Top 10 biggest enemies of SecondLife photography
For some time now I wanted to compile a list of the most annoying bugs for SecondLife photographers. SecondLife photography may seem secondary to the metaverse experience, but it is not. If anything, photography is one of the prime concerns Linden Labs should have, as it represents one of the main activities one can do in SecondLife. Also, along with machinima, SL photography is the one window that presents SecondLife to the outside world.
For a while now, I almost lost faith in SL photography. I slowed down considerably creating artwork based on SL photography, mostly for all the reasons below that makes this activity irritating and unpleasant. The bottomline is, to make decent quality artwork in SL without heavy use of Photoshop is nearly impossible, and this should not be.
Let’s begin, shall we?
- Quirky camera focus: Try photographing an element laid on the floor and to cam over it without pulling your hair. As soon as you dunk the camera 1 degree too much, it flips over and to hell it goes. And how about caming in a restrained area? It’s enough to be a burden on the photographer.
- Broken high resolution snapshots: I am not refering to the dreadful and definitely borked “Hi-Res Snapshots” option in the Advanced menu. I am speaking of taking a snapshot in a Custom resolution higher than your current screen resolution. For some it will work, for some, they will see cutting lines, black edges, or will find one of the other problems like the RenderGlow glitch or disappearing attachment like stated below.
- Crashes on snapshot: I tested several clients and had numerous reports of crashes on snapshot. It’s time to realize it is one of the main usage for the SL viewer. Having a fantastic environment you can’t photography is pointless. Snapshot functions must be througly tested and stable. Some also get pitch black snapshots that apparently can only be fixed with a cache cleanup.
- RenderGlow support broken: If you don’t disable RenderGlow, most people will see “glow ghosts” if any item with a bit of glow appears in the scene. If you shoot over your current screen resolution, those lasty glow bugs will appear exponentially accross your snapshots.
- Disappearing attachments while taking a snapshot: This is probably one of those I hate the most. Often, when snapshotting at very high resolution, hair will disappear, or random attachments. Sometimes changing the angle does the trick, or changing the distance, but not always. Restarts are useless. I screwed whole photo sessions because of that glitch and wasted dozens of hours.
- Inconsistent lighting system: Lights in SL have always been a problem, like light sources cancelling each other, with a max of 6 lights. Under low ambient lighting conditions, this makes it hard to create complex lighting scenes. Lights also competes in a weird way, and hard to say if they are directional or omnidirectional sometimes. Add Windlights to that mix, and it makes it even more complex. Shadows are still very crude if you don’t use high Windlight ambient lighting, and I sure hope it gets fixed when the new ShadowDraft builds come into play.
- Invisiprims: One of the most long lasting bug in the SL rendering system. We all know about it; think about everytime you noticed how ugly your 800L shoes looks over a club dancefloor. I heard it’s complex to fix. But I sure wish it was, as it makes snaps look akward and amateurish, if one doesn’t spend insane amounts of time fixing this with Photoshop, often with mitigated results.
- Deficient avatar mesh: Again, we can dream. But some like RealXtent apparently did it. So it’s not impossible. It is surely the reason why I spend so much time fixing snapshots using Photoshop. Be it stretched inner thighs, horrible feet, clunky fingers, square boobs and butts, you name it.
- Limited zoom: You can only cam that close to an avatar and then you need to use the CTRL 8-9-0 zoom keys. Why limit that, or can we at least have the option to disable this behaviour? The extra zoom controls are fine, but makes it harder to cam and focus too.
- The eyes!: Do really I need to elaborate? Especially when you are shooting yourself, since you need to focus on a prim to have your eye fixed on it, caming to zoom on your face becomes an extreme sport. It’s feasible, but there’s no miracle solution, and it often turns into luck shots. Same thing for taking snapshots with closed eyelids. Take 50 snaps and pray you get the right timing.
