Okay .. new shapshot feature is horrible ..

Hi. The new shapshot feature is horrible. I can appreciate the skill of the developer who thought it up and implemented it, but there is one major problem .. have you considered who uses snapshot and for what purpose?

The casual player is going to find this snapshot interface hard to use, confusing, cumbersome. The great thing about SL is that it has features that appeal to both the casual user and the content developer. Snapshot is a common feature in use by casual players, and they do not need or want such a complicated interface to perform what should be a simple operation.

The other type of player is the person who needs to take an extensive number of snapshots, where ease of use and quality are important. I am a clothes designer and need to take snapshots of models wearing our fashions. I usually take 20-30 snapshots during a session. This new feature is cumbersome to use, interferes with my interaction with the model because I can not see whats going on in SL while I'm shooting, and creates snapshots of a lower quality than I am used to for my vendor graphics.

Feedback on specific features:
- Why would anyone ever want to take snapshots that are not in the proper aspect ratio? This is an example of poor UI design to offer extra features that confuse the UI and are not helpful.
- Offer an option to have the snapshot go directly to disk (or wherever you choose by default) and not obscure the entire screen and require an additional step.
- Quality of screenshots needs to be improved. It seems like you are using some sort of jpeg-style quality setting, rather than a straight bitmap copy of the screen. What you see is not what you get.
- Think about how the casual user is going to use this feature and provide a simpler interface for them.
- Fix the bugs with high resolution screenshots .. I'm getting black and white lines all over my screen
- You added an interesting feature but are not harnessing it to its full advantage. That feature is the ability to move the camera around the scene before taking the final pic. I am not a big fan of this feature, but it would be more powerful if you could snap a scene then take multiple pictures from different angles while the scene is held in place.

I hope you found my comments helpful. I am trying to be constructive. My main concerns is the impact of this feature on casual gamers and also how it affects my business photo shoots.

Thanks.

"file/snapshot to disk" or ctrl+` works as it always did

Sadly, in the case of non-US keyboards, for ctrl-` that means not at all

It used to be CTRL-SHIFT-S, click the disk button - nice and easy. Now..... no comment.

taking a snapshot puts my mouse into zoom mode and i can't get out of it. does this happen to anyone else?

I for one would like the option. I normally use a 16:9 aspect laptop screen, which makes for wide snapshots that need to be manually cropped before they are useful as textures.

I agree. One thing I was wanting to do for some time was to take multiple angles and stich them into panoramas for my own use. This might help make it more doable.

When taking pictures of fast paced events (skydiving, auto racing, etc.) the ability to watch the ongoing action while previewing your shot was great. Now, by the time you have previewed the shot and sent it to disk or whatever, you miss a significant part of whats going on. This new snapshot feature should be a choice made through Preferences, and those who liked the old way allowed to continue using it.

I have to agree. The new feature is great in intent but falls flat on its face in implementation. But it's just as much our fault for not noticing it in the preview and complaining while it was there. It'll be improved eventually

I got completely confused by the snapshot window, and I'm not exactly a new user!

I thought I'd taken some snapshots to disk, but no, they're nowhere to be found even though the application gave me the impression they'd been taken.

And the silly white flash is nothing short of annoying. We don't need to pretend we're using a camera thank you !

I'm convinced LL use the same guys to design UI that used to make VCRs and the like. ie; the philosophy is to make something easy as complicated as possible.

I like the old way better. The pictures seems to look good, however you miss a lot of what is going on. You miss chats too while it take the time to snapshot.

I dont like it either

Too complicated anyway, for a single snapshot. Is not that I dont understand it, just the process in my opinion is longer...

The pictures look good at least.

I like the new snapshot abilities (could never really get things the way i wanted under the old system) but it seems to be an overkill if one just wants to take a quick snapshot and be done with it.

