Snapsot Mode

Taking snapshots in the new UI is kinda clunky. I mean there's the box that says "snapshot preview" and the cursor change... but I think it might be better if...

Got rid of the flash and maybe just put up an overlay of a camera viewfinder cross hair? The flash doesn't really signal that the user has entered a "bullet time" mode. Usually Flash means you're done taking the picture.

Which kinda gets the messsage across but then you get to a normal screen.

Or maybe some soft repeating audio beeps like digital cameras make when they are on a timer. Or like in a video game when you freeze time... gray screen and clock clicks.

Also if your're building something and go into snapshot preview highlighted objects stay highligted and there's no way to unhighlight them...

Perhaps it would be beter to make taking snapshots a "mode" like building mode. Or at least make it behave that way. Like when you take a snashot you go out of building mode (no way to get the building UI anyways) and can get out of snapshot mode by pressing escape.

And maybe make mode windows visually distinct from regular old dialog windows... thicker borders, different colors, whatever.

Anyways, here's how I think it should work:

I hit ctrl-S. If I'm in building mode it cancels out of that. There's a flash and the Snapshot Preview (Or "Snapshot Mode" dialog box pops up. The "Picture"/preview gets the laminated animation. After that it gets a frame or surrounded in a box as if it where a poloroid. If I move the canmera the wipe animation occurs. The frame overlay vanishes and is replaced by a viewfinder overlay. Everytime I take a picture there's the lamination animation and it switches from viewfinder to frame. Everytime I update the snapshot it via options it re-lanminates. Everytime it switches camera angle it swiches from frame to viewfinder overlay. If I press escape at any time it should revert to normal mode and exit out of the dialog.

Or you can just get rid of the screen animations and just switch to frames and crosshairs. >.< Might make some people happy.

Also when I'm moving the camera in bullet time mode the chat box and buttons pop up, although they cannot gain focus... o.0

Might want to seperate UI-included snapshots from snapshot preview. Like, um, if you want to take a picture with the UI and stuffs... have that behave like the previous snapshot function. Maybe even exile it to the debug menu. But if you want to take fancy in-world pictures, that uses "Camera Mode."

Also... the abity to move the camer a using the arrow keys would be nice.

My Problem with the new snapshot mode is if I mess up with my avie position, say my Horse Avie head is aimed the wrong way, I cant change the position of my head with out leaving the snapshot screen and coming back in it

how about an option to go back to old snapshot way?

I agree, the stop-time thing is not something that should replace the previous snapshot system.

I endorse this PRODUCT and/or SERVICE.

I think the new snapshot features are fantastic. once you get to know how to use it..

Is anyone ever happy with an update or anything LL does???

"Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design"
1) Strive for consistency.
2) Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
3) Offer informative feedback.
4) Design dialog to yield closure.
5) Offer simple error handling.
6) Permit easy reversal of actions.
7) Support internal locus of control.
8] Reduce short-term memory load.

Principles for Transforming Difficult Tasks into Simple Ones
1) Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head
2) Simplify the structure of tasks
3) Make things visible
4) Get the mappings right
5) Exploit the power of constraints
6) Design for error
7) When all else fails, standardize

And I didn't quite find the rule I was looking for which was:
"Make the interface intuitive," involves Principle #4, Golden Rule #8, and a bit of Principle #1.



On occation, I like the new pie menu, so much faster than having to wait for it to pop up, have my mouse FORCEFULLY repositioned to the center (instead of where I knew the button I wanted would be) and then have to make my selection. (see Golden Rule #2)

They are. If it was *optional* I'd be ecstatic about it.

Um, the pie menu's *behaviour* hasn't changed as far as I can tell. You could already right-click, drag, and release... I used to do that all the time. It's just an appearance change.

The new snapshots are nearly useless.

Please go back to the old ones.

I gotta admit, it's grown on me, mainly because of the chance to reposition camera. BUT, that feature needs to be optional IMHO.

Your quoted question - what is that supposed to mean?

Sheesh... when will people ever learn to leave a good thing alone? I used to take excellent pictures in SL and now every picture I take comes out blurry. What's with this? Did someone let the 3 stooges redesign the layout? Arrrrggggh! Slowly but surely these "Updates" are causing me to rethink my investment in Second life. Owning land, and buying lindens costs real money, and everytime an update hits, it takes away from my enjoyment of the game and world. This one is Big... without the ability to take clear pictures, how will people be able to advertise their items for their stores? It's hard enough with the lag and waiting for things to Rez, Fix the Camera so we can take decent pictures please!

I don't think they are useless at all. I quite like not having to resize my snapshots whenever I want to show my buddies something. And the freeze mode is quite helpful for times when you want to get just the right angle. It also makes it easier to take clearer snapshots by setting SL-compatable image sizes and quality. Plus the new depth map and object ID features are fun to play with. And ` still does the same snapshot-to-disk function without freezing the screen.

Personally, I'd like to see something like imagemagik (free for commercial use) added into SL to expand the snapshot functionality by adding cropping, anaglyph, a barrage of filters, and first and foremost, the ability to save as snapshot as a JPG. ^_^

The new functionality is fine. Tying it to a new non-optional user interface that removes some of the old functionality (like the ability to keep the snapshot up and take multiple reasonably rapid snaps of action, or compare the thumbnail to a new setup when you're adjusting things in-world) is a mistake.

For me, the most important feature that the clunky new interface is missing is the ability to take multiple snapshots in sequence until you get the exact one you want. This was trivially easy before just by repeatedly hitting the snapshot button and looking at the updated preview. Update snapshot simply updates the frozen image with the new settings, it does not actually take a new picture - this makes capturing many things difficult now. Please put in the ability to take a new picture without exiting out of snapshot mode.