This list is surely not complete or exhaustive, one could probably name other quirks and bugs that are extremely irritating. My point was not to list them all, but to send a message to the Lindens. Please fix our photography, because visuals are what makes SecondLife what it is, and it is currently broken. Maybe one should submit a JIRA as a meta issue and put it as showstopper, because the show is indeed stopping…
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I totally agree. Photography in SL is necessary for so many aspects of the economy (product displays, club events, advertisements), not to mention the art that comes out of it. Most people don’t realize that SL photographers actually do use artistic theory. It isn’t just point and take a snapshot. And when these glitches get in the way, it makes SL look amateurish, products look less than their best and event locales look less than inviting. So it isn’t something that should be pushed to the backburner. It is an essential part of the experience.
Many non Sl-ers don’t consider virtual photography to be ‘real’. Pointing them in the direction of heavily photoshopped work helps, but not everyone has the time (or skill) to put into every picture to correct the above mentioned mistakes. I agree, SecondLife photography is undoubtedly one of the best (free) PR materials available to Linden Lab, they must address these issues.
I entirely agree, but I’ll vote for two as the major bug bears for me - the inconsistent lighting system, and the eyes.
I’m particularly miffed at the lighting system. I lecture in RL on photographic lighting approaches, and the lighting in SL is entirely incapable of most of the best techniques photography has developed. Raytrace viewer, anyone?
I’m not out to do major art photography or anything, I just shoot friends to help them with their bloggin, but omg… the time I’ve spent trying to get the darned AV eyes just right… (and I always use an alt for self portraits, jus sayin).
Great post Codie!
I totally agree. For me, the goal is to get the photograph in SL - to minimize photoshopping since I want to do photographs, not digital paintings. I find these bugs and faults very frustrating. The crazy cam is perhaps the most irritating since it happens all the time, though those invisiprims and render glow bugs are pretty damn irritating too.
Totally agree, I do some SL photography as a hobby and almost all of those bugs annoy me to death.I would love the camera focus to be more stable, thats propbably the one that bugs me the most.
I have an eye focusing trick for self-portraits! Codie I passed you the nc in world, but here’s the trick… I wrote it with beginners in mind so skip ahead if you already know how to focus on a prim:
1)Open up the snapshot window. Make sure that the “keep open after saving” box is checked.
2)Set up a prim for focusing eyes, put it where you think it should be to focus your eyes correctly (you WILL be able to go back and adjust this). Alt click on the box, it may help you to turn your camera to face you when you do this.
3)click to check the “Freeze Frame” box in the snapshot window. You won’t be able to chat or interact with any of your huds, you WILL be able to pan your camera around and use the snapshot window without your eyes shifting. Use your camera controls to zoom into your face to see your eyes. If they are not quite right, uncheck the Freeze Frame option, adjust your focus prim and try again. This takes trial and error, but with practice you’ll be able to get it right the first time with minimal adjustments.
4)When your eyes are good, you are all set to take your photos! Make sure you are in Freeze Frame mode and click the “Refresh Snapshot” button to grab the shot and then either save, or upload or send or whatever you are doing with your photo.
I use this pretty much every time I shoot pics of my self, hope it helps!
-Ely
Thanks for the trick Elys! And I do encourage anyone that have workarounds to post their tips here if they want to, as it can sometimes help other get a slightly less frustrating experience.
I especially appreciate seeing a list like this, as I really thought I and my lack of skill was to blame.
Number 3, at least, is easy to explain. While your viewer is busy assembling the snapshot or writing it to disk, the viewer cannot communicate with the grid. To the grid, all it sees is that you’ve stopped responding to all communications.
Then it decides you’ve gone away, and communications circuits start timing out. When your viewer comes back, fully expecting all to be well (because for the viewer no time has passed), it would ordinarily disconnect because comms circuits stop responding “You have been logged out of Second Life” etc… However it still tends to be a bit crashy when comms are disrupted.
You can simulate taking a hi-res snapshot in Windows by selecting the texture uploader, leaving the file-selector open for 20-45 seconds and then closing it again. Odds are you’ll be disconnected or crash.
If you want to reduce the incidence of crashing, (a) lower your network bandwidth slider before taking photos, (b) spend the minimum number of seconds in the file selector, and (c) make sure your disk writes are as snappy as possible and that your CPU is doing minimal extra work.