Think it'd be more practical if "Take Snapshot" was left in its old, fast form... and this new mode was accessible through separate option. Cal it "Freeze Frame" or something, because that's what it essentially is, SL world frozen in time that you can jump around and take snapshots of o.O;

Those of you that want to do rapid fire snapshots, just use "Snapshot to Disk". It really is simple, who cares what the keyboard shortcut is now or used to be, just look at the File menu item and it's there for you to see (right UNDER Take Snapshot).

geez

I for one can't even figure out how to save the photos to your inventory anymore. There's 3 options I get. Send a postcard (Cmon, seriously, I'm not going to be sending photos to someone in an email), Save to disk (nor do I want them on my disk, I want them in my inventory, if I wanted it on disk I'd go save texture as, and voila), and upload texture...

so how the hell do you save to inventory? I'm a model so I often take pictures of myself, and I find it VERY difficult for photographers to complete what they do when taking modeling photos. I also find it difficult to take photos of me and my S/O without it being fullscreen. I like taking close ups, not a photo of everything around us. Not to mention the quality is just utter crap unless you save it to disk...

This does not work for me. The shortcut keys is what I have used since the beginning, but all it does now is bring up the super-complicated camera interface.

I take a lot of photos in RL also, and I wold like to point out that as a metaphor, this new system is exactly backwards from the way one would do it in RL. In RL, you move around with the camera until you get the angle and the lighting right and then you snap the picture. SUre you miss a few good shots when the subject moves but that's half the fun of taking pictures!

In this new interface, it's like you are freezing the whole world, and only then moving around with the camera. Meanwhile the world has continued in the background and you have been rudely off in space trying to frame your perfect picture.

This is like picture taking for dummies who are too slow or untalented to take a picture! Why should the rest of us suffer under this complicated setup just so a complete idiot can opt out of the reality stream while they take ten minutes to take a perfect snap?

Can you imagine how your friends would be in RL if you asked them all to freeze motionless and stop talking for ten minutes while you walked around trying to find the perfect angle for your shot? Even though they added the flash, this new way is less realistic than the old way, not more. It does not *feel* like taking a picture, whereas the old way did.

"Upload Texture" is the option you want. It will still store in your "Photo Album" this way rather than your "Textures" (where uploaded textures go when you use the "File" menu).

That button should be re-named, heh. I thought it was for uploading textures in your inventory. Thanks.

OMG!!! I have been a sl'r since Sep 2004 and have enjoyed the forums; but I never felt it necessary to post. I have no choice but to now...irt the new snapshot feature.

It is taking me back about 50 million steps. I have no idea why anyone would need true screen shots in sl, when u have the print* function on ur keyboard. And if u need to send snapshots with abuse reports, the option for that is available.

Although I am so new to designing clothing, etc... I so loved the wya the old (and better) snaphot feature worked. I could get an instant view of what I was pix'ing and could see (instantly) if the pic was good. This new feature is too *user unfriendly* !!!

I just wish sooooooooooooo many would post irt how bad it is. So, maybe the next update would include going back to the way it was. Unless someone has come up with a "Snaphot Tutorial"..... ROFL.... LmMFAO !!!! help!!!

nu nu )-'

As I said in another thread:

I'm a point-n-shoot kinda gal! Please, give me back my Instamatic!

I just find that the white flash is terribly irritating. And then you have that stupid 'tear off' animation.

Freezing the entire screen is also a hindrance, as said previously. The old way was good, and the new way, as an OPTION, would be fine, as long as you get rid of that stupid white flash and tearoff.

rd

I haven't really heard of anyone who likes this new feature. My photographer friends all hate it with a vengance. I for one will just simply not bother to take snaps any more - it got too hard.

I hope it goes the way of the speech bubbles - so that I can just turn it off in prefs and forget it exists.

Many posted about the problems with the new snapshot in the preview for about 3 weeks or so yet nothing was done. There are a few new options like not seeing the HUD's by defualt in the snapshot, that should have been in the old system. There are some nice features in it, but the way that you can't watch, talk or do anything else while you are taking a snaptshot is just too much. The old system should be brought back then have a OPTION to use the new one if you want. I loved the way it was so easy to take a quick snapshot in the old system. Now sadly it is more trouble than it is worth.

