Wildly Distorted Snapshots in 1.20.15

With the new 1.20.15 Viewer, I am getting intermittent "distorted" snapshots which generally have large parts normal looking but overlaid with geometric 'vortex' like distortions. Sometimes parts of the scene are absent, and you see to the background. Mostly though, there is distinct geometric 'explosions'. I didn't change any settings when upgrading. It doesn't always happen, but sooner or later takes over, and I must re-log. Any advise? I use snapshots a lot, and this makes them useless.

Sounds like a driver issue. What video card do you have, and how current are its drivers?

Of course, it could also be a bug in the viewer itself. I'd update your drivers before making that determination, though.

The snapshot feature is almost completely unnecessary anyway. In most cases, you're much better off taking an OS screenshot, and pasting it into your favorite paint program. That always works. Ctrl-printscreen in Windows, cmd-ctrl-shift-3 on Mac, not sure about Linux.

I have a Mac quad-core with a RadeonX1900 graphics card, and current drivers with OSX Leopard. It was never a problem until the 1.20.15 upgrade. Screenshots require the overhead of trimming the full window dump, or doing that 'cropping' when doing the cmd-ctrl-shift-4. The advantage of snapshots is rapid fire shooting - like a camera.

Are there any new settings in Viewer 1.20.15 that could be changed or adjusted?

If your drivers are up to date, then I'd say it's probably a bug. I'd recommend reporting it as such. It's good that you found it.

As for the screenshot vs. snapshot debate, we may have to agree to disagree on that. But I'll give it one more try.

Just so you know, if you do want to do rapid-fire screenshots, you certainly can. You actually have an advantage in that regard, being on a Mac, since the Mac OS will save screenshots to files instantaneously, something Windows doesn't do. Cropping out the window border and the GUI is really easy after that. Since you're removing the same part of the image ever time, all you have to do is record an action once, and then you can repeat it with a single click. You could even batch it if you want, to apply it automatically to any number of images.

Alternatively, you could just turn off your SL GUI while you're shooting, and then it won't show up in the pictures in the first place.


Since I'm on Windows, I don't have that screenshot-to-file option, so the way I'll usually do it is I'll paste all screenshots in a session to a single PSD. I find this much faster than stepping through the SL snapshot dialog. I simply put SL on one monitor, and PS on the other. Then I just hit alt-printscreen to capture the SL window, and ctrl-V to paste it into Photoshop. When I'm done taking all the pictures I need, I crop them all at once, just by cropping the PSD. When I'm done I'll hit File -> Scripts -> Export Layers To Files, and then I've got a whole folder full of the individual images.

It's maybe a little less elegant than going straight to file, but I do like it better than the snapshot function in most cases.

All things being equal, it's just a matter of personal preference. But since snapshots aren't working for you right now, screenshots would be the way to go.

Thanks for thinking about this - I will report this as a bug. What is the mechanism to do so? (haven't done that before).

As for the screenshot thing, as you say, this is a moot point if the snapshot thing isn't working, but I still prefer the 'no-overhead' camera-like shooting of just pressing Cntrl-~ and getting an interface-free 1600x1200 pixel image requiring no post processing. They just sit in Adobe Bridge like a real contact sheet, ready to be rejected or sent into Lightroom. When 'photographing' inside SL, when things are happening in 'real time', speed is important.

Interesting discussion, though. : )

What you describe, is it the same as this bug? http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4825

Also http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7672 for a related mess that LL is looking into.

The older bug looks more like the "vortex" you describe.

These seem to be triggered by using a snapshot res higher than what's displayed on screen.

The artifacts are similar to those, but more radical and 'geometric', and often, but not always, include foreground drop out.

Strangely, in recent days I have so far found that if I use the actual 'Snapshot' dialog box, instead of the key combination Cntrl-~, I do NOT get the artifacts. Perhaps some additional 'time' for processing with the dialog box?

Again, NONE of this happened before I downloaded the 1.20.15 Viewer, so obviously something has changed internally. With the 1.19 Viewer this never occurred, even when using 'hi-res' snapshots or even 4000 x 3000 pixel snapshots.

Could it be when your cache is filled the images go bad?

Resizing your window to exclude the unwanted area, using Control-~, and using high res snapshots if large images are needed is a way to get a continuous run of snapshots easily.

One can freeze the scene, move the camera to a better viewpoint, then take the picture. A printscreen doesn't do that. And that's just one thing that's possible in snapshots.

Nifty trick someone taught me for how to aim and freeze your own avie's eyes when taking self-portraits: Edit a prim and move it around to get the eyeballs pointing the right way, then edit an attachment like your hair. The yellow highlighting won't show up in the picture, and you can now move your camera all around your avie while your eyes remain locked.

I am having a similar issue with my mac, but my pics like lose prim attachments like clumps of hair ... certian male attachments ... trees .. just dissappear. I use ctrl ~ also .. especially bad when I ctrl 0.

Its driving me crazy .. I cant take a good pic and its what I do with most of my time in SL.

example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigbaddummy/2715760612/

9 out of 10 pics will be messed up

Its a mac so the driver is updated from system update.

Your Flickr account is private.

I can't see your Flickr example; as noted above, it is private.

However, I have recently had more luck avoiding the Cntrl-~ keystroke and using the Snapshot dialog box, which ALMOST always works.