A couple of people have asked me for lighting tips, so here goes! My tutorial is simple, you only need to adjust two things in your Environment Editor. This is best for snapping pictures of your avatar for blog entries, or vendors because it removes shadows from your avatar's face and brightens the image.
How do you go from the left image to the right image in 2 steps? OK. Pay attention!
In your SL client menu, go to World -> Environment Settings -> Environment Editor
The Advanced Sky Editor menu should pop up on your screen. For Sky Presets select -> A-12PM (this is default noon).
Then click on the Lighting Tab, it should look just like this.
[ Click here to view larger image - Default 12PM ]
At noon, your avatar's face is full of shadows, but with the next adjustment, all the shadows will be gone.
Step 1. Remove shadows
[ Click here for larger image - Sun/Moon Position at 0 ]
Find the Sun/Moon position bar, and drag it towards the left to make it 0.
Your avatar will now look like this...
The shadows are gone, but it's quite dark! Let's make it light and pretty!
Step 2. Let there be light!
[ Click here for larger image - Bump up scene Gamma to your liking ]
Pretty lighting.......!! YAY!! That's it, it's very easy to snap reasonably well-lit photos without using a face light or rezzing 10 different light balls.
If you want to be really fancy, play with the Scene Gamma and Ambiance tab to get some cool effects like the ones below:
1. 2 steps tutorial
2. my favorite setting with a bit of Ambiance tweaking
3. For the love of God, don't pull up the gamma so high in your blog pics if you're doing reviews
4. I like this Blue, it's Wintery. You can get all kinsd of colors playing with the Ambiance tab.
I hope this helps people who want better lighting for photos in 2 easy steps. There are a few other tutorials out there done by different people, but I don't know the links right now. I hope mine at least encourages you to play with the Environment Editor cos its not so scary if you know what you want to do with it. Remember to save your favorite settings! :)
Also, facelights are OK if they're not lighting up the entire block, but you really don't need them. If you must have one, pick up the free face light at Mela's - it has a menu to control color and how subtle or bright you want the light to be.
It's winter in Australia for all my Aussie friends, I'm wearing this awesome Winter outfit!
What I'm Wearing:
Mirai Style - Fuka hair (with texture changing beanie)
sey - snow Cowichan Sweater
Skin by Dutch Touch
I will try it:) Thank you ;))
Posted by: Monta Horan | September 02, 2008 at 02:53 AM
Its great.. i adore your pics gogo.. nice job! ty! I will use this!
Posted by: Gala Giha | September 02, 2008 at 05:37 AM
Thanks gogo for sharing your beauty secret with us!
Posted by: Ambrosia Miklos | September 02, 2008 at 11:05 AM
Hi Ambrosia! LOL.. hardly a secret, but you're welcome!
Posted by: Gogo | September 02, 2008 at 11:46 AM
OH thank you so much!! I knew about sun/moon and directional changes to get the lighting right but this looks so much better and will help with photographing my clothes/models for new vendors!! YAY
Posted by: Grace Winnfield | September 02, 2008 at 12:48 PM
OMG Gogo, you are just brilliant. *is in awe of your greatness, haha*
Thank you SO much for this tutorial. Before this I always wondered why my avatar looked ugly, lol..even though she had a cute MMS skin on her, but now, it all makes sense thanks to you. :)
NOw I can finally take some great photos, whooo!!! :D
Posted by: Lilly | September 02, 2008 at 05:13 PM
Thank You!
Posted by: Yuvi | September 02, 2008 at 07:02 PM
Heard about this via NWN — great tutorial, well-illustrated, and I hope many benefit from your tips on using WindLight atmospheric shaders better!
/me appreciates :)
Posted by: Torley Linden | September 04, 2008 at 01:08 AM
Thank you so much Torley! I love your WL presets, I've started making a bunch of my own, but most of them have pink skies :P
Posted by: Gogo | September 04, 2008 at 01:35 AM
That's a fantastic tutorial, and appears very very simple. I'll have to try it sometime when I'm trying out different outfits and taking pictures.
Posted by: Gahum Riptide | September 04, 2008 at 02:03 PM
How does one make and install a Mac OS preset for the suggested lighting?
Posted by: RV | September 08, 2008 at 07:48 PM
Awesome tutorial =D
I've listed your blog on mine, mine trading links?
http://fropthis.blogspot.com/
Posted by: LawraLoo | April 07, 2009 at 02:48 PM
I love the look of number two anyway you can take a pic of your slider options for that setting and post here? it is so pretty.
btw fantastic tutorial... not that all of yours arent but this awesome.
Posted by: Kamilah Nemeth | June 10, 2009 at 12:30 AM
Very nice tutorial on taking pics! Thank you! It shall make my blog pics much nicer. :-)
Posted by: Shelly Oanomochi | August 10, 2009 at 11:25 PM
Hi, I used your lighting tutorial (which I think is fab, btw) but I'm having a problem. I'm trying to piece together pictures for my blog and the backgrounds (which were previously pure white) now have a "gradient" to them. I noticed it in your demo photo of the "finished" settings, yet that doesn't occur in your normal blog photos.
This is kind of bugging me, as I was happy to have found a way to blog about skins without having garish shadows to them, but the background problem is getting in the way. :(
Any help you can give would be majorly appreciated. Thank you! :)
-Nykti Harcourt
Posted by: Nykti Harcourt | October 01, 2009 at 05:31 AM
Hi Nykti, make sure your prim background is set to "full bright"
Posted by: Gogo | October 01, 2009 at 10:48 AM
How is about your GRAPHIC settings? Can you say it for me? ;D
Lovely tuto, gracias!!
Posted by: Flor | October 17, 2009 at 06:36 PM