Old and new

This outfit is almost old and new as the upper body is covered with system clothes and sculpties while I am wearing mesh pants, belt and shoes for the bottom. Both have benefits of different kinds aswell as annoying characteristics. Nothing like system clothes and sculpties to create an outfit. You can layer them, move the pieces, make them fit. It allows for more creation. Of course rigged mesh are… rigged, wear them as they are, no change is allowed. For example, while I absolutely love the textures on mesh clothing, it is nearly impossible to wear boots with mesh pants. For a big fan of boots like me, this is really annoying. While I understand this makes a huge additional work for the designers who are already playing with 5 sizes, I would appreciate to see boots versions for pants. I am not asking for perfection, as it varies a lot from the height of the boots but if at least the pants could be smaller at the ankles so they don’t go out of the boots, this would help.

As I don’t want to sound like I am only ranting about mesh… tiny sculpted prims are a hell! It has been bugged for years now in the official viewer. As soon you zoom out, they disappear. You have no idea how often I have clone stamped jewelry from other pictures because I had forgotten to click on everything for the 36th time for the pose i prefered.

Ok, enough rant, now the credits:

Skin: *League* Jen Medium PinkChampagne
Eyes: IKON ‘Sunrise’ Eyes – Light Sand (M)
Eyelashes: Slink Mesh Lashes
Hair: ::Exile::Tonight Tonight:Fawn
Cardigan: *League* Vintage Lace Cardigan -Teal
Shirt: [LeLutka]-DARDA dress/depth (part of)
Pants: Maitreya Leather Legging * S Teal
Belt: not so bad . MAUD belt
Nails: Leverocci – Round Nails_1FA_NudeManicure
Earrings: Donna Flora DREAM earrings
Ring: Donna Flora BICE ring
Boots: Leverocci – Range Boots_Sand
Poses: Diesel Works

New Windlight Settings

Today, I have been playing with my windlight settings. For some time now, I was annoyed by the fact the windlight settings I was using were overwriting the shadows of the skins drawn by the designers. No matter what, the shape was predominating. When you have a nice shape, this can be good but at the same time, you are loosing details and in the end, your photography does not reflect at all what you see in the world of Second Life.

I have finaly come up with these new settings which are smoother. They offer less contrast but all in all, they respect better the shadows and give a better rendering of the skins. The above picture shows you my old windlight settings and the new ones. These are raw shots without photoshop magic but cropping. If you are interested in trying the new one, you can download the .xml file here. I will probably refine it as time goes by. For now, I find it a bit too orange but it took me over a year to make the first one. Consider it as work in progress you can improve according to your own tastes.

I have decided to make two posts today, one with the windlight settings, the other with fashion so stay tuned for the credits.

Quick edit: these settings are made for pictures taken in a studio. If you are looking for settings to take pictures on location, these will probably look a bit weird.