Category Archives: Photography VW

Casting Call for Project Bento

by

0

Here’s your chance to be in the movies. The Lab has posted a Second Life casting call for a Drax machinima (1/14/16). If you are interested in showing off what you are working on, be at Bento Island, ADITI January 19 at noon (SLT – PST). The region won’t open until noon.

They'll change the avatar when pigs fly... WELL!?!

They’ll change the avatar when pigs fly… WELL!?!

While you cannot enter Bento Island early, I advise you to log into ADITI, the preview grid, early. The last few weeks have proven the log in process for ADITI is slow and flawed. I have yet to see my inventory update as the planned changes are supposed to. So, I’m pretty sure the new ADITI login process is not in place.

The notice advises those with avatars to show contact Draxtor Despres inworld. Provide him pictures and as much information about your creation as possible. I suspect he is looking for color and human interest and has less of an interest in the technical. What tools you are using will probably be pertinent.

Project Bento is one of the biggest changes to the Second Life avatar ever! More than 90 new bones have been added to accommodate features like subtle facial expressions, articulating fingers, smoothly-flapping wings, waving tails, and much more that was previously impossible or required complex workarounds.

If you’re a creator who’s testing out Project Bento, or one who’s eager to give it a try – now is the perfect time! We’re looking for creators to show off some of the possibilities of Project Bento for an upcoming episode of The Drax Files. There are detailed instructions on how to get started and how to get to the beta grid (aditi) on our wiki page. (TIP:Testing on Aditi does not cost you upload fees!)

Second Life on Flickr

by

0

I’ve chosen to save some time by getting images from Flickr rather than shooting my own for my blog. I still do photography, but less of it shows up here. Most of it never makes it out of my computer.

The pine stays green in winter .. true friendship stands strong in bad times..

The pine stays green in winter .. true friendship stands strong in bad times..

As I look through Flickr for images that sort of fit the articles I write, I find lots of wonderful images. Some times I think more people should see and share them. I hope displaying their images here helps them gain some deserved recognition. Continue reading →

Windlight Magazine for October is Out

by

2

Windlight Magazine October Cover

Windlight Magazine October Cover

I’m not an avid reader of the magazine. In fact this is the first time I’ve even looked at an issue. I see people posting about it in various places. But, I’ve never seen anything that intrigued me to look at it. But, I recently saw some architectural images on Flickr that were amazing. I thought they were Blender renderings. But, as best I can tell they were made in SL and possibly Photoshop’d, but even Blender images get Photoshop’d.

So, when I noticed this issue has a section on Architectural Art in SL and on Huckleberry Hax, a writer. Those two items were enough to get me to click and check it out.

The magazine covers art in Second Life™. It is more about art and where to see it than it is about displaying art in the pages of the magazine.

The images of the architectural art are less than I hoped for. I’ve seen better images in Flickr. However, this is likely just because of the image quality used in the magazine, which may be why it is more about where to find art than trying to show it to you. So, the article points to this work of art in Second Life named: Angel Manor by Kaya Angel. Continue reading →

How To Stream Second Life to YouTube Gaming

by

3

Streaming Second Life™ to YouTube Gaming (YTG) is easy. This is a tutorial based on my first successful try. It is not complete or as detailed as it could be and I’ll probably come back to it and add more or write another tutorial. Now lets get into the basic what we need to do.

The only geekie part is you may need to know your upload speed. You can find your actual speed by using SpeedTest.net. Mine averages 6.6mbps. A safe value for me to use is 80% of 6.6 = 5.3mbps. But, I never HAD to know that to make my first stream.

Go to YouTube Gaming (YTG) and create a channel. (You can search on Second Life to see what channels are already there. To do that, click the GO LIVE link (button?) in the upper right of the page. It is an odd button, which is really a drop down. The first time you click it opens and gives you two choices, GO LIVE and UPLOAD Video. Click GO LIVE again.

YouTube Gaming - Upper Right of Home Screen

YouTube Gaming – Upper Right of Home Screen

From there walk your way through the  instructions. You’ll enter your name and possibly a phone number, if your new to YouTube (YT).  Whatever name you enter for the account will be displayed on the channel.

At the bottom of the page is a section labeled Encoder Setup. You need to copy the Channel URL and Key shown here and save it. You’ll possibly need that information later, depending on the encoder you pick.  Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2 3

Second Life: Interesting Viewer Add-On

by

0

Inara Pey has an article about a program named Reshade that can be used with Second Life™. The author calls it a post-processing injector for games… Post processing simply means processing an image after it is initially rendered or captured. The injection part is about setting the software up to capture images from your game software, in Second Life’s case: the viewer, by adding software to the viewer.

Last Samurai

Last Samurai – (Not via Reshader)

If you Photoshop images (post-process), I do, then this add-on allows you to do much of what you would do with PS but to machinima/video. I’ll call this software a baby sister to Adobe’s After Effects. It is limited compared to After Effects. But, is a great tool for almost free.

See: Reshade: post-processing Second Life in real time  Continue reading →

Second Life: Smile Shape Tutorial

by

0

Alicia Chenaux has made her first video tutorial. It is a pretty neat idea that she presents. You can see it here: Smile Shape Tutorial. Iris Ophelia pointed me to this from her article in NWN: Learn How to Make the Perfect Smiling SL Avatar Shape With This Video Tutorial.

Doing a Smile Shape

Doing a Smile Shape

If you have ever used the built-in smile, you know it is pretty hideous. But, Alicia shows you how to fix it by adjusting your shape. In her tutorial she demonstrates how to fix the built-in smile emote. Continue reading →

Second Life is Looking Good

by

0

Flickr has different Second Life related groups. There are some awesome pictures there. The good stuff is easiest to find in the groups. One group, MOST EXCELLENT Second Life, requires an image have 30 Favs before it can be added to the group. Most have 30 or more Favs.

You’ll find many of the images have rights reserved. But, the Flickr license allows Flickr to use them. It appears they have classed SHARE as Flickr use for promoting Flickr. Click the images here and the click takes you to Flickr. One must change settings to specifically stop that sharing. Some people do. Others leave it open. Those below are ones from the later group.

**Stellagraphics**

The definition of natural is Second Nature

The definition of natural is Second Nature by **Stellagraphics**, on Flickr

Continue reading →