one with it off, and then layering them with a 30-70% opacity in editing. It doesn't always work, especially when the hair is in front of plants, but can help add some depth to the hair while avoiding the "flickering" effect you can get with the option turned on. eg + = This example isn't the best, because the left picture (alphas into depth turned on) doesn't have much alpha channel overlap, so probably would have been fine as a pic regardless. But I still think it helps give the hair a sense of depth, and looks pretty great. I do the same. I find Firestorm performs better for "everyday" stuff, but Black Dragon in "photo mode" runs far smoother with much better results than Firestorm. Plus I can't get music to play in Black Dragon, although all other sound works fine, so I've probably broken a setting somewhere. It also means that I don't really have to change the graphics settings on either viewer, which is great because I'm really lazy and would otherwise forget to turn stuff back on/off after taking a shot.

Out of curiosity, was this image linked back to you in any way? Could it have given you any increased traffic or publicity? If they just "stole" (with your permission) it and used it purely for their own ends, then yeah I fully agree with you that's kinda a bad, one-sided deal.

In other words, the way they would treat your Second Life account? Yeah, that would be nice

I'm amazed that you think the second pic is sexually suggestive and should be restricted... but I do see where you're coming from. Hypothetically, if that "wandering hand" did not belong to me but instead belonged to another (with nothing else exposed), would that count as a sexual position? I think that they both count. But I also think that this falls into that "grey area" where flickr is unlikely to take action against your account if I were to set that one to moderate, even if it should be restricted. The very first pic of the day (that I could find) contains blur, from August 2011. Several more from that first week also use DoF. I just couldn't get my head around how you could possibly think that using DoF - which is so ubiquitous in all kinds of photography or screenshot-based art - could disqualify you from the pic of the day when we have seven years of winning examples that disagree. But everyone makes mistakes, not a big deal I was mocking myself with that last picture, if you want to report me for self-deprecating humour, then be my guest, I guess... I think you're right. You can also see the nipple outline, I'm guessing it's been treated the same way RL bodypaint would - treated as nude. While there is no way to be certain, I think this is one of those cases that would have been allowed if it was marked as moderate. There are guidelines, those guidelines are subjective and often open to interpretation, certainly with the edge cases; the fact that we're trying to bend logic to justify why flickr have penalised this latex picture is a perfect example of this. Simply saying that flickr doesn't police it as harshly doesn't really explain what I mean that well, and that's my fault. Let me put it this way; if my first picture was marked as moderate, and assuming that flickr thinks that it should instead be restricted, would that one infringement be enough to restrict my account and give me a warning point? Would every customer service rep apply that punishment, or do you think that some would let that slide? Now imagine that I had instead marked that picture as safe; do you not agree that flickr would be more likely to punish me for it? That's what I meant by saying they policed incorrectly-marked safe pictures more harshly. I hope that made sense

Relevant xkcd:

Context absolutely matters. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ayelanewlife/42951569882/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/ - not safe for work. Is this "moderate" or "restricted"? Technically, all you can see is bare breasts and butts, so it should be rated as "moderate" right? Nope, the pose is extremely suggestive, and inappropriate for general viewing. Even if I added shorts and a t shirt, to cover everything up, would this be family friendly? Absolutely not, it's still, uh, "self-love"; still sexual content. Or for a more blatant, older example: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ayelanewlife/27323427337/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/ - also not safe for work. No bare butts, no bare breasts (okay maybe a hint of sideboob), should this one be rated as "safe"? Of course not, it is extremely obvious what is happening here, and that is far from family friendly. This is rightly rated as "restricted"; "moderate" is not enough. You're also selectively ignoring my words. I never said that flickr does not police incorrectly set filters; just that they do so less harshly. Oh, and next time, if you're going to play the "go read the guidelines" card, make sure you've actually read them first: Depth of Field is a pretty basic concept for photographers of both the real life and second life varieties. You're perfectly entitled to feel that it has been used inappropriately here, as it is definitely an unconventional use of DoF, but "blur is bad" is naive from someone who (like me) is still learning and progressing as an artist. You yourself have used DoF blur in your work! And I'd recommend actually looking at the pics of the day before making such blatantly incorrect sweeping statements. Here's the most recent pic of the day: See that? Blur. And nicely done too. You can check through the recent pics if you'd like, to see just how many contain "blur". Not all of them, sure, because it's not always appropriate. But enough to make it clear that blur does not discount your work from pic of the day selection.

