Art gallery images - full screen somehow?

Hi-ho!

Sorry in advance - am not a frequent user of SL and thus still very-VERY green.

Have a more practical question - there are some art/photo/etc exhibitions in SL that I would like to visit (that was actually the main reason for me to join). Is there a better way to watch the images than just playing with zoom and camera? I find it very uncomfortable to try to find a good standing position and then play around with the camera.
I assume it should be basically the same as to watch any image/sign in SL in detail.

I have searched the forums with every possible related keyword I could think of, but no luck - it may just be stupid me.

Any suggestions or even obvious hints and thoughts are very welcome!

Thanks a lot in advance!

CTRL ALT and Pan, turn camera restraints off.

What Jake means is to push Ctrl-Alt-D while logged into SL. This will show your Advanced menu.

About 2/3 down the menu, you'll see 2 important options for you: Limit Select Distance, and Disable Camera Constraints. You want to UNCHECK the first, and CHECK the second. This will make scanning around the big art galleries easier.

Also, using the Camera Controls is great for fine motor control type stuff, but for basic panning around, try pressing the Alt key while left-clicking on something.

The camera controls become second nature after a little use. I find myself trying to use them in other programs and I get angry when I can't zoom into a web page for instance.

Speaking of web pages, that might be the only way to see the art without all the camming around. You can see if the artists have given a web site in their profiles by pulling their names up in search or by right clicking on the art itself to get the pie menu. On the pie menu click "More" then "More" again, then click "Inspect." You get an information window that gives you the creator's profile and the owner's profile in case they are different.

You have given me an idea though. Maybe the prim the art is on should be scripted so that when you touch it you get a full screen version via in world web page. It would be fairly easy to do I would think. I wonder if this has been done already.

/goes off muttering to self "yet another project to start and not quite finish . . ."

Thank you all for the info - it was very useful!

Weston Graves - I REALLY hope you will find the time to write the script! Hopefully it becomes a popular one too.

Have a good time - both in and out!

I have taken a trivia game once that basically loaded on a screen. As soon as you sat down on the chair in front of the screen, your focus shifted so that the screen filled your entire view. Maybe something like that would be a good start here, although that would mean only one avatar per picture at the same time.

Whew. I thought I was the only one who did that.

Not so. One could easilly script several chairs to have the same focal point.

I find that the graphics in SL are not very good, and the many images you come up against in a gallery can take an age to rezz fully.

What I did was to script my gallery image frames with a URL that points the user to a website (such as www.fileden.com) that carries good quality resolution images.

The script advised the viewer to open all urls in an external browser.

Gallery no longer in existence, unfortunately.

Rock

That's usually the fault of the artist, who may have submitted a grossly oversized texture. Creating the happy medium between quality and reasonable filesize is in itself an art form

Here's a basic script that would do that. Drop it in the picture.

string message="For a fullscreen image, please visit my online art gallery";
string address="http://photobucket.com/";

default
{
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llLoadURL(llDetectedKey(0), message, address);
    }
}

Of course, you'll want the direct link URL for that image, not just the main photobucket homepage (or what have you).

Whew - I'm glad I'm off the hook on this. And I will consider adding this to my own gallery which has fairly low resolution images compared to a web page. Thanks very much!

Glad you like the solution Weston. I think that is the best approach with galleries. Low-res images (256x256, or even 128x12) in the gallery, and if someone is interested in a particular piece of art, a touch link to the high-res image outside of SL.

I use photobucket, btw, it is a great resource, so is fileden.

I don't know if you have heard of Gala? Gala is a new Virtual World created just for artists around the world to exhibit their art, free of charge. What makes Gala so special is its links to art colleges the world over, and the ability to search by artist, by genre, by theme, by subject, etc.

It is still in closed beta, but keep an eye out for it when it goes public.

Rock

Oh that sounds interesting ... are we just talking about 2D artworks or will they be hosting interactive installations etc. as well?

I don't know all the details unfortunately, I will try to find out some more from the lady in charge.

Rock