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ValKalAstra

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Posts posted by ValKalAstra

    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    1 hour ago, JeromFranzic said:

    I don't mind using the PBR clients now for photos. I'm beginning to process some looks within them that I normally create with Black Dragon (minus the Dutch angles). Firestorm and Cool VL are my favorites right now for PBR.

    Oh for sure, for me it's a very notable upgrade. Some of the details look much better to me (such as Hair) and it's also a lot more responsive now that it uses more of my VRAM. It's just I've got my usual tools (shaders) on the non PBR client so I was missing things like composition lines, fake raytracing, etc.

     

    • Like 2

    This place gives me the...

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Orwar said:

       Hums 'where everybody knows your naaaame!'

       .. Although I bet almost none of you could pronounce it properly!

    Maybe like Orwell but with a whole lot more waarrrghhhh at the end? Das war mein Gedanke. See I'm offering you a chance to indulge in your favourite hobby.

    As for me, why do I show up here. Don't know. Mostly I'm in the forums to learn and to get inspired by what others do with their images. Well and post my own images.

    I try to help where I can but always also get the feeling I mostly drop images and just dropping images would be a net negative. Just Spam, aye? So I try and make an effort of engaging with people. Reaching out. That's how I usually end up in the general forums.

    Even if nothing ever comes of it, if it gives someone the feeling hey, someone interacted with you and thus the world is maybe a small amount less lonely? That's worth it.

    I don't think I've ever gotten into a fight here with someone. I usually bow out when I notice someone really biting into a topic. Took me a few years to learn that skill though.

     

     

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1

    New Genus heads are out - what do you think?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    This is unexpected to me. The whole Genus Update thing had become a bit of a sour meme and I wrote the brand off, honestly. Good to see some motion again and while I've switched to Lelutka at this point, a bit of competition can't hurt.

    I'll check it out once I'm at my computer. Doubt I'll really use it at this point but you never know.

    • Like 8

    Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    3 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

    thats funny, any woman that said that to a guys question of rl gender, would confirm to the guy that they were in fact male in rl 😂

     

    Well if the trash takes itself out, I'd call that a feature. Okay that was a bit blunt but the point stands. Women have got any number of reasons to not want their gender revealed or even be a topic.

    Not least of all: Creepy dudes creeping. Sexist jokes. Harassment. Stalking. Etc. Sometimes it's just more comfy to not deal with any of that.

    Thus if someone is such a pro epic level dude detector as to be triggered by a woman setting boundaries, well, I'll say good bye, have a good time, thank you for flagging yourself. Good luck in your endeavors.

    • Like 2
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    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted · Edited by ValKalAstra

    Glitter Dancer

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53123795937/in/dateposted-public/

    I feel like my miscalibrated monitors strike again. It's a bit maddening. I've got a dual screen setup and I've calibrated them both but... they're both on the cheaper side and so I've now got the funny situation of never knowing what color to settle for, which of these is closer to the average.

    Such as - I feel like this is too dark. Then I drag it on the other screen and holy... no it's not. Then I look at it on the tablet for good measure and just flop down.

     

    • Like 24

    Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

    It is in your signature and it is quite large and annoying.

    The best part is, it's been like that for weeks and I always ponder whether I should say something, then always decided against it, figuring I'd just scroll past... I may have done a lot of scrolling.

    To the opening poster:

    Your call, really, what you are comfortable with. Operate with the premise of never wanting to hurt anyone and it'll be fine. Explore yourself. Explore gender. Be kind, consider other's emotions. Nothing wrong with figuring things out, regardless of the same tired old snide comments that always pop up in these threads.

    • Like 2
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    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    51 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    Hey! It's not even OPEN yet!!! I still have stuff to add!

     

    Woops. Yah, one day I learn to read dates. I saw the signature link and there I went. I'll try and see if I can make it for the opening. If I can figure out what SLT means in local time :D

    • Like 1

    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    32 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    Yes. Yes, it does!

    I just snowed in and had a look - some really interesting pictures in there. The Geometry of the Human always reminds me of those drawing books I read, when I still had hopes my hands could hold a straight line: Think of the human body as cylinders and cones. Well done!

    • Like 1
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    A general approach for newbie second life photographers

    in Art, Music and Photography

    Posted

    On 8/1/2023 at 10:59 PM, Orwar said:

       You need no gadgets to get started with SL photography. 

    That's a point I keep harping on as well - and I've got vested interests telling me I should claim otherwise but nah! Not only do you not need any gadgets but you really shouldn't be buying them when starting out. Find your footing first, figure out what you actually need. Gadgets aren't the magical ingredient - they're a side-grade. But then again, talking about gadgets, maybe it's because I've spent too much time around generative AI models but I'm having this funny feeling about this thread.

     

     

     

    Introducing Senra Avatars... what do you think?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Yah, I gave it a shot today. I'm not entirely sure what it was meant to be. As a somewhat experienced user, I was rather whelmed by it. It's okay-ish. Obviously it's not meant as a replacement for established brands but something to get new users started and it's here where I feel like there's some potential for improvement.

    For example, I very quickly ran into clipping issues and not just slight issues but outright "entire bum hanging out the skirt" issues. The supplied animation, yah okay. It's an animation. It's less stiff than default  but very uh, expressive. It stands out but not in a good way. I guess it's fine for new players.

    Setup was clunky but I imagine there's likely some UI work still coming, at least I hope so. So all in all, yah - I am just whelmed. It's better than I expected but kind of peters out with a whimper.

     

     

    • Like 3

    Unexplained and unwanted visitors

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    56 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

    So people going "Oh sounds interesting" and checking it ouut expecting some fetish venue, ended in the profile owners enemies living room...