They don't do that, they just slap a content restriction across your entire account, so that everything will be treated as if it was tagged "restricted", no matter what tag you actually give it. Even then, all you have to do is quickly fix the incorrectly rated photos, flag it for re-review and they'll remove the restriction. You can also set your account to give your work a different default content rating. As my work covers all three categories, I set mine to "moderate" (as most of mine should be "moderate" anyway) so that if I do forget to rate my work, it will be hidden behind the "age verification" wall (that children can get around easily; but that's flickr's problem not ours). The line between "moderate" and "restricted" is kinda blurry, but also policed less harshly by flickr. I mark mine as Illustration/Art/Animation/CGI because I edit my work, sometimes fairly heavily. None of mine are "faithful representations" of what you can see in your viewer, and I feel that the "CGI" tag more closely fits what I'm doing than a gameplay screenshot. But as loverdag said, the main purpose of those two categories is to keep the actual photography away from everything else. I agree, I just wanted to counter the people that think that wearing a swimsuit (not even a bikini!) in a non-suggestive pose was enough to justify a ban or that the picture wasn't family friendly. I also wasn't a fan of the criticism of the clever and beautifully done perspective in her photo. Kindness is free and pretty great, and all that

There is nothing in this picture that warrants a ban. Perhaps it might not be accepted as the pic of the day because of the naked female shoulder (my eyes don't roll far enough back), but never a ban. And even if it did, it's horrendous unprofessional for LL to ban you without even sending you a note explaining why. Also I love what you did with DoF here, it's gorgeous x

If there's one group that doesn't get enough hate, it's necroposters

If it's not the "begone noobling" response, it's the "you have an IQ above your SL age in days and therefore must be an alt of an experienced player" line. I don't like to judge other people, if it took them six months to work out how to right click -> add a mesh body, or how to google "second life blog" (second option is Strawberry Singh), then good for them. But I do appreciate it if people don't project their own inadequacies onto me. I wish I could say it is just a small vocal minority, but in my experience I can roughly divide the SL playerbase into those who think that I'm am alt and think it's an issue, and those who think that I'm an alt but don't care. Highly frustrating.

This is even more important with the introduction of a paid way to change your name. LL's first interaction with a potential future customer can now be boiled down to "hey I know we tricked you into signing up with the garbage username that you've been using since your first hotmail account, but you can now pay up to fix this!!1". What a perfect way to drive away players.

Thank you for clarifying. While this bit is disappointing, I've had cocktails that cost more than a month of premium membership, so it's not a massive deal. C'est la vie and all that.

If you follow the plan in the quoted text, and if you got that bonus the moment you sign up to premium membership for the first time, you're left with L$300 x 4 + L$1000 for your single $10 premium membership payment, which is pretty close to what you'd get by buying $10 of Lindens directly. Which would effectively negate that extra premium requirement for non-premium members to name change, assuming that they periodically buy Lindens (and I imagine most do). Instead, I'd have to pay $10 to get $5 of Lindens and a few perks that don't affect me (personally that is), just to have access to the ability to pay a fee for the name change. Which kinda sucks, even if the amount isn't that significant a problem. Slight mental gymnastics, admittedly, but I'd hoped that made sense from the context.

It's a shame that the $1000 bonus for your first premium signup doesn't kick in until 45 straight days of premium to be honest

I can almost guarantee that the double dip would be the least expensive of the two options, if I wanted to get a new account back to the same level as this one if LL want to break their own rules and transfer all of my no-transfer things to a new account then sure, why not; somehow I doubt that will be an option.

What on earth is happening in this thread? Back on topic; as someone who is new to SL, and also got caught out by the whole "by the way, we forgot to tell you that this isn't a login username like we said, it's actually a visible display name" thing, I'd be quite happy to pay a sensible fee to change my name into a first+last name setup. Having to be a premium member as well? Ew, no thanks. I'm sure this topic has been discussed to death here, but for me personally premium membership represents a near doubling of the $ cost of Lindens for very little that benefits me in return, although I get that others will find more use for the premium perks. I do hope that Linden Labs do not try and "double dip" by both charging a fee and demanding premium membership for name changes, a single small fee (lets say $10) is more than enough for a name change.