Again nice idea but it is overkill for most.

-DB

As much as I hate to say it I'm in agreement with those that don't like it. The picture quality is horrible. I can't do easy fast shots for displays. Those I take pics of find the flash highly annoying.
A big thumbs down.

Well, I have been reliably informed that we have always been charged $L10 to do that.

No wonder I have always been so hard up.

OKay...if Torley notices and reads through this thread, she's normally the person who'll bring it up to attention of others.

Okay, mixed feelings on this new snapshot feature. I like the idea LL has, but the feature needs more developement. One suggestion is that until it functions better to the whole populous, i.e. designers, action photographers, users who just like taking quick snapshots, etc...there needs to be a way to used either the new snapshot feature or the old one. This way for those who like the new funtions of it can enjoy such and for those who liked the less time consuming or who took multiple snapshots while quickly previewing them can do such as well.

Okay...suggestions on the new shapshot functionability:

1) Instead of freezeframing the world as you see it while taking a snapshot, make this a checkboxed option with the default not freezeframing the world. Freezeframing IS a good idea, but shouldn't be the only way of taking snapshots. As an amature photographer, I can see how this feature can be useful, but if being the only option, can and has hurt other photography techniques.

2) In the old snapshot functionability, we could simply preview pictures taken...but only the current picture taken. Now think of this and I know the clothing designers will love this suggestion: when taking multiple snapshots, have a minimizable or hidden snapshot gallery of all the pictures you've taken in this session. It would be integrated into the snapshot toolset and would be hidden or in view while taking several snapshots. Could then say, be open up with checkboxes beside each photo that could then be deleted, renamed, and moved to specific folders...the Photo Album folder as default or be put into a folder of the user's choice. This could be extremely helpful in keeping photo sets organized without having to go through after taking a photo set and moving them to desired folders. This "gallery" would be also useful in freezeframe mode if its checked (which I suggested in #1)

I have no problem criticizing new functions, so I'll do both pros and cons...that's what a criticism is. But the new snapshot function has great potential, it's just underdeveloped. So as I said, give the option to revert to the old snapshot functionality until the new one either has some of the features I and others have mentioned, or is better developed to all users, professional photographers and amature or beginner alike. Here's an idea...have a BASIC and ADVANCED tabs for taking photographs. BASIC being old snapshot functionability and ADVANCED to have all the "whistles and bells" in the current version along with newer features described.

WOW...guess I had alot to say. lots of misspelled words and stuff but oh well. That's what I think.

Lemme know,
Kaz



Ps. someone bring Torley's attention to this...she seems to be the go getter. im too tired. =~-^=

I was unpleasantly surprised when I took my first pic after the upgrade and I was obviously not the only one. I do see potential here though. let's see...it's nice to be able to freeze the world to fine tune your pic but that's only good for studio work and not for someone like me who prefers action pix. It is also nice to have a wider range of resolutions and the possibility to change the aspect ratio. Now at least you can make profile pic's that don't get stretched or need to be cropped. The rest of the new possibilities I don't care about since they don't help me nor hinder me.

I only had limited time to experiment with the new UI so it is possible I overlooked a thing or two but here are my suggestions:

- "freeze world" should be an option
- loose the silly flash/tear-off animation
- when using a different aspect ratio indicate it on screen by showing the four corners
- allow to set preferences in advance to work with the old "point and click"
- allow for naming with incrementing numbers in advance (please, please, please....)

Just my 2 cents

Greetz,
Loki

I have to agree, it is somewhat oversomplicated, used to just ctrl-shitf-s and vola, instant memory... now I have dozens of buttons and settings and things when all I wanted was the old snapshot to disc with optio to upload etc. I think if they'd Implimented this As well as the old system that would have made more sense maybe...

Is there still a way to get a high resolution image with the new system?

I have High-Resolution checked in the debug menu, but when I hit ctrl+` it doesn't save as a high-resolution image. If I used the new system, and Custom to 6000x4000, it's still not high resolution, just really really big!