Well..here’s a trick. Sick of the generic vacant rictus of you av’s face?..or desperately clicking to catch your lips slightly parted? or want eyes wide open yet lips open?
Set your animations to “slow motion”
Then pull up your emoter,,or perhaps 2.
Set one to one emote then the other to another.
turn one off.. or turn just one off. Your face will move slowly from one emote to the other..or in the case of one emote..to “rest”.
Now, at the right moment, click on your hair..or other attachment. Your face will freeze at that point
now..just camm round as you will, getting your best angle
Happy grinning
Sorry when i said click..i ment go into edit on that attachment (smacks forehead)
Not that I want any of these photo-enemies to exists (especially since some of these could actually be fixed)
… but because these obstacles exists, it creates 2 things:
1) A more prestigeous or lucrative photography market
2) Proof that SL photography is an artform + a skill. It’s not just pressing the snapshot button and saving whatever ya get.
PS: Also, another enemy to SL photographers: moving club lights
Thank you Ely and Connie for sharing your secrets - you’re wonderful.
So true, this is why I’ve practically stopped doing SL photography since I started working IRL… just havent got the time to make them “nicer”
my trick for focusing the eyes:
create a prim and move it around into position. Your eyes will follow the prim. Once you get it where you want, while still in edit mode, select a prim that’s attached to your body, like your hair or a necklace. It will become highlighted in yellow glow, but that won’t show up in the photo. Now your eyes will be frozen for as long as the edit window is open, and you can move your camera around as much as you want without the eyes moving at all.
(I haven’t taken any good pics in a while, so I’m not 100% sure this method still works since they changed the picking method in the latest viewer)
As for #9, please don’t zoom in that close without using CTRL-0. I already see way too many extreme zoom fisheye portraits. In RL or SL, it’s never flattering to take a pic that close.
I’ve seen it all, and I’ve not seen much improvment with any of this stuff. I have to get a new graphics card soon and i’m freaked out at the possible glitches this card will produce. Last time someone showed me a pic it looked like triangular swiss cheese had run through her avatar. Thanks for the post Red!!
All of what everybody said above (esp AV mesh and shadows!)
AND:
1. OMG I love being able to move my camera so flexibly and quickly with ALT [CRTL | SHIFT] Click drag… if ONLY I could do anything like that in RL! Or 3dNavigator!
2. MMM that Ctrl 8|9|0 zoom is niiiice…
3. Holy crap I can move and change the sun! control the weather! Change the colors! Change the water! Change the gamma!
4. Always in focus (well ok so I’d sure like DOF control)
5. turning on and off visibility of things
6. 6016×2581 !
7. Depth and Object mattes!
8. So many AWESOME locations.
9. lots of willing models!
10. SO much easier to shoot oneself
credit where due…
Kiss
well someone is being funny! ;))
I get your point. But thing is, I am a virtual world photographer, and have very little interest in RL photography, mainly with the lack of money to invest in costly equipments. It is one of the reason why I focused on SL photography as an art, one of the main reason being many RL photographing snubbing SL photography as not being an art.
In brief, no matter how I can appreciate that SL photog is “easyier” than RL photog, and that really, inworld photography have numerous advantages over RL photog, that was not my point at all. Because what brought me to virtual photography in the first time? Mostly all of what you mentioned. =)
But, it did reached a point where some bugs are simply unworkable, and restrains my aptitude to deal with it and have fun with it. After throwing out a few complete photo session that took hours to schedule and shoot, I got a little tired of it.
If my RL camera was that buggy, I would send it to repair or stop using it. This was my attempt to send it to repair…
Maybe you should blog a list of your 10 favorite things about SL photography! Oh wait, you already did!
kidding.. thanks for your post!
Doubledown: Yes, club lights are a pain! And I would generally agree with your argument. I cited a few mere annoyances in this list, but also a growing number of deal breakers.
As I mentioned, I just stopped a few weeks ago, because my job load doubled just to work around more bugs. I don’t mind working the avatar mesh, it’s my forte to fix those with Photoshop. But I won’t start pasting Renderosity hair on bald avatars because of a viewer bug. It increased the professional difficulties without the benefits. I’m paid by time, if I screw up a session it’s on me.