pub. on Aug 07, 2008
 
SL Lenses and Effects - Socks Clawtooth
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The baseline, this is how I travel SL most of my time. Sending this as a postcard so you too can get to this spot and look it over for yourself. It's one of my favorite surf sims. The fact that I'm on the team that maintains it doesn't hurt either.
low draw, low render, sunlight set to "noon", bump/shiny active
Over the next series of images, I want to show you all a few things that can be done in world. Understand my system isn't the best, but it's enough to make good images. I'm not going to move from this spot, and only vary my camera angle slightly, you'll see what I mean.
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This is more "high end" for me. Work all the sliders up to max the quality, at the sacrifice of framerate. Windlight the water, put the draw over 250, and you can see the other sim. Again, simply playing with only the sliders. All settings are the default windlight.
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Two simple changes from the last image. "Pirate" sky and "Glassy" water, both windlight presets and simple changes. This is similar to putting a new filter over the lens on a real camera.
One other thing to notice here, and in the other pics, is how color changes when lighting changes. I'm not changing clothing, I'm just affecting how it's lit. Something to consider when choosing your windlight preset.
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Now to simulate a polarized filter, to kill the water glare. Same settings as the last image, but I turned the fresnel's down to zero, refract scale above to zero, and fog density to zero. All are in the "Advanced water" editor. I bet you didn't see the turtles before this pic.
Also notice how it changes the mood and look of the image becasue of no water glare.
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Now we get a little more interesting. "12 AM" sky filter, and force the time so the moon is over the horizon. Water editor is on "Snake", giving the water an uneasy look and feel.I still haven't moved the camera or changed the draw or settings from before.
You can change the "east angle" of the sun and moon in SL in the sky editor. As much as I hate mucking with the universe, it's fun to make the sun rotate around the horizon. Also, you can get some very dramatic effects by including the moon or sun where you might only have blank sky.
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Return the lighting and water to default, but this time I want to highlight what focus can do. Not many people use the "Zoom" feature. Control-8 zooms out, control-9 returns to normal, control-0 zooms in. By zooming in the lens, you foreshorten the scene. The background looks closer. The effect has been used in a lot of movies ("Vertigo" comes to mind), but it also works in SL, except SL has no "focus" control so it makes the effect more striking.
Here, I zoomed in while movig the camera back to keep me and the two pier blocks in about the same place. On the mini map, your field of view is a VERY narrow wedge compared to normal. The end effect is you can see the other end of the beach as if it were closer. Also note the look of the water, compared to earlier pics. The effect has some fun uses, which I'll get to in a moment.
And I still have not moved. I'm in the same spot I'd been for all of these pictures. All of this is done "in camera"
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The opposite is a zooming out to create a "fisheye lens" effect. This gives an awesome panorama, but anything too close to the camera is long and distorted. It creates a fun effect and can set moods, but not very flattering.
If you zoom out too much, the screen goes black. At least mine does. if that happens, control-9, back to normal cam, start over.
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Now let's combine a few things. Alter the sky to night, and adjust the east angle to put the moon behind the tree line. Now zoom in while pulling the camera back, making the moon look larger in the sky. I haven't moved from my spot, this is all done in camera.
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One other thing too, and that's the underwater refraction of light. Windlight compensates for over-water distortion, but under the water the vision is fine. You can tweak the fog a bit to get more clarity underwater, or less depending on what you're going for.
And with that, I'll wrap this up. I'll simply say that with a little tweaking of windlight, which act like photographic filters, you can do some pretty cool things before you even need photoshop.
The overall lesson is play with EVERYTHING. You can always undo any damage by going back to "default" settings, and start over.
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In an attempt to show that you can do some PRETTY cool stuff in SL without the use of photoshop, I'm taking a series of screen shots. Raw .bmp's, and NO post production is going to happen at all. But I'll explain a little on how I did each one.
"AANUPS". It stands for "Ansel Adams Never Used PhotoShop". I'm tired of the people who make Second Life "Realer than Real" to the point of hyperreality. Most of us don't view second life through 50 layers of 'shop filters. SL is angular, pixelated, and most of all it's not tweaked to perfection as you move through it. But if handled in like potography, you can do some interesting things.
Credits
Photo by Socks Clawtooth
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