Photography in SL - what do you take pics of? Tips?

I cant believe, with how I love to take pics in world, that I havent gotten windlight yet. So, yea, thats on my list of to dos today, get windlight and go play in it!


I take pics of whatever I am doing, the people I am with etc. Like someone else said, I love to take pics of glitches, have some good shots of boots in tush, people who had their heads ripped off and up the tush instead, you know, glitches! lol I also like to do a lot of fashion shots in front of a green screen and then do PSP manipulations. Those are the most fun and I do em free for people for their profiles just because I learn a bit each time I do. (Course, I never turn away a linden if they toss it at me lol)

Being a blogger too (gotta check out other blogs in this thread, I lurv em!) I do a lot of pics for that as well. Its fun to just aim and SS away!

Of course, yesterday, while working on a new pic at my home in front of the green screen I get this random texture sent my way. Some dude standing outside the security orb range of my house watching me work. I need to remember to keep my radar glasses on more often *crosses her eyes*


I max out most of my settings when I know I will be focusing on pictures but my computer doesnt get to happy about that. My BIGGEST issue is the rainbow flickering I get on objects randomly. Does anyone know what causes that or if there is something I can do to prevent it? It has ruined some REALLY good shots.

Hi, I'm Feline, and I take pictures at the Forum Cartel hangout. I'm considering a twelve step program, since I have over 200 pictures in my Flickr pool now, and I only opened my Flickr account a little over 2 weeks ago.

I like to take pictures of avatars. Having fun. Looking pensive. Or sometimes just because they're interesting or are passing through the doors of the Hangout and ought to be remembered. I can't for the life of me kick the hard shadows that are always cast on avatars with Windlight, so I very rarely use it.

Tips? Take lots and lots and LOTS of pictures. I only keep about 1 in 3, maybe 1 in 5 that I take. Quiet snapshots to disk and Ctrl+` away until you get what you're trying to capture. Crop, rename, upload to Flickr. Oh... and spend the 10L if you've got it to upload a nice picture and give it to the avatar you snapped. You might make their day.

Now for the plug... If you take pics of other Forum members, or pics around the Forum Cartel Hangout, please share them with the Forum Cartel group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/forumcartel/

If you don't know how to share with a group, IM me inworld and I'll be happy to drop you a notecard with instructions.

I just joined Feline, lots to look through! You are going to need a new camera soon

Just a new hard drive. My routine now is take a bunch of shots, vanish to Photoshop and pick out the ones to keep, crop and upload, then toss the others. I would love to keep the "oops" pictures, but my hard drive would probably have overflowed already!

And thanks for joining the Flickr group. We're glad for all contributors. The more blackmail material, the better.

Like most replies here, I've been having fun and learning a lot about windlight, using it to make beautiful backgrounds. I'll take pics of landscapes and scenes in windlight, then photos of my AV in my studio, import to photoshop to put myself in the pic.

Besides that I take pictures of all my friends when they are ruthed or stuck in an animation, I take pictures of some interesting customers (quiet to disk IS very nice), also AV's whose shapes and/or bling are so over the top I feel I have to share it with friends.

My favorite album I have is all the pics I've snapped while out exploring, either by myself or with friends...I like to jump in front of whatever the creation is I'm admiring, then snapping a pic. It reminds me of being a tourist taking pics standing in front of monuments.

I just started getting into taking pictures and two things I have learned: First, always save the picture to your computer first. SL distorts pictures when it makes a snapshot. Second, there are superb posts in the Textures forum that explain how to size and format your final product for upload into SL.

I have not been using Windlight for picture taking, so maybe what I am saying does not apply.

Cherry, do you use an ati graphics card ?
My ati card ( ATI Radeon X1950 GT ) did the same, and I read a tip here that fixed it.

Ctrl+P (preferences)
Graphics tab
Hardware options
Uncheck Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer objects.

No more triangles.

/me wonders what a Vertex Buffer Object is ??

The one reason I cannot use Windlight!!! I take pics on a daily basis, and got tired of relogging in the regular client just to take pics. Really a shame when WL is so pretty!

Anyone knows how to fix this?

I don't ever take pictures. Too lazy to put one of myself in my profile, either.

I was looking for the quiet snapshot to disk, where is that? Is it only in Windlight?

/me waves to Feline and thanks her for her addiction!

I take pictures of strange stuff, rare events, client bugs and I usually update my profile picture every month. After nearly 5 years of SL, I have probably around 15-20 gigs of saved to disc shots over 3 hard drives. In world, I have a few hundred small snapshots, including my first ever noob picture from Prelude (now known as Orientation Island). Like most of us, Windlight has given me an excuse to shoot even more random shots.

Hi Catbriar,
The "quiet snapshot to disk" (and "high-res snapshot" function is in the client menu of the regular client. If you haven't got your client menu up, you can access it with Ctrl-Alt-D.
Once you've clicked that you can use a shortcut, which I _think_ is Ctrl-' to take snaps.

Hope that helps

wow! I used high res snapshot last night! those pics look great!
no shiny water but still.....
But the quiet snapshot to disk doesn't work! I still get the shutter sound and the silly 'Oh my god, I've taken a picture!!!!!!' animation. Still, it is ticked now so if it decides to work that is cool.
oh, and the shame I took pictures last night and I have one of someone who I can't remember the name of how horrible of me is that!

Claire, when everyone was getting ready to go on the first Forum Shopping Expedition yesterday, I was frantically scribbling names down on a pad of paper, since I didn't recognize half of the avatars in the room. You aren't the only one who has done that!!

lol, I took the pics and started a notepad of names - most of them i know anyway, but when I came to write this person down they had poofed.
So a message to you, If I put your piccie up and it doesn't have a name - huge apologies, let me know and I will change it