Second Life and Virtual Worlds
The Oculus Rift Project Viewer has been upgraded 3.7.18-295296. Along with the upgrade comes a post in the blog: Oculus Rift DK2 Project Viewer Now Available.
They are still careful to point out that this is a somewhat incomplete viewer, but then Oculus Rift is incomplete. However, those with DK2 units can play with this viewer.
One of the features added to Second Life some time ago is projectors, lights that shine on things. Bryn Oh used a headlamp thing for use by those visiting his latest exhibit, which is a projector. But, we see little use of projectors as lights in SL. Or maybe we just don’t notice them.
There is the problem of many people probably not having Sun/Moon + Projectors enabled in their graphics preferences for performance reasons. That is a problem for those building places. They want the majority of visitors to see their creation as built. So, they often skip using Projectors for lighting. But, for photography performance is generally not a primary issue and what the camera sees is up to the photographer. Everyone will see the photograph as captured as in general everyone’s computer settings are similar. So, there is no reason not to use Sun/Moon + Projectors. We just want to light our scene to create the image we want.
In RL photography lighting is a big part of it. For portrait photography it is somewhere between a science and an art. Lighting is used in capturing most all commercial images too.
The first I’ve heard of people using lights in SL photography is in the article Bloody Gorgeous in the PrimDolls blog. Notice the link there to Deoridhe’s Flickr images: Bloody Gorgeous.
The new Photoshop has a new color picker. It isn’t different as much as how handy it can be has improved. See: The Improved And Enhanced Color Panel – Photoshop CC 2014.
Indigo Mertel has been pointing me to an article on Road to VR about a holographic VR interface. For whatever reason I was missing her subtle hints until she contacted me and sort of asked why I was ignoring it. Oops. I have no idea why I wasn’t picking up on it. I follow a lot of her links from Plurk.
There are a number of articles out about Tomáš “Frooxius” Mariančík creating: SightLine: The Chair.
This is pretty impressive. I can see why people are excited. It is the best use of the LEAP Motion Controller that I have seen to date.
Experimenters can download his ‘Chair’ experience: Download The Chair. (300mb) The link jumps to Sightline’s home page. There you can link to places to support him, Facebook and Steam. He says a Kickstarter is coming.
Designing Worlds in Second Life had an opportunity to interview with Ebbe Altberg, the Linden Lab CEO. It has been promoted for a day or two now. Today the video of the interview was released. You can see the video on SLArtist.com.
This is an interesting video interview. Ebbe’s excitement with SL1 and 2 comes through. He gives us information about SL1 and SL2 and where they are going. I’ll warn you that what he says can be interrupted several ways. His implications are not always clear. So, what you are reading here is what I heard and how I took his meaning. That doesn’t mean it is correct. I think it is, but…
AvaStar 1.2 is out and now Gaia has published an article on what they will be doing now. See: Remarks from the Creators. The interesting take away is that the tutorial videos will be getting updated now that the product has stabilized.
This week has seen some articles on creating great images using Second Life. New World notes has: Top Four Tips for Flawless, Photoshop-Free SL Snapshots, Family Portraits: This Second Life Photographer Has a Knack for Taking Snapshots of Domestic Bliss, and How to Turn SL-Based Images Into Visual Art. There are others that have commented on the aspects of what makes great images and art.
The Internet has a ton of image composition tutorials. Google Image Composition.
There aren’t that many fashion blogs for guys. This one popped up in Plurk: Pixel Phashion 4 Men. Which it appears from time to time is definitely NSFW. I suppose that is one way to keep guys reading… For guys that want fashion news it is probably a good choice.
This is a famous place in Second Life. If you are wanting to learn about making particles, this is the place to check out. It changes from time to time and different example-devices are used. It also seems to always have the latest information on particles. Visit The Particle Laboratory.