Take a look at the underside of the chin. 5$ says that the underside of the chin is the same, slightly darker colour as the rest of your body, and that it is just the face that is lighter. Many skin designers do this in an effort to make their skins more "photogenic"; that tonal difference can help make your face stand out from your body more, and avoids your chin seeming to disappear into your neck if in less-than-ideal lighting. My (just replaced) skin did the same thing, and that can often be quite useful - like this: You can just about see the colour seam along the chinline, and ideally the lighter patch of skin would extend another "cm" or so, but it still helps give my in-shadow face some well-needed definition and adds a sense of depth. At least, with a front-on shot. I haven't gotten too many examples of when this effect causes problems (because it looks bad), but here's one: It's a nsfw pose, don't overthink it you can clearly see the colour seam along the chin line here, and how bad it looks from this angle. My new skin does have facial lightening, but it seems much softer than my old, and judging by some test shots I shouldn't have an issue with no-chin. Hope that helps explain what you're seeing and why, anyway x

I'll let you know when I find one, hun

This one. Three lines of small talk is not going to have any impact on my answer, so just get it over and done with. Although the confusion when I reply with more than five words to "how was your day" is often entertaining. The whole concept of a pair of T&A belonging to a brain seems alien to some of these guys.

I'm too lazy to read 6 pages of this nonsense, is the short version that both of these people need to go outside and get some sunlight for a few days?

A shape is indeed nothing more than a set of slider settings. For that reason, a shape will be designed for a specific body; if you're trying to wear a shape that was built using the Signature Gianni body on a system body, it will not look right. Beyond that, maxed settings and the right lighting can make almost anyone look stunning, even if their "normal performance" body isn't quite as impressive. Time has value. For some people, getting the hang of the sliders and spending the time to create a proportional, attractive shape isn't worth the effort when they can get a potentially superior end result for a dollar or so, if not less. Personally, I used the default body shape that came with my head as a base, and heavily tweaked it to my taste from there; each to their own.

The constant bumping of this thread annoyed me so I decided to go investigate. Forum account: made these two posts, no other activity. First SL name: cancelled. Second mentioned SL name: cancelled. Group name: actually "CockShots TV", group exists, free entry, 8 members. Group founder is RubyDymind, not showing up in member list because the account is cancelled while still running the group. Group dead. Flickr account: one for Ruby Dymind, created in 2013, but earliest photo April 20th (two days after this thread). Most recent photo May 2nd. Can't find a flickr for JizzellEnmei or any derivative that I could think of. I hereby declare this thread dead. Now stop posting in it. OP can make a new one if she wants to start this up again.

Indeed - but as with all art, it doesn't have to be connected to the message to have an impact. Take this example (the crop is safe for work, but it's pretty clear what is going on here ). Stripping out the freckles and just having smooth skin there honestly subtracts from the visual impact of the piece, likewise with the male model's tattoos, although to a lesser extent. And yet in other pieces, including an unpublished one of the same pose from a different angle (telling a different story, with a different tone - just not a very good one), I could strip off the freckles and nothing would be lost. Either way, it's another tool to be used in producing our art, and discarding that because the (admittedly 15-year old) engine doesn't handle something like this so well isn't really ideal.

One more post for anyone reading this and expecting it to work miracles: it won't:

Hiya, thanks for the followup! I'd started to use Black Dragon, it takes a bit of getting used to, and is missing a few features that I'm really missing (I miss Firestorm's profile window!), but I like it overall. I've only toyed around with the poser (not used in the photo below), but that seems really powerful, even if only client-side for yourself. And I think you're right, closeup shots in front of an alpha-heavy background aren't going to be too viable. Which is unfortunate, as I spend most of my time on a tropical beach! It's still a massive improvement over before, and less noticeable with most of my shots. This cropped shot is about a third of the width of the full shot (not linking here because nsfw pose, search my name - not username - on flickr if you're interested), and the only thing that really catches the eye are the stray hair strands on the male model, the edges of my hair aren't too noticeable. The original flickering issue with the body alpha layers is almost unnoticeable, even when I throw on another layer into that middle "underwear" slot. So thanks for your help! It was greatly appreciated.