Melanie774 Kidd

I never use default WL settings. Newbies should be taught how to get the most out of their SL as soon as possible, imo, and that includes educating them on how to make the world look even better by playing with WL settings. I think skin designers are in the best position to make newbies understand the importance of knowing how to make lighting work to their own advantage, because av appearance is almost always one of the first things that makes them aware of this in the first place. Instead of holding them back with ugly default lighting, getting your skin demo to them is an opportunity to give them information on how they can make the most of their lighting. It helps them, and it helps you sell your product because they'll be thrilled that it looks so great in optimized lighting.

Hi, will focus group participants be compensated in L$ for their time?

Suki Hirano wrote: Well 5k may be an understatement... think about if, full perm mesh kits (except Meli's) are like what 3k? Custom orders will only cost even more than that. Logically custom orders shouldn't cost more, because you're giving them an idea of a product to sell, why should it cost that much? Even if the customer isn't happy with the custom order and won't buy it, you can still sell it like a regular product. In the real world, a properly compensated CG artist gets maybe $40.00 US per hour. If I'm not mistaken, that is on the low end of the hourly pay spectrum for that profession. Full perm mesh kits for 3000L is a paltry $11 or $12 for the mesh creator, after Linden Lab's exchange fee is deducted. Sure, they can make that 3000L several times over but given the amount of full perm kits that you see competing on the Marketplace, there's absolutely no guarantee they'll make a 'killing' in terms of sales volume. As for the sentiment about how a customer requesting a custom item should get some sort of discount because they are doing the designer a "favor" by handing them an idea... no. These are very creative folks to begin with, I can assure you they've got plenty ideas of their own. When you ask them for a custom item, you're asking them to take away time from their own projects that they've lined up and the schedule that they've planned for themselves, to work on something for you. You're asking for special consideration and attention. They therefore deserve to be properly remunerated.

Yeah, SL is not perfect in that regard. It is an inconvenience to have to fit mesh clothing, but usually the adjustments are so slight and so easy that I find it's worth the small effort when the article of mesh clothing looks really good. It's the same as taking a few moments to edit a couple of prims on a sculpted hair to make it better conform to your av's head shape.

Did you try demo-ing LAQ's cleavage enhancers? One of them actually de-enhances that area to give a smaller appearance.

UPDATE The homestead sim is currently occupied by someone I would describe as the ideal tenant. He is always on time with payment and has a thorough understanding of estate tools (thus it is extremely rare that he requires assistance with sim stuff). If you are open to the idea, you can buy the full region and I will include the homestead region for free, with the understanding that you will keep this tenant on the homestead. The total price would be $500, here is the breakdown of that price: $100 (transfer fee for full region) $100 (transfer fee for homestead region) $300 (price of full region, I AM OPEN TO NEGOTIATION so don't be shy about making an offer) $0 (price of homestead region that you promise to continue renting to existing tenant) IM Melanie774 Kidd, and feel free to send me offlines if I'm not logged in!

Region: Mahina O Hoku Type: Private Homestead Tier Date: 23rd Price: $200 USD (includes $100 transfer fee) Region: Kuu Ipo Type: Private Full Tier Date: 28th Price: $400 USD (includes $100 transfer fee) Who to contact: Melanie774 Kidd Please feel free to send me offline IMs. They will go to my e-mail, which I will be checking often. I am keen on selling both my sims before tier is due, so huge preference is given to buyers with the ability to have their tickets pushed through quickly. I am also open to negotiation on the sim prices, so if you have the power to buy my sims quickly, this could end up being a great deal for you!

Region: Mahina O Hoku Type: Private Homestead Tier Date: 23rd Price: $200 USD (includes $100 transfer fee) Region: Kuu Ipo Type: Private Full Tier Date: 28th Price: $400 USD (includes $100 transfer fee) Who to contact: Melanie774 Kidd Please feel free to send me offline IMs. They will go to my e-mail, which I will be checking often. I am keen on selling both my sims before tier is due, so huge preference is given to buyers with the ability to have their tickets pushed through quickly. I am also open to negotiation on the sim prices, so if you have the power to buy my sims quickly, this could end up being a great deal for you!

