ValKalAstra

March 17

I find capturing emotions in SL to be particularly difficult. It's a lot of very subtle muscle movement that's hard to catch with the limited amount of animation bones we've got. You may need to compensate by trying additional expressive aspects. For example, using cold (blue) light with stark shadows that hide the eyes. Body posture can do a lot of heavy lifting, as can do overall lighting and direction.

Here's an unedited example of one of my recent pictures. Unedited because I would feel cheeky double posting the end result. Let me walk through my thought processes for it. First, a small cutout from the unedited shot:

image.png.b44d2fa224aab70f6bbd46c4fc42767c.png

If you look at the face, it has got barely any expression on it. The head is inclined towards a shoulder and the gaze is cast down, both of which can convey a sense of inwardness or introspection. More or less, like I was in my own thoughts. Overall body language protects the chest with the arms, something we do when we feel vulnerable. Same reason we fold our arms when we get into an argument - we instinctively protect our most vulnerable body parts (read, organs). Sadness is a very vulnerable emotion and so I thought it would work well to cross the arms and then have the hands reach out to the shoulders as if I was trying to hug myself for comfort. Sadness is also often an emotion described as cold and we tend to wrap our arms around ourselves when cold too.

Further on, the lighting. There's a contrast between warm light coming from the side and most of the body being cast in shadow. This was meant to create a dichotomy between the warmth outside and the cold inside, almost like these two things don't belong together. Last but not least, I'm turned away from the warmth of the light. Body language is showing a "cold" shoulder towards it.

And perhaps in a lucky coincident, the sparkles I forgot to remove kind of added two little glitters on my cheek that might be tears. Happy little accidents, eh Bob Ross? Still what I want to get at: The face shows barely any emotion. It's the same type of boring model/mannequin stare we're all so familiar with. Bodypose, light, mood and scene composition do the heavy lifting to convey the sadness. I hope it worked but at least that was the intent!

Hope this helped a bit.

Oh, yah. I did use the Lelutka Axis Hud to move the head and eyes. I can't recommend it enough, it's part of every shot I take.

March 15

March 15

2 hours ago, Jordyn McGregor said:

So if I am reading what you are saying right, I should have my snapshot window set to screen size?

That's one possible way but you'd lose the advantages of a higher resolution. I think the preview window is accurate towards the actual end result but it's tiny. So in theory you could configure your depth of field to look right in the preview but honestly, I should probably shut up at this point and let others talk. Sorry, been too long since I used things in viewer.

I do remember Orwar making a good tutorial about depth of field in editing, using editing and basically taking one picture normally and one of just the depth information.

March 15

32 minutes ago, Jordyn McGregor said:

I've been trying all this advice too, but my problem is that on my screen the background is blurred nicely, but I take the pic and its all in focus and not what my screen shows at all. What step am I missing?

It's been a while since I approach my pictures in a different way (using injected shaders and dynamic super resolution instead) but if memory serves, depth of field settings are tied to a specific resolution. Thus if you set it up to be just right with your screen resolution - but then go and set it to a higher resolution in the snapshot window, it will mess up the depth of field. Black Dragon at some point had a function (or still has? haven't used that in a while) to automatically approximate the settings, I'm not sure whether any of the other viewers do.

March 14

Slow day, eh? Yah, you can slam your FPS to 400 and waste energy doing so - quite figuratively burning money for no gain. I'm not getting into the human eye perception argument but I'll toss you this curveball: Monitor refresh rate puts a hard cap on which FPS you can actually make use of. Thus, sure - if you feel like you need max FPS in Second Life as you stutter lag around, turn off vsync, enjoy your screen tearing and then hard limit your FPS at your monitor's refresh rate.

Anything more is just burning money.

March 14

14 minutes ago, Orwar said:

Hmm, of course, in a social deduction game the least suspicious are also the most suspicious. So.

Whose alt are you then? 🚟(also why is there no 'suspicious' emoji, but one for 'suspension railway'?)

Heck if I know - but if you ever figure it out, let me know. My instinct tells me that since I'm a shopping addict, my main is out there financing my lifestyle. Think about it, there's loot to be had. Wait is that they why ghosted me?!

March 14

Second Life - the only social deduction game where everyone is sus.

sus.png.ca12c06fa3a1ce434589f7d149c056a7.png

But for all the wrong reasons.

March 13

10 hours ago, SabrinaCooke said:

The colors are sooooo pretty.

March 12

Personally, I've found it easier to meet people around shared interests than to go to meet up places. For example, I've found more acquiantances in the various photography groups, than I have in the Dark Butterfly. It just kind of naturally lends itself towards a shared interest and conversation - which might collide with the desire to be in predominantly female preseting communities.

Clubs and such are... fleeting. Random people flowing in and out all the time but I've never managed to make one of these contacts stick, whether they were just really fun and engaging talks or something more adult oriented.