    You know what, maybe I'm not that petty a person after all. That's amazing and deliciously evil.

    As for the topic, my vote goes to: It used to be a store or club that moved. People will drop in on old landmarks as has been noted. Usually takes a moment to get one's bearings and move on.

    • Like 4

    Better preview when fixing physics models?

    in Mesh

    Posted

    Greetings!

    A while ago, a friend of mine and myself decided to learn Blender and create our own home together. We've had some progress, some pitfalls and made use of a lot of tutorials over the months. However we've now hit a bit of a wall with the physics model. We've created our basic house and work on a simplified physics mesh. The uploader in Firestorm complains about mesh density or degenerate triangles and then shows us which edges seem to trip it up. Cool!

    However the preview window is so small and fights our attempts to navigate, that we can't really see in more detail which edge it struggles with precisely, sending us on a wild goose chase. We've now looked over the physics mesh several times and... it's getting painful.

    phsys1copy.thumb.jpg.f6356d7ba5c0cdb60590cfe844e6acfe.jpg

    So - is there a better way to check and fix the physics model? Maybe inside Blender or is there a better preview window that allows us to navigate the view, so we can actually see what's causing the issue?

    Thanks in advance, I don't really know how to better describe the problem. I'm usually the scripting gal :D

    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    40 minutes ago, Tayt3rChip said:

    Ok so from what I understood , learning the theory behind what a tool does and  how to achieve the desired affect without the tool is what you class as progress. I was just curious because I've really gotten into photography on SL but my learning process is basically keep moving stuff and retaking the photo until you're happy. There is literally no structure, but your response provides some insight of how I can add  more structure to my learning process. tnx

    I think there's post of mine floating around somewhere what I considered my major breakthroughs but to give a quick summary, I'd say these three concepts had the most impact on my results: Depth of Field / Ambient Occlusion, Rule of Thirds, Lighting (Three point and natural/world lighting).

    There, found the thread: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/491017-getting-started-in-sl-photography/

    Looking back at my own reply, I kind of want to facepalm. Yeah I am going through cycles, haha. Now let me ponder if that is what I understand as progress. Maybe? I mostly want to make images in a style that I enjoy. For me that's usually some fantasy kitsch that looks a bit otherworldly with a touch of surreal to them. Maybe a bit painted and overly soft. 

    Sometimes I see someone else's picture and want to learn how they did it and then try to imitate until I have learned. But really, progress is a bit the juxtaposition of old and new or how reliably I can pull off a look and idea I want. There are some on Flickr I have tried to get close to in terms of skill and it still feels like a vast gulf between them and me.

    • Like 4

    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, Tayt3rChip said:

    I really like the picture was curious about what you consider to be progress. I really like the poses and the outfits 

    I like using all manner of tools but tend to rely on them too much. Sooner or later, there's always the point where I feel like I am no longer improving and things have stagnated.

    Around that time, I become really frustrated with what I have achieved. I start posting way less. In essence, usually it just means I need to stop relying on whatever latest tool I have been enjoying and then learn to do the things the tool did - but do them on my own with more control.

    So while the image might not be among the best I have ever made, in terms of knowledge it's a leap forward. I learned a lot more about taking pictures in high resolution (almost all of my previous images happened at 1920 resolution because of shaders, which doesn't leave me a lot of room to make edits with).

    Hard to put into words. Mostly "why are the shadows weird", "where did the depth of field go" and now I feel like I have got a whole field ahead of me again, feel like I can improve again instead of stagnating using the same tricks every time.

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 1

    Need eye replacements!

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    Gosh, that couldn't sound more dystopian could it? But it's true. I need a pair of new eyes and find myself utterly overwhelmed with the options. Something about walking into a store and finding thousands of images just hardlocks my brain. On top of that, most stores only let you demo one of the colours, not the actual colour you'd be interested in and so it's incredibly hard to find the right option. Full on analysis paralysis.

    Alright, first let's start with the status quo:

    current.png.f06c8ccddcafb69cfa92058143b74026.png

    Don't mind the mesh distortion, please. These are my current eyes, the Giselle Eyes from Euphoric. And hands down, those are perfect for me. That's the kind of detail I am looking for without going overboard on the reflection. So if they're perfect, why do I want to switch them out? Well.

    issue.png.8365be67a389e82a6f64f988976b46c7.png

    Let me introduce you to my personal nemesis: overly aggressive baked in shadows. If you've seen my pictures, you'll note that the eyes always look a certain, by now dull, direction and that's because so often I find a look I like, notice the shadow and then yeet and delete it to start over. I'm picky. I know. I fuss over things. I know.

    I've been to the usual suspects when it comes to stores:

    Avi Glam - Right amount of detail for me - I tried a demo after being overwhelmed and they had a baked in shadow too. Not as strong. Will likely be my "I give up" option.

    Ikon - I want to love them but all the demos are grey and I kind of need to know if the right colour looks right.

    Sequioa... something like that - Not enough details for me.

    Pumec - Kind of the same, I need more detail than that.

    And a collection of smaller ones too. I get overwhelmed in all of them.

    At this point I am just about ready to just start looking into how to make my own. In fact I already started and all the tutorials are from 2012 and end up 404. So this is where I ask for help. Does anyone of you know eyes that have got that amount of detail and look realistic but don't bake in that much of a shadow? If possible, I would need more precise directions than just stores because I'm getting my brain hard-locked when there's too many options on the wall. Ideally I would be able to demo them in the colour I need as I struggle to imagine it from just greyscale. I don't mind if they're BOM or Applier, both work for me and if it's important, it's a Lelutka Head.

     

    • Like 1
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