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Scylla Rhiadra

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Posts posted by Scylla Rhiadra

    How does your avatar look today ?

    in Your Avatar

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

     

    SL photography is unique. In RL the camera is important. In SL the viewer takes the place of the camera. Firestorm is probably like the Nikon or Pentax, having every imaginable control. Black Dragon might be the Hasselblad, specialized. Try photos with the different viewers and learn what they have to offer. FS has the Photo Tools panels, making WL and camera settings changes quick and easy. BD has some settings in no other viewer.

    All cameras have basic settings and so do the snapshot panels in the viewer. For our purposes, the image size is comparable to film size, 35mm versus 61mm (2.4") type stuff.  Bigger film and higher rez are better. Often taking a 3000x1700px image and reducing it to 1024x768 makes a big improvement. Working with large images I find easier and get better results. Strawberry has a tutorial on using large images and the benefits.

    Skell has given you a lot on lighting. Good stuff. I use a skybox for many of my images and videos. I can make my background any color I want. Greenscreen is important for videos. But the actual color one uses depends on the subject. Green is not a magic color. Cutting an avatar out of the background is way easier using a solid color background. I seldom use 'background images'. I do insert my avatar into images (example - example). I'm not that good... but I have fun.

    Figuring out lighting and Windlight settings is a skill. William Weaver has tutorials on how to use both.

    Once one has their images the Photoshop (image editing) skills come into play. Watching Natsumi Xenga paint her images can give you ideas of how to accomplish things. I seldom put that much energy into an image.

    Nemanja Sekulic provides great tutorials on how to use PS to accomplish many things that add drama to an image. PiXimperfect provides tutorials for the novice explaining the terms he is using in a style I often find pedantic. 

     

     

    This is stuffed full of useful information, Nalates! Thank you!!!

    The idea that you could use your viewer as a specialized camera/lens was an absolute revelation to me (although even in RL I'm most often a "point-and-click" girl). So too has the focus upon the importance of lighting introduced by Skell, and illustrated by so many of the pics here! There's so much to learn, but as I've always enjoyed learning, that's just fine!

    • Like 4

    Avatars and Race

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Scylla Rhiadra

    4 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

    I think it is wrong if you create an avatar of a any race, even your own race, and use it to embody stereotypes or behave in an obnoxious manner that encourages derision towards that race. I've only seen this once in SL and the avatar disappeared within seconds of filing the AR. I'm sure there are other ways to misuse an avatar not of your race but I think for the vast majority of cases it is okay to be whatever you want. 

    I think Bree has it right here.

    This is an issue upon which I'm really pretty ambivalent. In RL, it's become an enormously contentious topic, prompted in part by the Rachel Dolezal affair, and (within more restricted circles) by an article published about a year ago in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia that hypothesized that transracial identities were logically defensible using the same arguments that we now use to defend transgender identities. (The article created a very ugly series of confrontations and accusations that left no one looking very good).

    For reasons that I honestly can't define very well, yet alone defend, transracial identity feels to me . . . wrong. Perhaps it's because of the history of black face and cultural or racial appropriation in our culture? I wish I knew.

    But increasingly I've come to think that it should be ok to represent other races and cultures in SL. Unlike RL, where we see ethnicity as really central to our core identity, in ways that almost at times transcend gender, for instance, "becoming" another race may seem more problematic. But Second Life is built on the idea that we can explore and experiment with our identities: the expectations here are therefore different. If we see someone who "looks" black, for instance, in RL, we naturally assume that they are black. In SL, no such assumption exists, and most of us tend to deride those who insist upon a direct correspondence of RL to SL identities. We aren't trying to "fool" anyone here: this platform is about being somehow "different."

    So I agree with Bree that, where there is no conscious attempt to parody or appropriate or misrepresent, it should be alright to be who you want to be.

    The caveat that I'd add is that we must always be extremely sensitive to what we are doing if we attempt this. Representing another race/ethnicity isn't just another form of role play: it necessarily, and whether you intend it or not, involves  contributing to how others are perceived and defined. And so those who represent different ethnicities have an enormously important responsibility: first of all, to get it as "right" as they can, and secondly to use it as an opportunity to learn what it means to be "other."

    And I guess this applies to gender representation here too: if you are using a "borrowed" identity to impose your own notions of how that identity is defined, you're just doing it wrong.

    • Like 5

    All the Women on the Forum Are Trying to Steal My New Boyfriend, and I Don't Know What to Do!!

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    4 hours ago, kathyparnes1 said:

    exactly HOW young is Sylla's new boyfriend?

    Chronological, or mental age?

    He actually told me his supposed RL chronological age.

    As for the other . . . well, the guy spammed about half of the women on the forums with exactly the same come-on, apparently oblivious to the fact that what we do here is, you know, talk among ourselves.

    So you judge!

    • Like 1

    All the Women on the Forum Are Trying to Steal My New Boyfriend, and I Don't Know What to Do!!

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    6 hours ago, ChinRey said:

    Maybe I'm a silly soppy sentimental but I suddenly started to think of this from the other side's point of view. All the women on the forum? That's a lot. It's more than enough to kill the poor guy. 

    Then again, at least it means there'll be no need for musketts. Did somebody say HP sauce goes well with ex-boyfriend?

    At this stage, we don't need muskets, knives, or even HP Sauce. If he knew how we were talking about him, he'd drop dead of embarrassment on the spot.

    Lines that annoy you most

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Just now, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

    Did someone get to actually see him? I did, he thought I was interested just because he asked for a TP (he clicked the request button) and I accepted (out of niceness, why wouldn't I tp someone to the store I'm at the moment?) and he just started going "I want to get close with you". He was VERY pushy.

    Yep. I actually chatted with him for maybe a half hour?

    And yes, he moves very fast.

    Fortunately, he's also completely incompetent and utterly unattractive. (Well, to me anyway . . .)

    • Like 3
    • Haha 1

    Lines that annoy you most

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    18 minutes ago, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

    I think it's because you came back to the forums recently? ?

    I suspect that his MO was to simply work his way through a single thread somewhere, copying and pasting names of posters.

    On the basis of my conversation with him, almost certainly one of the vanity threads.

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