March 11

8 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I keep wanting to comment and then there's a new picture from you - you're on fire! But been meaning to say: They're all intriguing and I especially appreciated seeing a "normal" picture from you as well.

The folding lines in the shot I quoted, I found a rather interesting addition - you even took care to change the light values a bit under the fold. Good attention to detail.

March 11

https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53581442683/in/dateposted-public/

March 11

Honestly, it's a good question. I'm a novice scripter myself and whenever I look at experiences, I find them oddly limiting and cumbersome. When I look at them as a user, I find them rather ominous with that popup. I want to teleport - why do you need that camera permission again?! (yah I get it, llRequestExperiencePermissions but... like why?).

I do understand the desire for an attachment scope experience but at that point - and pardon my ignorance - why not roll the functions into the normal script corpus at that point? But again, might be my ignorance on why something like environment settings need to be on experiences in the first place and can't be a normal function behind a targeted permission request.

/edit: Oh, totally forgot to answer your question:

I probably would use them. Yah. Although it might bump into attachment limits for avatars.

March 10

17 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

I have a great scroll wheel on my mouse.
No need to block people. Someone who is a pain in the ... one post, can post something really interesting the next time.
I don't want to miss that.
We all have bad hair days every now and then.

There was a time when I used to think that too. I found that constantly reading anger and hate had an adverse effect on me. It changed how I engaged with people, turned me bitter and hostile too. I'm a natural hot head with a temper and it got me into a looooot of arguments.

Well I got older and found myself a deeply ugly person for it. To this day, I still don't block most people even if some of them have me go "what the fudge is wrong with you?!". I try to engage with people but I have learned to block folks that are so hateful, their very presence poisons any discourse they touch beyond repair. Whatever they have to say, someone else quite likely can say it better.

March 10

Yah. I do get that accidents can happen but lately I've seen it happen so often, I wonder whether some stores are running themselves a bit too thin with too many events. Maybe or maybe not related:

My own lack of deductional skill to figure out just what is on sale sometimes. Alright, it's a picture of a girl in a dress, wearing glasses that are out of focus, earrings, showing the lipstick prominently, in an interesting pose and it's called some fancy artful name. Okay. So... what are you selling?

Like at some point I start this puzzle game of, okay I know this store usually sells poses so it's probably not the pretty dress. However the pose is just barely in focus and clips, surely that would not happen with the pose as the primary sale item? Maybe the fancy earrings, could be some sort of prop type of deal. Do they have a demo, of course not. So it's probably the skin. Or the pose. What's the sales board called, maybe the title gives it away? And it's "object" by creator xyz. Aye. Have a nice day, sorry. I am not smart enough.

(it was the glasses - I saw them weeks later in their mainstore on a mannequin).

March 9

14 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

It really sucks how reddit doesn't let you read anything without joining any more, i used to read it all the time & now i don't.

Just saying, you can dodge the horrible UI redesign (and thus the idiotic must be logged in pest) by using old.reddit.com. Just add "old." in front of the reddit address.

March 7

3 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

I was thinking about making a shop to support whaling. It'd have the usual sailor clothing and rubber boots but also specific items needed for hunting whales such as flensing knives, blubber boiler kettles, harpoons, etc.

Isn't that what the whole gacha thing was about? Ohhhh, right, different kind of whale hunting.

Me, personally, would make a shop to sell virtual bubble wrap sheets. You would attach them like a hud and pop the bubbles with a satisfying sound. I would allow folks to share (transfer) the bubble wrap sheet of course, so you and a friend can pop bubbles together!

Oh yeah and you could link it with friends so all of them can hear the pop without annoying anyone else.

And I'd sell it at 25L$ a sheet.

Hm. Actually...

March 7

11 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

That's only because men are too stupid to recognize that 1) freeze drying is far more nutritionally sound and doesn't damage the taste of the food, and 2) CANS ARE HARD TO OPEN.

I think the dragons have got it all figured out. Once they setup the pretty princess protection service, their food is served in self-delivery cans. Just remove the *****ly parts and roast as desired.

Done, one freshly barbecued knight.

/edit: Oh for BLEEP sake just how BLEEP many BLEEP innocent words are BLEEP censored by now. Okay let me grab my thesaurus and see what else would fit.

And Nina is back with this bit of wisdom: Thesaurus recommends: complicated, knotty, nettlesome, ticklish, tricky as synonyms. Ticklish? Theoretically, all the swords and pike might tickle a dragon? Okay, ticklish.

March 7

More or less, @PheebyKatz gave you the gist of it. Us photographers are usually a bit weird but overall friendly bunch. If you're looking to learn, there are a great many resources for that. A good first start is YouTube, if you're the type that learns well with Videos. I know I don't - but the resources are out there. I'll recommend two groups to you as well.