There's a similar thread going on in the Fashion forum, I'll just use the same pic I used there:

While I generally prefer to wear skins that reflect my RL coloring/ethnicity, I also really enjoy wearing skins of all colors. If people choose to create an appearance for their avi that is not reflective of their RL gender or ethnicity, I don't necessarily think it's a negative thing. (It becomes a negative thing only when they make it so.) For me, personally, it's simply about appreciating beauty in all it's forms. I'm an Asian woman in RL, but that doesn't stop me from indulging in blue or green eyes every now and then, nor does it prevent me from wearing a gorgeous black skin with amazing sculpted dreadlocks. I view it the same way I view putting on a blue skin with fairy wings, or faun legs, or a mermaid's tail, or a princess gown and tiara, or usagi ears and tail, or even creating a male appearance... SL is a place where you can play Let's Pretend and Dress Up, so why not go all out and explore wearing different skins and such!

Some of my favorites: Shift-drag to create a copy Build > Copy selection Using Ctrl + 0, Ctrl + 8, and Ctrl + 9 for photos, for building, and for fitting prim lashes Discovering the openalign script And, okay, this isn't exactly a "tip" but it deserves a mention, imo... Eloh's skin files! Not only did she make me appreciate our talented skin designers even more, her thoughtful layout/organization of her PS files made an impression on me and affected the way I've worked in PS ever since. Lol, my old PS files were pretty haphazard but now they're all tidy and orderly.

I'll wear it if I'm using a mesh item with an alpha layer underneath it. When you highlight transparency, the alpha layer 'disappears' and whatever you're wearing beneath it is revealed. I realize that the people who haven't moved on to mesh viewers yet, will only see some odd deformed shape instead of clothing on my avatar. I figure I should at least have undies on if they highlight transparency, too.

Pretty much anything: a great book I've just finished, a movie with kick-ass clothes, my favorite music artists, conversations with friends. Oftentimes, it's the actual builds/environments in SL that inspire, as well. When I find myself wanting to take snapshots of a sim, I like including my av in the photo because it's a personal memory I'm recording, and that leads me to wanting to dress up my av for the location.

I updated my card's drivers and I just successfully turned on shadows and DoF on 2.7.5. Now to try out 2.8 beta!

*sigh* I have a GTX 460 and I've been running SL on Ultra, with shadows and depth of field, all this time without any problems. Ever since 2.7.4 was released, and with every viewer released after it, I crash immediately upon activating shadows. The only viewer that allows me to have shadows is now the old Project Viewer for Search, and that does not have depth of field on it. I'm really annoyed, things have been working fine for me up until these releases.

I'd just like to add that "Resident" really isn't your "last name". New accounts simply do not have a last name; the "Resident" attached to your username is simply a placeholder.

Bare Rose has lots of fun and over-the-top stuff. I love that store.

I'm not sure which one it was because I've since uninstalled it from my system (I had several viewers and did some housecleaning). I am currently using the official regular viewer. A couple of friends on Plurk had mentioned taking screencaps, so if I run into this problem again I will probably be trying the fraps + hide UI workaround you've mentioned. Here are some DoF shots I've taken. I don't really "know" what I'm doing, lol... I just fiddle with the debug settings as well as read up on what others have tried. I did this tilt-shift one after having seen you talk about it on your flickr stream.

From my latest blog post about Exile and Fishy Strawberry. :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: Exile has become one of my favorite shops for hair, and I love FS's lingerie.

Penny Patton wrote: Mesh import will not help the situation much at all. It will be like having an all-prim body, with no ability to wear regular avatar clothing, skins, etcetera. Buying a new skin would mean buying the same mesh over again with another texture map. For clothing you'd be limited to clothing made specifically for that particular mesh. Agreed. And we finally have our tattoo layers, our alpha layers, and our ability to wear up to five items on each layer; I want to continue using an LL avatar mesh to take advantage of these features instead of hiding it all in alpha and attaching a content creator's mesh av over it. Really hoping LL will do a new av mesh!!!

A lot of it has to do with getting proportions right. Your av can be 3' tall or 7' tall; as long as you've kept good proportions (i.e., hips to waist ratio, shoulder to hips) then your av shouldn't appear "narrow". Speaking of wanting improved shape sliders, a nose length slider would be near the top of my wish list. Also, more control over the appearance of limb thickness, particularly in the area of the legs. When I do a curvier/heavier shape, I add more muscle to the legs but too much can give an exaggerated "drumstick" look that I don't like.

New Elikatira hair yay :matte-motes-inlove:

Taking a nap with my Zooby baby. (I don't roleplay the whole parenthood thing in SL, I just think this prim baby is really cute and she's one of my favorite photo props )

Okay, found a solution! Ctrl + ` allows me to keep the DoF effect. I don't know why the regular snapshot route doesn't work like it did in the Project Mesh Viewer I'd used in the past, but whatever... I'm just really happy I have my beloved DoF back!