The first is FOCUS: secondlife:///app/group/163f6c9c-7a1a-d3ea-e144-bc6ccfab61c6/about (if the forums don't link this properly, just copy/paste into your SL adress bar)

This is in my opinion THE place to go to for professional connections and also to just stay connected. You'll probably find most of the popular names in it. They run the FOCUS magazine as well as the photography fair event and galleries. If memory serves they often do teaching events too, so if your timezone allows, do check them out. https://artfocused.com/

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The other group is Naturally Naughty 2.0: secondlife:///app/group/203e4ae4-42ee-f66c-1b6b-3e4e35baee44/about

If you don't mind occasionally seeing nudity and sexual content, this is a lovely and very welcoming place for photographers of all skill levels. They've also got a sim full of wonderful backdrops for you to use. Very active, very friendly. I'd say join, even if you do mind NSFW content - in which case just skip the posted images. Folks will still be welcoming and helpful.

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Last but not least, just as PheebyKatz mentioned, you may want to find artists with a style you want to develop yourself. There are many different ways you can go about taking a picture. Say, some are adherents to the church of the raw shot - everything done must be SL only. Others are really intricate in building their own sets and working on dramatic artful lighting. Yet others love adding an element of editing, taking the pictures and turning them into something else entirely. Me, I wouldn't go as far as call myself experienced, but my joy is in finding technical solutions that are just a wee bit nutty.

How nutty?

This nutty.

March 5

6 minutes ago, sandi Mexicola said:

no, no, that's really me! lol

Or my broken english

Sorry, I meant seams (probably).

March 5

Yah, this is a thorny subject for sure. A while back I decided I'd rather ride the wave than be crushed by it and took the time to familiarize myself with AI image generation. This has given me a perspective that I personally consider more healthy for my frame of reference. First I think there's a notable difference between snapshot AI art and deliberate AI art. Let me explain the difference to me:

Snapshot AI Art is basically just feeding a prompt to midjourney and getting back a fancy image. You might reroll a few times but that's it.
Deliberate AI Art is using something like Stable Diffusion, training LORAs, feeding it a basic prompt, inpainting aspects, adjusting CFG values, clipskip, samplers, controlling poses and lighting with Controlnets, learning additional extensions for specialised purposes - it very quickly gets very elaborate.

At that point I felt reminded of a debate I had seen a few times in my life, that of what real art is and isn't and how some new technology will always kill it. I've seen it with image editing, I've seen it with digital cameras. I've seen it with mobile cameras and easy filters (which by the way, machine learned!). It's a scary new technology, there is a lot of FUD floating around about it but at the end of a day it's a tool that will change how we approach media yet again.

There's already an interesting cultural change happening now in that the typical midjourney style is rather notable, as is the generic AI Girl Face. If you follow the AI communities closely, you'll see them find even more issues, such as repeating patterns, perspective troubles or shadows that are wrong, clothing lines that make no sense, even buttons that are off. While yes, it's very easy to create something pleasing, people are quickly adapting to it.

As are professional artists - there are more and more works generated in a blend between traditional art and generative art together. Ultimately, tastes will change because of this but I've got no doubt that talented people will create much better works than someone just putting in prompts. Then, as for selling things in Second Life - honestly, the only thing I mind about that is the marketplace becoming even less usable as generative spam will drown it out. Perhaps that will light a fire under LLs bum to get that fixed? A girl can dream!

As for myself, I'll probably chuckle about people selling their quick AI prompt image but if it looks like actual work went into it - I really don't mind, as the additional work and effort put into it is precisely the human element detractors claim is missing. Right now I also find it easy to tell whether something was just a prompt or actual effort. That might change, sure - but culture changes constantly.

March 4

Ooh - those updates sound lovely. The ability to save eye-looks? Yes please! I'm always scared to make changes to them for fear of never quite getting them right again. It's an irrational fear as I know which options to use but this would make me much more likely to experiment with different styles.

March 3

So this song gave me a bit of a nerd girl moment. I was halfway through listening to the song premiere when I suddenly sat up straight. Wait a second. RONDRA? THE WAR GODDESS RONDRA? WAIT. IS THIS A DARK EYE FANSONG? WAIT, FINSTERWACHT? OF COURSE! OH MY *SQUEEEE* IT IS!

March 2

Gosh this song is just the best collision of things that should not work but somehow do. So, this is a cover song. The original song was a blend of scream metal with scooter hardstyle techno music, set to a backdrop of the worst of the 90s style clichés. Then along comes this cover version, which adds an additional element by turning it into a german folkrock song and it somehow works. It just works. It's so stupid and I love it.

March 2

Does the world need more Nina Stickers? For sure! New LayerDiffusion is actually pretty neat. Having near on perfect transparency on generation is a big deal.